Millennium 10-09-2009 review (LONG)

[garardo]

Our Panama Canal cruise on the Millennium 10-10-2009

It is fair to tell you a little bit about our selves. It will help you with our perspective on cruising. We are both in our mid 50’s and are now cruising only on Celebrity. We have cruised on most of the other mass market lines. Total cruise time is about 13-16 weeks. I do not keep track. My wife is disabled and pretty much confined to a wheel chair while we are cruising. I am an Italian trained Chef and a certified Sommelier working on the strip in Las Vegas.

I will skip the getting to the ship part except the say that we took the Supershuttle and it took 1 hour and 45 min to go from LAX to the pier in San Pedro.

When we got to the pier things were very disorganized when we transferred our luggage form the shuttle to the porters but this is expected. Once inside the terminal we waited 20 minutes before I was sipping on my first of many glasses of Champagne. On previous cruises with X the Champagne was offered from a white gloved server serving from a silver tray. This time all of the glassed were lined up on a table towards the back of the reception area. I asked the young lady why this was so and she explained that during the rush of guests coming on board they would not have time to be filling the tray all of the time. The wife started getting unpacked and with in 10 min we met or cabin steward and assistant Sebastian and Manuel. The cabin was as clean as a whistle and in excellent repair. We had a disabled cabin 3021. I was told that it was 376 Sq ft.

I had made reservation in the Olympic on line but I wanted to make some changes. I went to the desk in the Olyimpic and the changes were made with no problem. I had them check my Main dinning room table to see if my table mates that I had set up prior was correct and again everything was perfect. This saved me from having to wait in line at the Maître d’ desk.

After getting a bit organized in the cabin we headed up to our favorite place to eat. The Aqua Spa Buffet. I was impressed when the gentleman who helped me with our reservation in the Olympic was behind the serving line and greeted me by name. We enjoy the Aqua Spa area for a number of reasons. If you enjoy a light healthy meal this is the place. The area is staffed by the same folks that run the Olympic fine dinning restaurant. Although this is not well posted, you can get a freshly made meal if you ask. You can get a number of fish selections and a chicken dish as well. All of the food served in this area is light very tasty and as good for you as possible. As an example the omelets are made with egg whites and no cheese is available for them. There is a wide variety of fresh and dried fruit, cereals, and of course the ever present smoked salmon. There was always someone there to carry the tray to our table and there was rarely a dirty table.

Persian Gardens

One of the first things I did once on board was to check out the Persian Gardens. The cost would be $99 for my self for the entire trip and $149.00 for the couple’s package. I opted to do the single. The area is of average size with no windows and 4 different rooms and 2 showers. The rooms were the “Grotto” with mild scented steam that turns off and on to give you a break, the Turkish bath that was a hot steam room and the Lanconium that is a sauna that is not super hot. The two showers had a regular shower head, a side shower and a fresh over head spray. The other shower added a tropical overhead and a splash shower. Neither the splash or the side shower worked well during the trip. The Grotto worked well but the Turkish bath and the Lanconium worked some of the time. The last room consisted of an area with heated tile loungers. I enjoyed the whole Persian experience even though there were equipment failures. I went into the Persian 10 or 12 times during the trip.


Handicap access.

Everyone on board from the buss staff to the officers were extremely helpful with my wife. They were always there to help wheel her around the dinning room or to the restroom and back. There are a few areas of opportunity. The speed bumps on the floor of the door frames could be a bit high, it was almost impossible to enter the theater and it took 2 people to get the wheel chair into the Extreme bar.

Olympic dinning room

Although we had great table mates in the main dinning room being that I am in the food service industry I really appreciate the dedication that goes into the food and service in the Olympic. We ended up dinning in the Olympic 7 nights.

