BeachTunes

We boarded the Millennium in San Juan on March 25th. No sparkling wine was offered to us when boarding. We weren't bothered as we had the premium drink package and knew we could grab a bevy easily in no time. (We eventually enjoyed a few TOO many on embarkation day! LOL!) What I LOVED about embarkation is that upon walking onto the ship, we were swiftly directed to our muster station where we confirmed with a crew member that we'd completed watching the safety video, answered about two questions and moved on! We then dropped our carryons in our stateroom and then grabbed lunch in the buffet! Easiest embarkation afternoon EVER! To answer the OP's question, all of this is to say that if one has a drink package, you'll be able to find a glass of bubbly very easily and quickly all the while checking off the formerly mundane tasks of embarkation day! 🙂

Hello! First of all, I am long overdue to share our trip report from our March 25th to April 1st Southern Caribbean ABC Islands cruise on The Millennium! Spoiler Alert: I'm asking about ANOTHER Millennium cruise in this post so we obviously loved it! 🙂 I promise to share our March trip report over the weekend! SO... WE ARE NOW LOOKING TO POTENTIALLY BOOK A SOUTHBOUND ALASKA CRUISE ON THE MILLENIUM IN AUGUST OR SEPTMBER! YAY! We're watching a few dates and while we adore Aqua Class it's looking like a Concierge or Veranda stateroom will be in the cards for this Southbound Alaska trip. That said, we're interested in feedback on the following staterooms. Note: Pricing is VERY similar for each option and dates are within two weeks of each other. Please feel welcome to share your feedback on: 1. Concierge Class 8046 (On the forward bumpout with a larger balcony). 2. Deck 10 Veranda Staterooms: These look interesting for Alaska as we could pop up to the Sky Lounge while at sea but are they noisy being underneath the lounge? We're eyeing 1014 or 1016. 3. Aft Veranda 7200 - A Veranda Stateroom on the aft starboard side. Thank you all in advance for your input. I am sorry to come off as so neurotic but I have benefited from everyone's insights here so much! Cheers!

We just returned from the Millennium on Saturday and were pleasantly surprised by the reasonable volume levels of music on board. On our first Celebrity cruise on the Reflection was in 2014 and the volume levels/playlists were among our only criticisms. The band on that cruise played somber sad ballads or screechy alt-rock songs at intolerable levels in the atrium most nights. It was odd. Last week on The Millennium, not only were the music levels reasonable, the song selections of the bands and DJs were very itinerary appropriate: Lots of Caribbean music, Bob Marley and Latin tunes since we sailed out of San Juan. We LOVED the Celebrity Orchestra's sets in the evenings! There was an appropriate mix of current hits, pop, oldies, etc to appease all ages and preferences. The sound in the theatre was impeccable. Kudos to the sound tech team! The above said, I did mention in our cruise survey that the stateroom hallway music could use a volume adjustment overnight, as there was a ceiling speaker right in front of our stateroom door. It was only an noticeable when certain songs with high pitched notes/instruments played but it woke me up the first night. Once I realized what it was (And not a noisy neighbour!) I was fine with it but extremely light sleepers may have been more affected. I suggested they turn off the hallway music between 11pm and 6am. (All in all a great cruise that I'll review here on the weekend when I have more time! 🙂)

As per above our bid was sadly rejected. Oh well. More funds to save and maybe spend to help local businesses in port!

I will be on the Millennium on Saturday and will check out the Pelotons there. I'll also ask about the Solstice. On another cruise forum, someone shared that the Millennium Pelotons don't have the "clips" for Peloton's branded shoes. They do have clips for another cycling style, apparently, which seems odd to me. However they apparently also have cages for regular workout footwear. I'm new to the stationary bike world so I apologize for my lack of proper terminology. I think you should be OK with regular shoes as per posts by Arizona Wildcat and others! Stay tuned for an update in a few days! 🙂

@greekprincess: Thank you for that info! Our flight is departs at 5:15pm so it's good to know if we go with the group tour that the wait wouldn't be unbearably long. 🙂

Will do! I plan to share an overview of the whole cruise with lots of pictures when we get back. I'd love to commit to a live thread but alas, I know I will too distracted on board and in port! LOL!

Thanks for sharing your experience! 🙂

@jean87510: Thank you for your input! We have dropped our bags off at Barranchina before and found it to be an excellent service! We are now tempted to go with the private tour option but renting bikes sounds like fun as well as it's something we haven't done. 🙂

Thank you @LeeW. That's a very good point about checking bags and waiting around SJU's sparse check in area!

Thank you very much for your input! This is encouraging! I think we might go with Celebrity's tour for the sake of ease and simplicity. 🙂

Looking forward to following along! We were torn between this cruise and the one on Millennium departing from San Juan on March 25th. In the end, Millie won but we are very keen to experience an Edge class ship and will enjoy your updates, whenever you have time to share. Happy and Safe Travels!

Thank you for this explanation! We are 9 days away from embarking on the Millennium and still have not heard about our Move Up status from Aqua to a Sky Suite even though another cruiser has reported their offer was recently accepted at a higher price. There appears to be one Sky Suite left for this sailing so I'm remaining cautiously optimistic that we might hear some good news next week before we board. If not, then oh well, we'll have more funds to do some port shopping! 🙂

Hello! I'm tremendously excited to be able to say that in one week we will be out of Canada's deep freeze and in sunny San Juan before our cruise on the Celebrity Millennium! It turns out that our flights post-cruise have been bumped back to later than 5pm so we have loads of time to spend in limbo after disembarking. We will be pre-cruising in Old San Juan for two nights and have visited the city a few times before, so we're looking to do something different at the end of the cruise. Just wondering if anyone has done Celebrity's post-cruise El Yunque tour with airport drop off? Specifically, I'm wondering if it's crowded. We typically prefer private tours so we can explore at our own pace. This one, however, would be very convenient. We're also wondering if there are any interesting stops along the way to try some local fare. If anyone can share their recent experiences with this we would appreciate the input! Thank you!

