TheWorkerBee
April 3rd, 2009, 04:34 PM
Hey crew,
I'm recently returned from a 3-day weekend cruise on the Bahamas Celebration. Several of you had questions posted on various threads, so I'll try to address those questions. Keep in mind the line could change policies or practices at any time, but this info is base on my experiences aboard the 3/27 departing cruise.
Embarkation was a total mess at Port Everglades. We arrived early as I wanted to be able to get aboard and grab some pics before the ship was crowded. We got there at 10:30AM and got in line. The employees outside seemed to be rather confused and completely disorganized. One would come out and rearrange the rope line dividers, another would come out a few minutes later, tell people that had been in line that they were not in line (causing some rising blood pressure), then another came out to tell us that it was OK, there were three separate lines and he re-arranged the rope dividers accordingly. Then one of the earlier employees came back out said that there was only ONE line. We'd been at the front of one of the three lines and when he re organized the dividers, he put us at the BACK of the single line. Not a good first experience, we ended up standing in line for nearly three hours.
Once aboard, we entered yet another mess as the main elevators were either slow, or not working, or both. There was a massive backup of passengers waiting to be taken to their cabins. After working through this line, we were shown to our cabin, an inside with upper/lower berths. The room itself was clean and very adequate. If you ever sailed on REGAL EMPRESS you'll find the lower grade cabins and bathrooms aboard BC to be a nice upgrade from the older ship. The ship was full which would suggest the line/timeshare weasels had done a significant marketing push in months previous to start filling up the larger ship.
We wandered around the ship to just get our bearings and an overall impression of things. The public spaces are in general much nicer than REGAL. The View is a multi-level show area aft. We enjoyed several evenings here watching the entertainment. The Ocean Breeze lounge (perhaps a nod to the past?) a few decks up is the piano lounge and was nearly vacant every time I visited. It is however very comfortable and sports nice decor and overstuffed chairs The Ocean Breeze is also where you'll find the Library and Card Playing rooms. While we were aboard the housekeeping staff was unboxing many of the older books from REGAL EMPRESS and shelving them in the BC's library. So a bit of the old girl sails on.
I don't really gamble, but strolled through the Casino which is forward on deck 4. This is again a much upgraded space, more machines, more tables than aboard REGAL EMPRESS.
Two things that really stuck out to me as being a bit disappointing compared to my cruise just two months ago aboard REGAL EMPRESS would be the dining and outdoor spaces aboard BAHAMAS CELEBRATION.
I'll start with dining. Dining aboard REGAL EMPRESS was a first class affair. Well planned menus, very nice presentation and portions were part of the standard faire. Several choices were offered each night on REGAL for appetizer, salad and soup. In the Crystal Room (which is BC's "traditional" style dining room), the menu was much more limited. Instead of the varied selection of gourmet soups offered on REGAL (I was SOOOO looking forward to the cold Strawberry cream soup again!) you were limited to Lentil or Minestrone on alternating nights. Boring! In addition to the limited selection, foot is served in a somewhat disjointed manner. When you order you entree, you're brought a plate with only the meat on it (and a meager portion at that). You then wait for a waiter wandering around with a large tray to make it to your table. He'll have a few sides available and allow each pax to choose what they want. The bad thing is that your entree's cooled off to room temperature in the meantime. It's a kind of "mobile buffet" that doesn't seem to work well in my opinion.
We also ate at Rio one evening. Chose the 6:15 seating. It was a long line to get in and get through the buffet. It was 25 min from the time we walked in the front door until we'd gotten a plate of food. Selection on the buffet was nice - some interesting salads, is capped off by carving stations offering turkey and roast beef. The turkey was as dry as a shingle, roast beef was OK. Don't fill up on the buffet foods as there are roving meat carvers that offer a variety of meats to your table, the thin flank steak's really good. One word of advice, do NOT let them seat you in the tables immediately by the buffet. For most of the allotted meal time, the buffet line so long that your dining experience will include having the line crowded around you. Hopefully something they can work on.
