We have sailed on the Summit, Reflection, Silhouette (x2) and Equinox (x2) prior to this sailing. Based upon our past experience we had a general expectation of the level of service and facilities. On the minus side. the restaurant staff were generally friendly and accommodating (with the exception of the Oceanview Cafe and Mast Grill cooks who couldn't be bothered). In Luminae, it was rare to get the orders right and it was often difficult to get anyone's attention for such simple things as coffee or water. The food in Luminae was not to the level of prior cruises, and we found ourselves getting better food in Blu. The suite butler was MIA for most of the trip, and when we could find her, it seemed like she wanted to push most duties to the cabin attendant. The ship is clean, but it is pretty tired (peeling paint, furniture and carpet that shows years of wear). On the plus side, the Captain and the Hotel Director were some of the most visible we have ever encountered. The Michael's Club Concierge was outstanding, and provided service we had never received on previous cruises. We had some excellent meals and service in the Tuscan Grille and Murano. Read Less

Celebrity Eclipse Trip San Antonio Chile to San Diego California March 24 2019 Embarkation poor. Had people lined up for hours waiting to be processed. There was no place for anyone to sit. Other cruise lines issue a number and have passengers sit to wait for their number to be called. The gangplank to the ship was very steep so the staff had to strain to push wheelchair passengers on the ship. Room 9402 very nice and good location, efficient room design with the exception of no electric plug next to or near bed. I called Crucon prior to sailing and requested distilled water for a piece of medical equipment. It was not there. I am sure that there are many people who use a CPAP machine at this present time. Our room attendant Kam, came and introduced himself. He was pleasant and carried out requests. There were no extra special touches in the room, ie cotton buds, shower caps, razors or emery boards in fact you could not even purchase an emery board aboard the ship. There was only soap, shampoo, conditioner and lotion. We were not served a complimentary bottle of champagne as we were served on prior cruises,We had to ask for ice to be present in our room in the evening. There is no folder in the room to describe anything about the ship or contain a list of room service foods. I still don't know if room service is available for meals other than breakfast. There was a sheet for us to fill out every evening for breakfast. We had coffee in our room every day and twice they delivered without cups and milk. The towels and sheets had a funky unpleasant odor, perhaps it was their detergent or not enough detergent. The air conditioner/heat control was not predictable, one time it would be very cold on a setting and the next time it would be uncomfortable at that same setting. The room would become warm while we were in port. The bed was not wonderful, there was no pillow top softness but I am like the princess and the pea. The pillows were OK. Trip route- It was a relocation cruise and the stops were not earth shaking. The prices for ship trips to essentially nothing locations were very expensive. We only did two trips, one to Lima and the other in Punta Arenas Costa Rica. Both were interesting. The other ports did not have anything that looked like we needed to explore further or sounded uninteresting. Entertainment- Stale and according to passengers who previously sailed on the ship it was a repeat of the same performances. The songs were dull and uninspiring. The entertainment was aimed at old people and I am older than god. They need to update their performances. The Eclipse Orchestra was the highlight of the performances. They need to continue with “Live Orchestras” not a digital replacement that is being contemplate by the company. All of our table mates refused to attend the performances because of them being so boring and repetitive. Service-The staff were very positive, smiling and caring throughout the ship. The Captain was a pseudo comedian. Alejandro the master of ceremony was great. Jose P and Edwin our staff in the dining room were caring and attentive they get a 10 out of 10! Food- Terrible!! On previous trips the many tasty main courses offered were wonderful, one had to make a decision of choosing from all the very appealing meals offered most every evening. On this cruise trying to find even one was a difficult task, in fact there were many nights we only had appetizers for our meal because the selection was so poor. On the dress up nights there was nothing special offered except on the last dress up night and another regular evening soft shell lobster not New England lobster. The breakfast and lunch buffets were OK. The salad dressing were horrible. There were people stationed at the entry of cafeteria dispensing hand sanitizing solution but there are no hand washing places there. Hand washing is the only way to truly prevent novovirus. Passengers complained that there was a respiratory illness spreading aboard the ship toward the end of the cruise. Disembarkation-A nightmare! Directions printed for passengers to follow were not written by an English speaking person and were very confusing. Other passengers stated the same regarding the poorly written directions. No one knew where they were to go or wait. There were lines all over the ship. Exiting from the ship was down a very steep gangplank. If I had my luggage I would have been propelled down the gangplank. Being in a wheelchair would have been very scary. Summary We are not gung-ho cruisers but have enjoyed our previous 7 cruises because the food was outstanding, the entertainment fun, but this trip left a bad taste in our mouth. I am not sure we will cruise again anytime soon. Is Celebrity trying to drive people do the specialty dining?? I refuse to pay additional money that probably amount to $100+ for each night to get a decent meal. If this is their object the staff will be shortchanged and service will suffer. The staff in the dining room depend on their tips to supplement their income. Read Less

