Bravo Celebrity! My .02 on our June 23, 2014, 11 Night Cruise Mediterranean

1. Preface: this review is written from the perspective of a late 40s to early 50s DINK couple. We mean no disrespect to families and any criticisms of kids below is mostly meant in jest. This was my wife's first cruise and this my second. My goal was to show the wife how great cruising was. We were looking for a cruise that catered to adults and on the recommendation of friends and after many hours of research here on CC, we chose Celebrity Reflection. We booked stateroom 1605 Aqua Class on deck 11.

Many thanks to all CC users who provide tips and advice to make this cruise a success.

2. Bottom line summary: Celebrity won us over. Wow what a great cruise! I recommend this ship and this itinerary to all who are considering a similar Mediterranean cruise.

Please do not let all the recent CC negative posts regarding Celebrity cruises dissuade you from sailing on Celebrity. We had a wonderful experience. Was it a "perfect" cruise? No it was not. I have some nit picks below. Regardless of the nit picks we still had a wonderful cruise. I'd give it a rating of 4 1/2 beers out of 5. Thanks to the crew of the Celebrity Reflection!

Embark and Disembark---Civitavecchia seemed like an unusual port for cruise ship departures. But it actually turned out to be a fairly easy process, with the exception of our driver getting lost in trying to find the port entry. The Reflection departed out of terminal 25. It was a domed tent structure. We were dropped off right outside the main entrance by our driver. Bags were immediately picked up by porters and whisked away. We arrived around 11 o'clock and went through the special line for aqua class passengers. Although it seemed fairly crowded at that time, 15 minutes later we were walking on board the reflection. First stop was the mast grill for the legendary hamburgers. We were not disappointed.

On our last day we just walked of the ship at 835 for a scheduled 900am pick up. Finding bags was a breeze. Car and driver waiting for us.

3. The ship: The Reflection is a wonderful ship. Really liked the layout and organization. My favorite spot on the ship was the Sunset Bar on Deck 15 at the back. We spent most of our time there. We spent our evenings there after dinner enjoying the med breezes and meeting new friends. It was also a great place to escape the madness of the pool area during sea days.

I was surprised with the fact that there while there were well over 4,000 people on board (3,000 PAX and 1,000 crew) you could still find quiet areas to escape the madness. Never really seemed that crowded.

I did miss the fact that there was no real promenade deck. It's too bad that the lifeboats take up the majority of space there.

Also not sure what to think about the grass lawn on deck 15. Seems to me that a better use of the space would be for more dining and bar space. The lawn area on the port and starboard sides was used as a sunbathing area, but the midship lawn area wasn't used that much and frequently closed.

4. Our Cabin: 1605 deck 11 Aqua Class. Great room and recommend it. Large balcony on the hump near the elevators. Deck chairs with foot rests. No noise issues. Bed is next to the balcony door. For this specific itinerary I might consider the identical version of this cabin on the Starboard side. Seemed like it had better views on port days. However we were not disappointed at all with 1605.

5. Mix of Passengers: Overall there younger passenger on average than I expected. 40-65ish. Few scooters and O2 tanks but quite a few families. There were cracker crunchers and teens on board but with few exceptions not a huge factor for us...for the most part.

Actually it was some of the adults who were most bothersome for us. Witnessed several instances of passengers being rude and disrespectful to the crew. Also several cases of not being considerate to other passengers. There were several folks with a, "I'm a more important passenger" than you attitude. Didn't let it ruin our cruise but it was awkward seeing it. There were a few cases of parents letting their paste eaters run amuck around the ship. This was frustrating. Some kids seemed to think the stairs were a jungle jim. But these occurrences were only noticeable toward the end of the cruise.

It's worth noting that I am troubled by the "me" attitude of many passengers. On both the celebrity excursions we took (noted below) there were passengers who seemed to be habitually late for the buses thereby delaying the entire group. Never an apology to the driver, the tour guide, or the rest of the waiting passengers, but rather a mere expectation that "hey we paid for our excursion you can wait on us." How very rude and disappointing.

