This was our second cruise with Celebrity, and it certainly won’t be our last… In fact it was our second cruise on the Eclipse; we’d been around the Baltics and to St Petersburg (another superb itinerary) when she was newer and shone a little bit more, but the slightly older lady definitely hasn’t lost her sparkle!

This was one amazing itinerary- sailing out of Vancouver (spectacular in itself), on to Icy Strait Point, a trip to Hubbard Glacier, back to Juneau, Ketchikan and back down the Inside Passage towards home. The sights in the right weather, which we were lucky enough to have all week, are unsurpassed: snow-topped mountains, small islands dotted with pines, early morning mists, clear blue skies, humpbacks, orcas, porpoises, sea otters, sea lions, seals, bald headed eagles, bears, and a glacier which grew before our eyes in a glassy sea dotted with curiously shaped ice blocks, some the size of a iceberg…

Celebrity looked after us, and very well we felt: our balcony stateroom was cleaned twice a day by Imade, the best cabin steward we’ve ever had in our six cruises to date. Yes, it’s knocked about a little bit since the last time we were on board, but we’re all a bit weathered with age… Food was exceptionally good in the Moonlight Sonata Dining Room where service was prompt and good humoured, thanks to Julius Caesar (minus his helmet), Santos and wine waiter, Rakman. We enjoyed the variety and quality of the buffet but found it difficult to get a table at times, one of the disadvantages of doing a cruise where many would otherwise stay outside on their sunbeds from dawn til dusk. On this cruise, we took to having lunch back in the main dining room, where we enjoyed all sorts of treats such as duck and steaks. Service in the bars was good although we felt that there should have been more staff on occasions. The main shows in the theatre were a little odd for our tastes at times- some strange song choices, and some weird concepts, one of which involved a top hat (!) but the singers and dancers were all well drilled and worked hard around the ship with their ad hoc shows to keep us entertained. Well sone to Simon, our Cruise Director. We particularly liked Savannah Smith, and knew that if ever the ship’s fog-horn lost its bellow, Savannah would step right in. What a pair of lungs! We enjoyed her so much, we ate lunch early one day just to attend her extra matinee show. Read more