My husband and I along with our sister and brother-in-law just returned from our 5 night Celebrity Century cruise. The weather was a bit cool but delightful compared to our Mid-Atlantic February temperatures. We arrived a day early to ensure a smooth start to our vacation in case we had any weather delays. We spent an enjoyable night in Ft.Lauderdale at the Hilton Garden Inn and had a great dinner at Shooters on the canal. Our embarkation was pleasant with no wait even when we arrived a little late after touring the area a bit on the way to the port. Once we arrived in our aft cabins on the Sports Deck we had to ask for our bed and pillow covers to be removed because they appeared dirty and considerably worn. (as it turned out other guests on the same floor had the same complaint.) Please note that we have never asked for anything like this in the past...we are not fussy people. So with that done we proceeded to eat a quick lunch as we were famished. We couldn't help but comment as we ate how unengaged the servers were. They were aloof, rude and looked bothered by our presence. Unfortunately this was the prevailing attitude the entire cruise. I must say our cabin stewards were more pleasant. But all of the waiters and servers that we encountered were the worst we have ever had on any of our cruises. We have been on 4 Royal Caribbean and 1 other Celebrity cruise. We wanted to take our sister and brother-in-law on Celebrity to show them what we thought, based on our prior cruise aboard Celebrity Constellation in 2001, would be a cut above with a higher level of service and food. Unfortunately this was not to be.

We chose aft cabins because we love them and we knew on this ship our view would be partially obstructed by the tarp that covers the bar below. This bothered us more than we thought it would but we had taken that gamble so it was no big deal. (And the music at night was nice). However the maintenance crew started grinding on the deck right above us and created such a mess of sawdust and debris that we couldn't use our balconies at all the last few days and this was a BIG deal. We complained and they would send someone to clean it up but it did no good as they just keep grinding away above us. They did agree to credit us reasonably for our inconvenience but it did not make up for the loss of the balcony use.

The ports were fun..Key West where we toured the Hemingway House which I would recommend and then lunch, shopping and a cocktail or two...what's not to love about Key West? Grand Cayman where we did the tourist thing riding a local bus to Hell and sending postcards and then an afternoon at beautiful 7 Mile Beach before shopping at the harbor. You can snorkel right from the beach in shallow water and see some pretty fish and there are plenty of places to rent chairs, umbrellas and have lunch. Read more