OVERVIEW: This cruise was booked as a last minute deal for us (as we typically like to seek out). Originally, we were hoping to sail with Celebrity based on great experiences in the past, but this ship offered both the price and itinerary we were seeking. However, for an “older” ship (2001), it did not disappoint at all and I would say we were generally pleasantly surprised all along the way because of lowered expectations to begin with.
ITINERARY: ( A+ ) This was a rock-star itinerary to say the least. There was only 1 sea day, and all other days had very exciting ports with beautiful beaches. That is primarily why we chose this cruise. The only “downside” of this is that it is easy to get tired when you don’t have the odd sea day to “decompress,” but overall this is a great problem to have.
SHIP: ( B+ / A- ) We were actually surprised at the generally good condition of the ship despite the age. Some of the areas looked dated, such as the carpeting or the lack of technological amenities (e.g. photographs do not automatically show up in your room TV as they do on other ships, although you can order room service from the TV now). Some of the chairs in the main dining room were fraying, but by and large, we were impressed at how well the ship had been maintained given the age. There is no shortage of activities to do on AOTS, and we were not able to get to everything despite having a week on board.
As far as inside cabins go, I found this to be fairly “spacious” and was generally clean and had lots of space to store bags and items for two people despite the only 160 sq ft size or so. The tiling in the bathroom was a nice touch, and we had an excellent room steward. Location was also good because it was away from the noise yet close to the elevators. The reason the room was not a solid A is because throughout the cruise, there seemed to be a musty smell in the room that could not be cleaned. The room staff shampoo’d the carpets and did a deep cleaning which seemed to help a little, but still the smell remained. I suspect it might be the HVAC needs to be cleaned because I know the room steward did all he could to get rid of the smell. And it wasn’t a particularly bad smell, more on the annoying side I would say.