Celebrity Reflection Review
Rating by category
Additional details
Fantastic cruise - best yet. The ship is lovely, well designed, well maintained and kept beautifully clean. The staff were excellent and can't do enough for you, and seemingly with a genuine smile.
The food is too good (big weight gain!) . For speciality restaurants we purchased a three restaurant package and went to Tuscan Grille twice as it's our favorite, and Qsine which is a very novel experience along with excellent food. The menu is now quite limited at Qsine so I don't think you'd go there more than once but definitely worth a visit. It was very different to last year which was then lots of fun taster type courses.
The buffet Oceanview had a really good range of food and sitting outside eating at the back of this ship is hard to beat. Main dining room (opus) excellent but we only went twice as the range offered at the buffet was so good.
Cabin Review
Deluxe Ocean View with Verandah 2C
Everything you need in a cabin and a good location being pretty close to the lifts. This is classed as a restricted view cabin as there is a lifeboat on the deck below but unless you want to look straight down there is no restricted view and I quite like having my own personal lifeboat so close to hand.
Port Reviews
Taormina (Messina)
Having been to Taormina twice before we decided to treat this as ship day to recover from our previous travel day. We popped out into Messina for an hour to see the clock tower do its thing at noon - that was fun.
Malta (Valletta)
Malta was a lovely surprise to open the curtains to. We walked across the very pretty town ( via the big elevator) caught the ferry across to Sliema(?) about ten mins crossing as that is where you get the Boat trips from. We then took a Three Harbours boat trip which took about 90 mins and was good value at 16 euros.
Mykonos
We loved Mykonos. Free shuttle from ship as we docked at new port a few minutes along the coast. Othe ships were tendering in to the old town directly. Lovely wander through town, past the windmills and many waterside restaurants. On the other side of town was a fairly long beach but it was quite exposed and windy so we walked back towards town to a sheltered but tiny beach for a quick swim.
Fabulous lunch right by the waters edge.
Rhodes
Medieval town minutes away from ship and lovely to wander around. Then ten minutes walk further around harbour gets you to Elli Beach where we spent a lovely few hours swimming in lovely clear water and sunbathing. 10 euros for two sun beds and a parasol. A beautiful afternoon.
Santorini
Tendered in and right next to where tender landed we took a boat to OIA. Fare included coach shuttle from landing point up to OIA. THe coaches then leave on the hour from OIA to take you onwards to Fira from where you can take the cable car down to the tender point. The alternative to the cable car, which had very long queues, is to take the donkey zigzag path down, either walking or by donkey.We walked as other half didn't want to queue for cable car and against my better judgement I agreed to walk. Feel sorry for the donkeys so wouldn't use them. This is doable but It's slippery, long and there is no shelter from the sun. I would not recommend it.
OIA was lovely with amazing views but very busy. The tiny streets were packed even though we had tried to get there early before all the coaches arrived.
Fira is quite a big town but not pretty. Oia is the picturesque place to see but you have to work for it.
Athens (Piraeus)
We took a private full day excursion with PK Tours. Very efficient and well organised tour with extremely knowledgable guide and good driver. Went to Acropolis of course which was very busy and very hot. My favorite part of the day was the changing of the guard.
Naples
Independently booked tour Capri and blue grotto with Raphael tours . Our guide was Luigi who was brilliant - entertaining, knowledgable and knew all the shortcuts to get us around efficiently with minimal queuing. We were lucky to get into the blue grotto as it was closed later in the day - it was fabulous. Views from top of the chairlift were stunning and Capri was just beautiful throughout. A fabulous day.