Millennium April 24 - May 1, 2005

[Duanerice1]

We sailed on the Millennium, April, 24, 2005 in cabin 9043. Weather was great. Overall the trip was super.

 

A little background. Last year we took our first weeklong cruise aboard the Summit. We went to the Western Caribbean and had an awesome cruise. This cruise has a lot to live up to to rival that one. We have taken weekend cruises, but never a weeklong cruise before the Summit. We are both in our late 40’s, kids grown and we own a Real Estate business. We are looking forward to cruising pretty much every April. I have already booked next April. We go in April mainly because for the most part, kids are back in school and it is not too hot in the Caribbean yet.

 

We cruise to relax. Cell phones don’t work – that is the main draw, although our phones did work in St Thomas and Puerto Rico. My wife sleeps in and I spend a lot of time on the balcony. We do attend most of the shows and always do dinner in either the Metropolitan or the Olympia. My wife likes to dress up for dinner so we do. I would stay in shorts and a t-shirt the entire cruise, but I gotta give a little. We normally do not sit at the pool or participate in a lot of other activities. I use the T-pool at least once a day and usually the gym everyday.

 

Pre Cruise: On Saturday we drove over to Ft Lauderdale to the Doubletree Oceanfront (I think it’s called). Booked via Priceline the night before. The location was awesome, right across from the beach. If you want strictly location, I would say you couldn’t go wrong staying there. But, the hotel itself leaves a lot to be desired. The rooms are worn and small. Not worth what I paid.

 

Embarkation: Left the hotel around 11:30 to go to the pier. I like to arrive around 12:00 because the rush to get on is usually over. Dropped the luggage off and had to go park the car a mile or so down the road in a parking garage. Shuttle was waiting and we were back at the terminal and on the ship within 20 minutes of arriving. That includes parking the car! Grabbed a glass of Champagne and went to our room. The cabin was just about ready so we sat on the balcony until he was done.

 

Cabin: We had cabin 9043, which is towards the front of the ship. It has a pie shaped balcony, which allowed us to fit a padded lounge chair out there with the 2 chairs and table. I love being on this end of the ship. I am close to the gym and the T-pool. Next trip I have 6138 booked which is towards the rear of the ship. We’ll see. Anyway, room was great with just a minor complaint. I could never get the room cool enough. I would book the room again in a heartbeat. Caution: If you book this room, just be prepared that across the hall is some sort of machine that runs all day and night. You can block out most of the sound, but there is always a high pitched sound. As for the overhang, we like it. We live in South Florida and can get all the Sun we want. It is nice to be able to sit in the shade.

 

Concierge class: This is the second time we have been in CC. Is it worth it? To us, yes. We like the bigger room and the little amenities that go with it. The bed is very comfortable. Looked into the other rooms and those beds have a divider between the mattresses. These beds have a pillow top type mattress pad. Nicer towels and pads on the balcony chairs. Having breakfast on the balcony is almost worth it itself. To us, it is worth it.

 

We had late seating for dinner. This is the first time we have used late seating and we seem to like it better than early. We don’t have to be in a hurry to get back or get ready. But, we used to like the midnight snacks from room service but now we are too full. Had a great waiter and assistant. Food was pretty good to very good. Lobster night was awesome. They did a real good job.

 

We ate in the Olympia one night. What a great meal as usual. I had the goat cheese soufflé, lobster and shrimp and then the chocolate soufflé for desert. Wife had lobster bisque (they called it something else), the lamb and the chocolate soufflé. Very good. Worth one stop every trip.

 

On the 2 sea days, we just hung out. Read 2 books on this trip. I realized the book I brought was going too fast so I went to Words and borrowed a book.

 

Room Service. Breakfast on the balcony everyday. Placed our order the night before and ordered eggs benedict on the first day, like I pretty much did everyday on the Summit. They called and said they couldn’t do eggs benedict that I would have to order off the restaurant room service, not CC room service. By this time it was getting late so I just had an omelet. Our cabin steward delivered all our orders. On the Summit I don’t think that was the case and everything went smooth. On the Millennium our order was wrong a few of the days, he didn’t “unpack it” and left the tablecloth out for a few days. Nothing major, just little things like that. Maybe he is just overworked.

