Background: This was our 13th cruise in the last 3 years, but our first Baltic cruise. It followed a transatlantic crossing on the Celebrity Constellation, so we were constantly comparing the experiences on the two ships. And, frankly, the Constellation came off second best by a large margin.
Travel to Port of Embarkation: We got off the Century in Amsterdam and spent a few days there. The weather was great and the tulips were in bloom! We flew to Gatwick and rented a car for a couple of days. It rained on us, and this was the only rain we saw on the entire trip of over one month. We returned the rental car (Enterprise) to Colchester, which was the closest office to the port of Harwich. I would not recommend this rental because of the high dropoff charge. We then had to take a train from Colchester to Harwich.
Embarkation: The train station in Harwich is right in the cruise terminal - very convenient. Celebrity checkin was not busy and we were on the ship in under 20 minutes, although we had to wait until the room was ready after 1:00 PM. People who checked in after 1:00 PM said that the lines were long and it was slow, but we did not see this.