This ship reflects Celebrity's usual strengths: excellent food; a mature, stylish focus; low-key on-board experience. The big surprise was the extraordinary cuisine related to Aqua class' Blu restaurant. Aqua class passengers are assigned to this restaurant (although they can still go to the main dining room). The cuisine in Blu is on a level of gourmet specialty restaurants and the service is impeccable -- the staff offered to make me a custom specific dinner based on my desired dishes.

I cannot figure out why the designers spent so much space on the much touted lawn; if you wanted to experience lawns, why you would be on a ship? The pools and related facilities are fairly standard (which mean classy). But there are no salt water pools or the delightful Thelasapools from the earlier Celebrity models (a major disappointment). The rooms are similar to other Celebrity ships although the bathrooms deserve particular note: the design is greatly improved and the use of the small space actually makes the bathroom experience pleasurable. Aqua class has showers with multiple jets, a nice touch.

The programming was typical Celebrity: light on itinerary-based on-board enrichment programs; lots of group games; fully produced shows (on this cruise, the performances and staging was at considerably lower level than previous shows experiences); good specialty acts. The new art auction provider appears to have less of a stock of diverse and interesting arts making the auctions end up with little to no bidding. Read more