We’d never cruised with Celebrity Cruises before so this 3-nighter round-trip from Southampton with an overnight in Amsterdam that was offered at a good price and that wouldn’t use up any of our annual holiday allowance seemed ideal. On top of that we’d heard good things about Celebrity. Things like “They’re a bit like Princess” or “Beautiful ships, great food.” And, finally, my wife’s cousin swears by them as the cruise line to go with. Expectations were high.

Things We Liked About Celebrity Silhouette

There’s no denying Celebrity Silhouette is a good-looking ship. Plenty of artwork – some conventional, some more modern and quirky – dotted around the vessel; the ship-high central atrium with glass elevators off it and a tree growing in the middle was spectacularly attractive; everything was very clean.

The variety of drinks venues was good… in principle (more on that later). We liked the dark, intimate Ensemble Lounge. We liked the contrast between that and the harsh, modern World Class Bar. We liked the look and feel of the wine cellar. We liked the contrast again with the cold Martini bar. The range of alcohol was also excellent but only once you worked out what that range was. Again, more on that later.

Bathrooms and public toilets were fabulous. Clean, bright, spacious, well laid-out. We loved the subtle downlighting in our cabin’s bathroom which meant we didn’t have to switch the light on if using it at night. We loved the flannels for drying hands in the public toilets aboard.

The buffet area, Oceanview Café, was really nicely arranged and with a very large variety of food on offer. My wife was stupidly pleased at being able to get hash browns every morning for breakfast. Even better – and not something we’ve ever really been bothered about on other ships – was having proper plates and glasses. Quite amazing what a difference that made, how much more upmarket it felt. Certainly something Princess should look into.

The coffee machines in the buffet area and elsewhere around Celebrity Silhouette were excellent. Good quality coffee, convenient, surprisingly usefully-placed. We really liked having actual cream for the coffee too.

Being able to order room service on the TV for free (although we didn’t) looked great.

Things We Didn’t Like About Celebrity Silhouette

The embarkation process was painless. Getting into our room was a pain. We’d initially thought that starting embarkation at 10:30 (when we’re used to early afternoon on Princess) would be awesome, especially with us being Concierge Class and having priority embarkation anyway. The reality was discovering we had to trundle our carry-on cases with us everywhere until all the rooms were ready and passengers were allowed to get to them. That was over two hours after we boarded. Why weren’t the decks open as each one was complete rather than waiting for all of them to be done? Why wasn’t there priority preparation on the Concierge and Aqua Class decks? There’s nothing relaxing about having to look after two small cases in more compact conditions than usual (because everyone was in the same boat luggage-wise and all the room corridors were closed off).

With the exception of the Martini bar and wine cellar, the menus in the drinks venues were poor with both a microscopic selection of speciality drinks and nothing at all about everything else on offer. Take the Ensemble Lounge, for instance: four cocktails listed with the rest of the pages being wine or beers. As it turned out there was a dazzling array of drinks available there and you could easily order off-menu but you needed to know this (we didn’t until the last night) and look for yourself to see what they had then hazard a guess as to what price you might be paying.

Drinks were very expensive. We didn’t get a drinks package (despite the half dozen attempts to get us to do so in the first two hours aboard) because we know they’re almost never worth it despite the amount we drink (and we’d be spending most of the day in Amsterdam off the ship). From talking to other people we realised that an awful lot of drinks seemed to be priced just above the threshold for the packages too so that an additional charge often had to be made. There were grumblings on the ship about this.

There wasn’t enough seating near the Martini Bar. It was the most popular bar by far and it had large areas of space around it that really could have benefitted from some standing tables with stools, for instance. Because of this lack of seating a lot of people were hanging around the bar itself making it near impossible to get served (more on that in a moment).

The On-Demand TV service on Celebrity Silhouette wasn’t particularly good. The number of movies was quite small and the ones you had to pay for, in many cases, were movies we’d seen for free on Princess ships or on flights in the last six months. It’s not a major thing, especially on a small cruise like this was, but on longer duration trips it’s sometimes nice to have a cabin day.

