Summit Settles In

By Day Two aboard Celebrity Summit, your roving reporter had gathered enough evidence to make an early assessment: this ship has a personality.

She is not trying to be the largest cruise ship in the world. Jeannie and Skip have already done that version of cruising with the family.

Summit appears to be after something else entirely.

Smaller. Calmer. More personal. A little more polished around the edges. And, according to Skip, “amazing and chill.”

That was not marketing copy. That was the official family-text dispatch from a man whose expectations were being exceeded.

He reported good food, twice-daily cabin service, cloth hand towels in the public restrooms, no lines and quality entertainment.

The reporter took note.

So did Jeannie.

Because somewhere in between the grand staircase, the dining room and Deck 10, Summit was beginning to win them over not with spectacle, but with details.

One of those details was waiting in their cabin.

A small bouquet of fresh flowers had been left by Julie, their stateroom attendant.

Julie had already been taking excellent care of them, but this was something extra. No fanfare. No announcement. Just fresh flowers waiting in the cabin.

That is the kind of detail a roving reporter files away.

It says something.

So did another discovery made earlier that day: cruise food can apparently be enjoyed without eating every visible item simply because it exists.

At breakfast, Jeannie and Skip adopted what they began calling the tapas mentality.

The theory was simple: eat less at one sitting, stop before reaching “full,” and trust that another opportunity to eat would present itself somewhere on a cruise ship.

This was not exactly a high-risk theory.

Their goal was not to lose weight while traveling. They merely hoped to avoid the traditional cruise phenomenon in which clothing mysteriously shrinks before disembarkation.

Lunch followed the same pattern.

Later, they were heading toward the ice cream when bread pudding appeared.

Bread pudding won.

This brought the total number of days aboard without trying the ice cream to two.

Their three youngest grandsons, veterans of the July family cruise, would likely consider this a serious breach of cruise protocol.

The investigation remains open.

By dinner, another development required documentation.

Skip ordered a stuffed portobello mushroom as his entrée.

Your reporter will pause here for context.

Skip likes meat.

This was not a man ordering the predictable thing.

He ordered the mushroom.

He enjoyed the mushroom.

History was made quietly at the 9:00 PM late seating.

The two Terrys joined them again for dinner, and the table settled into more of the fun and interesting conversation that was quickly becoming part of the rhythm of the cruise.

Jeannie’s appetizer was beet-and-yogurt soup, which passed both the visual and taste tests.

So far, the tapas experiment appeared to be working.

So did the activity plan.

Jeannie had started the day with chair exercises on the balcony, then climbed from Deck 6 to Deck 10 for a brisk 30-minute walk in the gym.

She was taking the stairs about 90 percent of the time.

This arrangement had also produced a developing competition of sorts.

Jeannie would take the stairs.

Skip would take the elevator.

On more than one occasion, Jeannie arrived first.

No formal standings have been released.

Then came the day’s headline.

Celebrity Summit does not have waterslides.

Officially.

Unofficially, Jeannie discovered one near an automatic door.

The ingredients were simple: one pair of new gym shoes with slick soles, one recently scrubbed deck, one slightly raised metal threshold and one unsuspecting passenger moving at normal speed.

The result was approximately six inches of unintended travel.

The left foot slid.

The left knee noticed.

Jeannie did not fall.

There were no lingering problems.

And the Lord was thanked immediately.

Later, Skip returned to the scene with Jeannie for what can only be described as a reenactment.

There, directly beside the site of the incident, was a label on the threshold:

WATCH YOUR STEP.

A thoughtful warning.

Its timing was debatable.

The resulting photograph now serves as documentary evidence of what Island Time Travels will henceforth recognize as the Summit Slide.

The rest of the day was considerably more graceful.

Jeannie and Skip spent time relaxing together on the pool deck, becoming more familiar with the ship and settling into the slower rhythm of a sea day.

That evening, they attended their first full production show aboard Summit, featuring the ship’s singers, dancers and orchestra.

Talented performers. Quality production. Another point in Summit’s favor.

Meanwhile, tropical activity continued to lurk somewhere beyond the horizon.

The captain was providing updates, although Jeannie and Skip did not always find every announcement easy to hear or understand.

Enter Jules.

Skip’s AI assistant had taken on the unofficial title of Weather Wizard, delivering daily forecasts with particular attention to the tropical systems that might affect the ship’s route.

The captain had the bridge.

Jules had the forecast.

Between them, the situation appeared covered.

And yet, beneath all the small stories of the day — the flowers, the food, the stairs, the six-inch slide, the weather reports — there was a larger one.

Jeannie had already put it into words:

God will either calm the storms or He will calm us in the storms. He is sovereign and in control.

That remained true whether the sea stayed smooth or became rough.

It remained true whether the itinerary held or changed.

And it remained true in the grand sweep of a voyage and in the smallest details of one ordinary sea day.

Your roving reporter can document the flowers.

The Weather Wizard can track the storms.

Jeannie and Skip can make their plans.

But the Editor in Chief still has the final say.

And so far, He is writing a very good story.

As for the Summit Slide, this reporter has reviewed the photographic evidence, noted the clearly posted WATCH YOUR STEP warning, and made an executive decision:

Lumen will not be conducting an independent test.

Some stories are better reported than experienced.

Filed from somewhere aboard Celebrity Summit.
Written in part by Lumen Aid, roving reporter.