 

Day 3: Casa de Campo at 1:00. Up to T-pool before breakfast. The pool butler actually asked a kid to leave the T-pool area. This is the first time I have ever seem them enforce any of the rules. I was impressed.

 

We grabbed the shuttle to the Marina first since it looked like most people were going to Altos. Marina was nice, expensive shops, and not too big. Nice just the same. Spent about a hour tops. Based on a tip on this board, I did stop at the grocery store going in and bought some coffee. It was half price compared to Altos. Took a shuttle from the marina to Altos. Pretty cool place. Walked around for a bit and enjoyed it. I kind of agree with a lot of people as to why do we stop here? Don’t get me wrong, I always enjoy new places and didn’t mind the stop. But, there are too many other interesting ports to go to other than this one. It probably has to do with low docking fees as well as a piece of the action for the Kandela show.

 

The comedian that night was Louis Johnson and he was very good. He only performed about 40 minutes, but he was funny as can be. I am amazed at the number of kids at a 10:30 p.m. comedy show. What are the parents thinking?

 

Day 4: Puerto Rico, Pier 4. Very hot day. Everyone had to be cleared through Customs before we could get off the ship because we stopped in Casa de Campo. They put notices in your cabin as to the time you had to appear in the Theater to show your passport. Our time was 10:45. Glad I didn’t have anything set up earlier. As it was, they ended up calling everyone around 10:00 because they were way ahead. Once you got your pass from Customs, you could get off the ship. The earlier people were getting off the ship around 9:30. So much for priority service in CC. We didn’t have anything planned but I’m wondering if we could have gotten our time changed?

 

We have been to Puerto Rico before so we just took a walking trip into the shopping area in Old Town. Started with the free shuttle, but we could walk faster because the traffic was backed up, so we got off and walked. Spent a few hours walking around then back on the ship. No cold towels as we were getting back on. What a disappointment considering how hot it was that day. I did need some cash so I got a cash advance from the casino cashier. You can take up to $2,000 without any fees. They say it is for the Casino, but no one asked.

 

Day 5: St Thomas. We booked a tour through Godfrey. He wasn’t there, but one of his people, I feel bad because I forget her name, was there at 8:50 waiting for us. The shops downtown were not open because of the carnival still going on. Today they started at 5:00 a.m. and would end around noon. So instead of going shopping, we started the tour first. Pretty good tour and good commentary. She was really nice and knew her stuff. We were with 3 couples form England and they were pretty nice. We all wanted to go to Coki Beach so it worked out well.

 

Coki Beach was pretty nice. Not nearly as pretty as Megan’s Beach, but good snorkeling and a great pick for us. All sand bottom with super clear water. It is worth the trip. We didn’t have a lot of vendors selling us stuff, which was nice. Drinks and food were about it and they didn’t pester us. Chairs were $5 each and an umbrella was $10. The chairs were worth it, didn’t need an umbrella. We did order lunch about 1 hour before we were to depart. I finally had to ask for our money back because it wasn’t ready yet when we had to leave. Just take note if you are really hungry. Do not pay until you receive your food. It was a pain trying to get our money back.

 

The people we were with wanted to stay late and not go shopping. So, our driver took us to downtown Charlotte Amaile and gave us $6 for a taxi back (she would be picking the others up) and went back for them. Overall I’d say it was worth it. They are pretty flexible as to when and where to take you.

 

We were in the market for a couple of nice watches. We did check out prices in the states and Puerto Rico so we knew a decent price to pay. After shopping around we ended up buying 2 and feel we got a good deal, especially considering no tax. Other than jewelry and watches, there is not much shopping to be had. A few t-****s thrown in for good measure. If we weren’t in the market for jewelry I’m not sure we would bother to go. On the way back to the ship we stopped at Havensight Mall. Just smaller versions of the stores in downtown. Again, no cold towels as we boarded the ship.

