Nice Hawaiian Cruise (With Caveats)

We had to wait a while at the airport before our transportation arrived, but we got to the terminal within our 4:30-5:00 p.m. boarding time. Since we'd uploaded our photos the evening before, we "sailed" onto the ship rather quickly, and I was very impressed. If this was the end of it, I would have rated embarkation a 4 or 5 because it was quite easy (the wait for transportation was the only negative). Unfortunately, meeting the muster obligation was another story. We physically boarded the ship at 5:06 p.m. (we know from a photo time stamp). The Celebrity app notified us that we had half an hour to finish our safety requirement. Since we'd watched the available safety videos at the airport, the only thing left to do was to visit our muster station. (The emergency horn sound didn't play through the app at the airport, but we heard it through the speakers after we boarded.) We were exhausted because we'd gotten up at 4:30 a.m. DST and had been flying all day, but we traipsed up to the muster station to meet our obligation since we know it's required and it's important. No one was there except for a couple of other passengers who'd also been summoned to the same muster station by the app. We looked on both floors of the theatre and visited the other muster stations on the deck outside of the theatre trying to find someone, but no one was there to check us in. We went down to Guest Services, explained what happened, described our muster station, showed her the app (which had then just stopped telling us to go to the muster station), and she said she would note our file that we'd attended. (My daughter's app said that the obligation had been fulfilled, but mine didn't say anything beyond not giving me more notices to go to the muster station.) We thought that was the end of it. The next day, a mandatory safety training meeting was inserted into our electronic daily planner. I missed seeing it because we had one excursion planned and nothing else, so I didn't check it. I left the cabin on an errand and returned around 7:00 to find a letter outside the room commanding us to attend a safety presentation that had started at 6:45. I took the letter down to Guest Services to find out why this had happened and had the misfortune of talking to Jayson. I was pretty irritated at this point, though I never yelled, and I never used profanity. I explained what had happened, said that we'd followed the instructions on the app, had visited Guest Services to report what had happened, been told our obligation had been met, and I suggested that Celebrity might want to do a better job with mustering and external complaints shouldn't be necessary to get them to fix it. At that point, Jayson decided that it would be a good idea to make things 1,000 times worse. He sarcastically asked what time we'd gone to the muster station, and when I told him between 5:00 and 5:30, he said we should have gotten there sooner because no one was there after 5:00 - they all have "real jobs" to do and really don't have time to wait around for passengers who should have gone to their muster stations earlier. I told him that Celebrity had scheduled us to arrive at the terminal between 4:30 and 5:00, and we weren't even able to walk onto the ship until just after 5:00 due to the schedule and the timing of the Celebrity transport from the airport. (It was clear that Jayson thought I was lying about this, though he presumably could have checked our file to confirm that what I was saying was accurate). Then he told me that he didn't appreciate my language, in particular the "s" word, because they don't use that word. I asked him what he was talking about since I didn't remember being profane - did I say "sh-t"? He said no, it was another "s" word, but I should just forget about it. He just wanted to tell me they don't like that word. I told him that since he'd gone to the trouble of interrupting me to tell me I'd offended him in some way, I wanted to know what was offensive. He started to spell the ostensibly offensive word because it was apparently too horrible to say - and the word was "stupid." Apparently, I'd referred to their app as stupid. I told him that "stupid" is not only a perfectly acceptable word, it was an apt description of the app, which I showed him was again flashing and telling me that I had a half an hour to finish my muster obligation when we both knew that no one would be there after 7:00 on the second day. After I showed that to him, his demeanor changed and he said oh, the app is the problem (without accepting responsibility for having no one there after 5:00). Since I'd already described the muster station, and he realized that Celebrity was the problem (not us), he said he would talk to the safety director. I asked him for that person's name and whether I should talk to him. He said it was "Harris," and he would take care of it. We didn't hear anything further. Honestly, Jayson needs a reassignment, and Celebrity needs to fix its app and make sure that it has staff available at muster stations for a reasonable time after all onboard arrival times, because for that period of time, that is their "real job."

