Europe - Eastern Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

The ship either needs a complete overhaul or else it needs to be retired. The design is dated, with insufficient washrooms in places where you would expect to find them: outside the main theater, outside the main dirining room. There was nosy replacement of pipes going on during the day, unexplained blackouts, the smell of sewerage in some corridors, and poor internet service. While the crew was hard working, courteous, and helpful, the ship is a looser.

It's a great vessel, but the service has to imporve.

Just returned a few weeks ago from an Eastern Mediterranean cruise on the Noordam. We didn't want to leave the ship! It was so beautiful. And all the staff we met were so friendly. Every meal we had was delicious. Some were truly amazing! (King crab where they crack the legs open for you and cut away most of the leg shell so all you do is have pick out the delicious meat?! The lobster, they remove from the shell for you tableside as well! Delicious!). The Pinnacle Grill food and service were both as good as any five star restaurant at which we have dined (and we have dined at some both in the United States and abroad). The ship tours were organized, and informative. We enjoyed the three Holland America tours we went on, and thought they were a good value for the money. We also went on two tours organized through outside tour companies (before we left home) and did two ports "on our own." We love to dance, and enjoyed dancing in the Ocean Bar every evening. We were just sad they closed down so early. Booo hiss. But we very much enjoyed the shows we attended (the magician "Mysteriaque" was amazing, as was Beverley Davison the "violinist diva"). Jenny and the HAL cats were very talented and we enjoyed listening to them several times during "sail aways" and dancing with them a couple of evenings. The crowd on the ship was probably 50% retired folks, but the other 50% was very varied - everyone from young newlyweds in their early 20s to couples in their 40s with their children to everyone in between. The children we saw all seemed entertained and happy, and were all very well behaved. The ship is beautiful, the staff goes out of their way to make you feel cared for, and to keep your room and the common areas clean and inviting. The cabins are very large and ours had plent of space to store our four suitcases full of clothing for a 10 day trip (with 3 formal nights!). The spa was nice, if pricey (aren't they all!). I would definitely recommend this itinerary and this ship to anyone looking for a beautiful and interesting vacation (if you take in all the ports of call and "do them" to their fullest in the time you have, it is not a very relaxing vacation, though, be warned! we were exhausted!).

From MeetOnCruise iPhone App: I really enjoyed the cruise and the ship. Costa is really a part of Italy afloat and the crew is doing a nice job to keep passengers satisfied. The places we visited were outstanding with Venice at the top. Dubrovnik is also spectacular as Corfu and Santorini. I will cruise again with Costa.

We have taken this ship twice, the inagural sailing to the caribbean and the this summer in Europe. It is an awesome ship. Crew, layout, rooms, food...everything!

Exellent very clean and elegant.

the ship was in beautiful condition, kept very clean and new. chairs are all new, towels new, carpeting new, bathroom fixtures new. beautiful promenade, ice rink, auditorium.

We loved cruing with the RC. The staff was excellent. Service, the quality and the quantity of food was great. On board enterytainment and shows were very good. The cruise director did an excellent job. Only the staterooms need a face lift since they are outdated. it was like a party boat with continious good service, live bands ,great music.Can't wait to cruise with RC again.

My wife and I had an issue on a recent cruise we took on Celebrity Solstice in the Eastern Mediterranean (June 26 July 6) that I wanted to make you cruisers aware of. We purchased our transfers through Celebrity Cruises from the Rome airport to Civitavecchia. We were met by Celebrity staff at the airport -wearing Celebrity shirts - and we were going to carry on a couple of our smaller bags on the bus and they told us that there was no storage inside the bus for these. We then placed the cabin tags on the bags and checked them through to the ship. We saw after we boarded the bus that there was storage underneath the bus and thought it odd that they did not tell us about this. We handed over the bags around 9:30AM Rome time. At 3PM all but one of our bags arrived at our cabin. One of our bags was missing, but it ended up arriving about 30 minutes later. When we opened it up we found that it had been ransacked, things were opened (but not stolen), but we did discover that our camera had been stolen. This did not get our trip off to a good start and we ended up not having any pictures of this wonderful cruise as a result. We immediately filed a Personal Property Report with Guest Relations onboard the Solstice. While my wife was downstairs filing the report she ran into another couple on our same bus who were from Philadelphia. They told her that they were filing a report, as well, because they had a laptop computer stolen along with other items. What made us upset aside from not having any photos of this trip was the way Celebrity washed their hands of the whole issue, even though the transfers were setup by them. Their transfer agents are the ones that told us not to carry on bags onto the bus. Were they in on this whole theft ring? After filing the report it took us 4 times calling Guest Relations to get a signed copy of the Personal Property Report. It was obvious to us that they could care less about our loss and that they were hoping wed just forget about the whole issue. As much as we have enjoyed cruising with Celebrity and Royal Caribbean over the years we will probably no longer sail with you. The lack of concern to loyal customers just convinced me that we should change our allegiance to another cruise line. I'm a 3 million miler with American Airlines and we probably won't book another vacation through them, as well. We hope that future cruisers with Celebrity arrange for their own transfer to/from the ship, so you don't suffer the same circumstances as we did. If you do decide to take their transfers don't let them take your bags ... bring them along to the bus and store them underneath.

