This was my 11th cruise overall, the last eight of which were with Princess, and it was my first cruise with Celebrity. Unfortunately, we were not impressed. I had heard good things about the line, and had expected it to be a cut above Princess, but sadly, this was not the case at all. We were disappointed time and time again.

Before even setting foot on the ship we encountered problems with the Celebrity website. It is not visually attractive or easy to navigate. Nearly every time we logged on, we ended up getting error messages telling us to try the site later. This was not resolved even when changing devices or browsers. I also did not like the fact that I had to pay for shore excursions upfront. It’s much more fun to build and plan my trip in advance, and then pay for the excursions when I get home. The way the system is set up now, it would have been a nuisance to make any changes, which I frequently do.

One of our biggest concerns with the ship happened the very first day. The stateroom door had been left ajar when we first arrived, but we didn’t think anything of it. After we returned from lunch however, we realized that none of our keys worked. The cabin steward also tried his key, and it didn’t work either. He then proceeded to tell us that the door had actually been broken since the night before. He had to call a supervisor to let us in with a metal key, since the electronic card reader wasn’t working at all. It then took THREE MEN nearly THREE HOURS to fix the door! Because of how the room is configured, and the fact that they had to keep the door open the entire time, we were not afforded any privacy during this time or able to unpack since the men working on the door completely blocked the closet. I actually had to go into the bathroom to change for dinner. Read more