Food quality was average at best. We’d heard good things about the food on Celebrity ships but our experience on this taster cruise didn’t match the expectation. We had the wrong food delivered once (that’s the waiter’s fault) but the food in the main dining room both for our “Exclusive Concierge Class Lunch” and the first evening (the only time we dined there) was okay taste-wise but definitely on the colder side of tepid and that had to be a general dining layout/management issue. The other people we were dining with said the same thing. While we liked the variety of food available in the buffet we certainly avoided a lot of it as it didn’t look particularly appetising (fried eggs, for instance, looked grim). We had speciality dining in the Murano restaurant on the last night which was far tastier, served by friendly staff, and the sort of thing we’d generally been expecting but even there the meat we’d ordered was more well-done than we’d requested.

We like to identify where the smokers go so we can avoid it. On Celebrity Silhouette we couldn’t work that out. As far as we could tell everywhere on the top deck seemed to be fair game for the smokers, of which there were loads, which made being outside somewhat unpleasant.

The One Thing We Hated About Celebrity Silhouette

The service was utterly abysmal aboard this ship. We are used to finding a bar or lounge, grabbing a seat, then waiting for one of the staff to come to us and take our order. I know that some people like to sit at the bar and order there but we’re not those people. What we very quickly discovered was that there were so few staff actually taking table orders in the various venues around the ship that going to the bar was the only option if you didn’t want to expire through dehydration. And at the bars, of course, it was rammed because everyone wanted a drink and nobody wanted to move away when they got one because there was nowhere to sit. With places like the Passport and Martini bars having central bar areas open on all sides there was also nothing even resembling a queue to order drinks or make it easy for the staff to spot who had been waiting ages while the pushy and/or beautiful people had somehow managed to be served twice. On three occasions we had to leave the bar we’d wanted to drink in because we simply couldn’t get served.

It wasn’t just us feeling this way.

The attitude of the staff in the bars was equally bad. Perfunctory order-taking, drinks-making, bill-producing was the standard for most of the cruise. I have nothing but admiration for the quality of drinks produced and our drinks orders were right every time but there were no smiles, no banter, quite often not a single word at all. We know why, of course. Because they never seemed to get a break. There was nothing but constant drinks-making because they had no service staff working the tables. It almost never felt welcoming.

Would We Choose To Cruise With Celebrity Again?

This was a 3-nighter taster cruise. We had made allowances for the passengers cruising with us; we knew they’d be more boisterous, more Brit-heavy than on a conventional cruise. Other than breathing in smoke too many times from some of the filthier animals on board we had no problems with our fellow cruisers. But we couldn’t overlook the issues we were seeing. Of the things we liked on Silhouette there was nothing there that factors in to us choosing a cruise line and ship. The important things for us are destination, price, food and drink, and service, and on those last points Celebrity Cruises were a huge disappointment and we’d already decided before we’d left Amsterdam that it was probably the worst cruise we’d been on and it would have to take something really special for us to consider cruising with them again…

… and then a miracle occurred.

On our final day as we cruised for home we’d spent some time wandering around, taking photos, enjoying going through the locks at IJmuiden, generally relaxing. We’d tried without much success to get a drink or two but places that said they were open weren’t and places that were open were painful. All the usual stuff. And then the clock got to around six in the evening. We had a booking at the Murano restaurant so we went to get a pre-dinner drink at the Ensemble Lounge and just went straight to the bar because we figured there’d be no point grabbing a seat. And the barman smiled as we decided to go for a bourbon each. And he poured the single measures. And then he free-poured some more. “Nobody saw,” he said. Now this was more like it.

After our enjoyable and mostly good dinner we returned to the lounge, sat down, and a steward appeared who we’d not seen before and took our order. And did it again. And again. And again. We were suddenly getting friendly, prompt service. We were often getting measures far larger than we’d been asking or paying for. This was great. We listened to the jazz duo for their entire set and they came across to talk afterwards. Wonderful. I mean, it’s the sort of thing we’d hoped and expected would be the norm from the start based on our experiences aboard other cruise ships but it was wonderful compared to the previous few days aboard this one.

