CELEBRITY MILLENNIUM 2/25/07

This was our fifth cruise since my wife and I discovered the joy of cruising in January 2003. This was our first cruise on Celebrity in addition to 2 on Princess and 1 each on Royal Caribbean and Carnival. Embarkation in Fort Lauderdale was excellent. We arrived at the ship at about 12:30, greeted nicely with champagne and were in our cabin by 1PM. Since we booked rather late we were relegated to an outside cabin on Deck 2.so we were pleasantly surprised at the size of the cabin, and while it did show some wear (the carpeting especially showed its age) the cabin was clean and relatively roomy. Our safe, however, was left locked by the cabin's previous occupants. This resulted in the first of four trips to Guest Relations. To summarize, after 2 phone calls almost four hours, we finally visited the Guest Relations desk. The safe was then opened within a half hour Communications aboard the Millennium, at least in our case, seemed to be a problem. After dinner on the third night (Tuesday) we found a Bon Voyage gift, a dining package to the Olympic dining room, in our cabin. We immediately went to the Olympic Restaurant to make reservations and were told that since we were booking so late into the cruise, the only available seating they could offer were either at 6pm or after 9:30pm on Saturday evening, the last night of the cruise. The following morning, from San Juan, we telephoned the people who sent us the dining package to thank them for their thoughtfulness. We learned that the Bon Voyage gift was purchased in early January, seven weeks before our sailing date, and that they were assured that notification would be in our cabin upon embarkation. Back to the Guest Relations desk for the second time! We related our situation, the G.R. rep confirmed the purchase date of the package and assured us that she would remedy the situation. I'm happy to report that within an hour the Olympic dining room maitre'd telephoned us and booked us for 7pm Thursday evening. I still do not understand why we were unable to initially reserve that seating. We encountered 2 other problems for which we had to visit the Guest Relations desk. Celebrity does not automatically bill each guest for the recommended daily gratuities. Instead guests must complete a form authorizing $10.50 ($73.50 for the week) per day per guest to be charged to one's account. We submitted the form on Wednesday morning. On Thursday I reviewed our accounts on our in-room tv and, to my surprise, both my account and that of my wife showed a balance of $147.00. Back to the Guest Relations desk for the third time. It was explained that all charges for any guests in a cabin appear on each account, but only on the in room tv. I still don't understand the logic behind that, but the interim invoice G.R. printed was correct. Still, a totally unnecessary trip to the G.R. desk. The final trip to the G.R. desk was on Saturday morning. We had, on Thursday evening, enjoyed a wonderful dinner in the Olympic Restaurant (more about that later). I again accessed the in room tv account and noted that we had been charged for the Olympic dinner on Thursday night, but the credit resulting from the bon voyage gift which had been purchased in January was nowhere to be found. Another trip to the G.R. desk, more apologies and another corrected interim bill.

Now for the ship itself. It was simply beautiful and for such a large vessel, very easy to navigate. We attended the Cruise Critic gathering on Monday afternoon. Derek, the Millennium's Cruise Director hosted the get-together and did a wonderful job of welcoming us and delivering a brief history of the ship. We learned that the Millennium is going to dry dock in April for renovation and upgrading. I can't say enough about Derek and his staff. He and they seemed to be everywhere all the time. They were just excellent. The entertainment was the best we have seen on a cruise. The Millennium's regular singers and dancers were wonderful and the guest entertainers were top notch. On the sea days, the pools were mobbed. Although there seemed to be enough chaises to go around, pool towels, surprisingly, were impossible to find by 11am on Saturday, our final sea day. Numerous requests to pool attendants went unanswered. My wife finally found a couple in the ladies locker room. We were assigned the first seating for dinner. The food we were served was quite unremarkable considering we had heard such great reports about Celebrity. Twice my wife and I didn't care for the menu choices and ordered the back-up salmon. Both times it arrived overcooked. The service was adequate, but nothing special. We had breakfast only once in the main dining room. The poached eggs I ordered arrived cold and hard. From that point on we chose the buffet for breakfast and lunch. The buffet, too, offered nothing special, just variations of the same food daily. Our experience in the Olympic Restaurant was fantastic. From the moment we entered the tastefully decorated restaurant we were treated royally. The service staff was attentive as well as thoroughly professional. From the tableside prepared Caesar salad, the recommended wine, to the rack of lamb and dessert the entire meal was exquisite. This was certainly a worthwhile optional meal. A few words about the ports of call. Since we visited all but Casa de Campos recently, we limited our shore excursions. As the comedian said during one of the shows, "Casa de Campos, WHY?" I'll leave it at that. As for St. Thomas, which we visited this past August, we found the prices to be significantly higher in most of the same shops where we had made purchases just several months earlier. High season, I guess, is the explanation. With the exception of liquor, we found that in many cases we could have purchased the same item at home for less. Disembarkation was excellent. Since we had driven to Fort Lauderdale, we were among the last of the groups to leave the ship. We disembarked at almost the exact time we were scheduled to and were at the off-site parking lot within 30 minutes. Overall, we experienced nothing to distinguish this cruise from any of the others, with the exception of our relatively poor experience on the Carnival Glory.