Celebrity Millennium Review

Pondering the advantages and disadvantages of the Millenium

Review for Alaska Cruise on Celebrity Millennium
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token65
2-5 Cruises • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Jul 2011
Cabin: Inside Stateroom 9

The ship itself is easy to find your way around on, not a lot of little spaces to escape. DEcor is understated, veering more toward boring than elegant (and I'm not a glitzy person). Ship shows some wear; carpeting worn, exterior paint trim needs touch-ups, that kind of thing. Large 2-floor cocktail lounge mid-ship went largely unused; should be able to do something with that space! Stateroom hallways seemed wider than industry standard. Smell of cigarette smoke on stairs often - I don't know where from.The stateroom was adequate. We booked an interior cabin, and were placed on the 7th floor forward. Cabin had plenty of room for two passengers, and room for a third - except at night, when the 3rd person's space is a pullout from the chair. I don't know how you'd get around that at night to get to the bathroom ... Mattresses are comfortable, and room included 2-drawer bedside table and lamp for each bed. Plenty of shelf space and drawers in the cabin, but storage in the bathroom is mostly under the sink and inconvenient. I had to ask for a real hair dryer (the room had one of those old wall-unit ones that look like a vacuum hose and don't work well). Room steward insisted that only the suites had actual hair dryers, but after several minutes said he would try to find one. Miraculously, a hair dryer (that worked really well) appeared by the end of the first night. Room has two robes, and (ours at least) had an umbrella. Room was equipped with a smallish flat-screen TV. Room was cleaned twice daily, but water carafe and ice bucket were never filled. Towels and linens good, but not luxurious (pool towel were, though).The food on the ship was good. Dining room service was in general very good, but friendliness and attentiveness varied. We ate in the dining room every night save one, and experienced both seating times and several different tables (we requested a change of time once, then requested a table change, and on another night missed our assigned time) - staff was extremely accommodating of table/time changes. Food in the dining room was good to very good. Slow-cook mains like lamb tagine, rack of lamb and short ribs were best. Lobster night was half of a rock lobster and other seafood. Some sides were repeated during the week. Breads were very good. Desserts were quite good; mostly European-style pastries. No cake. Ice cream was okay; too icy for my tastes - more like ice milk. Everything is made on the ship except for the hot dog/burger buns. It would be a great service if the menu for the evening was available somewhere on the ship; it would be great if it was posted on the TV, or at least available for perusing at Guest Services.Ocean Cafe (the cafeteria) was okay, but the menu didn't seem to vary much. Ate there for breakfast daily, lunch twice, and toured around the station at dinner time once or twice. Breakfast was extensive, but virtually the same every day. Included a British breakfast station, Asian station, poached egg station, and waffle station. Yes, the waffles were very good, but not always hot, and there was no whipped butter and syrup was served cold. Lunch included an Indian station (quite good, but a bit repetitive), a pizza station, and a sandwich/Panini station. Dinner included a sushi station (good selection, but wasabi dry and nori tough). Unlike some cruise lines, there didn't seem to be dining room food available in the cafe.Dessert buffet - meh. Nothing remarkable, but at least our fellow passengers didn't make it a mob scene. But really ... an entire table devoted to jello? JELLO?Brunch - Quite tasty, and a lot of variety. Many stations set up; didn't see (or taste) anything innovative. Seemed like they took breakfast and lunch from the Ocean Cafe and staged it all in the dining room.Cova Cafe my favorite place to eat, even though it didn't serve full meals! It's on deck 5, across from where the specialty coffees are served. Food is kept behind a display case with an attendant, but it is free - many people assume there is a charge for the food there. Breakfast was pastries, including 3 varieties of croissants, and there were REAL croissants, and not available elsewhere on the ship. Lunch was small sandwiches, which were very good, and mid-afternoon featured European pastries. Evenings the Cova served tapas, varying one or two a night. There were about 10 selections daily at all times of the day, with some variation. Stay for the string trio performance in the evening. Oh, and there are 2 or 3 help-yourself cookie jars on the bar, available all day. Thalassotherapy pool was really nice. Never too crowded, even on sea days. The large pool was warm and sides (reclining seating areas) were bubbly; there were also two whirlpools in the area. Reminded me of the spa on the NCL ship that I had to pay for - but no charge on this ship! Supposed to be adults-only, and seemed to be adhered to. Changing rooms on each