For this price range, I feel that everything should be in Tip-top shape. Celebrity's ship are way over due a facelift. I know that they are planning them, but I feel that the next year or so while we wait, I may try another cruise line, a newer ship. The service on Celebrity and the staff are always great! The food in the dining room and buffet are very hit and miss. This is another disappointment for this price level, I feel that you shouldn't have to spend extra to eat in the specialty dining to have great food. We did eat in the specialty dining. Tuscan Grill is always good, but I was so upset about getting rid of Qusine for this stupid Petite Chef- cartoon on your plate and a very mediocre meal, with only two choices- That was a rip off!!! I really missed Qusine the way it was. Our cabin was very comfortable, we felt that we had enough space. Bed very comfy, our stateroom attendant was excellent. I just felt that the cabin needed a facelift. The bathroom and furniture looked worn. I have a real bone to pick with Celebrity about their shore excursions. Do you notice that you cannot read any reviews on any of their shore excursions? I really wish you could. For that reason, I always try to book outside tours and excursions, but sometimes they seem like the best options, but we usually regret it, wishing that I had more information about what to expect. The other thing was that often we felt rushed during the day to get back to the ship and didn't feel like we had enough time to see anything. I guess this is the nature of cruising tho. I do love not having to unpack and pack to get to another location. I do love being at sea, But I think I may have to try another cruise line. Read Less

Booked this cruise 2 years ago when we were on the Eclipse in Iceland. We have done the Baltic itinerary before and love it. Things started off badly when trying to use the website which is unreliable, difficult, and has a tendency to lock you out forcing you to call and speak with a customer service person. Overall the ship is very nice - although is starting to show wear and tear. Things and amenities that used to be free are now a revenue generator. The replacement of the cafe on deck 5 with sushi on 5 is because the free sushi in the buffet area used to be so popular, Celebrity decided to charge for it. The staff was wonderful and hospitable, the entertainment was great, tours were very good to excellent, cruise director and staff were engaging, I believe the MDR to be as good if not better than the specialty restaurants excluding Murano which is excellent. One big change is the introduction of Family hour in the Solarium which is actually 2 hours and totally negates the use of the solarium by people who do not want the noise or craziness at the main pools. Also, the hours are not enforced and kids invaded starting at 2:00 in the afternoon. Pool attendants, deck supervisors enforce nothing and rules are violated, ignored, or ridiculed openly. This is important because after a busy day touring the Solarium used to be a respite - now it it is a loud unruly, unregulated playground. Loved the itinerary and Celebrity did an excellent job getting people off and on the ship. Security staff was quite engaging and welcoming - even to the point of addressing passengers by name and welcoming them :"home", nice touch. We have mad the decision not to book Celebrity until they get their website issues resolved and change their policy on the "Family Hour" at the Solarium pool. We have changed two bookings to Holland America, we have friends sailing Celebrity so we will stay current with what is going on. Read Less

We just came back from the the July 1st sailing of Celebrity Eclipse to the Baltic Sea and I must say, we had a great time. The boat was beautiful, food delicious and plentiful and the itinerary was amazing. We booked two day tour with late night add on for St Petersburg through SPB tours and our guide Max was amazing!! The remainder of the cities we toured on our own, using Celebrity shuttle, public transport or just walking! We used tour books we borrowed from the library and just followed walking tours or took public transport to see what we wanted to see. In Copenhagen, we spent the day at Tivoli Gardens, which is a 175 year old amusement park and the perfect way to end our trip. Everyone spoke English, and while we had some Euros and Rubles, a credit card worked everywhere we went. We were really fortunate to have sunny weather everywhere except St Petersburg, but we were told it rains most of the summer anyway. This was our 7th cruise and our first with Celebrity. I do enjoy their "modern luxury " attitude, doing away with dancing waiters and such. In agreeing with other reviewers, they do try to upsell specialty restaurants, but a simple "no thank you" did the trick. While they have separate restaurants for aqua class and concierge class, they are out of the way and you do not feel as if you are missing anything. I don't really understand why so many passengers prefer to be separate by choosing these classes, if you feel that why, why would you choose to vacation with 3000 other people?? I only have 2 minor complaints. One, family swim time in indoor pool was scheduled from 6-8 pm which is the same time as early dinner. The Baltics can be chilly and on sea days, it would have been nice to have some pool time with the kids. We chose not to miss dinner to take advantage of this. Second, we missed the comedians that we have seen on other cruiselines, especially the family shows. Neither of these would keep me away. We will surely travel with Celebrity again. Read Less

