This was our sixth cruise with the last few being on Celebrity. However Celebrity this time did not have the itinerary for the time period we were seeking. Our three grown children and one of the girlfriends also traveled with us this time.

This was not a Celebrity Cruise by any stretch of the imagination. By the end of the cruise we thought we had just completed a discount cruise on Carnival or lesser cruise line with upwards of 900 children on board ripping up the decks, filling the pools, lounges, the adult hot tubs, and forcing adults to stand even at the 10:30 pm shows in the theater. Listening to children scream and cry through dinner does not do much for the appetite, nor does it give better ratings to the shows. There were gangs of teens roaming the decks, shows and dining areas and some were rude and obnoxious and unyielding. This was not at all what we expected. One morning at 5am a "rogue tone" over the p.a. occurred, causing many to grab their life jackets fearing we had a major problem. The loud pitched sound jolted you from a dead sleep, and caused many distress. It took 10 minutes before the Captain came on the p.a. to apologize and advise this tone was a "rogue tone" and that they had no idea as to the cause, and to go back to sleep.

The outbreak of the Norwalk virus was finally confirmed by the Captain on the fourth day while leaving St. Thomas, and had become obvious before this when you saw the ships staff pulling bedding out of cabins and spraying it down in the halls. With Norwalk on board, I was shocked that one of the most obvious means of transmission was overlooked, the keyboards in the Internet Cafe. There was no regular cleaning and no hand sanitizer upon entering the Internet Cafe. Keyboards in such a surrounding are compared to a toilet for germs. The number of passengers to contract Norwalk seemed high from what we saw. Even though I used every hand sanitizer I saw. I still contracted the symptoms of Norwalk which only became obvious on the day of disembarkation on the way home. Princess unbelievably disembarked those with Norwalk in the same immediate lobby area as healthy passengers. Our transfer bus to the airport had some of the poor individuals who had Norwalk on the cruise and who were confined to their stateroom for a few days as a result. Four days after getting home I was somewhat back to normal. It is not a nice feeling, but at least I made it home before being hit with the lion's share of symptoms. The plane ride home did prove a little stressful. It was the first ship we had seen this on. Read more