We took this cruise after enjoying a 12-night Baltic Cruise on the same ship in 2019, prior to Covid. The upshot is that whereas before we were certain we would always choose Celebrity, now I'd say we will explore other options while keeping Celebrity as a possibility, though we certainly hope that Celebrity will rebound. A lot of what we experienced is probably related to Covid rebound.

On the positive side: the ship is clean, the staff is friendly, the room was perfectly fine. We were impressed at just how hard the staff works to make the experience great, and we appreciate that. Some of the highlights for us were little things like the ABBA singalong, during which staff members danced while going up and down on the elevators. The hamburger grill on 15, right above the pool, is lovely and dependable. And we just loved the solarium, the quiet pool area that was adults only. The embarkation process was SO easy, and SO fast for us, and debarkation--both in Fort Lauderdale at the end of the trip and at every port of call--was painless. I don't recall it being so easy in the past, so this felt like an area of real improvement. We loved two of the shows: the singer Heather Sullivan was a delight, and magician Magical Bones was fantastic, too.

The negative: Ooh. When the shows and entertainment weren't good, it was, well. Really not good. The first night's act was a Boy Band review, and we left after about 10 minutes because they were singing off key. I don't know if maybe there was a sound problem in terms of what the singers could hear, but the result was really poor. Less terrible, but still not so great, were a couple of the reviews by the ship's own performers. Our take after the holiday show was, "Well, they definitely looked like they were having fun and had good energy." Similarly, a couple times on Deck 14 by the pool, the band was just not good. Like we were in the pool and then we decided to go to the quiet pool. And I don't think we are particularly harsh judges. Maybe we are? I dunno. Read more