Thoughts on the Eclipse...

Just a reminder... these are my thoughts and opinions, and may or may not agree with those who were on the same cruise. We decided to book an absolute last minute cruise on the Eclipse for a number of reasons, but the 2 main reasons were to thaw out (we live north of Chicago) and relax. We booked the cruise through Celebrity on Wednesday, and sailed on the ship on Saturday. We had initially only seen inside rooms available, and had decided that if that was what there was, we would enjoy the outdoor areas on the ship even more. My husband found ONE ocean view guarantee room later that night, with a Senior Citizen's rate, no less, grabbed it and put a hold on it while we decided whether or not we could work out the details for the other parts of the trip: flights, dog sitters, etc. We used frequent flyer miles for the airfare, and our daughter agreed to come and dog sit for us. We called Celebrity and went through the booking process with them, and much to our surprise and delight, were upgraded to a 1A balcony room on the hump! We flew out early on Saturday (having checked the forecast thoroughly before we even booked the trip) and landed in Miami about noon. We grabbed our bags, headed straight to the pier, and waited in a short line outside, then moved quickly through the check in process and were on the ship by 1 or so. This was our second time on an S class ship; our first was a TA on the Equinox in November of 2009.

We found the ship to be gorgeous, spotless, with a great crew and staff and lots of different venues to explore, different activities to try, delicious food to eat and excellent martinis and wine to enjoy. Our cabin was in a very convenient location; very close to the central bank of elevators, and just one flight up from the specialty restaurants, Cafe al Bacio, Bistro on Five, the higher end shops, and only another flight down to the Martini bar, more shops, the upper half of the main dining room and the Molecular Bar (which we didn't try but saw other people doing so). Our balcony was right above the lifeboats, which I am sure many guests would not care to overlook, but we were just happy to be in a balcony room! The cabin felt spacious and bright. There were some changes in storage from what we had seen on the Equinox. The drawers in the cabinet next to the desk were deeper; the closet itself seemed deeper (on the Equinox, clothes slanted sideways when the door was closed!) and the couch wasn't in the way of the closet as it had been on the Equinox; our bed was next to the closet and the couch (still uncomfortable, but, as we sat outside most of the time anyway, it didn't matter to us) was by the veranda door. The fridge kept things nicely chilled; the chairs on the balcony reclined several degrees, but we did wish there were footstools to use. The table outside was small, but fine for coffee on the balcony in the mornings. We brought our coffee press as the coffee on previous cruises wasn't to our tastes; the hot water delivered from room service was more than hot enough for the press to work well. The bathroom in the cabin was great; I wish all the ships could have the sliding doors in the showers instead of those awful shower curtains. The drawers under the sink area were still so small as to be useless, but the tall cabinet next to the sink was more than adequate for our needs. Read more