 

Just a word on the dress code. I am still amazed at the way people dress. If they don’t want to dress up, there are other venues to eat at and other ships to take. It is just disappointing to see men in glorified t-****s and kids with shorts on informal and formal nights. I am not a fan of dressing up, but I do follow the dress code of the day as respect to my fellow passengers.

 

We went to take photos most nights they offered. We were having the photo people save some pictures for us until we get all the pictures taken. We’d go through the pictures and keep the one’s we liked. We would toss the others so by the end of the cruise we had about 10 portraits to pick from. Didn’t know they would do this, just happened to ask. We finally made a decision after sorting through the portraits. We had them make us up four 5x7s to go with the 8x10. Again, didn’t know they could do this. You can get 5x7’s or wallet size.

 

We went to the cocktail reception with the Captain. This is the first one we have been to. It was pretty nice, free cocktails followed by a short speech from the Captain then a band. They introduced a few people that had cruised a lot with Celebrity. One man had 34 cruises. I asked the CC person what was the most cruises anyone had taken that she knew of and she said that one person had 64 cruise on the same ship. It was the Horizon. That is a lot of cruising!

 

Another sea day a lounging around. Dressed in the tux again for formal night. At least I got to wear my new watch! Lobster was excellent.

 

Nassau: Pulled into the port and there were already 4 ships in port. But, the port was not too crowded considering. We pretty much just walked around and then went and did some shopping. Had a good time. They used to give free samples of the alcohol in many of the stores but they don’t anymore. The stores are a lot less crowded now J

 

Back on ship hanging out on the balcony. As they were pulling the gangway up, a couple came around the corner of the pier. There had to be 200 yards for them to walk/run to get on the ship. Everyone is yelling at them, encouraging them to make it. This was 5:35 and we were supposed to leave at 5:30. They got lucky!

 

Of course the last night was pretty sad. Dropped luggage outside by midnight then went to bed. We didn’t have to be in out meeting place until 8:55 Sunday morning. It was nice having a little bit of time to have breakfast and take our time getting ready.

 

As we went to our meeting place, a group was getting off the ship so we just followed them off. Onto the bus with our luggage and off to the parking garage. Total time from when we left the cabin until we were in our car with our luggage was less then 30 minutes, probably more like 20.

 

The cruise was great. It didn’t live up to the Summit, but that was probably the circumstances more than anything. The food was really good, the ship is still in good condition and the shows were great!

 

We booked 2 more cruises while we were on the ship. Everyone we met – staff wise were very friendly. We did book a Celebrity cruise and a RCCL cruise aboard the Jewel of the Sea while we were on board. We will probably only keep 1 of them, but the price for 8 nights on the Jewel in a D1 was less than CC on a 7 night on the Millennium.

[Parrotgirl]

Hey Duane,

 

Great review. I haven't gotten around to writing one yet. We were in 6137 for this trip and you will like 6138 a lot. I don't know why you couldn't get eggs benedict the first day. Frank didn't have a problem getting it. He ordered it almost every day since we ate in the room every morning except for the morning after we had eaten at the Olympic. We were slightly tipsy and stuffed and wanted to sleep in. I also ordered chocolate croissants and Kenneth, our butler, brought three or four every day. They were still warm and wonderful.

 

I've been on the Summit twice and did like her better than the Millennium but this was still a great cruise. Seven days is just too short but we were with a group of family members and seven days worked best for them.

 

For Frank's birthday, I had a party in the cabin with an open bar and the event staff was wonderful. They checked up to make sure everything was going well. We had an awesome bartender who showed up with a fully stocked bar cart and my family was in heaven. I also ordered two dozen chocolate covered strawberries and a wonderful chocolate mousse birthday cake.

 

I don't remember meeting you. Were you at the connections party or at the mast bar? I may know your face but just didn't catch your name.

 

Coming home was definitely a let down.

Patricia