I know I didn’t say anything before I left, but I’m totally one of those suspicious people who thinks if they say on the internet that they’re not going to be home, someone will figure out where I live and break into my house and steal my stuff. Cause I know you’re all dying for all my butterfly/sorority paraphernalia and my extensive shoe collection, right? RIGHT. I knew it.

Anyhow, the skinny is that from July 7-14th I was cruising on the Celebrity Summit from Bayonne, NJ to King’s Wharf, Bermuda. I want to try to give the fullest report I can, so I’ll TRY and go day by day, but I’m warning you, we did a lot of… napping, swimming in pools, swimming in the ocean, and laying on beaches. Oh and eating. And drinking. Lots of that!

July 7th – Day 1

This cruise was leaving out of Bayonne, NJ (Port Liberty, to be exact), which I was SO EXCITED about, because that meant my mom and I, who was my travel buddy, could drive there. NO. FLYING. NECESSARY!!! Not that I really mind the flight, but the timing just adds an extra layer of stress onto what’s supposed to be a relaxing vacation. So, driving to Bayonne sounded like an ideal plan to me.

Mom and I got dropped off at Port Liberty, where we promptly dropped off our luggage and got in line for check-in. This sounds easy, but what you don’t know is that I sprained my back on the 6th at crossfit! Walking, carrying ANYTHING (including my purse and beach bag, which I had with me at this point), was excruciatingly painful. Luckily the lines moved really fast, and we were ready to hop on the shuttle to the ship, I would say, within 45 minutes. What was nice was that while waiting for the shuttle, there were stations set up with beverage package sales, fine dining deals, and excursion information. Mom and I decided to go for broke and do the drink package (though we DID settle for Classic, and not Premium… no Red Bull Vodkas for this cruise!), but we also signed up for dinner that night in the Normandie, a specialty restaurant on the Summit, because it was buy one get one free and mom was hooked. More on this later! Our shuttle arrived then so we grabbed an excursion packet and hopped on.

Boarding the ship was totally painless. The shuttle dropped us off and we went right on! We were starving, so we headed up to the 10th floor to the OceanView cafe, which is the Summit’s buffet dining locale. We of course, ordered cocktails since we had our drink package and they were DELICIOUS! We noshed about and discovered that the on-board pizza truly was tasty (though I wouldn’t recommend the plain, it tasted like Elios!), and the beef stew was also pretty darn delish. Oh and the bread pudding. YUM!

After we ate lunch, mom wanted to check out the specialty coffee bar, since we had the drink package, so we headed to deck 5 to Cafe al Bacio, where we each got some delicious iced, frozen, delicious coffee concoction and I took an awesome nap in one of the gorgeously comfortable chairs (mom graciously captures my waking moment on film… thanks, mom!). We also watched the ship disembark from here – awesome view!!

After coffee-break we wandered around a bit and then once we could get into our stateroom, went to check it out! Of course, our bed hadn’t been split yet, so we asked for that to happen and then took a wander around the ship. We checked out most of the floors investigated the eateries and shops, and by then it was time to get ready for dinner since it takes my hair 2 hours to dry!

Dinner at the Normandie was DELICIOUS! I ended up ordering the pan seared pork belly (mom and I also shared a goat cheese souffle), Châteaubriand (for 1) and then the grand mariner souffle. OH. MY. GOSH. The food was outrageously delicious. The pan seared pork belly was crispy on the outside and smooth and silky on the inside, with the yummiest (YES YUMMIEST) caramel-bbq flavored sauce. The parsnip puree underneath really gave the dish balance since the pork belly itself was so rich. Freakin’ good. If you go, get it. The goat cheese souffle was also super tasty, even though I don’t like goat cheese much — mom wanted to try it and I’m glad we did. It was light but slightly sharp at the same time. The Châteaubriand was cooked a PERFECT mid-rare when it arrived to my table (they don’t cook the “for one” tableside… DISCRIMINATION I SAY!) and I had to force myself not to scarf the entire thing down. It was moist and delicious – cut like butter, which is how I like my steaks! We then had a cheese course, as well as a sherbert sensory cleanser. The cheeses I liked most were the hard and mid-hard ones, though I can’t recall their names. Then… the grand marnier souffle. (pause) (pause) O.M.G. I described it to my mom as “eating a perfect orange sugar cloud”. The souffle was so light and airy, but the edges were crisp and the center was the perfect balance of orange and cake… I was in heaven.