Set sail from Amsterdam after spending two days in it prior to going on the cruise, we loved Amsterdam and will return there at some point. We stayed at the Movenpick hotel so just a 100 yd walk to the cruise terminal. Embarkcation was relatively straightward, and we were onboard after about an hour and a half. We didnt have long to wait until our cabins were ready just after 1.00, alongside our luggage. The sail from Amsterdam to the North Sea was not the most scenic, with a lot of industry along the way. This was our first cruise with Celebrity and we were very impressed, with both the staff and crew of the Eclipse, the ship itself was kept spotless, and there is plenty of activities to keep you occupied during sea days. We didn't eat every night in the MDR but when we did we enjoyed every meal and were well looked after by Alexio and the rest of the dining room staff. If we didn't eat in the MDR we used the Oceanview Café where there is a vast choice of starters main and desserts. We also used the Mast Grill for a couple of lunches. We had signed up for the Classic package and never once felt the need to upgrade to the Premium Package, had a couple of Drambuie's, and had to sign an additional slip, but that was it. Plenty of selections of beers spirits and wines. We used most of the bars at some point, but preferred the Passport Bar, Observation Bar and the Sunset Bar. We visited the Eclipse Theatre most nights and the entertainment was of a very good standard and very professional, Jane Curry probably being the pick of the bunch. All ports we visited were very good, although Warnemunde was cold wet and windy, but it looked and an attractive town with a good beach. We walked into Helsinki from the cruise port and liked what we saw, again in Stockholm we walked into the Vasa Museum, and the Royal Palace, Stockholm was very impressive with some stunning buildings. St Petersburg was outstanding, we did the two day tour with Denrus, and had absolutely no problems getting through immigration on the first day. Tallin was a walkable delight as well, it helped that it was a beautiful day, Copenhagen again was walkable, and we also did a canal tour. Disembarkation was easy and smooth, and a quick transfer to Amsterdam airport finished off a delightful and memorable holiday. We will cruise with Celebrity again next year, through the Panama Canal, and we cannot wait. Read Less

We enjoyed our 1st cruise with Celebrity cruise and wanted to visit Russia for our 44th Anniversary for 2nd time with Celebrity. We enjoyed the cruise again. The service we received by Valentine in the dinning room was excellent and memorable. He has been very polite, helpful and make an effort to accommodate his guests. He respected our choice and remembers each night our likes and dislikes. This applies to his assistance Kate and Sue our cabin attendant. The entertainment is well thought and to accommodate variable needs.The quality and choices was very good. The cruise staff are all polite and helpful and ready to help regardless their status. The excursion has been valuable and tour guide is full of knowledge and gave us her unreserved attention. However, it has been too expensive in comparison to other similar excursions. The ship is beautiful and well maintained with good facilities. The guests are always well informed and able to plan their activity accordingly. Read Less

Overall this was a good cruise. We had a cabin in Aqua Class. Boarding seemed an issue as they could not take photos at the pier and then we were given cards with someone else’s name on them. We then got off the ship and got the correct cards. This is overall a nice cruise as it never gets dark at night so lots of time to look around. The Aqua Class cabin is a regular balcony cabin but with a nicer shower which was nice with the sliding doors. The daily tea we traded out for water and the rest other than Blu restaurant we did not use. The Blu restaurant is only for Aqua class and is nice. My only issue was with some of the tours we did not get back until it was closed or not in time to nice casual dress and get there so ate in the buffet. This would also be a complaint and so many people a couple of night had late tours that there was no seating available. They reacted to bring chairs and tables in from outside but should have been proactive and not reactive to the late dining rush and poor weather. The entertainment was OK. I do enjoy the piano bar and Blues Brothers lounge on HA better but the entertainment was OK. Myself would not do Aqua Class again unless you were sure that you could eat at Blu most nights. The gym was impressive for a ship. The ports were interesting and there were plenty in 12 days. Read Less

So much of this cruise was a disappointment. First dining room service and room steward were excellent, food delicious. The rest of the experience was below average. 4 sea days with few planned activities. Paper airplane contests for adults, no quite area for drinks in the evening, entertainment in odd places where you could not see if you were short, disembarkation in one port had a 650 people waiting to get off in the center, rude staff, middle drink package was so limiting because they were trying to sell the more expensive package, EVERYTIME you entered the café you were confronted with people selling the specialty restaurants, port talks were at 8 PM;one good performer, the rest average; boarding a fiasco with a 60-90 minute wait for many people; crew not very friendly. Then we left an ipad on board in our stateroom, went through 90 minutes of trying to contact Celebrity and the ship. Had to send an email to celebrity, call when we returned, then had to wait for the cruise to return from next cruise. No way this ipad was not found but apparently they bag the item and store it, labeling it with stateroom and date. Still have not found it. This was our 24 cruise, second with Celebrity, would not do again. Read Less

