All in all a wonderful experience. Our dining room table partners were experienced cruisers and travelers and we learned a lot about what to do and not to do next time . In hindsight I would have skipped a few of the ship sponsored excursions but most everything was great. Celebrity was definitely the best quality cruise I’ve ever been on.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
The smoothest, most efficient embarkation process I’ve ever experienced.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
5 out of 5
Loved the buffet food; the dining room food was also great. My first time on Celebrity, previous cruises were Royal Caribbean (2) and Carnival(1). The food on Celebrity was far superior, especially the buffet food.
The San Marco Restaurant
5 out of 5
Wonderful. Perfect service every single meal. Delicious food, lots of variety.
Champagne Bar / Martini Bar
5 out of 5
This was such fun! The bartenders entertain with lots of fun tossing of shakers, outing out 2 or 3 martinis at a time, etc. We loved it!
Onboard Activities
5 out of 5
Our ship did not have a lot of extras such as rock climbing walls, but what they did have were fantastic spa services. In addition to the usual massages, etc they had a Persian Garden containing Turkish Bath, herbal steam room, Dry sauna, Bosporus multipoint shower, heated tile seating in a mellow center room lit by candles which you could use as often as you wished. They also had a solarium, which was roofed by glass and slightly air conditioned to a perfectly comfortable temperature. It featured a very large thalassotherapy pool as well as two hot tubs and played mellow music with multiple loungers facing the floor to ceiling windows and was available to all. A relaxing alternative to the loud outdoor pools.
Guest Relations And Excursions
1 out of 5
We went to 2 presentations on excursions. In one incorrect information was given and in the second inadequate information was given in an overcrowded, hot room where many people were forced to stand in the hallway trying to hear.
The Emporium
3 out of 5
Too much overpriced glitzy stuff, not enough simp,er, practical stuff
Solarium
5 out of 5
Absolutely wonderful in every way. Comfort, cleanliness , bar service, Jews, music, air and water temperatures — all perfect. It, along with the Persian Garden, was our favorite spot on the ship.
Entertainment
5 out of 5
All of the DJs and other performers were fantastic
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Best service I’ve ever had. Every employee was unfailingly enthusiastic, friendly, hard working , yet made each person feel that they knew them. Don’t know how they do it.
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
Every single inch was always immaculate.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
We had a nice room with a giant port hole with a window bay that you could sit in. It was lovely. Our steward Redford kept our cabin clean at all times.
The excursion we did was a bus tour which actually went through Monaco but never took us to the casino, and to other sites such as Eze. I feel the description of that part was not clear about how difficult it would be to reach Eze.
We visited the Vatican and Sistine chapel as well as a walking tour past the Colisseum and to St Peter in Chains and the basilica. It was a very exhausting day but our tour guide Gloria and tour leader Mohammed were awesome. We saw so much in that day! Mohammed made us feel very safe and protected from pickpockets, etc and Gloria obviously had a passion for Roman history and voluminous knowledge.
We went to Taormina and the Blue Grotto. One of my favorite ports. Taormina is breathtakingly beautiful, we did lots of sightseeing and shopping and then took a boat ride to the Blue Grotto where the water was an unbelievably beautiful blue color. Then they dropped anchor and we were able to swim around the boat. When we returned to the boat the captain served Prosecco to everyone and played Italian music. It was just wonderful.
None of the excursions offered by Celebrity seemed interesting to us, so we signed up for a hop on - hop off bus which was sort of a waste. We did not have enough time ar Corfu to both fo to the beach and go to the Old Town so we opted fir the town. It was very pretty, great shopping, good food. I wish we could have had more time to be able to see more of the island.
Kotor is absolutely beautiful . We went on a speed boat trip to the Blue Cave, where the boat actually entered a large cave with freakishly blue water and we were able to jump out of the boat and swim in the cave. It was great fun. Then we went to Zandice beach where we had a complimentary beverage and could eat at the restaurant. The only reason I rated it 4 stars instead of 5 is that the food was not good and the beach was entirely rocks. I feel that this should have been specified in the description of the excursion as some people could not swim due to the rocks. I luckily had on the kind of sandals that I could walk into the water with. The water was crystal clear and very refreshing.
This was our last excursion entitled “A Day at the Beach”. We were taken by bus to a private marina / beach club where we had loungers and beach umbrellas. There was a bar and restaurant right there as well. Again the “beac” was entirely rocks and I feel this should have been explained in the description of the excursion. The food at the restaurant was quite good. I don’t think I would book this excursion again because there was nothing else to do in that area and if you did not wear the right footwear it was very difficult to walk on the rocks.
I absolutely loved Venice. However, as a first-time visitor I feel that Celebrity did a poor job preparing us for disembarkation and travel to Venice. They had an “informational” meeting in a room that held around 50 people and probably 100 people showed up, there was nowhere to sit, the room was unbearably hot and no valuable information was given such as the fact that it was not possible to take a cab to our hotel or instructions on how to go about getting to our hotel.
The city itself I loved every second of.
I am only giving 2 stars instead of 1 because they actually did call our group to disembark at the scheduled time. But given that Venice is much more complicated to get into than any other city, we were not given adequate information as to the variety of ways we could get there. We ended up walking 3/4 of a mile to a people mover which dumped us off at Piazza de Roma with no idea how to get to our hotel. Thankfully a man came along who toted our luggage up and down all the bridges necessary to get to our hotel.
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