Having sailed 24 times prior to taking a 2 Day cruise on Celebration last weekend on Carnival, Norwegian, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean I booked with low expectations and was wonderfully surprised. I booked on-line directly with the cruise line for an Oceanview room on deck 8. Made my dinner reservations online at the time of booking as well as booked my shore excursion.

Embarkation - Arrived at the cruise terminal in West Palm Beach about 10:30 am, was immediately welcomed by the valet parking attendant. Valet parking is $15 per day. We went directly in the terminal and was greeted by the staff taking luggage and was directed through security and went upstairs for check-in. I had pre-printed our paperwork and was directly taken to an agent that checked our paperwork and presented us with our Guest Card. A quick picture and stopped by the shore excursion desk where we confirmed our beach day. Then a stop at the dinner reservation desk where we were already confirmed and given the cards to give the waiters each evening. They also had wine packages, drink specials and spa specials to sell. We purchased the drink specials which is 10 tickets for $60 good for drinks up to $8.75 each (includes drink special in souvenir glass). We were told we would start boarding around noon and almost exactly at 12:04 we were walking the breezeway.

The Ship - This ship is the smallest I've been on in about 20 years but I found the decor to be pleasant and clean. Staff was very friendly. We were told rooms would be ready at 2 pm, so we headed up to the top deck for buffet lunch and our first Bahama Mama. Since we where in the first group on we had the buffet almost to ourselves and found a table to enjoy. The food here is very much on par with other buffets on other lines. They had steel drums playing (something I really miss on Carnival & Norwegian). Then we were off to explore the ship. Read more