Celebrity Xpedition

Celebrity Xpedition Facilities / On Board Activities

Dining / Dinner	Entertainment / Recreation	Gratuity Policies
Usual Dinner Hours: 6:15pm, 8:30pm (hours may vary) Dress Code: You will need three types of clothing on your Celebrity cruise: casual shipboard attire or day wear,	Bars/Lounges/ Night Clubs - 3	Assistant Chief Housekeeper $0.75 per person, per day Stateroom Service $3.50 per person, per day Stateroom Service Concierge Class $4.00 per person, per day Assistant Maitre'd $0.75 per person, per day Waiter $3.50 per person, per day Assistant Waiter $2.00 per person, per day Bellboys are tipped as service is rendered.
Services	Health and Beauty	Ship Facilities
Beauty Salon	Sauna/Steam Rooms Whirlpool Spas	Guest Decks

Celebrity Xpedition Onboard Experience

On these ships, known as the Millennium-class, most of your fellow passengers are likely to be sophisticated, well-traveled baby boomers. Summit (sister number three, other sisters; Millennium, Infinity, Constellation) offers most of the leisure and entertainment options of a megaship in a casually elegant atmosphere. Overall, the ambience is warm and relaxing, with constant gentle reminders that you're aboard one of the most sophisticated ships in the mid-price class. The floor shows may be lackluster, but the spas are gorgeous, and offer treatments available on few other ships.

The special touches include martini and cigar bars, caviar and champagne bars, elegant sing-along piano bars, a computer classroom and a floral conservatory. Infinity offers an especially elegant alternative dining venue, the Normandie Restaurant, with memorabilia from the famous French ocean liner and presentation-oriented tuxedo-clad waiters.

Celebrity Xpedition Things to Do

Entertainment:
Celebrity does terrific special effects, but they're commonly much more notable than the Celebrity Singers and Dancers productions they're supposedly in the business of enhancing. Indeed, the production shows are often real yawners. You'll generally hear superior singers in the various lounges. The classical guitarist who performs several times a day in the Cova Cafe di Milano coffeehouse is well worth seeking out.

During-the-day activities include dance lessons, trivia contests, Pictionary, brain-teasers and charades, napkin-folding, and arts and crafts classes.

Fortunes, the casino, is located midship and is almost comically tiny for a ship this size. Everything seems to be crowded together, with the result that it can get infernally hot. But you're likely to enjoy the opulent beaux arts design, with faux-marble columns and mythological Greco-Roman sculptures, rich damask curtains, mosaic floor tiling, and wall frescoes.

Summit a movie theater for near first-run feature films. With any luck you will catch something you really wanted to see when it was first released, but the chances might be slim as the selection doesn't exactly seem to be as adult oriented as typical passenger mix.
 
Fitness:
Fitness buffs will be pleased with the facilities, housed in a glass-enclosed room -- 14 treadmills, 12 exercise bikes, six stair-steppers, two rowers and lots of weights. Aerobics classes are scheduled throughout the day. Personal training, a body composition test, an Alpha massage capsule, and destress and detox packages are available.

At 25,000 square feet, the adults-only (kids should head for Riviera main pool, on the Resort Deck) AquaSpa is one of the most spacious afloat. Treatments are by no means inexpensive ($109 for a 50-minute massage), and often administered by an inexperienced or frazzled therapist (Steiner's of London, which runs the spas, is known for working its staff hard), but usually booked solid anyway. (Get 20 percent off if you book on sailing day, and watch for specials on treatments while the ship is in port.) At $29, the "Frangipani" treatment, a scalp, neck and shoulder massage, is by far the best value on offer. The spa includes a Spa Cafe with very light fare available for the extremely diet-conscious. There are exotic "Sensory Heaven" treatments, such as the float massage, haiku ritual facial and an "aroma stone massage". The jewel of the fitness area is the highly atmospheric, relaxing Thelassotherapy pool, a sort of saltwater Jacuzzi, in which you'll feel as though you've retreated into a different world altogether (a small fee for use all day). The Persian Garden aromatherapy oasis is a nice place to meditate for an additional charge.

Celebrity Xpedition Dining / Dinner

Cuisine:
At one time it was hard to find a passenger who had come from a Celebrity cruise not raving about the food. However, as with all this things that are no longer new, the focus and energy once devoted to making Celebrity Chef Michel Roux the darling of the high seas has waned in the last years, and in fact Celebrity ended their 15 year relationship with Mssr. Roux as of January 2007. Though still superior and certainly more adventurous than other cruise lines, the cuisine on Celebrity is well designed but at the mercy of waiter who must get it from the kitchen to the table while it is still hot and fresh.
 
