Cabin Review – Penthouse Suite 5125 on Celebrity Flora 2024

Introduction: Sailing Celebrity Cruises’ Flora in the Galapagos

What to Pack for a Galapagos Cruise

Getting to Quito, Ecuador in Delta First Class

JW Marriott Hotel Quito Review

Exploring Quito, Ecuador on a Celebrity Cruises Excursion

Quito to the Galapagos and Back by Avianca Charter

Ship Review – Celebrity Flora

Cabin Review – Penthouse Suite 5125 on Celebrity Flora 2024

Celebrity Flora – Dining Review

Exciting and Unique Activities on a Galapagos Cruise

Revolting Copa Airlines Business Class – Delayed, Dirty Windows and Mold!

The Santa Maria, a Luxury Collection Hotel & Golf Resort, Panama City Review

Who Should Take a Galapagos Cruise?

Introduction

Before we begin with the Cabin Review – Penthouse on Celebrity Flora, we’ll spend a minute covering the accommodations on this all-suite expedition ship.  There are just 50 suites on board ranging in size from a generous 300 square foot Infinite Veranda suite to over 1,200 square feet for the two largest suites. There are essentially 4 and a half suite categories.  The majority of the suites have either a “real” veranda or an “infinite veranda,” meaning a window that lowers half-way effectively creating a “French balcony.”  Celebrity Cruises has popularized this configuration for ocean ships including their Edge Class ships.  Within the Veranda category is a single “Ultimate” version that has a bit more space based on its location on board, but is otherwise identical. Then there are the largest suites on board.  These are the two Royal Suites and the two Penthouse Suites.  Both of these categories include separate living areas, larger bathrooms, and large balconies or terraces.

Features for the Royal and Penthouse Suites include:

• Champagne / Sparkling Wine at check-in
• Afternoon canapes
• Stocked Mini-bars with your choice of soft drinks and beers
• Turn-down service featuring Ecuadorian chocolates
• 24 hour in-suite room service, including full in-suite dinner service
• Premium bathrobes and complimentary slippers
• Pillow menus
• Upgraded bathroom amenities including sunblock, lip balm, and more

Penthouse Suite 5125

There are just two Penthouse Suites onboard Celebrity Flora, taking up the entire back of the ship on decks 5 and 6.  With up to 1,288 total square feet of indulgent home-away-from-home comfort, these lush havens are the ultimate complement to this extraordinary destination.

These suites are amongst the largest, most luxurious suites sailing the Galapagos islands with only Silversea’s Silver Origin providing slightly larger versions of these same suites.  It’s worth noting that the Silver Origin was originally intended to be a sister ship to Celebrity Flora to be names Celebrity Fauna; however, plans changed and with a few minor upgrades the ship was delivered to Silversea.

As covered here in our Celebrity Cruises MoveUp – Our First Experience Bidding on Upgrades post, we did not originally book our Penthouse Suite.  Instead we booked a Balcony Suite and bid for the upgrade.  At the time we bid there was one Royal Suite and one Penthouse Suite available.  By going through and starting the process of making a booking on CelebrityCruises.com we were able to see which of these suites were available.  This meant that we knew that the Penthouse Suite on Deck 6 had already been booked.

To be honest, we would have preferred the Deck 6 Penthouse Suite as being up one deck higher would have meant being one deck further above the Marina on Deck 3.  This would have made for a slightly quieter location, particularly when Zodiac operations were underway.  This isn’t meant to be a complaint in any way, just a tip for those fortunate enough to book these suites from the outset and thus have a choice between them.

With that out of the way let’s jump into this spectacular Penthouse Suite.  After arriving on Deck 5 you make your way to the very end of the hall where the unassuming door to the suite is located.

You enter the room into a somewhat long hallway that contains your guest bathroom and amazing views out over the back of the ship.

The guest bath is equipped with a pedestal sink and a toilet.

Next you enter into the combination living and dining area wrapped in glass looking out over the terrace and the ocean.

The living room is well equipped with a variety of seating options, a large TV with soundbar, a wet bar, and cabinetry containing the minibar, room safe, binoculars, and additional storage.