Price and itinerary.. Its was a destination that we did not do before. Food was good but not exceptional . Food was better on other celebrity crises we have been on . Disembarkation was awful. It appeared very organized with everyone given assigned times for immigration. But then they threw the schedules away huge groups go all at once . This caused long waits , long lines, long waits for elevators and lines jamming the stair cases. The captains club hostess did not seem overly friendly and a bit standoff and did not seem interested in the passengers. The cruise director was excellent. Bar staff / waiters seemed overwhelmed and service was slow. Stateroom attendant was excellent . ports in chile (except for santiago) and peru were poor and we would not do them again. Santiago and surrounding area was good. Would we do this cruise again ... No. shore excursions were expensive and limited. Read Less

We just returned from our 14 day cruise leaving Santiago, Chile on 3/24 and arriving in San Diego on 4/8. We were in cabin 6230. Here's what we think about our experience: First of all let me say that the STAFF on the ship are the greatest! Everyone wanted to help us enjoy our (for us) expensive vacation. But I do have more than a few concerns about the overall condition of the ship. I feel that this ship really needs time in drydock for upkeep and repair. It wasn't so much the explosion that took out the electricity in part of the ship, which caused the air-conditioning to go down, the elevators to stop working, and the lights in that part of the ship to falter. It wasn't even that at least one of the main elevators were too often offline. Stuff happens. But I don't see why the automatic sliding doors that lead from the pool into the ship would be slow to open and close, or why the rubber weather stripping should be falling away. Also one of the two sinks in the Men's bathroom by the pool had a sign on it stating that it was "tired and resting." For the entire cruise? What's that about? Our cabin felt dingy. While our assigned steward was very pleasant, I had to point out places where fingerprints and smears weren't cleaned from previous guests. And I hate to seem picky, but the remote control to our television was held together by tape. One would think that something like that would be an easy fix. And while I'm on the subject of television, ours kept going down. Repeated calls resulted in various excuses. Someone did call back but I didn't want to spend anymore of our vacation sorting the problem out. What NEVER went down were the TV stations selling hideous art (beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder!) or future cruises. Read Less

This was our 3rd cruise; the previous cruises were with Oceania and Seabourn on much smaller ships and apparently in a higher class of luxury. We had never been to South America before and were hoping for some spectacular scenery. We were disappointed. The itinerary featured a cruise through the Beagle Channel to Ushaia and later through the Straits of Magellan on the 500th anniversary of Magellan’s voyage. However those parts of the cruise occurred substantially at night and we saw very little. Glaciers? Nope. There were too many sea days for us and the ports visited apart from Buenos Aires (where we had spent 5 days before embarking) and Montevideo were of little interest. Ushaia is a pretty town and set below some beautiful snow covered peaks but that was it. Embarkation was impressively efficient. The dining was a let down. The food in the MDR was not much better than pub standard and sometimes unacceptably worse. The room was beautiful and the sommeliers and waiters provided quite excellent service but the food rarely bore much resemblance to the lavish descriptions on the menus. I had an allegedly Moroccan tagine in which none of the claimed ingredients could be identified. It was tasteless stew. Poor desserts. Cold vegetables. Tough meats. Steak Dianne which a waiter agreed was nothing like it purported to be. Dry tasteless cakes. The kitchen lets the front of house badly down. Those who write the menu descriptions have clearly not dined in the MDR. On the basis of the MDR standards we did not try the specialty restaurants assuming that the standards would not justify the cost. Perhaps we missed out. The wines available in the classic package were good especially the South African wines. We are Australians. The main cafe for breakfast and lunch had extensive options although the standard was cafe level. The room was nearly always crowded but that is a given with 2880 guests. The concierge balcony cabin was very good. Spacious and with a very good bathroom. I don’t see that paying for concierge is of any value. The entertainment was mainly good but not spectacular. Guest performers were good. The Liar Liar night featuring the Captain and the Entertainment MC was a disgrace. Pure filth. I walked out after 15 minutes but my wife made the mistake of staying as we were with friends. Celebrity should either get rid of this feature or clean it up. It was astounding to see the Captain taking part. The enclosed pool area was terrific and I enjoyed the pool size. The library was good. The cinema was appreciated although the films were recycled after a week. The ships facilities are extensive and to repeat it is a beautiful ship. Disembarkation at the not ideal port of San Antonio was again impressively efficient. Read Less

