It's funny how different an experience can be for different people. Prior to taking this cruise (and since I returned) I read many Celebrity Reflection Western Mediterranean cruise reviews on this column, and you would have thought that some people were on an entirely different cruise ship (or maybe a different planet). From the minute we approached the check-in line to the minute we were delivered back to the Fumicino airport, we were as well taken care of as could ever have been expected.

Check-in was a breeze and we were advised that it might be a while before our luggage arrived at our stateroom, but by the time we found our stateroom and met our stateroom attendant, our bags had arrived. I had read some reviews that complained about inadequate stateroom storage space, but even though we had enough stuff with us for the cruise and an extra week in Italy, we had plenty of storage space. That said though, we certainly did not bring enough clothes to provide something different everyday for 20 days, and did have to do laundry a couple of times. We balked at the prices Celebrity charges for laundry (washing a pair of socks costs twice what I had paid for the socks, etc), but it was simple enough to rinse out a few things a couple times a week, and we found that we could hang them from the back of our deck chairs at night while we were between ports and they would be dry by morning.

We ordered coffee each evening to be delivered in the morning and really liked the wake-up call that came about 5 minutes before the coffee showed up. We got up early each morning that we were to arrive early in a port and drank coffee on the veranda and enjoyed the show as we pulled in. Deck 7 is only a couple decks above the lifeboats, but we had great views of everything. We were on the starboard side and a couple times I regretted not getting a port-side stateroom, but in the end it all equaled out.We had a veranda stateroom (7342) and we were very happy with everything about it; nice bathroom with plenty of hot water, very comfortable beds and pillows, a roomy stateroom and veranda, and a nice sized television. It was a bit of a trek to get down to the elevators at midship, but with all the great food we were eating a little exercise was not a bad thing and I guess with a ship more than a 1000 feet long some things will always be far away. Read more