After we finished dinner, we headed up to the Revelations lounge to check out the late night entertainment and have some drinks (mind you we had lots of wine with dinner, and I had an irish coffee with dessert as well!). Since I was broken I couldn’t dance, but we hung out and mingled in the lounge and had several nightcaps, before finally turning in around 2am.

PHEW. That was a long first day. I can’t imagine I’ll write that much about every day, but you never know!

July 8th – Day 2

Out first morning aboard the Summit was a typical morning for mom and I. She popped up early and started what became a ritual, she headed to the coffee bar for a morning brew, and I slept in. Mom was planning to go on the cruise tour at 10:30am, which, quite frankly, is much too early for me to plan anything on a vacation morning. However, I did happen to wake up in time, so I scooted over to the Guest Relations area, and joined my mom for the tour at the last minute. *cheers* The tour was actually pretty interesting, and we heard a lot about the theory of how the ship was constructed and the purpose behind a lot of different location choices. My personal favorite part was getting to see the Persian Gardens, which I SO wish I had gotten a membership to! What are the Persian Gardens? Weeelll, located inside the Spa/Gym area of the Summit, the Persian Gardens is a secluded haven of steam rooms and heated benches. I. Was. In. Love. The heated benches were constructed by chiropractors, so sitting on them was incredible for my sprained back. After we finished the tour, we entered a raffle in the gym (but didn’t win, unfortunately), and then changed for the POOL!

Mom and I spent pretty much the entirety of the 2nd day relaxing by the pool. We sipped alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, dipped in the thalassotherapy pool (which terrified mom!), and just generally read and sunned ourselves. Truth be told, super relaxing! Around 5:30 we headed back to the room to get showered and changed for dinner, since it was “Meet the Captain” night, aka our first Formal night.

Now, for those of you that know me, you know that I’m either the laziest dresser or I’m at 100% formaltastic. There’s very rarely an in-between, although I’m starting to work on that… BUT, that said, having a sprained back was a SERIOUS problem for my formal wardrobe, particularly for my shoes. However, again, for those of you that know me, you know I’m incredibly stubborn! So… I of course wore my heels, despite the ridiculousness of the entire situation. You only live once, right? Once mom and I were ready, we headed out a few minutes early so we could take some formal photos, and we ended up being late to dinner. We’re just classy like that, you know?

We finally arrived at table 306 at around 9pm, our seating time having been 8:30… whoops. And, of course, we’re not seated alone… since we’re just a duo, our seating assignment is a table for 6, which we found out we would be sharing with a family of 4. When they saw us arriving, they had sort of panicked looks on their faces… so I was a little bit concerned that we weren’t really wanted/welcome at their table. However, after we sat down, we found out that their reaction was because *drumroll*… they had eaten all of the bread! Since we hadn’t been at dinner the night before, they assumed that we wouldn’t be coming to dinner, I guess, and they were hungry! Overall it was pretty comical and it set the tone for our table for the rest of the week. We got super lucky with our tablemates because they were so awesome – we all got along, which honestly, you never know if your dinners will be super awkward by having to eat every night with these people you don’t even know.

Anyhow, I can’t remember what I ate, probably some kind of steak or lamb. Then, once dinner ended, I went with mom to the Celebrity Theatre to watch a bit of the show for the night, but mostly to “meet” our Captain and officers. The whole presentation was very nice, but the show wasn’t much my style, so after a few songs from the iHollywood show, I headed out to try to the martini bar!

Yes, the Summit has a martini bar that is “ice” themed. The entire ambiance was super funky and I totally enjoyed all of the martinis that I sampled there. With our classic beverage package, we were able to get smaller sized martinis, but not any that contained grey goose. It was a bit of a bummer but that’s really the only time, aside from when I wanted to get redbull vodka, that I really noticed that we were on the “lesser” alcohol package. After the show, mom found me in the martini bar, we had another few drinks, adn then we headed to Revelations for some dancing and last drinks before bed. While at Revelations, I had to answer to the DJ about why I wasn’t dancing (I don’t think he believed that I had a sprained back!) and then we turned in from there around 2am.

July 9th – Day 3

As is our typical cruise ritual, Mom woke up early and headed to breakfast, and I woke up around 11, in time to get dressed and snag lunch! I’d read before we got on the cruise that the Thalassotherapy pool area also had a Spa Cuisine buffet from 12-2 on sea days, so that’s immediately where I was headed. I ended up having a delicious lunch of watermelon/tomato gazpacho and Greek yogurt chicken salad. So. Good. I actually was pretty skeptical about the chicken salad, because… Greek yogurt substituting for mayo in chicken salad?? I wasn’t so sure… but honestly it was delicious!

