The cruise began with a horrible embarkation experience. I have cruised over 30 times, and this was the worse one ever. The only one that was almost as bad was for the Azamara Journey (Celebrity’s sister company). To begin with, there was no one outside the terminal to direct us to the proper entrance or to give us guidance as to what to do with our luggage. The information sent to us by Celebrity had the wrong entrance number. By asking around, and getting some help from people unassociated with the cruise, we finally found our way onto the correct line, which was full of cranky passengers who were being herded like geriatric sheep. Eventually we were given a number and told to wait in a large room filled with people. Again, absolutely no one from the cruise was present to answer questions or provide any guidance, except for an occasional, unintelligible announcement over a loudspeaker. It took us over two and a half hours to finally be called to stand on yet another line to be processed. And that's with advanced check-in. What a terrible, disorganized process!

To say the least, our moods were pretty awful once we finally got on board. Luckily, the rest of the trip was very nice, with a few exceptions.

The food was very good. Dining in the main restaurant was a very positive experience. The food was very good and we had absolutely wonderful servers. Both specialty restaurants were worth the extra cost. You should make use of the pre-trip packages for the specialty dining and for wine (if you drink). The formal SS United States had both wonderful food and wonderful service. Qusine was lots of fun - very creative. The buffet was adequate, but a very difficult experience during busy periods. They would benefit from more supervision to keep tables flowing, but, overall, they did a good job. I do wish they had anytime dining, since we don't like set dining times with set tables. Read more