This was our first time cruising and did not know what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised. We had a very early start, as we live in the North of Scotland and had to travel by car to catch a flight from Aberdeen to Frankfurt, then another flight to Rome (Leonardo de Vinci). We were met by Celebrity staff at Rome Airport where we picked up our luggage from the carousel and left it at a drop off point (the next time we saw our luggage was when it reached our cabin). We were then shown the way to the coach and an hour later we arrived at the port of Civitavecchia. We were processed through registration and security and probably less than 20 min after arriving we were on board and being shown to our cabins.
On arrival in our cabin we were greeted by our cabin attendant. We had been booked dinner for the first sitting, and asked the Maitre De if our party of four could be seated together. We were allocated a table for 4, without any fuss. The VIP treatment continued at dinner where Hamza, the head waiter for our section, along with the assistant waiter, Ronald and Karin the Sommelier, introduced themselves.
We found the food in the MDR to be first class throughout the cruise, the menu was split into two, on the left hand side it was a fixed menu for the whole cruise with French onion soup, chicken and steak as the main dishes. On the right hand side the menu changed every night, but one could mix and match.
Our cabin 7221 was very clean and well maintained. The balcony was a great place to sit an relax before breakfast and after an excursion.