We wanted to see the Greek Isles and more of Italy since we had only had 1 other trip to Italy 6 years ago. We choose Celebrity for the wonderful reputation the line has, as this was our first cruise with them. The ship was large but never seemed too crowded. Getting on and off for tours was a breeze, even though we booked all of our port tours on our own and not through the ship (way less expensive that way and much smaller groups). Since we were in a Concierge stateroom, we had the first embarkation time slot of 11:30 with lunch in the main dining room. That was nice as we were moved right through in a flash.

This class of service is till the basic balcony stateroom, with a few extras like getting on first in a special line, afternoon appetizers in our stateroom (fruit and 4 small canapes - nice touch but not the best), welcome champagne in our room, special concierge, and a few small gift items. We got the Concierge level room for the same price as balcony, so these perks did not cost us more. I don't think I would have paid extra for it otherwise.

We did get 2 offers by email before the cruise from Celebrity for better prices for specialty dining and photos that we bought. They were also offering a deal the first day for specialty dining that was good. Our deal was for 3 nights at any of the specialty restaurants for basically the price of 2 nights. Most charged $50-$35 per person per night. They are all wonderful, but the main dining room had wonderful food and at no extra cost. The photo deal was an all inclusive price for prints and digital downloads of every picture they took on board and when leaving for ports each time. We ended up with 177 - 8x10 and 5x7 photos (less than $1.38 each for $244). We felt like this was a great deal since we never have photos made and don't want to book a photographer, pay a sitting fee, and then pay $$$ for each photo. And thankfully, we had many wonderful ones to remember our cruise! If we had just bought individual photos from them onboard, they would have cost $25 or $15 each!!! OUCH! Read more