This was my first Celebrity Cruise and I had very high expectations based on the reviews and friends who had traveled on this line. We didn't have any particular destination in mind but had had such a wonderful time with our children on an Alaskan cruise the prior year (Star Princess) that we looked for a ship and a destination that would appeal to all of us. When I read about the Olympic Dining Room on the Millennium, I decided that this was worth seeing (it has the wood panels from the dining room of the Olympic, a sister ship to the Titanic). The Caribbean sounded like a relaxing way to enjoy our family too, but it was not the primary reason for booking this vacation.

Imagine how shocked I was to find out that they had switched cruise ships upon arrival at the ship. We were never notified. When we complained, they read from their policy manual...not a good sign. Believe me, I would have changed plans if I had known that we would have a substitute ship, as this was not about the itinerary but the ship itself.

My children were very upset that we had come this far and weren't going to board so we decided to go ahead. We discovered that the service was generally worse than we experienced on Princess...My husband is a pretty easy going guy but even he said it didn't compare. On the first night, they had all the dinner reservations mixed up and basically told us to go away and come back the following night (ie. go eat in the buffet). If it weren't for one especially thoughtful waiter who pulled us into a different entrance and found us a table, we would have been furious. He basically said the guy in charge was a moron. Read more