Celebrity Millennium Review

PENNY PINCHING AND PANDERING

Review for Asia Cruise on Celebrity Millennium
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cruisersoz
6-10 Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Dec 2014
Cabin: Aqua Class

This was our third cruise with Celebrity, the second on the Millennium and the first leg of B2B cruises around Asia. My wife and I, as Elite members, were attracted back to the Millennium by the loyalty perks, the interesting itinerary and the overall high standards of service, food and entertainment. In many ways we were disappointed with the cruise, Compared with our Honolulu to Sydney cruise 2 years ago, Celebrity seemed to be on a campaign of belt-tightening at the expense of its guests. Little things like the absence of chocolates on the pillow at night and free bottled water for disembarking guests. We were cruising in the hot tropics for goodness sake where dehydration can become a real issue yet if you wanted water to take ashore, you had to purchase it at the gangway. Of course, you could also take it from your room but not at the outrageous price of $US6.25 per bottle! It would have been nice to see a little more consideration for the well-being of guests. What really took the cake was Celebrity’s complete and utter disregard for an updated US and Australian Government travel warning for Bali. Issued on 3 January, the travel warning advised that you are to “exercise a high degree of caution in Indonesia, including Bali, at this time due to the high threat of terrorist attack”. While I was not personally concerned about going ashore in Bali, I felt that the cruise line had an obligation to pass this information onto guests. I approached Shore Excursions and alerted a staff member to the warning. Couldn’t care less pretty well described the response.... I was told to....”go and tell Guest Relations about it”. My response was that this is your job, not mine. The warning was never telegraphed to guests. Thankfully everyone returned safely but had there been an incident, Celebrity may have found itself liable for not passing on this warning to its guests. I know which legal team I’d like to be on! It raises the question of whether Celebrity really cares about the welfare of its guests when faced with a potential loss of revenue from cancelled shore excursions. Time was on their side and they sat on their hands!

Christmas at sea promised to be an exciting time. But oh, how disappointed we were. For fear of alienating a small religious majority, “Merry Christmas” was barely uttered. It was more like “Happy Holidays”. Apart from decorations in the Deck 3 Guest Relations area, the ship was almost entirely devoid of Christmas decorations, Christmas themes and Christmas cheer. Get real Celebrity..... if this was your home town, there would be hell to pay! To those guests who don’t celebrate Christmas, find another cruise ship to travel on at Christmas time or simply take it on the chin. Even in Vietnam, a communist run country with 80% of the population Buddhists, Christmas decorations and cheer were in abundance. As for Christmas dinner in Metropolitan, what a debacle. No Christmas decorations on the tables... where was the tinsel and holly, the processed turkey slices were dry and barely edible and the plum pudding was non-existent. I asked about plum pudding only to be directed to some dessert item which the waiter described as “like plum pudding”. What a pathetic imitation. The Food and Beverage Manager should have walked the plank after that dreadful experience and he should have taken every single tea bag on the ship with him! “Teabags” you may ask? The “Fields and Select” teabags were disgraceful. I suppose when you put lychee extract in a English Breakfast teabag you can expect something different .... and different it was! One teabag produced a weak cup of dishwater. Two teabags produced a slightly stronger cup of dishwater. For heaven’s sake, who in the Celebrity management chain is responsible for selection of teabags? They were tasteless rubbish causing my wife and I to scour the supermarket shelves in Vietnam to try and find “real teabags”. We settled on Dilmah and duly took our own teabags to meals. Even at the “Elegant Afternoon Tea”, the same old Fields and Select teabags surfaced. It took the “elegance” out of the afternoon. Was this Celebrity once again settling for the lowest price teabag with a cute boutique name in a fine felt lined wooden box?

A word about the smoking policy on the ship. I banged on about this after each of my Celebrity cruises and I’ll say it again.... BAN SMOKING on the ship. Again, it is Celebrity pandering to the minority by allowing smoking in dedicated areas on the port side. When most countries and states are taking a hard line on smoking in areas adjacent to where food is served, Celebrity still allows smoking on the port side rear deck of Ocean Cafe. Why can’t Celebrity get with the emerging trend and completely ban smoking? Again I suspect that it all to do with revenue raising.

Cabin Review

Aqua Class

Cabin A1

The only problem with the cabin was the noise from about 6am as staff moved the deck furniture around the thallasotherapy pool area on Deck 10. Whilst an Aqua class cabin it felt little different to Concierge class but did come with access to Blu Restaurant which in my view is worth the extra money.

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