We chose this cruise, our 11th with Celebrity, because we had never visited South America and it seemed a good opportunity to visit three countries. We had previously booked the Rio Carnival cruise for the previous year, but postponed it for personal reasons. We changed to this cruise because it was slightly longer being 14 days rather than 10, it was a terribly long way to fly and so we wanted as long there as possible. We also chose this cruise because it was on the Solstice class Eclipse rather than the Millenium class Infinity. We had previously been on a cruise on Celebrity Millenium and prefer the Solstice class ships. The Celebrity Eclipse is lovely, its the second time we have sailed on her and the staff were all excellent. However, every time we travel with Celebrity we notice cost cutting, there is always something missing or costing extra since the previous cruise we did although the prices of their cruises are rising rapidly. The food in the main dining room is not as good as it used to be, the variety is more limited and food is often not very hot. The sommelier's have more tables to look after too. The problem with this cruise was the ports visited. Embarkation day was chaotic, it was done through a convention centre rather than the cruise terminal. The actual check-in was perfectly ok, but then we had to wait for around an hour to be taken to the ship by bus - there was way too much hanging around. Having left home at 2.30pm on the Friday afternoon for Heathrow and flown at 10pm that evening, we landed at 9am Saturday morning and we were not onboard the ship until around 2pm on the Sunday (we had been put up in a hotel in Buenos Aries on the Saturday night). We went on an excellent trip to Mimosa Estancia near Buenos Aries on Monday and had a great time. After that it was all downhill, some of this was because the weather was bad for the entire cruise, which was nobody's fault of course. Our next stop was Monevideo where we did a highlights tour, basically there were no highlights, we had never visited such a dump of a place before. We could not visit the next port, Punto del Este as the captain announced at 7am that morning that the sea was too rough for the tendering operation so we would not be stopping there. At the next port, Puerto Madryn, it was announced the night before that all the shore excursions would be cancelled as recent rain had left the roads in such a poor condition. We were desperate to get off the ship having spent two cold, wet days at sea so we walked around the port town, but there was nothing to see! The other ports were ok, Ushuaia, Punta Arenas and Puerto Montt. We just about glimpsed Cape Horn through the fog but at least the sea was calm. All in all there were way too many sea days on this cruise, in fact half the 14 day cruise was spent at sea, it was an awfully long way to go to just see the sea. It has put us off long haul cruising, we had previously done Asian and Central American cruises. There is too much hanging around, too many sea days with not much to do on the ship when its not warm enough to sit on the deck. Celebrity cruises are not the best for entertainment. Some of the shows were good, we saw a funny comedian and a fantastic acrobatic show (Euphoria) but some awful guest entertainers including an overly flamboyant pianist and an awful singer who had a very high opinion of himself and very little talent. Also their show 'Topper' has been running for years and gets tedius when you have seen it several times! We enjoyed the ship experience as always but would not recommend this cruise. Read Less

We chose this cruise for the itinerary, which was Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, including sailing around Cape Horn and Straits of Magellan. It was a 14-night cruise. The Eclipse is a beautiful ship that is elegantly furnished. The staff provided outstanding service, especially our room attendant and wait staff in the main dining room. We were really disappointed in the quality of the food in the main dining room and in the Oceanview Cafe. The presentation of the food was always very appealing, but flavor and options were severely lacking. In addition the Oceanview Cafe was extremely crowded. Twice, we were unable to find a seat and had to go elsewhere to eat! After about the 4th day, they started putting extra tables and chairs in the walkway through the cafe. The quality of entertainment in the Eclipse Theater was not what we've been accustomed to having on a cruise ship. We went to the theater nearly every night, but left early everytime with one exception. The talent just was not there. The one night we stayed all the way through the program was when they had a trio called, "Shades of Buble." They sang songs recorded by Michael Buble. They were talented, and we enjoyed them. We had 4 excursions scheduled. The one in Puerto Madryn was cancelled due to the rain the night before that has washed out the roads. I was really disappointed because we were going to see penguins, which I was looking forward to. The other excursions were all very good. We had one in Buenos Aries which was a tour of the City, a visit to San Telmo Market and a fabulous steak dinner in a restaurant. We also did an excursion in Montevideo, Uruguay which was a tour of the City and a visit to a ranch where we were treated to a hay ride, bar-b-que (not too good) and all the wine, beer or water we wanted to drink. We had an excursion in Santiago that was very nice. It took us to a nice historical plaza and a tour through the City, a lapis luzili shop and finally to a lovely park on San Cristobal Hill. After this tour, we were taken to the airport to pick up our luggage that had been transferred there and catch our flight. That process was well coordinated by the ship and the tour company and worked very smoothly! Read Less