6. The Staff: overall the crew to a person were great and responsive to our needs. Special kudos to Ned and Warren the bartenders at the Sunset Bar. They were one of the reasons we never left our stools. Made our days and evenings fun.

Nothing remarkable about our cabin steward. This was perhaps a bit disappointing to us. We didn't see that much of him during our cruise. He did his job and our room was clean and well-kept. But it seemed like he never really went the extra mile to make sure that all my needs were addressed. Towards the end of the cruise, it seemed his attention to our room was noticeably less. Missed a day providing our water bottles and there was a missing towel or two.

7. Dining:

Blu. Great food and service. With one or two exceptions no problem getting a table where we wanted. Most we waited for a table was 5 minutes. Rib eye was disappointing though. Same comment as Tuscan below. Recommend the NY Strip.

The Buffet. Surprisingly great food. We ate there more than I expected. We enjoyed the variety of selections of food at all times of day. Especially the sushi at 5:00 pm for happy hour!

Tuscan Grill. Highly recommend this! Great meal! However I do not recommend ordering the Ribeye steak at this time. It was thin, tough and over-cooked. If it weren't for the fact that I was already stuffed from the first three courses, I would have sent it back. I recommend ordering the NY Strip instead. It's a better cut of meat. My wife's was great. I'd eat at Tuscan again!

Lawn Club. What a delightful surprise! One of our favorites. Pizza first course, great steaks and the hot chocolate chip cookie desert. Can't go wrong!

8. Entertainment:

With the exception of the first night's captain's greeting we didn't see a show. We spent our evenings mostly at the Sunset Bar watching the World cup. They set up a TV and had all the games on during the evenings.

Lounge entertainment was great. Very talented entertainment at all venues.

No issues for us with the music at the pool or any other venues. Good mix and wasn't loud.

Too busy at night at the Sunset Bar to go to the Casino. Shocking for us, but we were having too much fun to leave the bar.

9. Nitpicks:

There were a few disappointments. The biggest for us was Cellar Masters. We tried it two times and never were able to get a glass of wine. The service was almost none existent for a place that had no one in it. The first time we visited, there was one other table and the server was chatting with the passengers. Ten minutes later she was still chatting with the passengers and hadn't even acknowledged our presence. It was only as we got up to leave that she came towards us, but by then we had decided to leave for the ensemble lounge instead. The second try had pretty much the same results.

Michaels Club was another head scratcher. Reserved for elites but always vacant. What a waste of space!

Lawn areas and Rib eye steaks as discussed above.

10. Other CC "Hot" topics:

Deck chair hogs--didn't really notice too much too many issues. Although there were was quite a bit of saved chairs, there seemed to be many available. Of course we were mostly camped out in the back at the Sunset Bar during days on the ship.

Smoking--for us there never was an issue with the smoking areas. I am not a cigarette smoker, but enjoy a cigar during the evening after dinner. The designated smoking area at the sunset bar was perfect. Never seem to be an issue or any disagreements with smokers and non-smokers.

Dress code--since we did not dine in the main dining room, we can't speak to the dress code enforcement in that area. However, we did notice that on the formal nights there seem to be very few passengers dressed in formal attire. Suits and ties and sportcoats and slacks seemed to be the dominant attire on formal nights. As for us I took long a sports coat to wear on formal nights in Blu or one of the specialty restaurants. This seemed to be the most popular form of dress.

I never really paid attention as to whether or not the dress code was being enforced. I did notice on the last night that a gentleman with a nice pair shorts and a collared shirt was allowed to dine in Blu. Didn't bother me a bit, but I'm sure he must've felt awkward because he was clearly underdressed as compared to everyone else.

Loud Music--not an issue for us. Quite the opposite. We enjoyed the variety of music that was played in all of the venues whether it be live or recorded.

Celebrity cost-cutting measures--since this was our first cruise we have no baseline comparison for this issue. However, we noticed nothing of the sort. The service was great and the ship was always clean. The crew was out constantly cleaning and maintaining the ship. Most importantly they were also constantly dispensing hand sanitizer.

11. The Itinerary: we really enjoyed the itinerary on this cruise. We were fortunate in that we had extremely calm seas for the whole trip. No seasickness issues for us.