We were greeted with a welcome bottle of Moet & Chandon Champagne and some sweets.  Our room attendant appeared almost by magic within a minute of us entering our room to offer us three 750ml bottles of spirits for the room.  As a reminder, all but the most exclusive bottles on board are included in the fare.  This meant that it was nice to have access in our room, but we, like many of our fellow passengers, preferred to socialize throughout the ship.  Our room attendant suggested that we might wish to select two Ecuadorian spirits to take back home with us and a bottle of something to enjoy in the room.  This turned out to be an excellent suggestion.

Access to the terrace is located next to the dining area.  This table is where we would come back to afternoon canapes, where we kept the limited amount of “paperwork” we had with us, and where we would pack/unpack our backpacks before and after each of our excursions.

The views from the terrace were amazing, as were the HUGE daybeds that easily could have been for two.

Around the corner was a hanging chair that, while slightly tricky to mount/dismount, was incredibly comfortable and peaceful as it rocked slightly with the movement of the ship.

The view off the back was beautiful, but as noted above, a bit action packed at certain times of the day.  You were also very visible to passengers at the Marina so we frequently found ourselves being waved at and waving back to people in the Zodiacs.  We’re sociable people so we enjoyed this, but understand that some might not.

Continuing our tour back in the Penthouse Suite we enter the bedroom through a partial glass wall with views back toward the dining and living area and through the windows out to sea allowing for a 180 degree view from almost anywhere in the suite.  This area can be closed off by a curtain.

The bedroom is large, and to be honest, had quite a bit of wasted space unless one likes to do aerobics in their room.  The bed faces off the back while also offering views off the Port side of the ship (though the ship never docks so no concern here).

The drop-down TV is a cool idea, but to be honest we only used it once during the week we were onboard and lowered it down two additional times to show friends during suite tours.  The mechanism is a bit slow and loud meaning you didn’t really want to have it down while you fell asleep with any hope of stowing it away without waking your partner and probably the people above you as well.

Behind the bed is the HUGE spa-style bathroom.  It had everything you could want with one possible exclusion – a door on the toilet area.

The toiletry offerings were extremely extensive, including sunblock and lip balm.  All of the products were Ecuadorian and there was an emphasis on using as little single-use plastic as possible as all of the inorganic waste on the ship has to be transported back to the mainland.  All of the bath and shower products were in large pump style bottles.

We loved the bathroom, most of the time.  However, twice during our sailing, the ship was listing slightly toward the port side which caused some flooding in the bathroom while showering.  We figured this out and created a towel dam thereafter, but not before causing a legitimate flood the first time we discovered the issues.  This was OK as the bathroom had a floor drain and we did not seem to rain down into the lounge below us.  Our housekeeper let us know that this was a common occurrence and not to worry.

General Information

Outlets throughout the ship were US-Style 110v with outlets located on one side of the bed along with a USB port.  In the Penthouse Suite we also had our motorized black-out curtain controls bedside.

Because single-use plastic water bottles are banned within the Galapagos and onboard Celebrity Flora each passenger is given a water bottle with your name already printed on it.  We received these in our hotel room in Quito at the outset of our trip.  This is genius and I wish that Oceania would also offer double-walled bottles and pre-printed nametags.  Refilling these bottles is super easy as every suite on board has a bottle filler for filtered water.  In balcony and infinite balcony suites these are located in the bathrooms and in the suites they are located in the wet bars.

Final Thoughts

We simply LOVED our Penthouse Suite.  But we also didn’t use it the way we might have on a typical cruise where we would have spent more time in our cabin.  Galapagos cruises are extremely active from sun rise to well beyond sun set and so time in the room was much less than is typical for us.  For this reason, we probably wouldn’t bid for this upgrade again as we would be perfectly happy in a standard balcony room for sleeping and getting ready.

This post has already gone VERY LONG, so no final wildlife photo in this installment, but instead a picture of the goodbye gift of chocolate along with a handwritten note from Hannah the GM on board and de facto Cruise Director.  She was always visible and always upbeat, an excellent credit to Celebrity Cruises. I hope you enjoyed our Cabin Review – Penthouse on Celebrity Flora – Michael