So giddy with joy and alcohol by this experience were we that we ventured up to the Sky lounge where we’d previously had to abort any attempt to get a drink, only to find it both filled with happy, dancing people but also still suddenly possible to get served. We drank more, we danced (which typically follows the drinking more), we got talking to a Brazilian couple celebrating their wedding anniversary. We have no recollection how we got back to our room or where that huge bruise on my leg came from.

Those last six or seven hours on Celebrity Silhouette went a long, long way to redeeming it in our eyes. The consistency is a concern (I’d love to know exactly why it was so Jekyll and Hyde) but if that last part of the taster cruise is more in keeping with how a Celebrity cruise really is then they’re certainly back in the running for picking cruises in the future.

When we’d arrived in Amsterdam the day before, the Holland America Line cruise ship Nieuw Statendam had already been docked and we’d needed to slip past her and come alongside at the port, butt-to-butt (or aft-to-aft in nautical speak). The HAL ship had already left prior to our departure but its position had been replaced by the Viking Jupiter. Those ships had both been facing roughly west which meant they could simply cruise away from Amsterdam without any issue but our ship was facing roughly east with the bulk of the city on our starboard side and Java-eiland to the port. I’ve no doubt that the captain of Silhouette and/or the pilot could have negotiated the entire length of the canal and passage through the locks backwards but you usually have to pay extra for a Showing Off cruise and they don’t tend to include those sorts of manoeuvres on 3-nighters. Getting out, therefore, involved moving away from the dock, reversing back past Viking Jupiter until Java-eiland was cleared, then moving forward, putting Java-eiland now on our starboard side until the width of the waterway was sufficient for Celebrity Silhouette to perform a 180 degree turn.

Viking Jupiter

We happen to live just ten minutes walking distance from Portsmouth Port. What we’re really hoping is that more cruise lines start to use Portsmouth as a turnaround port rather than just a cruise stop to increase our opportunities to experience new cruise lines from a fabulous location for us. Sure, there’s the challenge of trailing cases through the edges of Buckland while waving a nail-studded club around threateningly to ward off the local youth but the convenience of being able to leave the car outside the home (or somebody else’s home in whichever street we managed to find a parking space in the night before travelling) would be worth it.

Why am I talking about Portsmouth Port? Well, very shortly before we took this taster cruise there was a new visitor to our local port, that being Viking Jupiter. Our local port can only take ships of a certain size and while there are plans for some expansion this will still leave it on the short side for our preferences. We’re Goldilocks cruisers, looking for something not too big and not too small, a not too young and not too old demographic, not too basic and not too pampered. Viking Jupiter is probably a little on the small side for us and perhaps a little too luxurious for us (read: expensive; we’re not tight-arses but we do like to get value for money) but it was nice to see her gleaming in the port and it was a pleasant surprise to then discover she’d followed us to the Dutch capital during our departure. She’s a new ship in the Viking fleet and a very attractive one too.

Leaving Amsterdam

Passing Viking Jupiter left us with views of the main part of Amsterdam with its canals and church towers prominent and also a large number of riverboats. Some people call them ships, some call them boats, some call them barges with ideas above their stations; whatever you call them, there were a lot of them and we saw examples from Viking river cruises, Amadeus, and Scenic, among others. We still can’t get excited about river cruising despite the obvious push from various lines in the early part of this year to promote them with TV advertising and appearances plus freebie trips handed out to influencers. The sea is in our blood; rivers are in the countryside. We want waves. We want uninterrupted views to the horizon under cloudless skies at night. I’m sure river cruising is just lovely but it would have to be a spectacular price in a spectacular location to tempt us and right now the former looks exceedingly unlikely and the latter is limited to Russia, India, and China.

On the opposite side of the ship (starboard if you’re keeping track) we passed the A’DAM Tower and the Eye Film Museum, both wonderful buildings from an architectural perspective and both places we’ve not yet visited on our two trips to Amsterdam. Should we return – the Dutch government seem to be going out of their way to reduce tourism to the city so that’s not a given – then there’s a good chance we’ll take advantage of the ferry that transfers passengers across the water to check both locations out.