Dining: We didn't visit a specialty restaurant, just the Ocean View on the 14th floor and the main dining room. We had flexible dining, and we didn't ever have to wait very long to be seated (though we usually didn't come down for dinner until 7:30). The food was good but average for a cruise - not better or worse. We liked that they asked about food allergies every time (until the server got to know you). We enjoyed the different bread spreads each evening (butter in the middle with two other spreads on each end of a three-compartment container). I'm not sure how else to describe it, but the Ocean View dining room started “rationing” cheese mid-cruise. You had to stand in line while they cut larger blocks of cheese to give you two cubes (unless you asked for more). We were tired of lines generally at that point and found this irritating, especially since they put cubed cheese out in the beginning of the cruise. You could get small cheddar and Swiss slices in the sandwich area, but if you wanted other cheese, you had to stand in line and wait for it to be dispensed. The same thing happened with bread toward the end of the cruise - you had to stand in line and wait for it to be cut for you (though rolls were available in baskets). The ship ran out of bananas at breakfast on day 11 (though we did find a mushy one on disembarkation day, so perhaps they got more in Victoria). They also ran out of turkey in the sandwich bar on day 12. There was also a shortage of pina colada mix - it was not available at all bars toward the end of the cruise. I realize that we had five sea days in a row, but we took a backstage tour of the ship and they claimed to be quite proud of their provisioning abilities. Obviously, they need to improve in that department. Royal Caribbean has formal, smart-casual, and casual. Apparently, Celebrity's evening chic is the same as formal, though there was a wide range of attire, but they described it as “a bit dressier than smart casual.” I found Celebrity's “evening chic” and “smart casual" designations to be confusing. The best way I can describe it is "nice jeans are OK" (smart casual) and "jeans are not OK" (evening chic). There were three "evening chic" evenings for a 13-day cruise; the rest were "smart casual." It might be a way to get more people to come to the dining rooms on formal nights, since the dress code is more relaxed than "formal." There were no photographers to be found. Normally, they are everywhere, in your face, and it’s usually quite annoying. We actually went looking for a photographer on an evening chic night and couldn’t find one anywhere. We finally saw a guy the last evening chic night, but he wasn't in the dining room for very long. I didn't see any photographers at the ports. Room service: Room service was really hit or miss. We used it when we had to get up for earlier excursions for a total of four times. Salt and pepper must be requested, or it won't be provided, but there's no box to check to ask for it. You will only get one tiny package of salt and pepper per person unless you say that you want a lot. You also have to specifically ask for butter and half and half because they aren't offered as menu choices either and won't be provided unless you ask. It's not clear that an order of eggs includes two eggs, so two plates of two eggs were delivered the first time we asked for “fried eggs over hard.” It would be helpful to put a number next to the number of eggs so it's clearer and to avoid food waste. We had problems with three of the four room service orders. One time, we received the wrong cereal. Another time, they omitted two orders of bacon and tried to give us someone else's breakfast along with ours. The third time they omitted bananas and gave us two fruit plates instead. The guy delivering insisted that we'd ordered fruit plates (we knew that we hadn't) but said he would go back and get us bananas. We received a call from room service after that to tell us that yes, they knew we'd ordered bananas, but they'd substituted a fruit plate because they'd run out of bananas. A note explaining that would have been nice and made things easier for everyone. Room service food quality was OK, though the "assorted pastries" was one pastry, and hot things were usually cold (which I guess is to be expected given the length of the trip from the kitchen to the cabin).

