Our first cruise was some 10 years ago on Celebrity's Mercury from San Diego via the Panama Canal to Miami. We said that over the years it was the best cruise we ever had. A dozen cruises later with various companies we've just returned from our second Celebrity cruise which we now think was the worst cruise we've ever had. Embarkation / disembarking was the tops but the bit in between was a most miserable experience. We always use the *Windjammer* type of restaurant which has always been self-service. Not on the Century it isn't !! You join the line to be served miniscule meals from beneath opaque domes through which you can't see the food before you are served. The food was no better than a factory canteen menu. It was awful. We never use formal dining rooms anymore owing to it taking two hours to eat dinner being regaled by bores and braggarts about their homes/ children / money / jobs. No, not for us thank you very much. The restaurant we used was open for breakfast and lunch but never for dinner so dinner every night was burger,pizza or pasta.The restaurant staff were surly and unfriendly and spent much of the time getting in people's way. One night we were treated to the spectacle of one of the dining room staff cleaning the restaurant ceiling with a duster atop a long handled broom whilst the cruisers were eating dinner ! The entertainment in the theatre, what little there was, bordered on the pathetic. The dancing / singing troupe was the standard you would expect in your local amateur drama group. They did their best I suppose with what little talent they had. One night the theatre, 1500 seats with a sound / light system which must have cost millions of dollars was reduced to showing a movie ! What a waste. Celebrity must also take into account that many people still smoke but are treated by this cruise line as little better than lepers to be shunned and avoided. Aside from a small corner in the disco at night there wasn't a single location inside the ship which allowed the smokers shelter from the elements. We were reduced to using the two small areas poolside on the port side of the vessel which were perishingly cold. We shivered whilst most of the bars inside the ship were completely empty. Our room on the ship couldn't be faulted. It was kept spotlessly clean by the unobtrusive steward who, if he walked into this room, I wouldn't recognize. He was tipped accordingly. I enjoy impersonal service like that. I don't want him to pretend he's my friend. If you enjoy old fashioned cruising where nobody seems intent on enjoying themselves and a vessel on which you walk around after 9pm and resembles the Marie Celeste then Century is the ship for you. It's not for me...never again.In the future it's Royal Caribbean, yes I know it's Celebrity's parent company but they're like chalk and cheese.