Maritime Quarter

By the time I’d taken a few more photos around the ship and returned to our room to rejoin my wife, the ship was coming up on the Maritime Quarter of Amsterdam. My wife had shown no signs of having missed my company nor any remorse at failing to express joy upon my return when I mentioned it and so I felt justified in stepping straight out onto the balcony to grab some more photos of the ship’s passage along the North Sea Canal.

Not quite the first thing that caught my eye in this part of the city’s outskirts was a graffiti-daubed submarine in the water. My first thought was that this was most likely a floating museum but some research after the cruise has determined that this vessel is one of the last of the Soviet navy’s Zulu-class attack submarines, designated 4711 B-80, moved into its current position by owners who wanted to transform it into a party boat, said plan abandoned when it was realised that the risk of drunk people getting launched from torpedo tubes was something insurers were unwilling to cover.

The actual first thing that caught my eye in the Maritime Quarter was Botel, a floating hotel with views to the submarine just across the water from it. Its bright white exterior and fantastically funky font advertising its name and hinting at its functionality are pretty hard to miss. For people who like being on the water this could be an interesting option as a location to stay if visiting Amsterdam for a few days and the area has a regular ferry service running to the main part of the city.

Beyond the Botel was the marina. I love being on or by the water but yachting leaves me cold.

A lot of this area was formerly shipyards and some of that work still goes on to this day. Alongside the marina were a number of dry docks, some of them with vessels in being worked on.

The most interesting ship for me was the MS Deutschland, quite obviously a small cruise ship but one with a fascinating dual role these days and a history that is probably only generally known to German people (understandably, given its name). For part of the year the ship is named World Odyssey and is used for educational purposes taking students abroad to study, and sponsored academically by Colorado State University. For the remainder of the year the ship is chartered by the German company Phoenix Reisen, given the name MS Deutschland, and undertakes more traditional cruising. Until 2015, the ship was the primary filming location for a long-running German series, Das Traumschiff, and if you want to catch glimpses of MS Deutschland visiting exotic locations around the world, blatant product placement, and some horrible disregarding of international cruising regulations then the internet is your friend.

The appearance of the small piece of green land, Keerkringpark, marked the point at which I decided most of the interesting landmarks along the northern side of the North Sea Canal were at an end, plus there was trivia about to start so I took a break from documenting our departure from Amsterdam and returned to the room to gee my wife into action. We did horribly in the trivia but we still had that victory the day before to cling onto.

IJmuiden

I’ve written about IJmuiden before (on the approach to the Netherlands and departing from the Netherlands on P&O’s Azura in 2017). Now, when IJmuiden thinks of IJmuiden and wants other people to think of IJmuiden it probably thinks of IJmuiden in the sense of a port city with a beach and plenty of history and lots of places for tourists to come and spend their money. But when I think of IJmuiden I picture the complex to its north. I picture the beautiful, belching, brutal buildings of that industrial complex and it makes me feel warm inside. Is this because I grew up on a diet of science fiction TV and VHS movies in the 1980s predominately set in places like this and it happens to trigger pangs of nostalgia? I’d like to think so, but I’ll also take “It’s because you’re fricking weird, Mark” as I consider that a compliment every time it’s uttered.

Here’s some video (temporarily removed) of Celebrity Silhouette passing through the locks at IJmuiden in case you’re one of the nine people currently alive on the planet who’s ever wondered just what that’s like.

Something I’d not spotted before when we’d passed through the locks at IJmuiden was SHIP, a place to experience the construction of the new sea lock, the port area, port professions, and even hit the restaurant to watch vessels passing by. Something to bear in mind as a point of interest if you’re ever cruising to Amsterdam on a line that has decided not to pay the Dutch capital’s increased charges so that it can pass on the inconvenience to its customers and dock 45 minutes away instead. No names mentioned. Not even a pair of letters separated by an ampersand mentioned.

