Mostly Fun with a few but significant missteps along the way

Aqua Class  Deck 11 FW

The Positive

BLU Restaurant - our waiter Mustafa was by far the best waiter we had on ANY of our 20+ previous cruises with
different cruise lines. Personable, professional, courteous, non-overbearing, perfect English, perfect
knowledge of the foods serviced. An absolute GEM.

Also worth mentioning our hostess Marie. She always made sure to seat us in our desired area and made some
wonderful choices for guests seated next to us for great conversation and companionship.

The Food in BLU: Simply fantastic. Breakfast as well as dinner = impeccable

The Tea and Coffee bar on Deck 5 was our favorite place to hang. Awesome pastries and cakes ruined my diet
and to go cookies made a great mid night snack. Why however do you have to put creamy cakes and pies into a
paper bag for take-out???  What a mess.

We also enjoyed our visit to Murano. We had been there several times on previous cruises and once again
enjoyed great service and attention to detail. The food was great but the menu could use a little face lift.
Even though all dishes are still great, it tends to get a little tired eating the same things again and
again.

The ship overall was clean and well maintained. Public areas aplenty and never really crowded even on sea
days.

We enjoyed all guest entertainers especially the "Late Night Adult Comedy". Although it is completely beyond
me why people would bring an 11 year old to such a performance. Seeing the "youngster" the comedian (by his own admission) had to adjust his program and therefore robbed the actual adult visitors of many extra laughs.

Two lunch visits to the main dining room were pleasant, yet expected (rush in / rush out, hectic waiters, order food quickly, wait for food, find out that salad dressing teased on menu is not available, and so on)

We tried to avoid the buffet but need to mention the great selection of Indian dishes and desserts. The
pizza station however is pitiful. Take a note from Carnival or Princess on that one.

The not so good and it gets worse...

After seeing three production shows we have to ask: Why don't you produce shows for the audience that
actually sails on your ships. All shows were targeted to a young, hip crowd in their 30's (the most).
Looking around the ship (on our cruise) the average age seemed to be 50+ and attendance as well as post show
conversations made it quickly clear that the 15+ performers were singing and dancing their a$$ off for just a mercy applause and nobody mentioned anything other than the aerial performers.

What a waste of money and resources. 

Our visit to "The Lawn Grill" was a mixed bag of tricks. Given that fact that it is a new restaurant concept on the ship we were really looking forward to the experience. While the proteins (steak, chicken, shrimp etc.) were nicely cooked, the side dishes and salad bar were disappointing and the presentation sloppy.
Service was too casual with two competing sets of servers trying to "outjoke" each other. If that was intended, I consider it ill advised.

I found it particularly peculiar that the sauces, cheese and toppings for the flat bread were stored in the salad bar next to the salad bar items. Being a Chef myself, I know for sure that land based health inspectors would frown on that. Not a place I need to visit again anytime soon.

Daily and evening entertainment (other than pool side) seems to be more and more centered around money making venues: Bingo - set of cards $69.00 WTF?, auctions, watch seminar, designer introductions, health and beauty seminars all with the pitch for products, exhausting sidewalk sales of trinkets, watches, bags and so on.

Where are the "Enrichment Seminars", Cooking Demos, Guest Speakers, Trivia Games (not the overcrowded game show on Deck 4 in front of Quasar where only 100 people can actually see something.

Room Attendant: When we arrived the room was dusty, the carpet riddled with crumbles, black mold under the tiles in the shower, no bathrobes, no ice bucket or ice water...

After asking for the black mold to be removed, our attendant said he had to get "stronger stuff". The next morning, the mold area was cleaned and shiny, revealing all the other tiles that had not been cleaned and were still dull and grey. He did the minimum and that seemed to be his mantra.

During the course of the cruise toiletries were only refilled when asked and one day the toilet paper holder was completely empty. We got a jar of ice water on day 6 and the fruits were changed once. Pitiful performance.
Since I had gratuities included I could not even make a point of "not rewarding" such mediocre service.

Now to the main complaint. On the first day we attended the mandatory "drill" and made our way down to the theater to muster station A 3. A sign was prominently displayed on the left side of the theater Deck 5.
After entering the theater we were told to go to the other (right) side of the theater. 
Arriving there, we were ushered downstairs to Deck 4. I mentioned that my wife just had two knee replacements
this year but NOBODY cared or listened. Slowly making it down to Deck 4, we were told to take another set of stairs and sit close to the stage. I refused and my wife and I sat down on the handicapped seats on top of the staircase. A young man in a yellow vest came and rudely asked us to move on. After I explained that we had a handicapped room, her turned for a moment, came back a few seconds later and once again rudely asked me (I just had recent back surgery) to get up from my seat he had somebody "more deserving". I got up, stood behind my wife for the remainder of the drill. When the drill ended, like everyone else, we attempted to leave and the same person
ordered us to sit down/ stay put, because the theater would be emptied from the front onward. I looked around and saw people getting up everywhere and moving in all directions after seeing that, I had it with the guy and asked
for his name (the name tag was obstructed by the yellow vest).

He gave me a smirk and a pretentious grin and said his name was ALEX. Before I could ask anything else he quickly walked away into the leaving crowds.

I addressed the issue with the customer service desk and was told that a "Safety Officer" would get in touch with me once they found out who Alex was. I got a follow up call 24 hrs later asking if I had been contacted and when I said nobody did, I was told it would be arranged right away. That was the last time I heard from anybody about this issue.

We did a lot of cruises with Celebrity and it will not keep me from doing another one, but this experience leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and should have been appropriately addressed by the individuals in charge on
the ship. I understand the a mandatory drill needs to follow a certain protocol but that is no excuse to behave like a jerk and overlook basic decency towards people with disabilities (even if not apparent or obvious).