I was a bit worried in reading previous reviews that it might be "to Port intensive". However we found the opposite to be the case. In reality the way the itinerary is set up, we had almost 4 days at sea (three days at sea, and an early afternoon departure from Istanbul followed by an 11am arrival in Kusadasi). It seemed like just the perfect amount of time on board the reflection.

We really enjoyed all of the stops that we visited. Santorini, Istanbul for two days, Kusadasi, Mykonos, Athens and Naples. All great.

At the risk of running afoul of the cc posting rules I will make recommendations on our specific private port tours on the relevant cc port sites. We used two cruise ship sponsored excursions. The rest we arranged for private transportation. All the arrangements worked out very well. For Santorini we used the ships 3 1/2 hour wine tour excursion to get priority tendering from the boat. Worked well for us although the wine tour itself was just average. We also used the ships 3 1/2 hour Ephesus tour and would recommend this as well.

12. In summary We thoroughly enjoyed this cruise! My wife is sold on the cruise experience. We highly recommend choosing a cruise on Celebrity. We really enjoyed Reflection and can't wait to sail on her or one of the other Solictice class ships in the near future.

Glad to answer questions. Hope to provide some pictures at some point. But I can't top the pictures provided in previous reviews.

"Ciao for now."

Thanks for the review. My wife have sailed on Reflection twice in the Caribbean and she is one of our favorite ships. Happy cruising!

Glad that you enjoyed the Reflection. She is a very nice ship. I see that infamous Tuscan ribeye lives on. Tried it once and learned to not order it again.:)

Thanks for the review.

Thanks for your review. Glad you had a great time.

Interesting that you report your AQ cabin attendant was lackluster. The worst cabin attendant I ever had on Celebrity was in an AQ1 cabin on the Infinity. We never did get our AQ amenities. We ended up getting our own ice--it was just easier.

On the Reflection this spring, had the best cabin attendant and assistant ever! Also great wait staff and good food.

I've read great reviews about the level of service by cabin attendants. So maybe my expectations were to high. Some passengers may prefer "the seldom seem approach."

Excellent review Tom!! Thanks for taking the time to share your cruise with us. :)

Thanks for the report!

Thanks a lot for the review, she's a great ship!

Thanks for posting. :)

Thanks for your review! And as for me I don't care what kinda pictures you put up of your trip, I just can't get enuf. I'm going bananas waiting for our cruise in September :)

Thanks for taking the time to write your review/report.

Keith

Enjoyed your review - thanks!

Enjoyed your review and love your Cruise Critic name. You could have been a character on the Sopranos!

Thank you. That is in fact my Sopranos name as given to me by the other three members of my golf foursome. They know that as long as I have a wedge or putter in my hand they are never out of the hole.

Great review. Didn't realize this was going to be your first Celebrity cruise. Glad you had a good time.

Below is more specifics on our Itinerary and Cruise Ports. Still hope to post pictures at some point but it may take days or even weeks to sift through the thousands of pictures and videos we took over our two week vacation.

I booked our cruise in March of 2013 the day the 2014 European Itineraries were release. My goal was to make my wife's cruise a wonderful experience. Thanks to all the useful advice from CC, I had 16 months to research activities for our port visits. We are not huge planners and usually do not like to be dependent on touring with large organized groups. But we made two exceptions for this cruise which worked out well as discussed below. Here is how our visits turned out.

ROME--We arrived in the morning on June 21. In Rome We stayed two nights at the hotel Madrid before the cruise and one night after the cruise. This was our second and third stay and the Hotel Madrid. It is definitely not a fancy hotel, but we like it because it is in a great location within easy walking distance to all the major Rome sights. Rooms are clean and the internet, while a pain to log on to, is pretty good. There are three good restaurants just around the corner to your right as you exit and half way up the street. Great food and free wifi. I would stay there again my next visit to Rome.

ROME TRANSPORTATION: We used Rome Cabs for all of our four transfers. Airport, Hotel-Port, Hotel, Airport. Great company. Good rates and prompt courteous drivers. They always arrive 15 minutes early to pick you up. See the Italy port forum or tripadvisor for more details on Rome Cabs.

