My wife and I have been taking cruises in March and October over the past 6 years and as I stated above all with Princess. We have always been very satisfied with the Princess product and saw no reason to change ships. The itinerary, with the exception of one cruise in Tahiti, is off little importance to us. It's really all about getting away for 10 days and just enjoying each others company. We both enjoy cooking but that too is not an issue. I'll eat and try just about anything and usually enjoy it. So why after all these sailings did we switch to Celebrity? Why would we give up the perks of platinum, especially the wonderful free internet minutes? The reason is that a close friend of mine is a senior executive at Celebrity and she has been trying for years to get me on this ship. So for our March cruise we decided to make the change and try another line, a line based on what we're read on Cruise Critic boards, are very similar to one another. She also enticed us with a VIP package which she refused to tell me about until I arrived on board. Needless to say, our overall experience is a little skewed because of this fantastic perk. So here's my review of our first time on Celebrity and what we liked and did not like as compared to Princess:

- Getting on the ship is not an issue as we live 20 miles from Port Everglades. We left our house at 11:30am, actually late for us, arrived at Park N Go at 12:15pm and entered the new terminal. Big plus vs the old terminal we've used for Princess in the past. There was no one around as arriving at this hour helps you miss the frantic hour of 11am - noon that we've encountered in the past. Note to self...arrive at 1pm from now on. When we checked in we were told that we have VIP status and had we arrived prior to 1pm we would have been escorted to a private area. Since it was after 1pm we were told that our cabin was ready and we could go right to our room. From the time we arrived at the terminal until we open the door to our cabin was about 15 minutes. As we walked onto the ship we were greeted by the staff and although they were holding glasses of champagne no one approached us with one. They seemed to be enjoying each others company but this was not a big deal, more of just an observation on my part.

- Cabin - we had cabin 6274 which I was told before I left home was a partially obstructed cabin. As had been mentioned many times on the message board, if you look straight out you can see the ocean but you can't look straight down to see the ocean. I actually missed not looking straight down and would avoid booking this cabin in the future. The room itself was nice. The bathroom was wonderful especially the glass enclosed shower, a far better way to shower then the Princess plastic wrap-around shower curtain. The room, however, did lack storage space and the closet was not convenient as it was about 6" from the bed. There was a couch in the room that for us at least served no purpose. I would have rather had the extra space. A refrigerator was provided but it was packed with their own products, all of which were extra charges. We brought on bottles of coke, pineapple juice and 2 bottles of champagne so we had to remove all of their products and place them under the desk. They stayed there for the entire trip. The room did seem smaller then the balcony on Princess but that was probably due to the couch. Read more