Restaurants:
The Normandie alternative restaurant, an homage to the famous French liner regarded by many as the finest passenger ship ever built, aspires to be among the finest restaurants at sea. The three-hour dinner ($25 per person surcharge; an additional $27.95 for five paired wines) is pure theater, a flourish of waiters in white tie cooking flambée entrees table-side (watch you toupee!). The service that is outstanding here, but the food quality was only slightly better than the dining room due to the a la minute aspect of delivering searing hot food to the table. There are signature dishes not found elsewhere onboard, including Rack of Lamb en Croute and Chateaubriand for two. The impressive list of international wines ranges in price from $18 to $450 a bottle.

The very elegant two-level Cosmopolitan Dining Room is located in the stern with two-deck-high glass windows welcoming warm, natural light and offering remarkable views of the sea. Its tables are widely spaced enough to permit conversation at sub-shouting levels. The Lido café, deck 10, offers casual dining from 6:30 a.m. to half past midnight, including lunch and breakfast buffets, pizza, afternoon tea and late night snacks. Four buffet lines make for little waiting, and floor to ceiling windows and glass floor areas provide excellent views of the sea.

The Lido café, Deck 10's Waterfall Café & Grill, is the setting for casual dining from 6:30 a.m. to half past midnight including lunch and breakfast buffets, pizza, afternoon tea and late-night snacks, as well as an ice cream/frozen yogurt counter. An odd and very amusing decorative touch is an extra-strength 4-foot circle of glass in the floor. There's a good chance you won't even notice it unless you happen to sit near it and look down, and then the effect is quite surprising. Four buffet lines means little waiting. There's a separate sandwich counter and a pasta station.

The rear section of the café is called the Grill. It is the place for casual dinner, served a la carte. Reservations are required and dinner is served between 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. There's also a sushi service here in the evenings. Outdoors at poolside, hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza are available during the day. 24 hour room service is also available, and some nights, the Summit lays out themed midnight buffets.

For healthy fare, the Aqua Spa Café by the thelassotherapy pool serves breakfast, lunch and extremely light dinners; all cold items, nothing cooked. Menu offerings include high-nutrition, low-fat cereals, yogurt, bagels and the like for breakfast; and later in the day, cold plates like apple/walnut salad, citrus marinated salmon, tortilla wraps and cold soups.

All passengers can also order room service meals from the lunch and dinner menus during the hours those meals are being served. Continental Breakfast only except for those with Concierge-class or suite-level cabins. For an out-of-cabin continental breakfast experience, don't miss the absolutely decadent pastries at the Cova Cafe Milano.
 
Service:
Summit's service isn't as consistently sublime as on other Celebrity ships, except in the SS United States restaurant. Don't be shocked to observe waiters standing around chatting while coffee cups cry out to be refilled and trays yearn to be whisked away. On the other hand, the assistant head housekeeper is unusually visible, and vigilant about ensuring that all guests are kept happy.

Tipping:
Celebrity suggests a per person per day gratuity of $3.50 for the waiter, butler (Suites only) and stateroom attendant; $4.00 for Concierge Class stateroom attendant; $2.00 for the Assistant Waiter; and .75 for the Assistant Maitre d' and the Assistant Chief Housekeeper. Children under 12 who are the third or fourth person in the stateroom need come up with only half these amounts. A 15 percent gratuity is automatically added to all beverage tabs. Gratuities for room service, spa, casino and other staff are at your discretion. Tips may, of course, be added on request to your shipboard account.
 
Attire:
There are two formal nights on a seven-night cruise, three on longer ones. On two informal nights, gentlemen need wear only jackets. On formal nights most men turned up in dark suits rather than tuxedos, while their better halves chose dressy pantsuits or dresses. By day, don't even consider wearing anything other than shorts, sneakers, T-shirts, polo shirt, and a baseball cap.

Celebrity Xpedition Ambience

Decor:
Celebrity's designers deserve an ovation for their ingenious fusion of contemporary, Old World, Art Deco and resort chic influences. There's tons of glorious natural light on these ships, whose lobbies' white onyx stairway, backlit with yellow neon, lined by with three-story-high mahogany pillars, surrounded by long white flowing curtains, may well make you laugh aloud with delight.

