The cruise was chosen for its itinerary to celebrate a special birthday. It was our first cruise so we were apprehensive but pleasantly surprised by the amazing time we had. The ship itself and facilities were of a high standard. Staff were attentive with first class service and good quality food. A big shout out to waiter Jesue, assistant waiter Abhishek and sommelier Ana who made evenings in the Moonight Sonata restaurant special, personal and fun...fantastic job! We also had an impressive and memorable meal in Qsine. We booked three excursions-Berlin, St Petersburg and Stockholm-all went like clockwork, were interesting and informative. The evening entertainment could be a bit of a hit-or-miss, but we did find what we liked and had an enjoyable time.

However unfortunately we were not impressed by the booking experience which was far from being straightforward. It all began with an email from Celebrity Cruises mistakenly cancelling our holiday 3 weeks before our travel date! This resulted in 2 booking references which caused us no end of problems with our sea passes and took some frustrating time sorting it out. Thanks to the professional and courteous Nestor on the relations desk who was always on hand to smooth over frayed tempers. But it did not end there, we also had booked to stay at the Movenpick hotel in Amsterdam for the weekend only to discover further problems with our booking which had also been done through Celebrity Cruises. So more precious time was wasted putting things to right.

So we’ve had to deduct a star from the overall rating purely because of our booking experience. We are still waiting to hear back from Celebrity Cruises on the matter... which is a shame...