360Guy

We are sailing first time on Serenity 7/2 Vancouver RT. If you wouldn’t mind elaborating further with respect to your thoughts on the “mixed” food. Reviews on this board for Waterside have been very positive. Thanks!

Very grateful for the daily Reflections and menus! We will sail Serenity for the first time July 2nd round trip Vancouver. Can’t wait….I have been so impressed by the variety of the daily Waterside menus! Food looks amazing!!

We are booked for Onward June 2025 from Lisbon to Southampton including Bordeaux overnight. We plan to bring local bottles of wine onboard and pay the very reasonable corkage. So grateful Azamara gives this option to their guests. Looking forward to our cruise!!

Hi CruisePfan, We live part time in San Diego. There is a Rite Aid just a couple of blocks from the cruise terminal: https://www.riteaid.com/locations/ca/san-diego/1411-kettner-boulevard.html Hope this helps! Have a wonderful cruise!! Bob

Thank you Rob for posting these wonderful pictures of your dinner! A fantastic food and wine pairing. Can’t wait for our Vancouver cruise…

We have been loyal for 15+ years. Just finished a Best of Japan cruise in October 2023. Great itinerary and hard working crew as always. The MDR food was fine but limited. Gone were many favorites. Have not see the menu “revamp”. Now booked on Azamara, Viking and Crystal. The per diem on these are higher for sure. But the same “Best of Japan” cruise in 2024 is 50% higher. If Celebrity has an interesting itinerary we would likely book. The cruise industry is imho trying to recover their COVID losses and have massive debt to service. The ships are full and prices are way up. If people are not happy then try another cruise line….they would all love to have you and I think Celebrity corporate hasn’t figured it out. Staffing is very tight. Our Millenium crew worked very hard and were fantastic. So….despite our Elite Plus status we are going to see if the grass is greener….

Keith, Thank you for sharing your experiences on this cruise and the effort you put into providing the various pictures, daily reflections and Waterside menus. Much appreciated! It looked like a fantastic cruise in every way. We were already booked on the Serenity Quebec City to New York late September, and your feedback as well as others we have been reading motivated us to book the Vancouver-Vancouver cruise in early July! The suite upgrade was very enticing…and frankly I am just impatient to experience Crystal for the first time! Have a safe trip home and looking forward to our upcoming cruises with Crystal! Bob

Hi Keith, We are booked 9/24/24 on Serenity. Really looking forward to the cruise! We understand about the reservations from the helpful thread above. Should we contact Crystal offices to see which night is formal? I think we have a sea day after sailing from Quebec City (overnight first night). We want to dine in Waterside on formal evening. Thanks for your help! Bob

We are sailing next year on Azamara. We may pick up some wine in Porto and Lisbon to bring aboard. Can anyone advise the current corkage charge? Thank you! Bob

Hi…question….why a color copy vs B&W? Thanks!

Thank you for posting! Looks wonderful. We are on the Best of Japan 10/12 sailing and have bid for an Aqua upgrade….fingers crossed! Enjoy the rest of your cruise!

Thank you canloan….yes that is what we are seeing also, we booked this cruise about 18 months ago and survived the ship switch with a number of folks on our roll call getting cancelled. And we booked before a lot of changes both pricing and food, etc. We just made Elite Plus which now seems like free 2x laundry/pp is the real perk. We’ve booked a Viking River, Crystal (yikes $$$) and an Azamara for 2025. Need to try some others. This cruise will be a test of sorts. Seems like food in the MDR has taken a real hit in terms of offerings that were standards for many years. Sad as I looked forward to them. Hoping the sailing you are on is going well…Millenium is a lovely ship…we were last on her in October of 2021 with 700 total passengers…..something we will never experience again and it was just wonderful all around.

Will be on Millenium 10/12. Is the app correct for the MDR your transpacific cruise? If yes it looks like some of the regular menu items are gone like lamb shank, beef short ribs, rack of lamb, etc? Just thinking that the menu on the app for your cruise will basically be the same for our 12 night Best of Japan on 10/12. Really would be disappointing if those items are part of the menu changes. Thanks for your feedback….I like mashed potatoes but not every night! Bob

We just booked our first Crystal cruise for September Quebec to New York on Serenity. Technically our second booking but our first was the same itinerary for October 2020 and we all know how that turned out. So very grateful for all the posts on this thread and others about their experiences. We are longtime Celebrity and have been anxiously following Crystal’s return and are excited!

Greetings….it has been 11 years since our last Azamara cruise on the Quest along the Croatian coast. It was really very nice. The past 12 years have been on Celebrity including a 10/2021return to service on Millenium and a 4/2022 1st sailing on Solstice out of Southampton with a very full ship. We’ve never really had a bad experience on Celebrity but the recent noise volume on their CC boards is pretty stiff. We sail on Millenium Best of Japan 10/12 that has been sold out for almost two years (oversold at one point) so will have an opportunity to provide feedback. After this long winded intro we are looking at the Azamara Onward June 1, 2025 Lisbon to Southampton 10 night. Getting some quotes and hope to book soon. Wonderful itinerary and we really like that we can bring wine onboard as we make stops in Portugal and France and pay the reasonable corkage. It has a great itinerary. We also booked a Crystal Serenity Canada Quebec to NYC in September 2024. This will be our first foray into the luxury space and their return to service has been very good as CC posts are reporting. The per diem on this cruise is multiples of Celebrity and Azamara, but we had one booked before COVID and then they went bankrupt. I really enjoy and appreciate the time everyone takes on these boards sharing their experiences and recommendations!