Celebrity Century Review
May 18-25, 2014 Celebrity Century Vancouver-Alaska-Vancouver 7 day cru
Rating by category
Additional details
The Century is a bit of a grande dame at the end of her refurbishment cycle and as such has a few age spots. It is a moot point now that the Century is leaving the Celebrity fleet in 2015. Indeed the décor and the interior spaces are not comparable to the Las Vegas opulence of the mega ships. Many Century cruisers have negatively commented on the state of the Century giving the impression the ship is in a state of shabby disrepair. This is not true. Yes there are rust spots here and there; some faded signs, patches on the pool deck and upper deck walking areas and a few anomalies in staterooms such as chipped laminate or blemishes in bathroom tiles however the ship is very clean and the maintenance staff are very visible in their daily chores cleaning interior and exterior spaces.
Century is not a small ship but it is dwarfed by the Solstice class. Century takes 1850 +/- passengers aboard but in our 7 days we never felt crowded with the exception of glacier viewing and that’s true aboard any ship.
Century is an ideal ship for port intensive itineraries. It lacks the abundance of onboard distractions of the larger ships which can leave a lot of spare time during seas days. During our 2 sea days we kept ourselves busy by “whale walking” which was walking the perimeter of the ship to burn off calories while spotting whale spouts and porpoises. We engaged our fellow passengers who were extremely approachable and we had many fun conversations.
Cabin Review
We had aft balcony stateroom 8233 by pure luck. We had booked an inside but saw a deal we couldn’t pass up to upgrade to a veranda guarantee. It is a family veranda stateroom and the oddity is the double bed is against the wall on one side. It cannot be separated. One person has to climb over the other to get out of bed which can result in some interesting and rudely awakening hand placement in the middle of the night. The other half of the stateroom features a fold out couch and upper berth folded against the wall. A sliding panel can separate the two areas. At 194 square feet it is larger than the 175 square foot standard port or starboard veranda staterooms with the same sized veranda at 49-ish square feet. The concierge suites have deeper verandas, not wider. Why did we like aft versus port or starboard? The aft cabins give 180 degrees views from port to starboard and they are protected from the wind. The sound of the propwash is calming white noise like ocean waves. It was odd that of the 40 or so aft veranda cabins we only saw 2 or 3 others in use and we sat on ours a lot. Go grab a blanket from the pool deck. Drape over your lap during cooler days and we had a day where we wore shorts on our veranda which was incredible for May.Vibration and noise. There was some concern that the aft staterooms would be susceptible to vibrational noise. This was not true except on our very last night where we suspect something “broke”. At 1:52 AM the ship began to shudder and did so until we tied up at 6:45 AM. The MDR staff were surprised as well. They had to straighten up all the cutlery that had vibrated around the tables.Deck 8 aft staterooms are directly above the Crystal Room lounge and if you are the type that goes to the early (6PM) dinner seating and toddles off to bed by 9:30PM then directly above a lounge may not be the ideal choice. One deck separation in that location would be better. We like the 8:30 PM seating so we are not rushed and by the time we got back to our cabin around 11:30 PM there was 4 or 5 muffled songs then at 12 midnight it all shut off. It did not bother us a bit.To veranda or not veranda in AlaskaThis question is asked repeatedly in every forum. My simplest answer is yes if it is acceptable within your budget. The views at any time of day can be worth it especially if the weather is good. We originally had an inside cabin but saw a stupid good deal and rolled the dice on a balcony guarantee. We felt we won for what we paid in comparison to what we got. If you do have an inside cabin then get up on deck or to an upper lounge. Those places have the same view as Aqua, Concierge or veranda for less money. The point of cruising is to cruise and see things.