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Our 6th cruise and first on the Century line.
First the good. The ship was spotless, the beds were very comfortable the cabin was nice. Entertainment was fine, but not really as good as we've seen on Carnival or Royal Caribbean. Meals were good and food service in the main dining room was acceptable. Not as many dessert choices as we've seen on other lines. Poolside entertainment was average.
The not good. Bar service was horrible. Ordered a pina colada, a very simple drink, that was undrinkable. It had way too much rum and tasted horrible. At the same time we got a bad pina colada, the party sitting next to us got a strawberry daiquiri they could not drink. I've never sent a drink back and now I see 2 sent back at the same time. How can you mess up a pina colada?? Two nights later, yet another drink had to be sent back. I don't understand how a cruise ship can have bartenders who are apparently completely inept.
At the lunch service, the drink machines were a crap shoot at every meal. They have 2 machines on each side of the serving line, but they never had more than one going at any one time, creating long lines for tea, lemonade or juice. Why have 2 machines setting out if you are only going to use 1? Just set up both machines and be done with it.
This little incident sealed the deal for Celebrity for me. I ordered a caramel macchiato at the coffee bar on the third day of the cruise. They could not make it for me because they had run out of caramel. I know this is a little, seemingly insignificant incident and it sounds petty even now, but how can you set up a coffee bar and then run out of caramel? I mean it is the 3rd day of a 5 day cruise, you have about 10 items on your coffee bar menu and you run out of a major ingredient? It was this lack of attention to detail that I found troubling throughout the cruise.
No midnight buffet, no 24 hour food bar, ice machines that worked about 1/2 the time and tea and juice machines that were shut off at night. These little things don't mean anything by themselves, but when you put them altogether, they make for a disappointing cruise.
Had to cancel the port of call at Grand Cayman. A note found under our door the day we were to stop there said the Cayman port authority closed the port due to weather conditions. The weather seemed fine to all of us. They substituted Key West, where it was about 25 degrees cooler than the weather around Grand Cayman. I understand the cruise line has no control over the weather, but shouldn't they look at a weather forecast when choosing an alternate port? We had to go through very rough seas to get back to Key West and a lot of people on the ship, including myself, got seasick. It seems to me that Cozumel would have been a better choice. Of course, I have no clue as to the behind the scenes work that has to be done to find another port at the last minute. I guess I'm just venting over my disappointment in not getting to go to Grand Cayman, one of my favorite Caribbean islands.
Regardless of my disappointment in missing Grand Cayman, I just wasn't impressed with Celebrity Century. I was expecting a lot more than they delivered. If they would just pay more attention to the little details, I may have had a different opinion.
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