After I ate, since I’d gotten pretty sunburned before, I decided to give my skin a rest for the worst hours of the day, since I knew I’d be hitting the beach/sun pretty hard the next few days. I scooted to the Summit’s library, grabbed a few books, and found myself a quiet and comfy spot to spend the day. I ended up snagging a couch in the Rende-Voux lounge, right outside where main seating dining occurs. Since it was after the lunch rush and I was leaving before the first dinner seating, I figured it was the perfect spot.

It ended up being absolute perfection. I was right near a door to the outside, so it wasn’t violently cold, and every once and a while when someone would go in or out I would get a superb rush of the warm ocean air. Since I was reading all day, nothing incredibly thrilling happened – the highlight of the afternoon was a small girl walking by and asking if I was a statue, and her mom ushering her away saying, “No, honey, she’s a real girl!!” Oh, kids. Hehe.

Dinnertime approached, and as again became ritual, I returned to the room around 5:30. Mom walked in a few minutes after me, and we showered and got ready for dinner (yes, I wore stupid shoes again. How often do I have a chance to dress up?!). We ended up eating with our table-buddies for a second night in a row, and they told us that they’d be out for the next couple of nights since they were trying out the other specialty restaurant, Qsine, which featured tapas-style dining, and also eating out all of our nights in Bermuda, due to their excursion schedule.

After dinner, mom and I headed up to Revelations, and relaxed for a few minutes before the 80s dance party started! Mom and I had a few drinks, and finally I got her up to dance with me. We danced until the end of the evening (or, danced as much as a girl with a sprained back can dance), and then, as usual, at 2am headed down to bed.

July 10th – Day 4

At 10am every morning, on the Summit, our Captain would get on the loudspeaker and tell us something… probably about the sailing for the day, or the weather, or I’m not sure what, but every morning I was equally annoyed about the announcement disturbing my sleep! However, I forget exactly when the day before, but sometime on Day 2, we had found out that we were racing through the Atlantic because we had a medical emergency on board and we needed to get to Bermuda ASAP for our fellow cruise-mate to receive attention.  We arrived at Bermuda early (on the eve of Day 30); however we couldn’t dock because there wasn’t any room as other Cruise ships were docked in all of the spaced. However, on the day we docked in Bermuda, we were informed that our medical evacuation had gone off without a hitch and we were finally docked safely at King’s Wharf in Bermuda. YAY!!

Mom and I grabbed our beach bags and headed off the ship around 11. We decided against going to Horseshoe Bay on the first day, because we heard that it would be CRAZY since two ships had both docked on the same day and everyone hits up Horseshoe Bay immediately, since it’s the “most popular” beach in Bermuda. With that in mind, we walked to the closest beach to our docking location. Mom hadn’t wanted to get an excursion package, so when we got there…. there weren’t any umbrellas or chairs left. Luckily, I made friends with one of the employees, and he hooked us up with a prime spot right next to the water, with chairs and an umbrella that went unclaimed from the crowd that had booked excursions. That was seriously close. Mom and I lounged on the beach for a while, and then she eventually coerced me to get into the ocean… something I *rarely* do!

The water was gorgeous! Mom and I swam for a bit, then sunned ourselves and dried out. We relaxed at Snorkel Park for quite a while, before eventually, I would guess around 4pm, started to clean up and head back to the ship. This first night in Bermuda was what’s known as “Harbor Nights” in Hamilton, the capital of Bermuda. Mom and I got cleaned up and headed back out. We hopped the ferry across to the other island to Hamilton where we wandered around the street fair for a while, until we finally decided to have dinner at Pickled Onion. I had a delicious jerk wahoo dish, and I tried the local brew, Dockyard, with it. Everything we ate was delicious, and we were sitting outside on the upper level of the restaurant, so we got to spectate the awesome street performances going on for the fair. After dinner, we shopped around a bit more, and then headed back to the ship. Mom and I got another martini at the martini bar, and then relaxed for the rest of the night in revelations, where I again got called out for not dancing. I promised everyone I was starting to feel better and I would dance soon! haha.

July 11th – Day 5

On our second day in Bermuda, we headed out again around 11, and grabbed round-trip bus tickets and headed to Horseshoe Bay! As I mentioned before Horseshoe Bay is “the” Bermuda beach, because it’s known as the pink sand beach.