The other disappointment was in the pool area / public outdoor areas. Since the BC's previous life had her serving in generally cold conditions, the transition for Caribbean service is a bit ackward. I'll give out some kudos for the great little kids area aft. All the younger crowd seemed to really enjoy it. But forward where you'll find the buffet, pool and hot tubs, it's a different experience. It was definitely breezy the entire weekend. 20 - 30 knots wind. Unfortunately as everything's up on the very top deck with minimal shelter from the wind, it doesn't work out as a great place for a buffet. I'd have to say I think this is something that just works better on the classic style ships. Aboard REGAL, even in rough weather, the lido was sheltered from the wind by the superstructure forward and if you did find it too windy, you had to only wander a bit past the buffet onto the promenade and you could still enjoy the view and being somewhat outdoors without your tray being blown from your table. Aboard BC, I saw more than one passenger with an entire tray of food blown onto them.
And when you weren't worried about flying serving trays, cups and napkins, you had to watch for the pool. In the wind and with the sway of the ship in the ensuing waves, the adult area pool tended to slosh over if there were any more than 24" of water in it - thus limiting its actual funcion as a pool. The adult pool is just a poorly planned afterthought to a ship that was never meant to sport an outdoor pool. It's actually built ABOVE deck - it's basically an aboveground pool dropped on the top deck. And it's sides are made of glass, you feel a bit "on display" in the pool. I know how aquarium fish feel now.
There is quite a bit of seating/lounge area on the top deck if you can brave the wind. There are also two bars. There are hot tubs on each side of the forward mast, but were not functioning during our cruise. One nice thing I noticed was that the top deck offers a non smoking area on the port side and smoking on the starboard. They do a pretty good job offering adequate deck space for passengers of both persuasions.
Another "new" experience was getting off the ship in Nassau. Nobody seemed to know where we were supposed to go on the ship. I hope it's just a temporary setup, but we had to go forward in front of the salon and fitness area and take a few flights of very narrow and steep service stairs down to the car deck. They splay the bow wide open and it's hard not to make another cattle comparison, but that's how you feel getting off through her nose. There was a bit of joking coming from passengers from the other ships on the other side of the walkway as you got off. Some of them stopped to take pictures of BC passengers filing out from the car deck.
A few odds and ends to wrap up - - if you like to drink a lot of soda, they now offer an option for $5/day you can get unlimited soda, you just need to sign up for it on the FIRST day of the cruise, not sure where you do this as I didn't take advantage of it, but definitely a nice option that I don't think was available on REGAL . Also, the fitness room is small but nice - very nice weight machines, a few stationary bikes and a rowing machine as well as a stretching/pilates area on the center. Another note to help you catch some ZZzzz's - if you're in a cabin that offers upper berths, be sure to remove BOTH ladders from your closet even if you're not using the uppers. The first night at sea was ROUGH. Lots of seasick folks. The ladders in the closet don't have a hook or cord or anyway to secure them and they smack around pretty good when the boat starts rockin'. Lot of passengers were surprised at how rough the seas got and how rough the ship was, I wonder if a bit of that isn't due to the fact that she's got an empty car deck - perhaps rides a bit higher than designed?
That's about all I have. I would say that the crew seems to be working VERY hard. Many of the senior staff are working VERY long hours to train the new staff and keep the cruise experience up to par. They seem to be doing their best to execute some of the poor plans that management cooked up and keep passengers happy at the same time. Many of them are putting in 18 hour days. So if you're sailing in the next month or two, keep that in mind - there are some things still to be ironed out and hopefully they'll find room to improve. But if something's not perfect, take things in stride, keep in mind it's a lot of new crew on a newly refitted ship and don't take it out on somebody working overtime to provide the best possible experience in their power (I did see this happen on two separate occassions and felt very bad for the crew members enduring pretty harsh treatment they didn't deserve). I'm sure things will gel a bit after a few months service.
All in all, even if you pay full fare, I supposed it would be hard to expect too much more. A weekend hotel stay at a decent property in FL would set you back about as much as the cruise - and you'd still be buying your own meals. I don't know that I'd fly across the country JUST for this cruise, but if you're planning on going to FL anyway, it's something to consider working into a longer itinerary. I was a bit disappointed in some of the things that were done so well aboard REGAL EMPRESS that didn't make it over, but you can definitely see potentional in the things they'll be able to do bigger/better on the new ship.
