Celebrity Eclipse, 14 night Argentina and Chile Cruise. 1st March 2020

 Celebrity Eclipse, 14 night Argentina and Chile Cruise.

 1st March 2020

Today was an odd day. We were to board the Celebrity Eclipse, but our boarding time was not until 16.00. Check out from the hotel was 11.00 and as it was fully booked there was no chance of a late check out. The problem was solved as the hotel did provided storage for the baggage, they also let us put our passports and money into the hotel safe, that was really helpful as we didn’t want to be lugging valuables and cases around with us all day.

As it was Sunday the San Telmo market was open, so that was where we went to have a lazily lunch.

The marked was busy with Tango and street performers. The food stalls were amazing, once again the knowing what to choose was a problem as it all looked so good.

After picking up the luggage, and thanking the ARC Recoleta Hotel for a great stay we got a Taxi to the docks. The cruise terminal is in the dock area and it is centrally located for the town.

Check in was fast, despite the thorough checking of our passports to see if we had been in China or Italy in the last 10 days. Due to the Covid 19 numbers in those countries the cruise line was not allowing anyone who had been to / or transited Italy or China to board. We also had our temperatures checked and had to fill in a health questionnaire. We were informed that if Celebrity did not let you board you would receive a refund, if however we decided not to go ahead and not get on the Ship that would be a ‘No-Show’ and no refund would be given. It was a difficult decision, as we knew that 7 passengers from The Diamond Princess had died and others were hospitalised. But as we and all the other passengers had been ‘screened’ we felt reasonably confident.

The Celebrity Eclipse was built in 2010, at capacity it holds 2852 passengers. We boarded onto deck 5, and were greeted with a glass of Champagne and a friendly welcome. Our cabin was a balcony, midships on deck 7.  It was spacious and had plenty of storage. Once we had deposited our day bags in the cabin we were to explore the ship- working our way from the top down. The whole of the ship was open for exploration and we soon found our bearings. The bags arrived promptly, and we unpacked for our two week stay.

 After Buenos Aires the ship seemed rather sterile and boring. In the dining room the waiters were tense, seemed rushed and the food was just OK. The wine service was also slow. But, we didn’t have to be up early in the morning so enjoyed a few cocktails at the Martini Bar. Again the staff at the bar were not really friendly or engaging and there seemed to be odd atmosphere so we moved on to listed to Karaoke in the Quasar Bar.