My wife and I had an issue on a recent cruise we took on Celebrity Solstice in the Eastern Mediterranean (June 26 July 6) that we wanted to make other cruisers aware of. We purchased our transfers through Celebrity Cruises from the Rome airport to Civitavecchia. We were met by Celebrity staff at the airport and we were going to carry on a couple of our smaller bags on the bus and they told us that there was no storage inside the bus for these. We then placed the cabin tags on the bags and checked them through to the ship. This was around 9:30AM Rome time. At 3PM all but one of our bags arrived at our cabin. One of our bags was missing, but it ended up arriving about 30 minutes later. When we opened it up we found that it had been ransacked, things were opened (but not stolen), but we did discover that our camera had been stolen. This did not get our trip off to a good start and we ended up not having any pictures of this wonderful cruise as a result. We immediately filed a Personal Property Report with Guest Relations onboard the Solstice. While my wife was downstairs filing the report she ran into another couple on our same bus who were from Philadelphia. They told her that they were filing a report, as well, because they had a laptop computer stolen along with other items. What made us upset aside from not having any photos of this trip was the way Celebrity washed their hands of the whole issue, even though the transfers were setup by them. Their transfer agents - wearing Celebrity shirts - are the ones that told us not to carry on bags onto the bus. Were they in on this whole theft ring? After filing the report it took us 4 times calling Guest Relations to get a signed copy of the Personal Property Report. It was obvious to us that they could care less about our loss and that they were hoping wed just forget about the whole issue. As much as we have enjoyed cruising with Celebrity and Royal Caribbean over the years we will probably no longer sail with them. The lack of concern to loyal customers just convinced me that we should change our allegiance to another cruise line. Our suggestion to cruisers that sail on Solstice is to arrange your own transfers to/from the airport. If you take their transfers DO NOT let your bags out of your sight, no matter what Celebrity personnel tell you.

This was without a doubt the best way to see Europe. The staff and crew were wonderful - they could not do enough for you. Everyone was so friendly and informative. The food was wonderful and the service in every area exceptional. We felt that we were leaving our friends the day we had to leave the ship. The ports and excursions were great and our cruise director Todd kept us informed about where to go and what to do. The people that took care of our stateroom we also great. Every time we entered the room, it was clean and in order. Would definitely travel on this ship again!

I think they went out of the way to make sure passengers needs were met, what those were. On board and offshore activities were all organized extremely wel and punctualand the prices for theoff-shore excursions were reasonable,especiallyafter being fleeced all over Greece, Italy. I would go on this cruise again in a heart beat

The ship was superb and very modern. The Balcony cabins are larger than any other Celebrity ship and the shower in the bathroom seemed huge.Also the storage space in the bathroom was the best yet.The ship was spotless as you would expect and there was something on board for every age group. So much to do we couldnt do it all!

Multilugal crew was amazing with all announcements in Italian,French, English, German and Spanish. Tours were punctual as was the entertainment. Shows ended with enough time to get to our cabin and cleanup for our seating. Everything was scrubbed and clean. Evening dining was enjoyable, seating was arranged so that you are with people speaking your language. The italian night was great!

small ammenties limited. Enjoyed for the most part though.

This was my 2nd Royal Carribean cruise and quite possibly my last. The ship was extremely dated. The stateroom was in bad shape, with broken dresser drawers and damage to the "wood". The food was awful. The same bad, overly salted food was served everyday at the Windjammer. There was rarely a place to sit. The dining room had equally bad food and bad service. We only had breakfast in the dining room the first day and after the staff began clearing the table BEFORE we were done eating, we never went back. The dinner menu was bland. The items ordered were never good and we often did not eat our meal. There was never a midnight buffet however, old pizza was served late into the night. The snacks served by the ship were french fries, gray burgers and hot dogs. This was served EVERDAY after we returned from port. As a vegetarian, this left me with no food to snack on. The in cabin menu was limited to the same few items the entire trip. Much to my surprise, this ship charged for fresh squeezed orange juice (as opposed to the watered down kind that was free) and also charged for specialty coffees during the meal. The staff overall was unresponsive and often time bordered on rude.

It was clean with excellent services

Our group of 10 ladies chose the Brilliance for the second time; going off to Barcelona. It is a beautiful ship and easy to navigate. The balcony accomodations were perfect for four of the group sharing this cabin.

Most relaxing cruise ever.

The size of the room (including the bathroom) was very comfortable. There were three people in our cabin and we had plenty of room to maneuver. The excerise room was large and there was generally no waiting for any of the equipment.