We watched a lot of lectures because there wasn't that much going on that we were interested in during the five-in-a-row sea days. We listened to three primary speakers. One woman specifically talked about whales, and all three of her lectures were good. There was a pair of married speakers. We attended two of the wife's presentations - the Women of Pearl Harbor and the music of the Titanic. The overall Pearl Harbor presentation was very good, but I found her comments regarding the Pearl Harbor footage that she said she’d just obtained to be highly offensive. Introducing the footage, she said that when she first watched it, she found it to be so shocking that she literally fell to her knees. I assumed she was referring to the sound effects that went along with the live filming of the worst attack that had ever happened at a U.S. military base that killed thousands of servicemen. Nope. She was referring to comments that our servicemen were overheard making - immediately after the Japanese had tried to kill all of them and while people were drowning in the Arizona - because the comments were culturally insensitive. Are you kidding me? Granted, sensibilities change over time, and I wouldn't have wanted to hear negative comments specifically directed at an ethnic group even considering the context, but the appropriate way to handle that was to remove the audio, show only the video, and not comment further. Instead, she chose to make a point of indirectly insulting members of the military who hurled invectives at their attackers right after they were attacked and when it was unclear whether another attack would follow. This would be the same military that she claimed to love and support by doing the usual “stand up so we can recognize you” invitation to people who had served in the armed forces at the end of her presentation. Unbelievable. I would have expected more from a “historian.” We owe those brave men our gratitude, not our contempt. During a later presentation on the Titanic, she said she is British, so I'm not sure if that explains her poor attitude toward U.S. service members. Her husband gave a lot of very interesting naturalist talks, and we attended three of them. His schtick (over the top, excess enthusiasm) was a little annoying after the first lecture. He also had a not-so-subtle message throughout his talks that everything is endangered, and humans are bad. I don’t mean to diminish the information provided; it was very informative. He also made some claims about Orca whales that I've been trying to research further. For instance, he said that they don't attack people in the wild (unprovoked) and discussed two events that involved people wearing wet suits and inserting themselves into an area where the whales were feeding (so it was the humans' fault), but he omitted any discussion of the current reports of Orca whales attacking ships off the coast of Portugal and Spain. Even though that's not a direct attack on human bodies (so he's technically correct), if the Orca are as smart as he claims they are (possibly smarter than humans), then they know what they're doing, and it would have been worth a mention even if it didn't fit his narrative. My daughter and I took the hot glass class on deck 15. It would have been helpful if it had been added to our daily planner in the app because it would have been easy to forget about since we had to schedule it days in advance. The two people running the classes were awesome, and you really aren’t at any risk of getting hurt. There are lots of pre-selected projects to choose from, and you can pick your own colors. Our projects turned out super nice - we made a duck and a jellyfish. Fair warning about packing - my jellyfish paperweight triggered some concern at airport screening, and we were delayed while they picked through my carryon to find and inspect it. We took the behind-the-scenes onboard excursion. We visited the restaurant, kitchen, provisioning, recycling/garbage handling, the crew quarters (just looked down the hall, not inside any room), laundry (pressing is very cool), the engine room (you aren’t allowed to see the actual engines), and the bridge. We spent a lot of time at Effy. They encouraged daily visits with drawings and a daily charm to collect to add to a necklace that was delivered to our stateroom on the second night. If you went to a gemstone presentation, you were entered in a drawing to win diamond earrings. If you made a purchase, you were entered into two separate drawings for a diamond necklace and a couple of other minor things (like a makeup bag with Effy's name on it). The other multiple drawings were for an undisclosed gift in an Effy bag which turned out to be a Celebrity logo on a leather-looking band, not an Effy item. You had to be present to win. We did end up buying something, and the salesperson that we worked with was very patient. I think my daughter tried on every ring in the store before finding one she really liked. There was no bingo!!! We had zero interest in Deal or No Deal (which appears to be the replacement). We are normally Royal Caribbean cruisers and, in the future, if we have a choice between Celebrity or Royal Caribbean for a similar sailing schedule, we'll choose Royal Caribbean over Celebrity every time because Royal Caribbean has bingo. (Yes, we found its absence that annoying.) A bag of gummy bears was an outrageous $5.99 in the stores onboard. It was really nice that we could easily switch between devices on WiFi (no fighting with logoff.com), and it was very easy to sign up. Unfortunately, the premium WiFi was sometimes spotty, and we had to do a lot of rebooting and forgetting the network so we could sign in again. The speed was mostly OK. 5 stars for Effy; 4 stars for the two naturalists, the WiFi, and the backstage tour; 2 stars for the Pearl Harbor presentation because it was offensive; and 0 stars for the lack of Bingo. Miscellaneous: We had a medical emergency on the evening of our 4th sea day, which was sad to hear but apparently turned out OK. They diverted the ship 200 miles in the direction of Oregon to meet a Coast Guard helicopter. We had a foggy night while doing that, and it was a bit creepy with the warning horn blowing long and low every few minutes. We could see the helicopter pad from our room, and it was amazing to watch the crew and Coast Guard helicopter. They didn’t land; they brought people and supplies up and down in a basket while the ship was moving. We managed to arrive at our next port on time and were told the guest was stable and receiving appropriate treatment. We had one really rough day at sea. Bring sea bands or Dramamine if that’s an issue for you. Our May Hawaiian cruise was filled with older passengers. The age range seemed to be mostly 50-80 years old. Many walkers, canes, and scooters, along with a couple of wheelchairs. I would be surprised if there was more than ten people 18 and under.

