This was our second cruise with Celebrity previous one was on Reflection.. We flew to Rome from our local airport with Jet2.com, private transfer to our hotel was smooth and quick. Spent a couple of days seeing some of the sites of Rome very hard work !!! We were staying at Domus Best near the Vatican, nice hotel breakfast could have been better but adequate. We shared a transfer to the port and embarkation was quick and painless. Sat down in Oceanview cafe after a quick sample of the wine package and hey presto cabin is available. Our concierge class cabin 2108 was chosen because of the huge balcony which although it is almost completely covered in was ideal to stay out of the very hot afternoon sun. On our last Reflection cruise we did Aqua class and to be honest did not notice the few differences apart from Blu restaurant which had not blown us away before. Cabin ample room, good shower and cabin attendant kept it pristine (we do think Celebrity standards of cleanliness are outstanding).

We used the speciality restaurants most evenings, loved Murano, Tuscan Grill, found Silk Harvest to be a bit of a muddle we thought the attempt at Asian fusion did not work and would have been better had they stuck to classic dishes of each region instead of trying to mix them, with spices it does not work and dishes are confusing. Service in all was excellent. Entertainment was poor in our opinion, singers in bars not very good did not visit any shows so can't comment, the early afternoon music round the pool area was awful monotonous bass beat so i asked the DJ to play something different at a lower decibel his reply was "its not loud and no one else has complained" black mark there!!

Excursions we did on organised tours (well done Grtfldave) as we find the ship ones to be way overpriced. Drinks package we upgraded to the premium as we have done before but this was one of our main not good ratings. In the Gastropub which has replaced Cellar Masters they stock only 4 white wines, Silk Harvest had only 2 whites by the glass and all the other bars seemed to have a very small range. The only place with an extensive wine list was in Murano and yes most were more than $13. We tried to use the MDR on the formal night but when we saw a queue of 40 people waiting and heard tales of a 50 minute wait with a pager we went back to Murano which cost us another $90. We had room service for breakfast and it was very nice apart from the morning it did not arrive when i contacted the cabin steward he offered to sort it out but we declined as we were on a trip that day and didn't want to wait and went to the buffet. Read more