Update: Celebrity Summit

In yesterday's blog, we'd mentioned that we had written to Celebrity Cruises in hopes of determining what factors may have been at play on our recent cruise aboard Celebrity Summit.  It had struck us that the entire experience wasn't up to the line's frequently-reported high standards.

While we haven't heard back from the line itself, we did discover that the ship - for reasons unknown - is clearly undergoing a period of transition: in late June, Celebrity Summit came within two points of completely failing its Center for Disease and Control Vessel Sanitation Inspection.

Celebrity Summit received a score of 87 on its June 20, 2010 inspection.  Anything below an 86 is an automatic failure, and vessels which receive a failing grade must make repairs immediately or risk being impounded in port.

While most of the items on the report are fairly innocuous on an individual scale - a bag of berries wasn't sealed properly - on a ship catering to thousands of passengers and crew, proper maintenance and storage is key. 

Some of the more colorful infractions included a dairy creamer that was being kept at 80 degrees Fahrenheit (instead of the recommended 41), a cockroach found on a bulkhead near a watertight door, and a lack of a proper garbage in the children's area washroom.  Perhaps more serious was the revelation that in the event of a norovirus outbreak, between the hours of midnight and 6am, no maintenance or cleaning was being performed on the ship: the last shift cleaned between 6pm and midnight, but left the ship essentially untouched overnight. 

Indeed, this is the lowest score Celebrity Summit has ever received since its launch in 2001, and a far cry from its near-perfect score of 98 in December 2009. The rest of the fleet has done markedly better:

Celebrity Century - May 10, 2010 - 96

Celebrity Constellation - April 11, 2010 - 98

Celebrity Equinox - March 19, 2010 - 100

Celebrity Infinity - March 28, 2010 - 99

Celebrity Mercury - May 23, 2010 - 96

Celebrity Millennium - February 2, 2010 - 95

Celebrity Solstice - July 11, 2010 - 100

 *data taken from the Center for Disease and Control's Vessel Sanitation Reports

Vessels that have scored 100 recently include the aforementioned Celebrity Solstice, Oasis of the Seas (no easy feat on a ship with almost six thousand passengers!), Oosterdam, Norwegian Pearl, Zuiderdam, Radiance of the Seas, Diamond Princess, and Carnival Freedom.

Hopefully the problems on Celebrity Summit can be worked out and the ship taken back up to the normal level of care and maintenance that is found on the rest of the fleet.

 

Readers can view the full report here.