CIVITAVECCHIA-- about an hour car ride from Rome depending on traffic. Signage to Port is easy to follow and the port is easy to locate. It looks like an interesting town to visit but I'm not sure I'd want to stay overnight. Note that if you have a lot of luggage I'd recommend hiring a private driver or taxi. The train station is within walking distance to port but it was comical seeing the countless passengers pulling all their luggage to and from the train station. Sure there are shuttle buses around but it seemed chaotic to mee. Note the port is expansive and if your are on Celebrity and starting or ending your cruise, Celebrity is typically docked at pier 25 which is quite aways from the main entrance. Not walking distance for sure.

SANTORINI-- We did the ships 3 1/2 hour wine tour. I booked this fairly early on after booking our cruise at the recommendation of many CC users. They gave me good advice! "SO01 - Island of Santorini & Village of Oia" for a total cost of $152. The 2:15 tour offered priority tendering and was the main reason we chose this tour. We were on the first tender. The tour includes visits to a winery, transportation to the other end of the island to Oia for an hour visit with a final stop in Fira. The tour ends there and you return to the ship on your own. Perfect for us. Wasn't too impressed with the winery but it was an interesting experience and we go to see the entire island.

ISTANBUL (overnight). Wow what an impressive and wonder huge city. We really enjoyed Istanbul!

For the first full day we booked a private guide for 8 hours through Cem Matin at Eurasiatours.com. Very reasonable. $250 USD for 8 hours, including driver and tour guide. Great price. Note that the company required prepayment by wire transfer.

Mehmet our guide was awesome. We wanted to see as much of new and old Istanbul as we could and Mehmet did not disappoint. Ferry ride to Asia, a ride back on the new subway, tour of the Grand Bazaar and Spice Markets, say the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia (from the outside, we hate crowds) and other mosques and had a wonderful lunch. Great experience and can recommend this company. Ask for Mehmet!

Second day. We spend the morning walking the Old City and Waterfront. It's an easy walk from the ship.

KUSADASI-- We took our second ship sponsored shore excursion for a 3 1/2 tour of Ephesus. It was around $53.00 I believe. (Wife booked it for us on board). We had planned to take a cab and get tickets at Epehesus. However changed our minds at the last minute. The tour was the perfect length for us and allowed us to wander around the port town of Kusadasi for most of the afternoon.

MYKONOS--Windy day. We docked at the port located a mile or two from the main village. Celebrity provided a bus shuttle service from the ship. We enjoyed the village and hope to return someday. We had planned on spending the afternoon at one of the beaches but because of the wind decided to return to the ship in the afternoon. We enjoyed a leisurely afternoon on board by the pool

ATHENS--Great City. One of the highlights of the cruise. We booked a driver through George's Taxi for a 4 1/2 tour for $150 Euro. Mikis was our driver and he was perfect! Probably the best we had the entire trip! He quickly figured out that we wanted to see as much as Athens as possible and avoid the tour buses. So after a quick stop at the Acropolis, we spent the rest of our time seeing a number of sites: Parthenon, Plaka, Temple of Hephaestus, Mount Lycabettus, changing of the guard are just some of the examples of what we saw in a short time. Extremely pleased with George's Taxi. Ask for Mikis!

NAPLES--We took an early morning ferry to Sorrento for a lunch at Costa Diva in Praiano on the Amalfi Coast. We spent a week on the Coast in August 2013 and met "Maurizio the Taxi Driver Amalfi Coast" in Minori. He was a great driver and we used him the entire week that trip. So for our day visit this year we hired him to come to Sorrento and take us to lunch. It was a great visit and drive along the coast, followed by a leisurely afternoon in Sorrento before the ferry ride back to Naples. If you ever plan a trip to Minori on the Amalfi coast we recommend looking up Maurizio!

All things considered we really enjoyed this Itinerary and recommend it. I'd do it again especially if I could do a back-to-back with the 10 night cruise.

I recommend checking out the Ports forums here on CC for more details on these ports. There are many CC members there with a wealth of information.

Nice review! Would you care to share the name of the restaurants in Rome that you referred to and what area they are in.

Thanks!

