Having cruised a numerous times with Princess, NCL, P&O, Royal Caribbean and Riviera Cruises (down the Nile), this experience was average at best with some areas of excellence and some very poor.
Firstly I appreciate that Celebrity is a Greek Cruise Line (the 'X' standing for the first letter of the Greek owners family name Chandris) and merged into the Royal Caribbean brand by the same ...
We arrived in Honolulu the evening before our cruise and had a hotel a short distance from the cruise port. From the time we check our bags with a porter, through security and check-in, we were on the ship in less than 30 minutes.
We have been on the Radiance of the Seas several times before, but found the ship in need of a makeover. The ship looks "tired". Compared to newer, more modern ...
Loved the Hawaii portion of the itinerary. After a great time in the islands, we headed out for 5 days of cold, cloudy weather. Not the fault of RC, but just the same, plans for swimming and sunning were dead on arrival.
All of that aside, no one on board seemed to know the schedule. I asked what night is formal night, no one knew, not even the customer service desk!
This was was our ...
Review of Celebrity Eclipse
We tried out the Eclipse on its ten day journey from Hawaii to Vancouver. We usually cruise on Princess so it was inevitable that we tended to compare the two.
The Eclipse is a very elegant ship but we found that some of the venues were a bit sterile feeling, in particular the main dining room and the Quasar lounge. The main dining room is far too crowded, too ...
We are a couple in our early 60's, newly retired. We have done this itinerary twice before. Each time the cost is higher, but the # days is shortened. This was a B2B cruise for us, since we boarded the ship in Sydney Australia for the TransPacific repositioning. We stayed in the same cabin (9616), and had the same fabulous cabin steward (Boren Franover), so we were very happy with the ...
We have booked Aqua Class cabins since introduced on the Solstice. Check in was easy, enjoyable (with happy checkers) and fast. Then check in process took maybe a total of 10 minutes.
The embarkation was handled very poorly. A woman named Francine (who was very clearly stressed out and unorganized) was directing the embarkation process. She herded us to a seating area she told us was for Aqua ...
.We have been on more than 20 Celebrity cruises, but this was our first cruise on Celbrity Solstice. We wanted to see Hawaii, as well as enjoy a repositioning cruises. We have always enjoyed the evening's entertainment, especially the production shows, but not this time. The production shows were the worst we have ever seen on a Celebrity cruise.
The food was fine, but if you want ...
This was our first repositioning cruise. Wenenjoy sea days, don't get sea sick and looked forward to the 5 day voyage from Maui to Vancouver.
However, the strong head winds and cool temperatures meant the wind across the deck often exceeded 40 knots which made all outdoor activities difficult. We enjoyed the mini golf but the wind and rolling boat made it a bit of a lottery.
The problem was, ...
In general, we found the ship is showing its age. Chairs in the Colony Club show a great deal of wear and tear, and there was a musty smell in the corridor, on deck 8 and on many others.
The service and food was below standard on too many days. It was often disorganized - long wait times in line, refusing to change reservation times by stating venues were full, but they were not full.
Our ...
We were traveling with friends who were celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary. It was their first cruise. I kept having to tell them that "it usually isn't like this." Total chaos getting onto ship. Although I understand it was not the ship's fault that it took over 3 hours standing in the hot warehouse for 3+ hours with 2000+ people with no water or air, someone should have been able to ...