Taking the bus was super easy, since we ended up catching a “Special,” which went directly to Horseshoe Bay.  The bus drops you off pretty high up, and we had to walk down to the shore, which was a bit of an experience since mom has neuropathy in her feet and my knee was acting a little crazy. However, we hiked down without much incident and finally got to the pink sand! Upon arrival, we rented chairs and an umbrella, and relaxed in the shade, since we arrived around 12:30pm or so, basically in the heat of the day. After a few hours of reading and sunning, mom and I hopped in the ocean for a significant swim. After the water, we scooted over to the “snack shack,” got some chicken fingers, and then relaxed back at the beach for the rest of the day. At 5pm our rentals were due back, so we packed up everything and handed it back in. Before we left, I talked mom into walking down the shoreline so we could really see the entire beach. Since it was later, we were able to really see everything, since the majority of the other tourists had already headed out. took a nice hike all the way down the shoreline so we could have the full experience. I’m really glad we took the walk because the views were gorgeous!

After the walk, we took the bait and rode the “To The Top” shuttle for $2 each, because that hike back to the bus stop was NOT enticing at all! After getting back to the bus stop, we caught another “Special” bus pretty quickly and were back to King’s Wharf without a hitch.

Mom and I got ready and scooted to dinner a few minutes early, because we were hoping to get in and out within an hour, since we had booked our first and only excursion for 9:45pm that evening! We mentioned the rush to our waiter and he was amazing. We were fed super quickly, and he even got us a special private dessert of custom chocolate souffles from one of the specialty restaurants! We were ready to go and ended up outside by 9:40 for our Moonlight Bermuda Triangle tour.

As we boarded the boat for our tour, we were surprised to find that our dinner table-mates were on the same tour! The boat we were on was super awesome – it had two floors, and we started out on the top for our tour of Bermuda and history lesson. Our tour guides were totally awesome and made the entire experience not only entertaining, but really informative as well. Since the night was beautiful and clear, we even got to check out the constellations. Shoutout to any of my Birthright buddies reading this, it brought me back HARD to our night in the desert… I don’t think I’ll ever look at the night sky the same way again, honestly. BUT, back to Bermuda. We finally reached the triangle and headed downstairs to the glass bottom area of our boat. The tour guides switched it up and our second tour guide talked us through the wreckages we were looking at, explained their history and also their science. We also got to see quite an assortment of marine life, and, to my mom’s elation, two sea turtles! After the sightseeing, our tour guides busted out giant bottles of Rum Swizzle and we had some cocktails while we sailed back to King’s Wharf.

When we got back we headed to our usual table in Revelations, ordered a few drinks (some of which were more shots that I got mom to try!!!), and just relaxed for the rest of the night, before turning in at our 2am bedtime.

When mom and I got back to our room this day, we were a little loopy and trying to figure out our morning for our last Bermuda day, since we only had half of a day! Amidst a fit of giggles, we placed a room service order for breakfast so we would have food and a wake up call at 9:30am.

July 12th – Day 6

The room service breakfast and wake-up call worked out perfectly, with our food arriving right on time. We happily had breakfast and then headed out into the heat for our last day in Bermuda.

On the dock we grabbed two more sets of round-trip bus tickets and walked to the bus stop for bus “7” to get to Elbow Beach. Unfortunately there was a bus mix-up and it took a while for us to find our bus. Once we got on, the ride was a lot faster than I anticipated it would be, and finally we got to the Elbow Beach stop. This beach is much less popular among tourists, so we had a bit of a tougher time finding it, but along with two other small groups of tourists, we finally prevailed (as if there was any doubt!).

What’s cool about Elbow Beach is that literally, they don’t encourage tourists. There are no bathrooms, no chair/umbrella rentals, no shuttle to the top, nothing. For that reason, it was much less populated than Horseshoe Bay, but honestly no less gorgeous. Mom and I picked the third day specifically to go to Elbow Beach, since we knew the sun and lack of umbrella would be brutal… and we were right. We spread out our towels and relaxed for a bit, before mom’s sunburn finally started to bother her, so we hopped in the water. The ocean at Elbow Beach was frankly the most gorgeous water we swam in the entire vacation. The surf was perfect, the temperature was ideal and it wasn’t flooded with other tourists. Truly amazing.

We headed back towards the ship around 2:30pm because mom wanted to have a chance to hit the local shops before we boarded the Summit to head back to NJ.

When we returned, we cleaned up as per our usual ritual, but it was a bit early, so once we were dressed for dinner, we headed over to the Rendezvous lounge to listen to the AWESOME a capella group, the “Crewners”, and have some drinks before dinner. Now, mind you, one of the things I have wondered since that night is if “Crewners” is actually this a capella  group’s name, if they were even a group beforehand, or what! Regardless of my name-confusion, they were pretty awesome and I thoroughly enjoyed their performance. Before we headed in to dinner, mom and I grabbed a dinner cocktail at the bar, and walked into main dining, finally on time at 8:30!