I want to thank Tudo Soacat and his entire staff for making each and every meal over the top. It all started when I needed to make that change in the reservations for our first night. I thought it would be a problem but all of the changes were made in 2 minutes. All of the food was served hot and looked too good to eat. Chef de Cuisine Isabel Arriagada was keeping us on our toes by making dishes that were not on the menu. I never knew what to expect next. The Sommelier Maja Dimoti was able to banter with me about the proper wine to have with each course. We were just about always in agreement. I felt that an off dry Riesling would have gone better with the duck liver and perhaps a Sauvignon Blanc could have been a better match with the goat cheese soufflé. The Chef d' Rang Yusmin and Head Chef d' Rang kept every thing humming along to perfection.

One dinner, we had some friends from Finland join us for dinner. Tudor moved our table for 4 to where our normal 2 top was so we could still have a window to watch the sun set.

It is my custom to offer a fresh red rose to my wife on our first dinner in the specialty restaurant. I went to the front flower shop but they were closed. I then went to the front desk and they told me they would see what they could do. I then went to the Olympic and told them of my challenge. The Olympic ended up meeting the challenge.

Because Mary does not drink wine I asked if it would be OK if we did the Degustation for both of us with only one person enjoying the wine and I was told it would be no problem. Even though there were many extra courses the same $30 charge applied for Mary. My bill was $87 for the food and a lot of great wines.


The Olympic stumbled only a very few times. On the last night my duck liver was not properly cooked. The vegetable garnish on the Filet Mignon was cold. It looks great on the plate but was cold to the touch. The shrimp that were wrapped in prosciutto were a bit over cooked. The Filet on the Chateau was a bit dry.
Not really a stumble but they were not able to make a Carpaccio at the last minute.

Tipping

This is what I was told. All of the tips for all of the bartenders are pooled. They get what they are tipped from bar guests and a percentage from all of the cocktail servers.
The wine stewards keep there own tips.
In the Olympic there is a large percentage of the $30 that goes to the house. The remainder goes to the wait staff with different levels of servers getting a different cut of the pie. They rely on the extra tips and the 15% gratuity on the wine sales.
In the alternate restaurant all of the tips are pooled.

The Buffet

Living in Las Vegas where we have the best buffets in the world we are not inclined to do a buffet on board. This is what we found. On our last cruise the ice cream area was open much later maybe 10pm. I think it closed around 6pm on this cruise. I did try the famed waffles but found them lacking. I guess I should have had them made fresh.

Talking to the head chefs

I was very lucky to meet up with not only the executive chef but the corporate chef and the traveling new build chef. They told me that the new S class ship coming out has applied to Michelin for a 1 STAR status. If this happens it will be the first time ever for a cruise ship.
It was confirmed to me that the ships are all provisioned out the USA regardless of where they are. If a ship has completed a 14 day cruise and is in Naples the food and supplies is flown to the ship. There are times though that the ship will have to provision from different ports along the way. On this cruise we got additional provisions. At one port we got some more meat and the chef was impressed with the quality but the price he paid was twice what he would have liked. We also picked up some fresh fish and additional produce. I asked all of the Chefs if it would be possible for me to view the kitchen working during service but I was turned down.
Excursions
We had made all of our reservations via the internet. On the third day out I was not felling well and did not think I could do any of the excursions I talked to Leslie and explained. He took care of everything. Later in the trip I was doing better and booked a quick trip. He was there to see to it that my wife was well treated.

Concierge

I have nothing but praise to lay on her. I do not normally deal with the front desk aka Guest Relations. There are too many staff members. You never know who you are going to deal with. Donna when out of her way on more then one occasion. I had a ton of older version coins from Panama. I wanted to know if they were still valid. Donna went off the ship and asked one of the vendors for me. We were having some trouble with the phone in our room and Donna came down with the electrician to see first hand what the problem was and to see why is could not be fixed. I asked the front desk to have Donna check on a car reservation when she got off her break. The request was not given to her but she dropped the other work she was doing and got the information for me in 5 minutes. We had repair work done on the bathroom door so I called Donna. It was done in 15 minutes with a call back to be sure we were happy. She was always there for us and greeted us by name from the first day.

To come:
Aqua Spa Buffet/Café
My meeting with the cellar master
My meeting with the head of house keeping
My meeting with the dinning room manager
Promoting of the staff
The alternative restaurant
The wine tastings

[Dunmore2]

I love your style of writing. It is very entertaining and full of tidbits. It is interesting to hear your views, especially with your food background. The rose for your wife is a sweet tradition. I can't wait to read more. Thanks for sharing.

