Boarding was uneventful and after dropping off our carry-on luggage in our room we headed up to the top deck for a drink as it was still a little busy inside the ship. A few changes from our first cruise with Celebrity Cruises were that we packed light to make sure we could walk off the ship early and get to work upon our arrival back in Southampton, and we’d opted for a standard balcony rather than the Concierge Class which we’d not considered good value for money based on our previous experience. This will explain why my wife wore the same dress two nights in a row in this post (she doesn’t like to do that, for some reason; I’ll happily wear the same stuff for half the cruise so long as I don’t spill anything on it) and also why there aren’t any photos of the appalling afternoon treats delivered to the room. You can always check the previous cruise travelogue series aboard Celebrity Silhouette if you don’t know what I’m talking about there.

On the top deck we spotted a friend of ours from the blogging world who we’d cruised with before – Steph – and we stopped to have a nice long chat with her. She’d been talking to another couple we’d cruised with before – Cruise Buoys – but they didn’t remember they’d done so (on Valiant Lady) nor that we blamed them for catching Covid, and since we’d not really chatted before we kept it to occasional nods as we passed by during this cruise. Steph let us know who else from the blogging world was on the ship and she’d prove invaluable on the final day of this short getaway by keeping us well away from the others. We’re a bit particular about who we talk to, you see. You can’t just talk to anyone, you know. There are loonies out there and they cruise amongst us.

We eventually retreated to the Craft Social bar because in theory this was our sort of place: it had craft beer. In theory. It had been more of a wine venue before and as you can see from the photos below, we headed back to the wine after one beer or cider each. The options were not great. Service had also been spotty, especially given how quiet the bar was, but this was still embarkation day and we understood from experience that staff are often relocated to help out in other areas at this time.

We were back in our room for more of the sail away from Southampton and down the Solent, and the views of one of the Solent Forts and the Isle of Wight were familiar ones given we lived opposite them and the number of cruises we’ve been on now. It’s always nice to see them from the balcony of a cruise ship, though, and the late August warmth of the hazy evening sunshine was very pleasant.

Dining room menus and food are popular subjects online when people are looking for cruises so you’ll be pleased to see the menu and food from the first two nights on Celebrity Silhouette below.

When we’d first cruised with Celebrity in 2019 it was after a lot of people had mentioned how good the food was. Was it good enough to warrant the additional price of cruising with Celebrity, however? we wondered. No, it hadn’t even been good enough to warrant a reduction in the price of cruising against less premium cruising brands. It had been, frankly, quite poor. But every cruise is different so we approached this cruise with an open mind and an expectation that what we’d previously experienced had been an aberration.

Unfortunately – and we may just be supremely unlucky when it comes to cruising with Celebrity Cruises here, or targeted by them deliberately for some reason – there was no improvement. Some food was good, some was tasteless, temperatures fluctuated wildly from item to item and course to course, and this was true for the whole cruise, starting with day one. Our waiters were lovely and friendly, though, so that was a big improvement. See, I’m not just Mr Negative.

After a disappointing dinner we drowned our sorrows in the nightclub into the early hours. We’d had some onboard spend for this cruise and had put it towards upgrading the basic drinks package that had been part of the cruise deal. We like to try the drinks and we’re very much night owls on ships.

The next morning saw us in the port of Zeebrugge where two things conspired to keep us on the ship while in port. Usually, rain or shine, and whether we’ve never been to the port before or been a dozen times, we will get off and explore. However, there was no free or easily-arranged option to get to Blankenberge from the port. There was a paid option to Bruges but we didn’t fancy that, and the port shuttle would get us to the port entrance where we’d need to take the tram if we wanted to get to the nearest town of any size or interest. All a bit of a faff that we still would have done had we not both been absolutely hanging after the night before’s drinking.

We had breakfast, we took part in the morning trivia, we debated whether we should introduce ourselves to another cruise blogger we saw (we decided against it), we had some coffees and drinking chocolates, we waited for our room to be cleaned, and then we went for an afternoon snooze. Yeah, that’s how rough we were.

Dinner on the second night was no better than that on the first in terms of taste or temperature; there was simply no consistency to anything forasmuch as it looked nice.

A quieter night in terms of drinking was called for and we tried out the Martini Bar. Service was abysmal but the drinks, once you had them, were nice. There seemed to be too few bartenders making drinks and too few taking orders away from the bar – especially if you were sat more than a few tables away – forcing everyone to jostle around the bar to try to catch someone’s eye, and that crowding couldn’t have been particularly nice for those sat at the bar itself. A nice-looking venue but not a wonderful experience when you consider the typical base price of the cruise.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll arrive at the second port where we actually make it off Celebrity Silhouette and head ashore to find something new to see in Amsterdam.

