This was our first "just the two of us" cruise without our kids, so we booked a balcony room and chose an itinerary with 3 days at one port so we could relax and enjoy Bermuda. This was our first time cruising with Celebrity, but we have done Princess, NCL, and Carnival in the past. To give some background on us, we are an early 40's middle class couple who take the time for one trip yearly. We cruise often because we can do something or nothing at any point in time. After booking, my husband watched the prices online as they changed over time, the he called our travel agency when the price of our cabin fell and had us upgraded first to concierge class and then to a sky suite.

We live in NJ, so embarking from Cape Liberty was great for us. I'll take the 45 minute drive over flying any day. The transition from car to ship was seamless and fast. We pulled into the lot at about 11:30am, paid our $133 to park for the week, dropped our bags off to the porters at the long garage-like structure, parked the car, and took a shuttle to the entrance. We were directed to the shorter line for suite guests where they offered us a free dinner at Normandie on the first night, which we happily accepted. We were on the ship and drinking our complimentary mimosa by 12:00.

We went first to the buffet on deck 10 for lunch, as most of the ship was still closed for cleaning between trips. The buffet was excellent--plenty of choices--no complaints. We then walked around the ship until our cabin was ready at 1pm. We found it odd that only a couple of the bars were open as passengers were waiting for their cabins. It was really hard to get a drink until closer to dinner time. Read more