That concluded our time in the Netherlands aboard Celebrity Silhouette. There will be one more post covering our time on this ship which will go through the evening’s entertainment and dining and terrifying amounts of drinking. Was there dancing? Yes, there was dancing too, but you’re in luck because the only bits caught on camera were done by other people.

It was the afternoon of a sea day, and afternoons on sea days on cruise ships are for gentle, relaxing activities, or they are on the lines we cruise with and if that’s not the case elsewhere then we’re fine with never discovering just what terrifyingly unrelaxed things might exist out there. We had a fancy evening planned as we’d pre-booked speciality dining in the ship’s Murano restaurant so, with all my photographing around the ship completed, we had a peruse of Today, the daily programme guide, and after a bite for lunch in the buffet made our way to the general trivia where we did abysmally.

If you’re a fan of quizzes then the Sky Lounge was the place to be for the afternoon as the general trivia was followed by a Majority Rules gameshow and a “Best of Queen” music trivia. We didn’t stay for either of them, not because we were disappointed with our brains in the trivia in which we’d done so poorly, but because our Queen knowledge isn’t great and Majority Rules games, which we’ve seen before on other cruises, annoy us. I have enough “What stupid thing are all these people likely to say?” thoughts in my working life without carrying it over onto cruise holidays.

Shopping

So we hit the shops. As you might know if you’re a regular cruiser, shops are closed when ships are in port or within a certain distance of shore for legal or tax reasons – this is also why you’ll sometimes get charged extra for drinks if you’re on a ship while it’s in port (that’s caught us out a few times) – so there hadn’t been a huge opportunity to see what was in them until now. We wandered, looking for bargains or things that were a little different and didn’t really find either, not that we expected to. You don’t shop on a cruise ship if you’re looking for the best price for high street items and you don’t shop on a cruise ship if you’re looking for anything not connected with cruising or making yourself look and smell wonderful. I had no problem finding a Celebrity Silhouette shot glass to add to the expanding collection, though, and was quite pleased as its design is nicer than those you find on Princess ships.

Passing through the jewellery store we found we’d just missed a presentation of some kind but were accosted by a salesperson almost immediately. It wasn’t to try to sell us anything, though, as she wanted to know if we’d been given one of the free pieces of Chocolate Quartz that the first hundred people were entitled to. We explained that we hadn’t been at the presentation but got a “Oh, that’s fine, here, have one anyway.” That was nice. I turned around to look at a display. There was another salesperson. “Did you get some Chocolate Quartz?” “No, my wife has one, though, and we weren’t here for the presentation anyway.” “Oh, well, that’s okay. Here, have another one.”

And that’s how we got two carats of Chocolate Quartz. No idea what to do with them but they do look quite nice.

We headed back to the room to drop off our purchase and freebies and found our Daily Delectable Delights had arrived, a perk of the Concierge Class on Celebrity Silhouette. I did not find them particularly delectable nor delightful but I cannot find fault with their frequency. Tastes differ and you might absolutely love them if you’re the kind of deviant who eats olives and cheese.

Our dinner reservation wasn’t until 20:00 because, as I’ve mentioned on occasion, that’s a respectable time to eat if you’re a cultured European. We’re not cultured but we act the part well. This gave us plenty of time to grab a few drinks and get in some reading during the afternoon and early evening although our first day’s experience of trying to get any drinks didn’t give us high hopes that the first part of this task would be an easy one. We needn’t have worried, though, because, in a marked contrast to our time aboard up until this point, we found the bars and lounges were emptier and there were more staff around. We managed to tick off the Passport Bar for a cocktail from our mental list of venues we’d got a drink in but otherwise made do with a couple of beers each that we were unfamiliar with from two other locations we’d previously frequented.

After showering and getting into something closer to smart casual from the casual casual that had sufficed to this point we headed to the Ensemble Lounge for a pre-dinner drink. We didn’t have long until our dinner so opted for shorts.

“Two Woodford Reserves, please.”
“Singles or doubles?”
“Singles, please.”