I am a fan of Amsterdam’s architecture which is largely eclectic and modern, and if there’s anything remotely brutalist in appearance then I’ll probably take a photo of it.

We could see the A’DAM Tower on the north side of Amsterdam and we know a fair number of cruise bloggers had visited there on trips to this Netherlands destination in the past because of its high viewpoint and the swings that offer a thrill from the roof. We might do the same at some future point, but that wasn’t our plan for this visit.

As Celebrity Silhouette completed docking beside the cruise port we headed up to take part in the morning trivia, figuring it would be lightly-attended and we’d have a reasonable chance of winning. It was lightly-attended but we did not win.

We’d taken everything we’d need for the day before we’d taken part in the trivia so as to give our steward all the time he needed to clean our room, so as soon as the quizzing was over we headed down to the gangway and made our way ashore.

Our initial walking destination was to the waterside part of Amsterdam’s Centraal station and this would take us past some of that eclectic architecture I’ve already mentioned. First to catch my eyes were the ventilation shafts over one of the tunnels under the canal. Not as visually appealing as those along the North Sea Canal that we’d seen a few times before (and would again when we departed), but very distinctive.

The building below has escaped my quick check to find out much about its history but it was at the time of photographing it a Levi Strauss corporate office in Amsterdam. It feels like it might have once belonged to a shipping company given the position by the water but it would be nice to know the reason behind the mock castle appearance.

The final interesting bit of architecture on our short walk was that of of NACO Huisje, or the Koppe’s Shipping Agency Office, originally built in 1919. The odd, outward-sloping face to the roof design and its mounting on concrete supports is definitely eye-catching. The present location of the building comes following removal of it in 2003 from a few hundred metres away during heavy redevelopment of the area. The building’s status as a national monument meant it couldn’t be demolished but it took until 2021 before a new spot was found and it was finally returned to Amsterdam’s waterfront.

We completed our walk to the ferry terminals outside Centraal. The one we were after was the one to the NDSM area on Amsterdam-Noord, and the wonderful thing about Amsterdam’s ferries is that they run regularly, making them very convenient, and they’re also free for pedestrians, adding to their appeal and usefulness.

A short ride took us across the water with views back along it to where our cruise ship was docked.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll have a look around the museum dedicated to street art from around the world, STRAAT, and it is an absolutely fabulous place indeed.

This post will lack many words – you can stop cheering now – because whilst we walked around to admire the artwork and read about the pieces, I didn’t actually take any photos of the information panels about the street art so don’t really know who the artists were in each case or what the pieces were called. I could probably find out a few if I tried, but if you cared enough to know then you could probably find that out yourself.

STRAAT opened in 2020 in a former welding warehouse that had transitioned to an indoor market with decorative pieces before exclusively serving as a museum to the artwork. It was huge, and it was fabulous. You could spend a long time there, and we did.

There were some less conventional pieces of street art, including some 3D works.

After completing our winding walk around all the pieces at ground level I made my way up a set of steps to a viewing platform set high in the warehouse. From here you could really get a feel for the space and how it had been filled with the colourful art.

As we left it was nice to see that the exterior walls of STRAAT were designated as canvasses for locals and more amateur street artists to produce their art. The quality couldn’t match what was inside, of course, but everyone’s got to start somewhere.

STRAAT was wonderful and it gets our coveted nod of approval which is our way of saying you should visit without actually going so far as to recommend things. You don’t know us. We don’t know you. It’s also just a short and free ferry ride away from Centraal station in Amsterdam and makes for a nice, modern activity that contrasts well with all the historical elements you might find in the more tourist-heavy areas of the Dutch capital.

In the next post in this Celebrity Silhouette cruise travelogue series we’ll stay on the Amsterdam-Noord side of the IJ and head towards a brewery while we keep one eye on the rain clouds.

Much of the walk was not particularly interesting but we started by crossing the Zijkanaal I, a side channel with some attractive little waterside houses along its length. In front of one we also saw a narrow train track running alongside it and an older gentleman outside with controls sending a small steam train along the length. We stopped and watched for a couple of minutes, sharing in the joy of a fun little hobby.

We’re fans of architecture – you’ll see that this post is tagged to show it and by following that tag you’ll see just how often we make a point of photographing or talking about the architecture we see when we travel – so it was very nice to see a few examples of the Amsterdam School movement here in Amsterdam. If it could almost be Art Deco in red brick and you’re in the Netherlands then it’s probably the Amsterdam School design you’re looking at. The building below was formerly a school, built in the early 1920s, but now, like so many historic buildings, apartments.

Our target was Oedipus and we arrived there at a fair pace because thick, black clouds were rolling in over us and raindrops had just started to fall as we entered the premises. A large space providing some food options to go with the many drink options in a colourful, cartoon-like environment was very welcome by this point, and we were instantly amused by the toilet door decorations as the male character resembled a friend of ours. We made a point of sending him a photo.