We heard a jazz band (excellent) and attended a Queen singalong (excellent but only 25 minutes long, even though the crowd seemed interested in continuing).

We didn't travel with children.

Our cabin attendant was amazing and efficient. You hardly knew he was there, except for hearing a cheery "hello" as we walked past him in the mornings and evenings. We came to love one particular server and the two assistants in her section. The head waiter and the two schedulers managed to seat us with her every evening, and it was worth it to wait 10-15 minutes to be seated with her. We also loved the sommelier. The staff at the Ocean View as nice and very attentive, but we didn't get to know anyone personally. Honestly, I don't think I've ever had a bad experience on any ship with the restaurant staff or the cabin attendants. They work very hard to make things good for the passengers. I think it was particularly hard for all staff on this cruise, because we had three time changes during the five sea days (losing an hour each time). It was hard for us; it must have been brutal for them. We worked with two of the Shore Excursion staff who were exceptionally helpful. We found out on boarding day that our third day's tour had been cancelled, and that was the first time we were made aware of it. The gentleman who rescheduled for us was patient and helpful. The second staff member was able to provide us with precise physical descriptions for the tours that were described as "moderate" activity. I'm glad I asked, because I was ready to cancel (I'm not as athletic as the rest of my party). Not only was her description accurate, she followed up to make sure that we concurred with her descriptions. Other than Jayson at Guest Services (discussed in embarkation), I had one other staff complaint, but I don't even know the name of the person involved. I'd left my jacket on the benches after the glassmaking class because it was hot near the kilns. The exit is on the side of the enclosure, so I didn't realize I'd forgotten my jacket for two days because I didn't need it on board. We frantically searched just before we had to leave for a whale watching excursion in Victoria, checking in lost and found and on the 15th floor with no luck. My husband purchased a jacket on board earlier and had an extra or I would have had to cancel (and I wouldn't have had a jacket to wear home). Fortunately, there was one more glass event the next day (the day before disembarkation), and my husband asked if they had the jacket. They said they'd turned it over to the staffer who was cleaning the area so it could be taken to lost and found, but the staffer didn't follow through. My husband asked Guest Services, and they were able to track the person down and ask him/her to turn the jacket in. I finally got it back the evening before we left. Had we not inquired, I would never have gotten it back. At that point, I thought that a fellow passenger had picked it up and kept it. 1 star for Jayson and the person who kept my jacket. 5 stars for everyone else.

We didn’t like the ship layout. The shops are on two floors, and it was kind of annoying to remember which stores were where. There was no shopping or gambling for the first couple of days. We were told that was because the ship wasn’t in international waters and it’s apparently illegal to gamble in Hawaii (yet the casino and shops were open after the first few days even though we were still close to the islands). The ship was very clean and mostly well-maintained, though you could tell that it was aging a bit.

