Celebration June 17-25

[adonisr]

We just sailed on Celebration and thought I'd post my thoughts on the ship.  These are our opinions and I know they may differ from yours.  That's ok.

 

Overall – a beautiful ship.  Very different than the other CCL ships we’ve sailed on.

Cabin - We had a balcony cabin on Deck 14.  The cabins are definitely smaller (narrow).  We kept hitting our knees on the end of the bed as there’s not much room between the end of the bed and the wall.  Bathroom was small, but workable.  The many USB outlets were a welcome change.  Our room AC was unpredictable.  One night it’d be so cold we would need the blanket.  Other nights it’d be so warm we’d wake up sweating.  And we never changed the thermostat setting.  Additionally, the room would get cool, but never dry.  It was always a damp cool.  Not optimal to say the least.  Our room steward did a good job – we hardly ever saw him.

 

Public Areas – The public areas were all very nice – concentrated on Deck 6, 7, 8.  The main theater was smaller than typical since they have what they call Celebration Central.  CC is a replacement for the normal central atrium and is a cool looking space.  But from a functionality standpoint -  a major fail.  For a ship of 6000 pax to have a main show area with only a handful of seats with good views of the performance is very disappointing.   If you want a good seat – you need to show up 45-60 minutes before the show.  And with the main theater has some really bad sight lines as well.  And since it’s smaller, you need to get there 45-60 minutes early for a good seat.  The other public spaces are arranged basically in a row along Deck 6, 7 or 8.  So there is quite a bit of “traffic congestion” in the evenings on these decks.  On Deck 8 there is a outdoor area outside with large sliding doors for access.  The deck is popular and therefore the doors are open a lot.  This makes for a very warm zone in the middle of Deck 8.  And speaking of automatic doors – major issues here.  There was no rhyme or reason to how the doors worked.  Some worked well as you approached.  Some you needed to wave at a button on the wall.  Some you needed to wave at a button on the door.  And all of the public restrooms had automatic doors that opened WIDE open and stayed open for several minutes.  This creates some very awkward sight lines right into the restrooms where doing your business is on display for everyone in the area.

 

Dining –

The main dining rooms are nothing special.  Low ceilinged, dark food halls.  We found two nights where the menu looked appealing. Service was very slow.   Otherwise we ate in specialty dining venues.

Steakhouse and Rudi’s were amazing – food and service, but for the extra charge they better be.

Cucina food was great – service was a little slow, but the servers were very good.  We ate here twice.

ChiBang was ok, once was enough.

Pig & Anchor was great.

Emeril's - was ok, service was not at all good.  They totally botched our order.

Big Chicken - their chicken was very good.  The biscuit was dry and not really good.

Deli - had a very good cuban sandwich here.

Guy's Burgers - very good burger.  I had seen several comments before the cruise saying the fries were not as god in the past, but we thought they were good. 

Miami Slice - good pizza, not great.  Moving it down away from the Lido made it less desirable for us as a lunch option.

The buffet – just not good.  Slim choices.  For the most part, ½ of the buffet stations were never open.  One of the things I’ve always enjoyed on cruises is having pineapple from the buffet.  Never saw pineapple all week.  Watermelon was a rarity.  A major decline in this department.

 

Overall – for us, this ship class is just too big and poorly thought out.  It’s almost like CCL just took the same amount of “stuff” to do onboard and increased the passenger count by 2.5 times.  Resulting in longer waits, longer lines, and higher rude to normal passenger ratio.

 

Excel class is a one and done experience for us.

 

[AllgoodOnTheRoad]

I absolutely loved the Excel class and the Pride was my favorite ship before this cruise. I thought the food was excellent in the main dining room, but I did find that checking in the minute it opened in the Hub App was a must for good food and service. Checking in later meant that they were just bogged down and taxed. I will have a video coming out tomorrow showing how bad seating is as center stage. There really is only about 50 decent seats in that whole venue. 

 

I find it interesting how much Carnival has changed the game with Celebration. You could have cruised a hundred times before and give a new cruiser incorrect information on the Celebration due to how different it is than existing ships. 

 

 

[Soxfan04]

On 6/28/2023 at 8:36 AM, AllgoodOnTheRoad said:

I absolutely loved the Excel class and the Pride was my favorite ship before this cruise. I thought the food was excellent in the main dining room, but I did find that checking in the minute it opened in the Hub App was a must for good food and service. Checking in later meant that they were just bogged down and taxed. I will have a video coming out tomorrow showing how bad seating is as center stage. There really is only about 50 decent seats in that whole venue. 

 

I find it interesting how much Carnival has changed the game with Celebration. You could have cruised a hundred times before and give a new cruiser incorrect information on the Celebration due to how different it is than existing ships. 

 

 

How was disembarking with FTTF? 

[AllgoodOnTheRoad]

On 7/4/2023 at 3:34 PM, Soxfan04 said:

How was disembarking with FTTF? 

When on the Celebration I took no advantage of having FTTF to debark as I had a 3pm flight. I took the latest luggage tag possible and relaxed in the lounge until they called the final tags. We exited the ship just before 10am. I did use it to debark the Pride a month earlier though as we had a long drive back. We were invited to an area of the MDR and it was lightly catered with snacks and we were guided off the ship as soon as customs was cleared.