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but the service we had for dinner was absolutely spectacular. Our waiter and assistant waiter helped us out with every little thing and made sure that we were always enjoying our food. We also had a great bar-maid as well as sommelier, who were both always around to recommend drinks and wines for us to try.

As usual, mom and I headed up to Revelations for the evening, rocked out for a while, but then mom was a bit tired, so she wanted to turn in early… but I wasn’t quite ready to call it quits yet. I told mom I would hang in the bar for a bit and I’d head to bed eventually. I ended up meeting two awesome sisters from Long Island, and we rocked the entire night. Their tablemates showed up and we drank and danced for quite some time along with lots of other awesome friends we made throughout the evening, including the aforementioned DJ who didn’t believe me about being injured back at the start of the cruise. Haha! We ended up closing down the Revelations bar, and then headed to the Casino bar, which we also shut down. After that, we explored the nighttime ship before finally getting to bed around… 5? Pretty spectacular, if you ask me!

July 13th – Day 7

Day 7 was our very last full day on the Summit… tragic. Despite my late night, mom dragged me to the brunch buffet… I had some fruit and juice which was all super yummy… but I just wanted to nap!

After brunch, I grabbed a book and spent the majority of the day relaxing either indoors or outside. I figured that the last day of vacation should be spent absorbing as much sunlight and nap-time as possible!

Halfway through the day, I found mom in the coffee bar, and we spent the rest of the day lounging by the pool. Once mom fell asleep, I took several walks around the upper-pool-deck of the ship, just absorbing the amazing weather, the views of the water, and just generally enjoyed being lost in thought. Finally, I woke mom up around 5 and we enjoyed the views and breeze together, and then headed down to get ready for our last on-board meal.

On our way, we were sure to stop by the ship’s shops, and we picked up a few liquid souvenirs, alcoholic and non, for myself, my brother, my roomie and the boyfriend. After dropping those at the room, we headed to dinner, where, as usual, I can’t tell you most of what I ate… but I do remember having all 3 of the appetizer choices, as well as the rib eye as my main course, along with homemade gnocchi that mom and I split. Both entrees were amazing, but the gnocchi was TO DIE FOR. So delicious. I could probably have eaten 3 portions! Haha.

After dinner, mom and I popped by the photo purchase area, because we’d yet to decide if we wanted to purchase any… We ended up picking out two photos, and then mom had to head back to the room because she hadn’t finished packing yet! I headed up to Revelations and watched the show that was happening… I can’t recall if it was Dancing with the Stripes or if that was a previous night, but all the evenings in Revelations sort of blur together! Once mom arrived, I had already met up with a bunch of my friends from the night before, as well as some other new friends, so I was floating between relaxing with her and also socializing. I think she didn’t want to cramp my style, so to speak, so mom only stayed a bit and from that point onward, my night was very similar to the last – which was totally perfect in my opinion!

July 14th – Day 8

This was the absolute saddest day of the cruise. I slept in as much as possible (considering I went to bed only a few hours before), and mom brought me a tray of breakfast snacks from the buffet (thanks, mom!). Finally it was time to disembark, so we went down to the 1st floor, swiped our cruise IDs one last time, and waited for our shuttle back to Customs/Port Liberty. Passing through customs was pretty smooth, and then mom’s friend picked us up and vacation officially ended.

Overall Impressions

Quite frankly, cruising is NOT my favorite way to travel. However, I was really excited for this cruise on the Summit because we were only heading to one destination, so we would actually be able to explore and get a feel for the country. Mom and I definitely had that opportunity, and I truthfully had a blast! The Summit was everything I typically hope for in a ship (great food, awesome service, lots of places to relax), Bermuda was amazing, I had tons of time to bond with mom and lastly, and a first time for me, I hit the ship’s evening social events on my own and ended up meeting some really awesome people! This trip has definitely changed my overall opinion of cruising, and although I’m not rushing back onto a boat, I’m much more confident in my overall ability to travel on my own and have a kickass time… and I’d also love to go back and explore Bermuda some more!

Questions/Comments?

Feel free to comment here on my blog, or find me on Twitter @DokiDara.

By Dara Monasch

P.S. If you were on my cruise, thank you for being freakin’ kickass and let’s party again ASAP, yeah? <3