I'm recently returned from a 3-day weekend cruise on the Bahamas Celebration. Several of you had questions posted on various threads, so I'll try to address those questions. Keep in mind the line could change policies or practices at any time, but this info is base on my experiences aboard the 3/27 departing cruise.
Embarkation was a total mess at Port Everglades. We arrived early as I wanted to be able to get aboard and grab some pics before the ship was crowded. We got there at 10:30AM and got in line. The employees outside seemed to be rather confused and completely disorganized. One would come out and rearrange the rope line dividers, another would come out a few minutes later, tell people that had been in line that they were not in line (causing some rising blood pressure), then another came out to tell us that it was OK, there were three separate lines and he re-arranged the rope dividers accordingly. Then one of the earlier employees came back out said that there was only ONE line. We'd been at the front of one of the three lines and when he re organized the dividers, he put us at the BACK of the single line. Not a good first experience, we ended up standing in line for nearly three hours.
Once aboard, we entered yet another mess as the main elevators were either slow, or not working, or both. There was a massive backup of passengers waiting to be taken to their cabins. After working through this line, we were shown to our cabin, an inside with upper/lower berths. The room itself was clean and very adequate. If you ever sailed on REGAL EMPRESS you'll find the lower grade cabins and bathrooms aboard BC to be a nice upgrade from the older ship. The ship was full which would suggest the line/timeshare weasels had done a significant marketing push in months previous to start filling up the larger ship.
We wandered around the ship to just get our bearings and an overall impression of things. The public spaces are in general much nicer than REGAL. The View is a multi-level show area aft. We enjoyed several evenings here watching the entertainment. The Ocean Breeze lounge (perhaps a nod to the past?) a few decks up is the piano lounge and was nearly vacant every time I visited. It is however very comfortable and sports nice decor and overstuffed chairs The Ocean Breeze is also where you'll find the Library and Card Playing rooms. While we were aboard the housekeeping staff was unboxing many of the older books from REGAL EMPRESS and shelving them in the BC's library. So a bit of the old girl sails on.
I don't really gamble, but strolled through the Casino which is forward on deck 4. This is again a much upgraded space, more machines, more tables than aboard REGAL EMPRESS.
Two things that really stuck out to me as being a bit disappointing compared to my cruise just two months ago aboard REGAL EMPRESS would be the dining and outdoor spaces aboard BAHAMAS CELEBRATION.
I'll start with dining. Dining aboard REGAL EMPRESS was a first class affair. Well planned menus, very nice presentation and portions were part of the standard faire. Several choices were offered each night on REGAL for appetizer, salad and soup. In the Crystal Room (which is BC's "traditional" style dining room), the menu was much more limited. Instead of the varied selection of gourmet soups offered on REGAL (I was SOOOO looking forward to the cold Strawberry cream soup again!) you were limited to Lentil or Minestrone on alternating nights. Boring! In addition to the limited selection, foot is served in a somewhat disjointed manner. When you order you entree, you're brought a plate with only the meat on it (and a meager portion at that). You then wait for a waiter wandering around with a large tray to make it to your table. He'll have a few sides available and allow each pax to choose what they want. The bad thing is that your entree's cooled off to room temperature in the meantime. It's a kind of "mobile buffet" that doesn't seem to work well in my opinion.
We also ate at Rio one evening. Chose the 6:15 seating. It was a long line to get in and get through the buffet. It was 25 min from the time we walked in the front door until we'd gotten a plate of food. Selection on the buffet was nice - some interesting salads, is capped off by carving stations offering turkey and roast beef. The turkey was as dry as a shingle, roast beef was OK. Don't fill up on the buffet foods as there are roving meat carvers that offer a variety of meats to your table, the thin flank steak's really good. One word of advice, do NOT let them seat you in the tables immediately by the buffet. For most of the allotted meal time, the buffet line so long that your dining experience will include having the line crowded around you. Hopefully something they can work on.