Single measures were poured out and then something magical happened. The barman looked from side to side then free poured close to another single into each glass. “Nobody saw,” he said with a wink and a smile. This was the first time we’d had anything close to human interaction from any member of staff on the cruise. And it was a good one. This point marked when we shifted from “Probably never going to cruise with Celebrity again” to “Hello!”

Speciality Dining In Murano

Murano is located beside the Ensemble Lounge which was already our favourite place to have a drink anyway so that was very convenient. It was smaller than we’d expected from our experience with other speciality dining venues on ships but that’s not a bad thing. Think of it as more exclusive, more intimate. Definitely think about pre-booking if you’re going to be taking a short cruise as I can imagine it gets sold out early. It was also nice and dark. Evening dining is always nicer when the lights are low and candles aren’t lost in the ambient illumination and Murano was excellent in this respect except for one part of the room set up as a table for ten (I think) that was right beside the bright wine storage. I think our table for two well away from that was far nicer.

I’m not the most positive person in the world. Being a senior software developer for a multinational company with a client who pulls in well over a billion a year through the site that I am mostly responsible for and being a positive person do not go hand-in-hand. I have a more pragmatic and more balanced outlook on life. My reviews are not overflowing with superlatives because the problem with riding peaks all the time is that the troughs are that much farther down. I like to keep things real and manageable somewhere in the middle. If everything is amazing then is anything really amazing? Which is why every now and then a genuine thing of joy will happen or appear and take me by surprise. Like the cone of butter that was delivered to the table. All butter should be conical. Or the stylised M on the fronts of our menus which matched our first names and felt personal and also tied into our social media travel branding (see: Twitter and Instagram and feel absolutely free to follow along there if you haven’t already, thank you for reading this advert). These things made me happy.

To the menu now. You get two options for dining in Murano, those being for a Five Senses 5-course set menu with wine pairing or for a more traditional à la carte menu. We each have things we’d rather not eat and they typically keep turning up in set menus so we always choose à la carte.

As we weren’t going for a pairing (because pairing includes white wine and we’re fussy in that we like our wine to have flavour) we needed a bottle of wine. Needed. We picked a Malbec because we know what we like when it comes to wine and what we like is dark, full-bodied, and fruity. We’ve had better wines on ships – P&O still holds the crown there for wine – and we drink far better wines at home – for some reason, cruise ships really like picking the thinnest of wines to add to their collections – but it was very nice and certainly better than average.

My wife chose the Wild Forest Mushroom Cappuccino while I went for the Smoked Salmon and Peekytoe Crab Parfait for starters. Both very tasty, with my choice winning in the appealing presentation stakes.

Our cover charge in Murano took care of our à la carte selections but we did have the option to add to that with an additional course at this point, either a whole lobster for 29 dollars or caviar at market prices. We chose neither because a whole lobster at this point seemed like overkill and the market price for the two choices of caviar would have paid for another cruise. Instead we skipped straight ahead to the Trou Normand, a traditional French palate cleanser comprising green apple sorbet and calvados in this instance. And it was very nice.

Our main courses were the Herb Crusted Lamb Rack for my wife and the Five-Spice Crusted Cervena Venison Loin for me. The photos don’t really do them justice as they were both gorgeous with sensible-sized portions and a great mix of textures and flavours.

That only left dessert and the only slight pimple on an otherwise perfect meal. The maître d’ came to take our order here and produced a compelling argument for the soufflés, stating that in all his years across many lines and ships he’d never had such good soufflés as these. These soufflés could stop wars. These soufflés could reverse the climate disaster. These soufflés even had the power to make Brexit voters realise the errors of their ways. I mean, if you knew a soufflé could do this then you’d have to try it, wouldn’t you? I never have soufflés but I did this time. So did my wife.

They were okay.

Murano offered up a classically French-style, speciality dining experience – which is our posh restaurant preference at home – and it’s something we’ve not had on any other cruise line yet. It will be interesting to see the Princess take on this type of dining with their new La Mer restaurant, something we’ll be looking to try for ourselves next year on Enchanted Princess. When we’d booked this cruise we’d done so under the impression that Celebrity did food well but it was only Murano on this short trip that fulfilled that expectation. It’s worth the cover charge and highly recommended.

