This was my wife and I’s fifth cruise and first with Celebrity. We were encouraged by friends and our travel agent to try Celebrity as they assured us it would be a step up from Princess who we had sailed with previously and that we wouldn’t be disappointed. When I found the Western Mediterranean cruise it was the perfect opportunity as the itinerary was fantastic and it afforded us the chance to escape a cold southern Australian winter.

Embarkation at Rome (Civitavecchia) was faultless; I estimate it was only 20 minutes from arrival at the port until we were on board. Reflection is in immaculate condition and overall very clean. While the cabins weren’t ready we had full use of all facilities on board the ship, this is better than having to wait in a terminal and it gave us time to explore the ship. Within an hour of boarding it was announced that the cabins were ready. Our cabin, which was a standard veranda stateroom on deck 8 starboard side was terrific, it was modern, spacious and spotlessly clean with a much larger bathroom that we were accustomed to on Princess. Within half an hour our bags had been delivered to our room.

Upon boarding it became clear to us that there were a large number of children on this cruise, it was confirmed later by the cruise director that there was about 600 children on board, not to mention at least that many again in the 18 to 21 year age bracket. Unfortunately in our opinion this is why things started to sour our first impression of the vessel. Children were running riot throughout the vessel as and a large number of their parents did not seemed bothered to do anything about it. Children were still running past our cabin well after midnight and as late as 2am on one occasion. The outdoor pool area on this vessel is very small and with the number of children and ‘young adults’ on this cruise it was totally overwhelmed, and you were lucky at times to even see the water in the pools due to the number of people in them. The overflow from this area then started to spill into the ‘adults only’ indoor pool area where a number of children started to gather. The sign in the area states, ‘adults only area 16 years and above’. In what jurisdiction in the world is 16 years deemed an adult? Read more