The other disappointment was in the pool area / public outdoor areas. Since the BC's previous life had her serving in generally cold conditions, the transition for Caribbean service is a bit ackward. I'll give out some kudos for the great little kids area aft. All the younger crowd seemed to really enjoy it. But forward where you'll find the buffet, pool and hot tubs, it's a different experience. It was definitely breezy the entire weekend. 20 - 30 knots wind. Unfortunately as everything's up on the very top deck with minimal shelter from the wind, it doesn't work out as a great place for a buffet. I'd have to say I think this is something that just works better on the classic style ships. Aboard REGAL, even in rough weather, the lido was sheltered from the wind by the superstructure forward and if you did find it too windy, you had to only wander a bit past the buffet onto the promenade and you could still enjoy the view and being somewhat outdoors without your tray being blown from your table. Aboard BC, I saw more than one passenger with an entire tray of food blown onto them.
And when you weren't worried about flying serving trays, cups and napkins, you had to watch for the pool. In the wind and with the sway of the ship in the ensuing waves, the adult area pool tended to slosh over if there were any more than 24" of water in it - thus limiting its actual funcion as a pool. The adult pool is just a poorly planned afterthought to a ship that was never meant to sport an outdoor pool. It's actually built ABOVE deck - it's basically an aboveground pool dropped on the top deck. And it's sides are made of glass, you feel a bit "on display" in the pool. I know how aquarium fish feel now.
There is quite a bit of seating/lounge area on the top deck if you can brave the wind. There are also two bars. There are hot tubs on each side of the forward mast, but were not functioning during our cruise. One nice thing I noticed was that the top deck offers a non smoking area on the port side and smoking on the starboard. They do a pretty good job offering adequate deck space for passengers of both persuasions.
Another "new" experience was getting off the ship in Nassau. Nobody seemed to know where we were supposed to go on the ship. I hope it's just a temporary setup, but we had to go forward in front of the salon and fitness area and take a few flights of very narrow and steep service stairs down to the car deck. They splay the bow wide open and it's hard not to make another cattle comparison, but that's how you feel getting off through her nose. There was a bit of joking coming from passengers from the other ships on the other side of the walkway as you got off. Some of them stopped to take pictures of BC passengers filing out from the car deck.
A few odds and ends to wrap up - - if you like to drink a lot of soda, they now offer an option for $5/day you can get unlimited soda, you just need to sign up for it on the FIRST day of the cruise, not sure where you do this as I didn't take advantage of it, but definitely a nice option that I don't think was available on REGAL . Also, the fitness room is small but nice - very nice weight machines, a few stationary bikes and a rowing machine as well as a stretching/pilates area on the center. Another note to help you catch some ZZzzz's - if you're in a cabin that offers upper berths, be sure to remove BOTH ladders from your closet even if you're not using the uppers. The first night at sea was ROUGH. Lots of seasick folks. The ladders in the closet don't have a hook or cord or anyway to secure them and they smack around pretty good when the boat starts rockin'. Lot of passengers were surprised at how rough the seas got and how rough the ship was, I wonder if a bit of that isn't due to the fact that she's got an empty car deck - perhaps rides a bit higher than designed?
That's about all I have. I would say that the crew seems to be working VERY hard. Many of the senior staff are working VERY long hours to train the new staff and keep the cruise experience up to par. They seem to be doing their best to execute some of the poor plans that management cooked up and keep passengers happy at the same time. Many of them are putting in 18 hour days. So if you're sailing in the next month or two, keep that in mind - there are some things still to be ironed out and hopefully they'll find room to improve. But if something's not perfect, take things in stride, keep in mind it's a lot of new crew on a newly refitted ship and don't take it out on somebody working overtime to provide the best possible experience in their power (I did see this happen on two separate occassions and felt very bad for the crew members enduring pretty harsh treatment they didn't deserve). I'm sure things will gel a bit after a few months service.
All in all, even if you pay full fare, I supposed it would be hard to expect too much more. A weekend hotel stay at a decent property in FL would set you back about as much as the cruise - and you'd still be buying your own meals. I don't know that I'd fly across the country JUST for this cruise, but if you're planning on going to FL anyway, it's something to consider working into a longer itinerary. I was a bit disappointed in some of the things that were done so well aboard REGAL EMPRESS that didn't make it over, but you can definitely see potentional in the things they'll be able to do bigger/better on the new ship.