Too bad they can't get that Toughskin Ribeye right. Nice review. :D

Hotel Madrid is at the corner of Via della vite and Via Mario De Fiori about three short blocks from the Spanish Steps. Just up the block on Via della Vite are three restaurants. Two of them were our favorites: Osteria Della Vite and Sugo Ristoranti. Both are great restaurants but we like Osteria Della Vite best. Great Pizza, Pasta and Beer. Very convenient to the hotel and reasonable prices. Also have free WIFI.

We also visited Champagneria Vudabar at the Homs Hotel across the street from Hotel Madrid for pre-dinner drinks. They serve a variety of complementary finger foods with beer and wine during the late afternoon. Great places to sit outside an people watch.

Too bad they can't get that Toughskin Ribeye right. Nice review. :D

Agreed. It was kind of embarrassing really. It was so thin they could not possibly cook it right. Why bother. NY Strip on the other-hand was very good.

Great review Tommy3Putts, my wife and I were on the same cruise along with my wife's sister and her husband.....We enjoyed the cruise also. Like you we spent a lot of time in the Sunset bar at nights (they are all smokers). Now after reading here that you and your wife watched the world cup games from here I am trying to guess who you are...(lol) There was a cigar smoking big fella sitting front row at the USA V Germany game with his wife.....You?.....If so we named you Tony Soprano....we all thought you looked very like him! (particularly with the cigar..lol)

Got to agree with you regarding Ned and Warren, they never left your glass empty for long, always right around with a top up as soon as they saw a glass empty.....In a way this surprised me, I thought once the bar staff realised you had the drinks package they wouldn't push to fill your glass.....but they did....Great!

Our other cruises have been on board the Independence of the Seas, this was our first Celebrity cruise....we didn't really know what to expect. The Reflection has a different vibe from the IoS, much more a relaxed atmosphere, our first two days we thought it would be a bit too relaxed for us compared to the IoS.....but we decided to not compare, and by day three we were finding a lot of things that we liked about the Reflection and Celebrity....We were on deck 9 concierge balcony stateroom, Derrick was our stateroom attendant, he wasn't around much but our stateroom was always cleaned, towels always replaced daily and we had no complaints. I'm not one for fuss and I prefer a low key approach from my stateroom attendant, so Derrick was great in my book....I don't mind a "Is everything fine sir" on the first and maybe second day....but not every time we cross paths....When everything ain't fine...I'll let them know is my approach.

I also thought the buffet food was good, I think there was far more choice on the Independence of the Seas though, but there was more than enough on Reflection to satisfy me......and wow...those burgers at the poolside bar were superb!

A great cruise for us, and all four of us would certainly have no qualms about cruising with Celebrity again.

Das

Hi Das. Most likely that was me. I was on the left up close with the wife and another couple watching the World Cup. I'm sure we saw each other several times at the Sunset Bar. It was a great cruise!

Yes! We've done two land trips there, self catering. We love it, halfway between the crowded, overpriced, crowded Positano and Amalfi.

On our last X cruise, Paulo, from AP, drove us to our favorite restaurant there, La Petite Restaurant. The family took us in for Sunday lunch, then refused payment!

Agree- George's Taxi rocks! We had Kostas, who drove us to Delfi. We hope to return to Athens and visit places he suggested not on the usual lists, and we will most definitely use George's again.

Tom - thanks for your comprehensive review ... very helpful, as we are doing the same cruise on Reflection in a little over 3 weeks.

We will be doing the Santorini Oia/Winery tour, as well. Did you take the cable car down from Fira or did you brave the donkey steps? Did you feel an hour was enough time in Oia?

Glad to hear about your good experience with RomeCabs. All our transport is booked through them, as well.

Thanks for reaffirming what many others have said ... to stay away from the ribeye!

We enjoyed the tour but would have liked more than an hour in Oia. However, we also wanted more time in Fira. So it's a trade off. The hour was enough for us to walk the major areas of the village and grab a quick beer. The views are magnificent at both Oia and Fira. We took the cable car down. There were a few who walked the path but later stated it was as bad as advertised. Note for us the line to the cars down was long but moved fast. We waited in line for about 15 - 20 minutes.