We were with four friends; all of us have cruised before two of them, like us, with Celebrity. We are all in our early seventy's, are active experienced travellers who enjoy foreign parts, good company, dancing, shows, and the occasional tipple. Each couple did there own thing on the cruise for most of the time meeting up for lunch and dinner and getting together for shows and occasionally for events and shore trips. This review is a consensus of all our opinions and our collective and individual experiences.

Our own first sight of the Eclipse was impressive but annoyingly prolonged as it was from the traffic jam coming in to Southampton. Clearly not Celebrity's fault, there were two other cruise ships leaving at the same time as the Eclipse and the Southampton boat show was on next door. After spending nearly an hour to do the last 3 miles we finally made it and fortunately, our getting on the ship was achieved with ease. We were however pleased that we had little hand luggage, as the walk to the ship from the car park was for some of us quite long enough.

The welcoming glass of champagne is a nice idea but in reality at that point, we think most passengers just wanted to get to their cabins as much gulping was in evidence. Read more