We were in cabin 9296 which seemed to be a nice location. It is said to be an upgraded cabin and the the balcony is a little larger than normal. Since the balcony is slanted towards the stern of the boat, you do not have a great view of where you are going. The room steward was excellent and it seemed like they were always cleaning.

We had the early dining in the Opus dining room and the waiter was OUTSTANDING. Couldn't ask for anyone better. The food was okay, but could have used some herbs as seasoning instead of just salt. Speaking of food, the buffet was mostly Mexican, Indian and Asian food. I won't use the word cuisine to describe it, because it wasn't fancy, nor really good. Could Celebrity think of any cheaper food to make? Breakfast was standard fare, with the highlight being the freshly carved ham station. Delicious. On previous Celebrity cruises I enjoyed the shrimp salad at lunch and would have a nice sandwich, however, no shrimp salad on this cruise. Salmon salad, egg salad or chicken salad. Again cost cutting? We did dine at the specialty restaurants and liked them, but Celebrity seemed to raise their cost from previous cruises and $45 a person seemed a bit high.

The excursions were either very good or a major disappointment. We had never been to Greece or Turkey before and were looking forward to sights we only read about or saw in pictures. In Athens, I would rate the excursion as a two out of five. Could you believe that half the excursion was a sales pitch. We were brought to one place where they made monogramed necklace and wasted about an hour and then we were dropped off in the middle of town for three hours on our own. Yes, three hours to look at various shops or go to some local museum. Tried to catch an excursion bus back to the ship but they wouldn't take us and made us wait he whole three boring hours. Similar experience with other Celebrity excursions this trip. In Pompeii we wasted one hour at a shop that made wood products and furniture and another hour where they made cameos. In Turkey they wanted us to see a sales pitch on carpets. We would have like the additional time in Pompeii instead of the sales pitch.