My husband and I (mid 40s) wanted to try a Celebrity cruise. We booked a quick trip that had us at sea on Christmas day (this was a first for us). We thought it would be a nice treat to "get away from the hustle and bustle of the holidays here. We have cruised many times, but this was our first on Celebrity.

We read up ALOT on this ship and really appreciated all of the great reviews and "live from" reports that everyone had posted on cruise critic. Because of all of these, we were aware that this was an older ship. We found her to be LOVELY ! The decor was very nicely done - not super glitzy, very tasteful .

embarkation: pulled right up to unload, very nice porter was right there to help. My husband went to park across the street in the garage and was back in five minutes. Once inside, they had check in lines divided into categories. We were directed into the concierge line as that was our room type. Our line was not particularly long, but seemed to take forever. I did notice that the line next to us had no one in it. It was for select and elite members. Because of our cruises on RCCL we were also select on Celebrity. however, I did not know to mention that to the person who was directing traffic-live and learn. Once we got our key card, things were zippy fast and we were on the ship in just minutes. Read more