Vast expanses of glass and beechwood surround mahogany paneled walls, most adorned with notable, provocative works of art. Rich velveteen and suede, golden brocades, burled woods, and ornate topiaries are everywhere.

The cabins are distinguished by elegant striped, floral, or patterned fabrics in pastel, Deco-style lighting fixtures, and marble desktops.
 
Public Areas:
Oh, what views from the exterior glass elevators! The 15-store shopping emporium features such notable designers as Donna Karan and H. Stern. Escada Sport and Tommy Hilfiger. You can choose from Swarovski crystal, Fendi purses, and largest array of Michel Roux gourmet items assembled anywhere on earth. The elegant alternative dining rooms will steal your breath away.

Summit and her sister ships contain the first floral conservatories (another way of saying "flower gardens") at sea. These small but gloriously fragrant spots are ideal for meditative introspection, or sweet talk with a loved one. Full-service florists may also be spotted in these restful areas, ready to sell you a cutting for your cabin.

As are many Celebrity ship lounges, the forward observation lounge on deck 11, which becomes a disco at night, is comparably breathtaking. The three-deck Celebrity Theater seats 901 for Broadway-style floor shows, and around 890 enjoy unobstructed sight lines. What appears to be torches around its periphery are in fact blue and orange lights projected on a strip of thin cloth blown by a fan from below. They give the venue a warm, flickering glow.

Sports fans will love the Extreme Sports Club with its sports-related artwork and large-screen TVs. For the more genteel or even effete, there are separate bars for champagne and caviar. Michael's Club is an elegant setting in which to enjoy crooning and ivory-tickling.

Notes, formerly the music library, is likely to have been transformed into a computer classroom and a second area for the Acupuncture at Sea program by the time you read this. Music will be available in the forward-looking library, Words, which will rent you an iPod. (Be forewarned that, because too many previous passengers conveniently forgot to return their headsets, you've got to schlep all the way down to the purser's office to borrow one, so bring your own; they don't take up much room in a suitcase!) The cyber cafe has 18 computers offering Internet service at rates equally as usurious as other cruise lines.

At night, many passengers flock to the Rendez-Vous Lounge to dance to a live band, show off their karaoke skills, or commune over cocktails at the enormous bar.
 
Cabins:
Summit has some of the largest staterooms afloat, with such wonderful amenities as TVs with closed-circuit movies, CNN and pay-per-view first run movies; direct dial phones, bathrobes, mini-refrigerator; and large bathrooms with a shower and built-in shampoo and soap dispensers, vanity and hair dryer. Concierge-level and suite guests get handheld hair dryers, but there's nowhere to plug them in; you must use them at the desk/vanity area rather than the bathroom.

The non-gregarious or simply reclusive can dine in-cabin at night, ordering from the dinner menu, and massages can also be scheduled in staterooms.

From the least expensive insides to outside balcony cabins, the staterooms are beautifully decorated with soft hues and elegant furnishings; with round-cornered beds and comfortable seating options, they serve as oases of calm away from the hubbub on other parts of the ship. Standard inside and outside staterooms are 172sq.q. ft., with good storage space. The lovely cabins with private balcony measure 184sq.q. ft. There are 26 wheelchair-accessible staterooms, including several suites.

"Concierge Class" staterooms, 191 square feet with a 41-square-foot veranda, include welcome-aboard champagne, fresh flowers and fruit, afternoon canapés, a leather key holder, personalized stationery, oversized tote bag, and upgraded mattresses and bedding. Priority services include priority luggage delivery, dining time and seating preferences, shoe shine service, VIP invitations to exclusive shipboard events, priority shore excursion bookings, early embarkation and debarkation, and a one-touch button on the phone to reach a Concierge Class desk representative directly.

Do note that many Concierge Class and the Deluxe Oceanview cabins on the Sky Deck are rather overshadowed by the overhanging deck above.

Butlers attend the residents of suites, of which there are several types. The Sky Suite (254 to 362sq.q. ft) has walk-in closets, whirlpool tubs and the large balcony. Not quite big enough? Then consider Celebrity Suites (498sq.q. ft.), Royal Suites (562sq.q. ft.), or even the two enormous (1,690sq.q. ft.) Penthouse Suites, with 360-degree balconies. If these suites evoke the abodes of top Manhattan movers and shakers, it's probably because designer Birch Coffey is principally in the business of designing the interiors of the Big Apple's elite.