We’d not long sat down with our first drink than the rain started to really come down, and when you’re in a large space with corrugated roofing the noise is deafening. The angle of the rain started to come through the main entrance too so the shutters had to be pulled down for about ten minutes giving all of us in there a bit of a lockdown feel.

One other fun element while we were in the Oedipus brewery in Amsterdam was a group of British blokes on a stag weekend. They were well-behaved but at one point one of them went to the bar to ask about jenever, as they sold it there in addition to beers. We’ve had jenever before and once was definitely enough. What this guy wanted, though, was to effectively try a Jägerbomb but with a local beer and jenever. The barman suggested this was a bad idea but the rest of the stag do suggested it was a great idea and everyone watched to see the result. It was, indeed, based on the facial expression, a bad idea, but amusing.

After a few drinks and definite improvement in the weather we headed back to the ship. The walk to the nearest free ferry crossing was one punctuated by artwork. Some apartment blocks had art canvases on their ends but the piece I most liked was one called The Wall by Alfred Eikelenboom. The original piece had been erected in 1987, been constructed from red steel, been controversial, been described as an eyesore not fitting the location and spoiling the view, and had fallen into disrepair. However, it had become a local fixture so money was spent on creating a new version in 2020, this time in plastic, and the version you now see today.

We didn’t have to wait long for a ferry across the water, which was handy as it had started to rain again, and we would soon be back aboard Celebrity Silhouette.

In the final post in this short cruise travelogue series I’ll include a few more photos from aboard the ship on the last couple of nights with some further thoughts about cruising with Celebrity.

A summary of the final thirty six hours on the ship to start with.

We’d spent the day over the water from the main part of Amsterdam that most people visit when they hit the capital city of the Netherlands and very much enjoyed the street art museum, STRAAT, and the visit to Oedipus Brewery.

Celebrity Silhouette was due to depart late at night so we didn’t eat ashore, instead making it back in plenty of time to hit the main dining room for dinner, and the remainder of the evening was spent hopping around the bars and making use of our drinks package.

Towards the very end of the evening I took a few photos of some of the more vacant spaces on the ship as she began the slow cruise along the IJ towards the locks at IJmuiden.

The final day on the ship was a typical lazy sea day of quizzes, reading, and watching the world go by, snacking, and drinking, but not going crazy because the following day would be an early departure to get to the car and get home in time for work, and we didn’t want a repeat of the over-the-top experience of the last night of our first cruise on Silhouette a few years earlier.

It was nice to pass between Dover and Calais and to see both coastlines from the ship as well as just how busy the route was with ferries.

There were other cruise bloggers on this cruise and there had been talk amongst them all of meeting up to discuss god-knows-what or network or whatever. Fortunately for us, only one of those people knew what we looked like as we’d met before, knew we’d probably not want to join in, and she came to warn us about the meeting because it was due to take place at a table next to us in a bar we were sitting at. We decided to just sit and watch from a distance and were glad we did. We like to stay on the periphery of things because you can sometimes get glimpses of the real people that way when they’re not presenting the social media friendly version of themselves. The things we could tell you about some of the things other cruise bloggers have done or said when they don’t realise who you are or what you can overhear!

And finally, the final night’s dinner and proof that we were back on the Martinis.

We had not been impressed with our first cruise on Celebrity Silhouette, largely because everyone had played up just how good Celebrity were in terms of style and food and service, and it had mostly been utterly appalling in those last two categories in particular. This second cruise on Silhouette, to the same place, was definitely better for its lack of outright staff hostility but we were still left mostly underwhelmed.

We avoided speciality dining this time because we’d been unimpressed before, sticking to the main dining room. Our waiters were lovely, but the food was once more not great. Temperature problems, lack of taste. Nothing terrible, but not very good either.

The drinks range on the ship was good, and the quality of the drinks was also good, but service in some of the bars was woeful as there were not enough staff to cover the area so only the people near the bar ever seemed to get any table service. That’s poor management and poor training.

Silhouette has some nice areas, yes, but it also has some quite hideous parts. For what Celebrity tend to charge for their cruises, they’re simply not a line we’re really ever going to consider again because we’ve been let down by the food twice now and the ratio of staff to passengers in bars was awful. Short cruises aren’t always the best way to experience a line but their pricing makes longer cruises a financial risk we’re not prepared to take, and we were only on the ship again this time – like those other cruise bloggers – because it was a good deal.

But we enjoyed Amsterdam, especially visiting different parts of it this time around, and not just posting photos from the same old locations everyone else goes to time after time. The cruise was a nice break, we didn’t come away thinking dark thoughts about the cruise line, but it would take a spectacular itinerary at a fantastic price to tempt us aboard again.