We liked the opportunity to bid on an upgrade which apparently included a premium liquor package (which was very nice). We ended up in a family veranda, which huge and super nice (the largest cabin we have ever had). The Eclipse is an older ship, and the newer ships don’t have family verandas or even larger staterooms unless you want to pay thousands more per person. That’s a shame. We really liked the room, even though the walls were paper thin within the cabin. My daughter loved having her own room and storage spaces. There was lots of storage throughout the cabin, but the unattached furniture was dated and old, our live plant needed some attention (lots of brown spots on the leaves), and there were still only two electrical receptacles. Our cabin had a slightly larger veranda than the veranda on the other floor. I hated the pillows - think MyPillow with the least amount of stuffing. It appeared that the ship wasn't completely ready for new passengers on the first day. There was no Kleenex in bathroom, and there were no robes in our large state room. This was fixed on the second day. (It almost seemed that we had an extra day in Honolulu just to charge more for this cruise and extend it by one day.) The only non-attached furniture in the master bedroom was the two beds, and there was a lot of wasted space in that room. A dressing table or chair would have been nice rather than having to sit on the bed (or moving furniture around). Someone else’s empty makeup travel bag and swimsuit top were left in the small bedroom, but it wasn't immediately noticeable (back of a bottom shelf). Sadly, it was too cold to use our balcony for four of the five sea days. (We had a mid-May cruise.) We liked that they gave us two small bottles of hand sanitizer at the beginning of the cruise. Dropping anchor and all docking noises were super loud in our room. It felt like an earthquake sometimes. Our faucet dripped at the handle when turned on. Lighting in the suite was not great for reading. No lamps, just ceiling lights. There was one brighter light in the ceiling over the couch, but it shone more on your head than your book. We didn't figure out that the brighter light could be moved around until our last evening (by standing on the couch and pushing it). Our refrigerator wasn’t stocked with any snacks for the entire cruise, though there was pop and liquor. It was overpriced. We liked the evening chocolates, though we would have preferred milk chocolate (we received dark chocolate). I thought it was kind of tacky that they didn’t give us any chocolate on our last night. We missed having towel animals and different napkin folds in the dining room. We couldn’t hear announcements that mattered to us, like tender instructions. I called Guest Services and was told there was no way to turn them on through the speakers, but we could hear them on the television - yet we heard a loud crew-only message blasting in our room while one of us was sleeping late.

The airport transfer from the ship was an absolute cluster. We did not hear our number (13); we walked down to the disembarkation area and learned it had just been called. Everything was fine getting off the ship, our luggage was available, and we appreciated that we had been pretty much effortlessly cleared through customs the day before (we just had to fill out a form a couple days before our stop in Victoria). It wasn’t clear where to go after getting our luggage, and Celebrity had no one around to ask. People waiting for air transportation in the long lines were really angry. Many worried about missing flights because of the incompetence at the bus terminal and loudly complained about it. Some had flights leaving after ours but were freaking out because they wanted to be at the airport 3 hours before their flights “because it’s recommended." One older woman had to ask for a wheelchair because she couldn’t stand any longer and would have collapsed due to the wait; another older woman said she was ready to collapse before our line started to move. Celebrity did not ensure there were enough buses to timely get everyone to the airport. They were only 7 buses available for 3 cruise ships. The bus staff was frustrated and tired of the anger directed toward them, but they were also clueless about what to do and couldn’t provide good information regarding when people could expect to leave. Our disembarkation was supposed to be at 8:15 a.m., and we were grouped with people who had flights leaving between 12 and 2 because it was “close enough" to our earlier 11:50 a.m. flight time. The cruise director told us during the previous day's announcements that it would be crowded at the terminal, so the departure times should have been adjusted to reflect that. We didn't get on a bus until 9:45 a.m. to take us to the airport for our 11:50 flight. It takes 45 minutes to make the 7-mile drive to the airport because there are a bazillion traffic lights, our bus stopped at all of them, and it took 15 minutes to load everyone after we got on (lots of old folks). The bus aisles were narrow, and people had all kinds of things with them that didn’t fit down the aisles and required overhead storage (more delay). We didn’t arrive at the terminal until 10:40 a.m., and they wouldn’t let us off the bus until all the luggage was offloaded (even though we asked and explained why). After tagging the check-in luggage ourselves, we had to load our own luggage on the conveyor, go through security screening (I was delayed because of the glass paperweight I’d made in the glassmaking class), go through customs, and run through the airport to our flight that was supposed to have already started boarding. We should have gotten off on our own as the cruise director had suggested the day before, but we were advised against doing that by Guest Services (because it was apparently better to have us sit around on the ship waiting for our number to be called than to get in line earlier for the few available buses). If the previous flight had not been slightly delayed, we could very well have missed our flight. We’ve cruised a lot over the years, and this was absolutely the worst disembarkation ever.