It's all about the journey for us. Long days at sea are what we need to reconnect to each other, to remember how much fun we have together when his job keeps us apart most of the year. Time at sea to sit on the deck, holding hands, but not saying a word, a shared unspoken bliss. Time to act like goofy young newlyweds even though we long ago stopped looking like that much younger couple in our wedding photos. Time, ever so precious, is our ultimate journey. We want to spend it wisely. So, it is the ship, the crew, the overall cruising experience that makes the journey wonderful for us. And this journey from Vancouver, BC to Tokyo, Japan, on Celebrity's Millennium, was more than we hoped for.

On September 2, 2016, we arrived at the port in Vancouver, Canada and boarded the Millennium for our first ever cruise upon a Celebrity ship. We have sailed once on Princess, once on NCL and numerous times on Holland America. But this cruise on the Millennium fit our schedule and our last minute desire to go somewhere. We had rented a car in Portland, Oregon and drove to British Columbia. We spent two nights in Whistler before making the drive to the port. It's a bit chaotic trying to figure out just how to enter the port and find the rental car return. A simple external sign that would state "Return rental car, this lane," would have been helpful. But once we found the place, it was easy. Park the car, turn in the keys, gather our luggage, walk to the elevator and without waiting, check-in for the cruise and board the ship. I don't know if this is an industry wide change, but Celebrity allows its passengers to board early, even though their rooms are not ready. So we were able to walk right on, find a spot in a public place and wait on the ship as opposed to waiting in the warehouse-huge port room. I liked this. An announcement let us know it was okay to find our rooms.

We had chosen a concierge level veranda room. We were in 7183, which is a port sided room toward the aft. Our preference are rooms on the very aft part of the ship, but we were lucky to get back this far considering our last minute plans. We were greeted fairly quickly by our room attendant who asked us when we wanted our sparkling wine. From the moment we first met him, we knew we were in good hands. Ahmad was friendly, professional and attentive. His kind demeanor never wavered during the course of the cruise. Read more