[joanne59]

I enjoyed your detailed review of this ship. We are on Century for a 4 night Key West/Cozumel trip in December and look forward to our 4th Celebrity cruise. I love the Aqua Spa Cafe also and hope to take some pictures to post, as most folks tend to only take Dining Room food photos. We've been long time fans of RCCL and enjoy the food, however, they don't have the variety of healthy options offered on Celebrity. I hope to book our next trip on one of the newer ships, we enjoyed our 2-night nowhere cruise last fall on Solstice.

Happy Sailing

[Texed]

Thanks for posting.

[garardo]

Originally Posted by joanne59

I enjoyed your detailed review of this ship. We are on Century for a 4 night Key West/Cozumel trip in December and look forward to our 4th Celebrity cruise. I love the Aqua Spa Cafe also and hope to take some pictures to post, as most folks tend to only take Dining Room food photos. We've been long time fans of RCCL and enjoy the food, however, they don't have the variety of healthy options offered on Celebrity. I hope to book our next trip on one of the newer ships, we enjoyed our 2-night nowhere cruise last fall on Solstice.

Happy Sailing

If I could figure out how to post pictures on Cruise critic I would love to I have about 300.

garardo

[uktog]

A great review - look forward to more
We are travelling on S class soon and are very interested in your comments re the Michelin starring - I presume that would be for one of the speciality restaurants - Murano? or was it all 3 or shipwide (not sure that is possible)
Anyway a great goal to aim for and one as passengers we can only benefit from
A

[Lois R]

Originally Posted by garardo

If I could figure out how to post pictures on Cruise critic I would love to I have about 300.

garardo

If you have an album on a website, examples would be Photobucket,
Flickr, or Webshots...you can post your photos there and then put
the link on here for us. We could click on the link and view them
that way

Oh, good review

[El_Rolfo]

Hi there Gary,

and thanks for yours and Mary´s company during dinners (I was one of the Finns btw. for you others)! Please send her my regards. I have yet to go through and edit all my pics, I'll put them up somewhere on the web when I've got time. IMO, this was one hella nice trip, and I'd go again anytime. At the moment, I'm just feeling depressed at work again. Quite a shock to come home from that kind of temperatures to cold and dark Finland. We had a nice 2-night stay at the Quality Inn El Portal in Condado, San Juan, and the hotel owner happened to be a big fan of Finlandia vodka! Had a nice chat with him. Also happened to bump into some cruisers in the lobby there.

Anyway, wanted to comment some on your text also and give more info where needed.

We took the supershuttle from LAX at 9:30 or something, we were at the pier at 10 pretty much. No one actually knew where we should go at that time of the day, so we pretty much just stood there for like 45 mins or so. The actual embarkation went smoothly, we were among the first on the ship, having had lunch before 12. On the contrary, during debarkation we were the LAST ones off. Off the ship at 12, and Mats got stuck in immigration because of his surname having dots on the o letter and seemingly that didn't match the name in the system. We were the last ones to collect our luggage at 2pm.

You are right, the ice cream bar closed way too early. Most nights it was at 6pm, but the last nights of the cruise it was open til 8 and 9? Don't know why though, it was actually mentioned in the Celebrity today also.

We had alot of breakfasts and lunches at the buffet, some words on that:

Breakfast was nice, many different choices, but some negative points because of the buffet running out of different dishes during the last days. No more pineapple after day 12 or so, no rice krispies and also some vegetables out. No bagels on debarkation day. No biggie, though.

Funny with the thing that they get all their food from the US, remember I mentioned we got beer that had the Estonian recycling info on them? Also there seemed to be alot of beers with Canadian recycling info on them. Additionally US info on some bottles, so beer seems to come from wherever they get it cheaply.

Best regards,
Christian

[garardo]

Christain,
Thanks for the additions to my book. I am sorry that I did not mention that the Murano was the restaurant that is appling for the Michlin star.

Gary