Embarkation: Travelled to Southampton, through the suitcase Drop off zone and used the parking facilities before entering the Cruise Terminal for joining the ship. This was all very straight forward, well managed and with trusty sea pass off we went. As we had opted for Concierge Class I was impressed our luggage was already at our Stateroom by the time we had boarded, so we checked the room was OK (it was, if somewhat small) and off we went to check out the Oceanview Cafe and formal dining room...

All Aboard (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!): We had requested a second sitting and a large table, as we do enjoy the different and eclectic people you meet on a cruise, (the best tip we had before our first cruise was to check out your dinning table, it's still a top tip!). We had been put on a table for 4 next to the waiters delivery door - first black mark. So off we went to the Dining Room manager to complain and ask to be moved, so we joined a queue of about 30 people who had similar issues - wrong sittings, on large tables when asked for small and vice versa - pretty basic stuff which Celebrity good so badly wrong. We were put on a table for 8 which at first was great, but this table became the "rotation table" as people moved to the earlier sitting, moved tables (to and from) or just didn't turn up (us included)

Food: There are 2 main restaurants, the Oceanview Cafe which serves buffet style which generally was good, but with 3000 passengers peak mealtimes are a bit of a scrum, especially breakfast and lunchtime, think of a cheap all inclusive hotel in the Caribbean and you've got it! So much so that we used room service for breakfast pretty much every day (which was good) and for lunch we went after 2:00pm, no big deal for us but lots of complaints. The main dinning room is Sonata Restaurant, over 2 floors, which looks impressive and serves "A La Carte", I can only say we were extremely disappointed with the food here. The menu has a fixed side where the food does not change for the duration of the cruise and consisted of a couple of salads, soup, meat, fish and a vegetarian option and second side of the menu changed nightly consisting of a couple of salads, soups meat, fish and a vegetarian option ! (at least the carnivores had a choice though!). General consensus on our table was the food was bland and for me as a vegetarian I was offered an Indian curry as an alternative - it really was not good. There is also a Cafe on the 5th floor selling Panini's for $5 per head, we liked this place - good food, no queues and eat any time. We didn't try the speciality restaurants as we felt at $30 / $35 per head plus wine seemed expensive when you consider the cost of the cruise Read more