Celebrity Standards Continue to Slide

Celebrity Silhouette Guernsey, Ireland and Iceland

We are some would say seasoned cruisers and to be honest we chose this cruise about six weeks before sailing because it was at a good price. All of our cruises bar one have been within the Royal Caribbean family

We booked a guarantee concierge stateroom and were allocated 2102 on deck 12. Really good position as just one level below Oceanview buffet where we tend to have breakfast and lunch/tea. We use the main dining room (mdr) for dinner and due to the late nature of our booking chose 2nd sitting as select dining was full. Our loyalty status entitled us to be on the waiting list for select and we enquired when we boarded and were told it would be sorted within a couple of days. However, we heard nothing and as the fellow guests on our 8-seat table were such fun, we were quite happy to stay.

Stateroom was very well appointed although we did notice savings in concierge of old. Having to request the slippers for the supposedly better quality bath robes and no regular flowers. We were on the same deck as the pools and next to us were the ladies toilets accessed from the pools. Occasionally we noticed the odd flush first thing but nothing more. Great access to the lifts and for us the stairs but a long walk! Particularly back up from decks 4 and 5! Cafe al Bacio on 5 as wonderful as ever. If you have slight mobility issues and like Oceanview I would recommend the position of our stateroom or possibly the room next door. Particularly if you do not wish to use wheelchairs or mobility scooters.

Main dining still seems to have lack of portion size awareness for non-meat eaters. Fish portions and some vegetarian were significantly smaller than poultry and meat dishes. I did comment to our wonderful waiter who thereafter always offered me extra fish to compensate - but why did I have to mention it? The food in mdr was seldom hot. However, I was very impressed with Oceanview food and often food was cooked fresh. Salmon, mackerel and traditional fish and chips. Plus, other items which we don't eat including various shellfish etc. One lunchtime there was trifle day - superb! On as a passenger off as cargo! Although we never ate dinner in Oceanview I think the food in there was superior to mdr. In the mdr the daily dinner regular items are rather uninspiring particularly with lacklustre accompanying vegetables. I did find it interesting that they did rotate some of the daily regulars e.g. some days broiled salmon others fish and chips. Dessert wise every day one regular was Apple pie a la mode, why not rotate that with say a cherry pie?

When we first sailed celebrity port shuttles were included. Then some, then all were extra but provided by Celebrity. Now we are told they are not provided by Celebrity but by onshore companies! I assume Celebrity must benefit somewhere.

Ports of call were wonderful and we managed to tender at St Peter Port, Guernsey. However, the tendering process was awful and many of us did not get ashore until early afternoon leaving us with little time ashore. In our case despite our supposed loyalty advantage. The second day was also a tender Dunmore East for Waterford, that worked a lot better - some lessons had been learnt. We used the shuttle to take us in to town and toured the Waterford Crystal factory. The price it cost was less than half what the ship would have charged us and that includes refreshments.

We did experience some choppy, rolling seas in the North Atlantic and there will be some new crockery in Oceanview. Some of the waiting staff were a little unhappy with the conditions but seemed amazed when we asked them if they were ok. A kindly word works wonders.

Although we checked our bill regularly on the tv screen we were not given a hard copy of it pre departure. In the past a printed version has always been delivered to the stateroom.

A really enjoyable cruise but some of Celebrity's standards continue to slide.