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TMaine

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  • Location
    Maine
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Celebrity
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Mediterranean

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  1. I just heard that tips are no longer included in "All Included"... so I guess it's not ALL included.
  2. This is what the MDR used to be like before the specialty restaurants moved in.
  3. I believe her name was Angela, we thought she was good! Have a great cruise!
  4. He is a singer but interacts with the crowd as part of the show. Amazing vocal!
  5. Barcelona and disembarkation - We ended the cruise in Barcelona where the ship was pulling into port at 4:00am. We had a disembark time of 7:30am. Our number was called at 7:15am and we were departing the ship at 7:20am. We gathered our luggage, grabbed a cab and were walking through the door of the airport at 7:50. More than enough time to make our 11:10am flight. Couldn't ask for a smoother disembarkation process! Overall we had a great time because that is what we made it, and primarily because of the ports and 3 days in Rome. The gradual decline of the ship experience over the years has us shifting our vacation plans towards something other than a Celebrity cruise. Not to say we won't cruise with them again but it would have to be the right deal and itinerary. And who knows, they may listen to their customers and start to bring back some of what made Celebrity's reputation what it was. We are in our late 40's so we have (hopefully) a lot more vacationing and exploring to do! Thanks for reading and feel free to ask any questions!
  6. Rhoads - Rhoads was a new stop for us. We toured around the old city on our own, its an easy walk from the ship and around the city. The Castle of the Grand Master was really awesome if you like those sorts of things. There were many shops and restaurants. We found a great restaurant off the beaten path and had a delicious lunch. Malta - This was our third visit to Malta and one of our favorite Mediterranean ports. We did the ship tour to Blue Grotto and Marsaxlokk. The tour was very good, Blue Grotto is amazing though we were not allowed to swim. Marsaxlokk is an old fishing village which was fun to explore a bit. We then spent the rest of the day wandering around Valetta.
  7. Ports of Call - Our first port was Katakolon, Greece. The town is quite small and the main attraction here is Olympus. We did the Olympus on your own tour through the ship which provided a ride, tickets to the archaeologic site and tickets to the museum. We hadn't been here before but was a great stop. After Olympus we walked about town a bit. There is a very long beach here that looked nice and an easy walk from the port. This stop is where we had the helipad sail away for CC. Our next stop was Athens. We have been here a couple of times before and each time, including this one, we took the hop on - hop off bus. We find it very easy and it gets you around the city to places many visitors may want to go. It was 20 euro each. Maybe next time we will explore outside the city. Santorini was up next. This was our third time here and while we had originally planned to take the boat to Oia, which we had done in the past, we just went to Fira, had an amazing lunch and walked around. It is a beautiful place and it wasn't terribly crowded as it was Reflection and a small Regent ship in. Next stop, Mykonos. This was our third time to Mykonos and we did a ship tour to Delos. Delos was amazing though we had the over the ear speakers to hear our guide and they didn't work great, eventually took it off and spent time observing our surroundings and reading about the site. Would love to go back and see more of the site, it is huge! The wind was fairly strong and the waves made for an exciting boat ride to Delos! Afterwards, we walked around town and noticed that it didn't seem to be the same as when we first visited. There was a lot of trash thrown around and seemed like a destination for the self important. In the past we have been to Kalafatis Beach which was quite lovely. More to follow...
  8. Our stateroom attendant asked us specifically to not leave dishes in the hall but to collect them and leave them on our table for him to take care of. People still put them out.
  9. Te officer we spoke to on the upper pool deck went right over. To be honest, we didn't stick around to watch for the others. The did seem to take it seriously.
  10. Sorry this is taking so long!! Entertainment - The entertainment was really up and down. We saw all of the pre dinner shows and saw some of the bands and music. The Celebrity production cast were just OK, Broken Strings was an odd and not well put together show in our opinion, we left early. We have seen Broadway Cabaret and Elysium too many times and done much better on other cruises. There were two comedians, one American and one British. We found both of them to have some funny jokes but not really rolling on the floor stuff. We did not see it, but the British comedian had an 18+ show at 10:30pm one night and apparently it was so bad they kicked him off the ship the next day. There was a jugler who was quite good and had good stage presence and was engaging. A violinst we saw twice and he was very good. The other music acts around the ship were just OK, we didn't spend much time listening to them so probably shouldn't offer much of an opinion on them. The real highlight for entertainment was Stephen Barry. He blew all other performers out of the water. We saw his show in the theater and then he performed at 8:30pm in the Grand Foyer a few nights later. The foyer was PACKED right up many floors!
  11. Yes, and we anticipated that, the problem is there is little for young kids to do on Celebrity (yet) at 10pm so they improvise.
  12. Weather - Three days pre in Rome and the whole cruise was sunny and warm, honestly couldn't have asked for better. The seas were also calm the whole time which was nice, we have had some rough seas in the Med before but it was one of the smoothest sailings we have been on. While in port in Mykonos it was quite windy and choppy, more on that later. Spa - We did a couples manicure/pedicure. We have done these on the last few cruises as a treat and I have to say that we probably won't again. Quite expensive and they didn't do a great job. OVC - I have had issue with the arrangement of the stations on the S-class ships since we first sailed Solstice. They seem to invite congestion and confusion but I won't say anything more on that. The options were good and plentiful with good variety for the most part. Pizza was good, ice cream good, etc. Dinner options were good as well, my only negative would be that it seems that 30-40% of the choices are Indian food which I am not a huge fan of but I ate around it! We usually ate breakfast at Opus and lunch on shore. One dinner and afternoon snacks is when we usually frequented OVC.
  13. We did notice this when we first were on the ship and actually asked guest relations while we were there for another issue (one seapass wouldn't open our door). They said yes, it vibrates. Ha! I guess we weren't imagining it but we honestly didn't even notice it 99% of the time.
  14. MDR - We ate in the MDR every night except one. We have tried all of the specialty restaurants in the past and don't find them worth the money though we did have lunch at sushi on 5 twice. We were traditional late seating which is our preference. The food was generally ok with a couple of stand outs for me, the Coq au Vin and braised short ribs were very good. The menu now has combined the daily options with the everyday favorites to make it look like there are more choices. Escargot and shrimp cocktail were available every night! They also added the rock lobster tail, filet mignon and both as surf and turf for an upcharge as mentioned in other threads. One big disappointment for my wife was no duck l'orange on rock lobster night. Neither of us care for rock lobster and the alternatives were not good. We did not get any desserts. Service - One thing was pretty evident and that was the staff were busting their butts to try to keep up but seemed under staffed. This was a common theme observed throughout the service staff on the ship. We rarely saw staff cleaning in the stairways and around the public areas like we had in the past. We saw trash left in the stairways that was there for a couple of days before being picked up. Our stateroom attendant was a Retreat Host so they are apparently covering non suites as well. I recall the days when there were two attendants serving each room.
  15. Reflection - The ship was really I good condition. We didn't notice anything that showed significant signs of wear or damage although some of the chairs have seen better days in the MDR and around the ship. The ship was sailing at capacity and you could tell. There were MANY children on board, by far more than we have experienced before. Granted, we had never sailed in August but we have sailed during spring break in the Caribbean. Needless to say, some were well behaved and others were not. Tripping over kids running through a packed OVC was not a great experience or having a ball thrown around in the stairwell while trying to pass. Smoking - This seemed to be a constant issue, and yes, we reported it a number of times. Smoking observed in the theater, OVC and upper pool deck. We also smelled it on our balcony numerous times but could not tell where from. We were deck 10, starboard, midship so who knows.
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