We sailed from Amsterdamin in June and the itinerary was one of the most interesting we have done. This is our 5th cruise on Celebrity and our 14th cruise overall. As usual, the ship, the crew and the food and entertainment were all excellent. We were part of a large group and our travel agent had arranged for private tours in all ports except for Germany and Holland. We couldn’t have asked for a better experience on our tours. While the two full tour days in St. Petersburg were pricey, they included lunch on both days and were well worth the expense. Our tour guide, Elena, of Baltic City Breaks was our guide for the two days we spent in Russia. She was absolutely outstanding. In addition, Elena helped arrange for the other private tours in our other ports of call with the exception of Amsterdam where we spent two extra days after the cruise touring on our own. All the guides were exceptional and spoke excellent English. Our one negative experience on this cruise was one I had never experienced before in any of our previous cruises. Hopefully it was only with the individual who dealt with me and not a general approach by Celebrity. As is our usual practice, we do not participate in automatic gratuities, preferring always to provide the recommended tip directly to the crew member who made our cruise experience a great one - our room attendant, our wait staff in the dining room, bar servers and any others who we feel went above and beyond. When I went to Guest Relations to have the automatic gratuities removed from our account, I was asked to sign a book that recorded our cabin number - I have never had that happen before. In addition, to my surprise, two days before disembarkation we received envelopes in our cabin addressed to us with identified crew members who we should be tipping and the amount. Accompanying the envelopes was a card from the guest relations representative who I had dealt with. To say I was annoyed and taken aback at the arrogance of this is an understatement and left a very bad impression of how Celebrity chooses to treat their passengers who do not wish to adhere to their enforcement of gratuities. Since most of our friends had chosen to have their gratuities covered as their perk for this cruise, they did not have this “reminder” given to them. Gratuities are by our understanding, a means of showing appreciation and thanks for exceptional services. We have no problem with doing so and do it often but we were offended by the approach by this particular guest relations representative which unfortunately tainted our impression of an otherwise great cruise. Read Less

The good, the bad and the ugly. The good Service in the dining room and the food were excellent. The bad We complained about the torn linen and holes in the curtains - attached please see the generic response from the hotel manager - the linen and curtains were immediately replaced BUT the new curtains had even more holes and the linen was once again torn. The ugly When I approached the hotel manager Mr Mario Tavares regarding the replacements that were n worse condition than the original linen his exact words were: Oh well, we can't turn back time. No apolgy. He didnt even ask what cabin number. He simply didnt give a damn. To add to the above the entertainment on the ship was pathetic and almost anything worth doing came at an additional charge. If you were bored and wanted to go to a movie the same cartoon was shown repeatedly and on the only day the movie wasnt a cartoon, the movie was about a storm at sea and a ship being split in two. General sentiment on the cruise from passengers who always support Celebrity was that they would be looking elsewhere in future. Read Less

A Baltic cruise was on our bucket list. The price was right this year, and we chose Celebrity, our favorite cruiseline, to take us there on a 12- night itinerary from Amsterdam. The weather started out cool and drizzly, but after four days we had long glorious sunny and warm days. We are a mid-60’s couple from Toronto, and sailed on the S-class ships several times, so we knew what to expect. However, we did encounter a few unpleasant surprises with our cabin. We flew to Amsterdam and stayed one night pre-cruise at the Holiday Inn Express Sloterdjik. Using the rail it’s 2 stops from the airport, and 1 stop to the cruise port. A long Elite embarkation line was moving well and we were enjoying lunch shortly afterwards in the Oceanview Café with drinks from our Classic beverage package. The ship is very clean and being constantly maintained. The crew is friendly and the officers mingle with guests. While there were very few young kids on board, a large group of recent school graduates from Mexico was poorly supervised, creating loud noise issues well into the early hours of the morning. Maybe they would be better served on the other cruiseline staring with a “C”. Meals: Generally met our high expectations. We had Select Dining at 6:45pm at a table for 6 (with our friends). Waiter Endrich and assistant Alit did an excellent job every night. Our dishes were nicely prepared and arrived at the proper temperature. Our Classic package wine selections were very good and glasses were regularly topped up. The Oceanview Café was somewhat crowded at times, but the food stations are spread out and lines moved quickly at the pasta, stir-fry and egg stations (at breakfast). There were different cuisine themes relating to the different ports we visited. The ice cream stand offered good variety of flavors, soft-serve, and toppings. We dined in Qzine (group of 6) when a special deal was offered. It was the last sailing for Qzine, as they were changing it to the new “le petit chef”. Our Elite level light breakfasts at Tuscan Grill included cheeses, cold meats and fruit along with fresh juices and specialty coffees. There were few Elite guests with plenty of servers available. The “cocktail hour” now allows three free drinks from the Elite menu at most bars, but cold and hot hors d'oeuvre were served only at the Sky lounge. We enjoyed trying many cocktails on the Classic beverage package, guided by the lovely server Madeleina. The Café Al Baccio was a nice meeting place for coffee and pastries, although at times too loud with music from the atrium. The Aspen coffee with a delicious cake were the perfect nightcap. Entertainment and activities: Generally good cooking demonstrations (fish, steak), enrichment (about dogs), movies and trivia. The headline soloists were average except for the talented vocalist Jane Curry and Russian Folklore show in St. Petersburg. The big production shows Topper, Rock City and Euphoria were very good, but Amade was too weird and artsy for our taste. Ports: The itinerary kept us busy discovering six new cities and cultures with self-organized walking tours. Disembarkation was very well organized. We cleared our cabin by 8, waited in Tuscan Grill for 40 minutes and then got off the ship, found our luggage and breezed through with no immigration check needed. We shared a minivan taxi to the airport. It was convenient, but rather expensive compared to the rail option. Would we do another cruise with Celebrity ? – Yes. In fact we’re already booked for November Read Less