side (single sex) included a sauna and showers.Very relaxing atmosphere. I do wish the lounge chairs reclined. Only drawback was that the t-pool area was adjacent to the smoking area. There was a sliding glass door, but it didn't block all of the smoke smell. Blecch. Kind of didn't match with the relaxing/healthy atmosphere. Toured the Persian Gardens (okay, for some reason I wanted to say "Olive Garden"), but didn't see a reason to pay for what you got.Entertainment was definitely our least favorite part of the trip. Most of it was amateurish. The singers and dancers had little stage presence or range, and the set they used was repeated from show to show. I've seen more inspired choreography performed by gifted middle schoolers (honestly). The a capella group seemed unable to project, and had a limited repertoire. The bands were all right, but the performances lackluster. The magician was pretty awful. You could see him palming things during his sleight of hand demonstrations. The comedian was pretty good, although his material wasn't always original. The pianist/singer and guitarist/singer were each bad enough to make us avoid places when they were performing (even in my beloved Cova). The best musicians were the string trio, Fiore. They delivered outstanding technical performances. I wish they were better appreciated.Activities seemed kind of lacking. Empty lounges during the day, an activities staff that I rarely saw and never got to know (aside from the ever-present director - "G'day, Ian"). Definitely not the usual high-energy, outgoing and enthusiastic staff. Tried to join a word game once, but was told it was being set up for the teenagers. Participated in a lackluster pub quiz. Would have loved to do karaoke, but never saw it offered.Casino was busier than other ships I'd been on. Lots of penny and nickel slots, and the casino was smoke-free. Contemporary music plays in the casino (Pink, etc - a welcome change).Cocktails were very good, sometimes inventive, and featured fresh fruit. They were pretty reasonably priced, too. Bartenders were never put out if we didn't order anything, either - we never felt obligated. Bar service was quite good. Room service I only ordered once; and was put off by the experience. There is a room service menu, and it states there that you can also order from the dining room menu during dining hours. One evening we had studied the menu posted outside the dining room, and only the appetizers looked interesting (oysters Rockefeller and seafood risotto), so we thought we’d order those from room service and hit the sushi later. There were two phone numbers listed. I called one of them (after 6pm, during dining room hours), but no one picked up. I then called the other number, and Guest Services picked up. I stated that I wanted to place a room service order from that evening’s menu, and started to list what I wished to order. The woman interrupted me and asked if I only wanted to order from the dining room menu. When I stated yes, she told me that it would have to go through my room steward – although clearly I already knew what I wanted to order, as she had interrupted me while I was telling her.About 15 minutes later, the room steward knocked on my door, but seemed confused that I wanted to order room service. He kept mentioning cleaning the room, and I kept telling him that I wanted to order room service. I told him that I knew what I wanted, but he said I had to wait for him to bring me a menu (I thought maybe it was an order form or something). He came back about 10 minutes later with a menu. He said that he would be back to take my order and handed me a piece of stationery for me to write my order on. He then left to clean someone’s room. He returned in about 15 minutes, took the piece of paper with my order written on it and came back 10-15 minutes later with the food. It was hot and tasty, but we were nearly late for our evening activity.I actually thought about ordering room service on the last night of our cruise, after a late packing session. The daily newsletter had said that room service was available until 1 AM (I think), but when the stewards had cleaned the room earlier in the evening, they took the service book out of the room! So much for that plan.Secrets of the Millenium – the food in the Cova Café (chocolate croissants, especially and the lunchtime sandwiches), and the t-pool. T-pool is a great (warm and uncrowded) spot for glacier watching.Highs – food, especially the Cova Café, drinks, service, time in port (we seemed to spend longer in port than other ships), the Fiore string trio, and the t-pool. Bonus points for no announcements and no hard sell of services! Also, not gargantuan tribes of kids running around – yay! We enjoyed the company of our fellow cruisers, too.Lows – entertainment, room service experience, Ocean Café food.Will I book Celebrity again? Probably not if it’s an itinerary that includes a lot of sea days. Not enough to do, and not with bad entertainment. And not if my kids are going – they are both in their twenties, and there wouldn’t have been much that appealed to them.

Cabin Review

Inside Stateroom 9

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