Ensemble Lounge Entertainment

Our fabulous meal at Murano’s complete we stepped out of the restaurant and into the Ensemble Lounge where a contemporary jazz duo were playing and where seats were available. Since our last drink in this bar just before dinner had been so good and since I’m partial to a bit of jazz and since it was nice to have a band performing who weren’t simply doing pop covers (God knows there are enough of them on cruises) and since I’m quite persuasive when I put my mind to it, I convinced my wife – not the world’s greatest fan of jazz – to have a seat and another bourbon. So we did.

There was a decent crowd in the Ensemble Lounge but none of them really appeared to notice the musicians. We were ordering as the first tune we’d heard upon our arrival came to an end and it struck me that it was met with no appreciation from anyone else, engrossed as they were in their own conversations. Grabbing seats near the duo we listened and watched a fabulous music performance while also chatting amongst ourselves and as the next song ended I and my wife applauded. I think one other person half-heartedly joined in.

We’d barely finished our drinks before we were approached by a bar steward who wanted to know if we wanted another. A silly question and also a shocking one as it was the first instance of someone coming to our table to check on our drinks rather than us having to head to the bar that had occurred on the ship. A shock, but a pleasant one. It was like we’d boarded a Celebrity Silhouette from the Mirror Universe in Southampton on day one and while we’d been ashore in Amsterdam it had returned from whence it had come to be replaced by this reality’s version.

As tracks were performed I continued to lead the clapping which was getting a smiling nod from the guitarist and may have encouraged up to a dozen other people to join in through peer pressure before the musicians took a break. Upon their return they approached our table, thanked us, and we had a chat for several minutes. They were Dallas Bridge, very friendly, very talented, and another very positive checkmark on this final evening on the ship. We were particularly impressed with the brushing technique of the drummer and it’s our firm belief that if you’re ever challenged to a Rub Your Tummy & Pat Your Head competition by her then concede defeat immediately. You can see some of that skill and listen to some excellent music – you might even recognise some of it – plus get a feel for the atmosphere in the Ensemble Lounge in the following video montage (temporarily removed) of several tracks.

Drinks kept arriving thanks to the suddenly attentive waiting staff and the measures were completely random thanks to the bar staff. At some point the bar ran out of Woodford Reserve (can’t think how) and we were offered Bulleit as an alternative.

It is a rare thing for us to pay attention to the musical artists as we find they can be a little samey; good, because almost all musicians who perform on cruise ships are, but after a while every four-piece with a female lead covering hits from the 1960s forward start to merge together. Dallas Bridge were something else and, again, looking ahead to our Enchanted Princess cruise next year with its new jazz-themed lounge, they would be the perfect residents for it.

Sky Lounge

With their set complete and a final quick chat to mostly tell them how good they were and ask about their accommodation on the ship (yeah, I don’t know how the conversation headed there either) we left our jazz duo and decided to see if the Sky Lounge was any more inviting than it had been on the first day. The pool was lit up nicely at night.

By this time we were feeling really quite positive about Celebrity Silhouette but I’m sure the admittedly substantial amount of alcohol we’d downed only played a small part in this feeling; tipsy or not, things had definitely improved on the ship, and we felt confident that Sky Lounge wouldn’t let us down.

I can remember we got talking for quite a while to a couple of young Brazilian guys celebrating their wedding anniversary in Europe. They’d been having a ball on the ship. Everything else is decidedly fuzzy. In fact, neither I nor my wife remember the lights coming up but I did take a photo and some video so we were certainly still there when that happened.

We also don’t remember leaving Sky Lounge, getting back to our room, or indeed anything at all until we heard a ship’s announcement in our room in the morning. What time did we get back? Did we clean our teeth before getting into bed? Where the hell did I get that bruise on my leg from? Questions without answers. Alcohol, eh? Fantastic stuff.

And that concludes our taster cruise on Celebrity Silhouette. It started poorly but really recovered well. The same can’t be said for us. Alcohol, eh? Foul stuff.

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.

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.