Buyer Beware

If I base my decision entirely off of how this cruise went, I will not be trying out celebrity cruises again in my lifetime. It started off poorly from the very beginning by getting the name wrong on my seapass card so I was not able to get on the boat. I was pulled to the side and had to wait an additional 45 minutes to get this straightened out. When it was discovered that my card was incorrect, one of our traveling companions name had been put on my card as well as his, I went back to have it corrected. By attempting to have mine corrected it also caused a problem for our companion as they went ahead to get on the ship. While down trying to get my card corrected, the terminals card readers stopped working so we had to leave the terminal, be escorted up to the ship and stand at the entrance to the boat while someone on the boat worked to get the correct card brought out to us. Once on the boat, we went to advise guest relations about our displeasure with the initial boarding of the boat and they could have cared less, advising us they would make a note of the problem and sending us on our way. They already had a note about it since they were the ones who had to fix the card to begin with. This was very disappointing since we paid for an upgraded cabin that was supposed to include priority boarding. We missed out on that and barely made the welcome lunch because of the extended time to board due to celebrity's error. we also did not receive our welcome fruit and champagne that was supposed to be included with the room as well. We received fruit on the rest of our days on the ship and we got the champagne a day or two later, but it is not a welcome gift if it is not in the room upon arrival. 

The premium drink package is an absolute joke, as you can easily get by most of the time with the classic which also came with our room. The problem with having only the classic package is that everywhere you go as soon as you get on the ship, you are pressured to upgrade before anyone will even serve you a drink. We got so annoyed with being pestered to "upgrade" that we just caved and did it so we could be left alone about the premium package. Then once you upgrade you continue to get the same bottom shelf liquors in all your drinks. We were actually told by the bar manager that their bartenders ignore requests for premium liquors in mixed drinks because celebrity has drink recipes that they are to follow, using the bottom shelf liquors. This is ridiculous. If i am paying for a premium liquor package, I should be able to get premium liquor in any drink I want it in. On top of not getting the premium liquors I wanted, nearly every drink I ordered (most of which were made with rum) all tasted the same. The bartenders were so busy making drinks and running back and forth that they were not making drinks properly and they didn't tast very good. 

Port visits were too short in my opinion. We went on excursions in 3 of the 4 ports we visited and the times listed on the website for the excursions were very inaccurate. In Mexico, we went on the Jose Cuervo tquila excursion listed at 3 hours, but actually took 4.5. This left us rushing to get back to the boat upon our return so we were not left and no time to spend in the port shopping area. Our excursion started at 10 and had we known it was going to take longer than initially listed, we would have ventured out early into the port to explore prior. In Grand Cayman, we went on the Dolphin Swim and Stingray City excursion listed at 4.5 hours, but took 6.5-7 hours, which again left us little-no time to explore the shopping in the port. In Jamaica, we went on the excursion to the Good Hope Sugar plantation which is listed as an 8 hour excursion. This excursion was very enjoyable, but we were not able to do everything they have there as we were again short on time and had to get back to the boat. It is very disappointing to pay for something you want to enjoy and then not be able to do everything because of a limited amount of time in port. No excursions were done in Labadee as we spent hardly any time on the island. Everywhere I went away from the beach, I was hounded by several vendors to accompany them back to their shop to buy things. All shops sold nearly identical items and they wouldn't take no for an answer. The beaches on the island were not very pleasant either. Cococay is a much nice private island. I would have been pleased if this cruise skipped Labadee all together and extended the time spent at the other ports. 

While on the ship during the cruising, poor music was played, catering to people much older than myself. When speaking to the cruise director about the music, he stated that he would prefer to change it but the music is on a repeating playlist so we are stuck with what we have because of copyrights. I don't understand the whole copyright thing and it doesn't make much sense to me as there is a DJ on the ship playing much better music than the repeating playlist. Problem with the DJ is he is never in one area very long. They put him in the smallest area on the ship, sunset bar, when you sail away from ports so you are lucky to get a seat near him especially if you're not a smoke because one whole half of this bar area is a smoking section. He actually played real good music out by the pool on our sea day heading from Labadee to Miami, but they actually had the stupid idea of doing a silent disco on the pool deck during this time. When hanging out by the pool on a sea day its nice to listen to music and swim. Instead, they turned off the music for everyone except those that wanted to wear sill headphones and left us in complete silence. For one there is not enough headphones for everyone on the pool deck to use so that sucks for the people who cant get them, and you cant take these headphones in the pool, so why would you put them in use on the POOL DECK! Comedians were good, shows not so much.

One highlight on the ship was winning a raffle in the casino for a watch. But even that quickly went downhill as they don't give it to in a bag or with any kind of winners receipt so when I left the casino, I was accused of STEALING the watch I had just won! Definitely something that needs to be changed for the future cruises, because this is very offending.

We even had trouble trying to exit the ship the morning of the cruise. We chose to do express disembarkation as we had an early flight and we made our way down to the exiting deck, went to a disembarkation point and were told we could not exit yet because an announcement had not been made. We walked a short distance away to wait for an announcement that didnt come so after 15 minutes or so we asked a crew member walking by about it and he said we missed the express disembarkation because it was at the opposite end of the boat! Had the first member we spoke to told us this we would not have sat and waited for 15 minutes but instead walked to where we needed to be. This added an extra 45 minutes to our disembarkation process as there was a huge line formed by the time we made our way to where we needed to be. 

I would like to say that my stateroom attendant, Shivraj, was excellent and one of the lone highlights of my trip. He was 5 star service on a 1 star vacation.