I chose the Celebrity Eclipse because I wanted to do its 3 back-to-back South America cruises. So it was the itinerary that was the draw. The ship is beautiful and comfortable.I cannot imagine how its upcoming renovation could make ir any nicer. The crew, from Captain Leo (probably the most visible captain in my cruising experience) to every person working onboard, was excellent....and genunely nice people. My personal favourite was the solo guitarist, Sashi, a charming young woman from Indonesia,with not only a beautiful voice, but also a beautiful personality. She's the whole package and my day was never complete without taking in one of her sets. I'm not really sure what else to add, but I can say that I could have stayed onboard forever. The cabin - and I just had a large inside cabin on the 9th deck - was comfortable, clean and well laid-out. The food at the Oceanview Cafe was a terrific buffet-style restaurant. And the in-house entertainers are so, so talented. This is the first cruise during which I took in every show. In sum, the Celebrity Eclipse has my highest recommendations. Read Less

One of our best cruises ever. We have been on 4 cruises with Celebrity, twice on Reflection and now twice on Eclipse. ANd this cruise was just amazing. The ship was perfect, the crew fantastic, great entertainment and from the top (Captain Leo and CD Gioseppe) to our cabin attendant etc. was top top noch. Food was great in Luminae and BLU and spec. restaurants. To all the hardworking people in the Martini Bar, Luminae, Michaels Club, Guests relation, FUTURE cruises, Murano, Qsine (Le petit chef), pool area, pool bar, entertainment, orchestra Ocean View Cafe, El Bacio Security people, THANK you so much for your hard work. You are the reason that we will continue to book Celebrity cruises. And to see RIO during carnival was fantastic - you really cant imagine how big it is, until you are there and discover it yourself. Think we might be back one day. Read Less

Couldn’t pass up this amazing deal to do an 11-day balcony cruise to 3 countries in South America, including 3 days at Carnival in Rio, for only about $950! The Eclipse was recently remodeled, and the rooms and public spaces are beautiful. We’ve done 45 cruises and Guiseppi, at only 26 years old was probably the best cruise director we’ve ever had. He really was made for this job. The captain was one of the most visible we’ve ever seen, attending many events and chatting with everyone. He gave great reports from the bridge twice a day. The theater shows and live music were of extremely high quality. We loved the dancers 4 singers and Cirque-quality acrobatics. Keep that up and we’ll be back lots of times. We love eating in the main dining room and our two waiters were great. Although the quality of the food is down the past few years, Celebrity still has the best dining room food of the standard cruise lines. We appreciated having lobster in the main dining room, even if only one night. Formal nights are gone, for better or worse. Stateroom attendant was very efficient and charming, though they need to replace those horrible do not disturb signs that always end up on the floor. Having great internet really makes a difference and I was more than happy to pay for it. Apple internet center was nice, but should be staffed more often. Beautiful library but need more travel books. The Captains Club host forgot to call us and never sent us info about special events, so we missed all of them. That needs to be much better organized. Would like to have booked a future cruise, but there never seemed to be anyone available, and when there finally was the promotion offered the first few days was over. A lot of folks complained about this and it was a real lost opportunity for the cruise line. Pool, gym and spa were all in the top 10%. The always seemed to be reducing the the buffet just as it got busy, causing long lines. We found it difficult to get a clean table and almost impossible to get a drink from anyone on the buffet level. Port staff was good, but the port terminals in South America were horrible, usually requiring long bus rides just to get from the ship to the terminal and back. Security staff were great. We loved being at Carnival. If you buy tix at right place, you can get decent seats for $19. Don’t pay $600 to get them from the ship. Unfortunately, Rio during Carnival is a difficult place. Everything is boarded up, including every ATM machine, due to roving wild crowds. Everything is closed and most tours are cancelled. We did find a reasonably priced tour to see Impanema, Copacabana, Christ the Redeemer statue and Sugarloaf Mountain. That and going to carnival added up to one wild day. But one day in Rio would have been enough. We never really felt unsafe, but it’s pretty wild vibe if you are over 30; even the locals don’t take their kids out. Unfortunately, the port at São Paulo is 2 hours each way from the city, too far to be practical for an excursion. But Santos port is a nice little city and trying hard to be fun for tourists. We really enjoyed the Coffee Museum, the Pele Museum and the trolley. Montevideo was fun and we did the free walking tour there. Buzios is the St. Bart’s of Brazil, but at 1/2 the price. Don’t pay for expensive ship excursions. Right at the tender port you can get a ship to take you to all 17 beaches with swim and snorkeling stops at three of them and a free drink for $15-20. Buenos Aires is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve seen. Almost as nice as Paris, but cleaner and literally 1/4 the price. Do any of the free walking tours, which can be found on the internet. Read Less