Thank you for your reply. Both the San Juan port forum and Roll Call for this cruise have been very quiet. That said, I will reach out there as well. Being a Celebrity forum, I was hoping someone who has experienced this specific Celebrity excursion might notice and chime in!

Greetings From Snow-Covered Ontario, Canada! We're finally just over a week away from embarking on the Millennium for a sailing out of San Juan. To say we are excited is an understatement! Everything is pretty much planned for our pre-cruise stay and port days with the exception of that age-old dilemma of "What to do in San Juan when you have to be off the ship around 8:30am and don't need to be at the airport until 2pm for a 5:30pm flight?". We will be spending two nights in OSJ before the cruise and have also been to San Juan before and while the area is interesting we're looking to do something different. We've narrowed it down to: A. The Celebrity excursion that takes guests to El Yunque with an airport drop off at 12:30pm. It looks interesting but to be honest, we don't love big group tours. Just wondering if anyone has done this recently and enjoyed it? We would then still have a whopping 5 hours at SJU to crush before our flight. B. Alternately, we're thinking of hiring a driver to take us to "Pork Alley" and then on to either El Yunque and/or a beach. This is pricing out a little bit more than the ship's sponsored excursion, which is fine but but could be a miss if we end up with a less than dynamic personal tour guide. On the bright side, we wouldn't likely have to spend an exorbitant amount of time at the airport. If others have had a stellar experience with Celebrity's excursion, we'll go with that. Again, though, we sometimes have found big group excursions to be disappointing as we are very active and don't prefer to wait around for those might dawdle. (No offence to anyone!) Thank you all in advance! I promise to post a detailed trip report with photos when we return! 🙂

Yay! Congratulations! We're on the same sailing anxiously awaiting the status of our bid from AQ to a SS. We bid a little bit less than your bid as the value of our Canadian dollar is rather crummy right now. May I ask if you were assigned an accessible Sky Suite? I ask because I saw that there were four available yesterday and only one is left today. Trying to gauge if I should still keep my hopes up! LOL! 😉 Enjoy the countdown! Hope to see you on board - preferably in The Retreat! (We know we'll have a great time either way!)

Welcome home! Thank you very much for sharing your cruise experience! What an adventure you had getting to Florida! We're counting the days (16 to be exact!) until we leave for San Juan and board the Millennium. Hopefully Air Canada will get us there in a timely fashion. I likely won't report live but will be sure to share an overview when we return. We sailed aboard the Summit pre-revolution in 2015 and loved her then and can only imagine how beautiful she is now. Sorry if you addressed this but I'm curious if your AQ stateroom near the stairs was noisy after all. We will be in a similar place on our upcoming cruise and have been wondering about the location. Given that the Summit is a mirror image of Millie, I figured traffic/sound issues of those rooms would be the same on both ships. At the very least, it sure does look convenient for grabbing snacks and bevies! Enjoy your reunion with your hubby and fur babies! 🙂

If you're a craft beer fan, I recommend a visit to a bar called La Taberna Lupulo in Old San Juan. They specialize in local beers and have quite a lengthy selection of draught, cans and bottles. We've been twice over the years and enjoyed both visits. We'll be back in Old San Juan next month for a pre-cruise stay and plan on paying them a third visit! 🙂

We're staying in Old San Juan for two nights before a cruise on the Millennium next month and have also "bookmarked" the bars you mentioned. If you like craft beer, whiskey and rum, La Taberna Lupulo is a neat spot. We've been there twice before during the day. I believe they have music several nights of the week. El Quinqué De Douglas’ Pub has also caught our attention. We typically don't do shots but they have a funky-looking signature shot that looks like jellyfish that I might try even if only for the photo op! LOL! We're also planning to just stroll the streets and wander into whatever places inspire us! Happy sailing! 🙂

Thank you so much for this post! 💙 We have reservations for Le Petit Chef on the Millennium next month and are really looking forward to it. Interestingly enough, the Le Petit Chef "franchise" has a pop-up location in Toronto that is available for bookings through to at the end of April. The price is $129.99 per person Canadian plus gratuity so about $260 per couple. After tipping 20% that equates to about $312.00 CAD per couple BEFORE drinks! (And Ubers to and from the venue. LOL!) We had some OBC and reserved a table for two on our upcoming cruise so this experience will, in a way, cost us nothing! If we did this at home it would easily be close to $500 for the night! Breaking it down: TORONTO EXPERINCE (Per Couple): Food: $260 Drinks: $50+ (Drink pricing not online. This is a low estimate. We would consume more, admittedly. Haha!) 20% Gratuity: $60+ Ubers: $50+ TOTAL TORONTO LPC EXPERIENCE: $420+ CAD (Minimum depending on drinks ordered.) CELEBRITY MILLENNIUM EXPERIENCE (Per Couple - With a Drink Package and No On Board Credit): Food: $177 Drinks: Included Gratuity: Included in above pricing Ubers: $0 TOTAL CELEBRITY LPC EXPERIENCE: $177 CAD TOTAL CELEBRITY LPC EXPERIENCE (Per Couple - With a Drink Package and $200 OBC) FREE! (Or at least, included with one's cruise fare. 😉) So if the concept floats your boat and you have on board credit, Le Petit Chef on Celebrity is an excellent value to try at least once, in my humble opinion. I'll be sure to share our review when we return in April! 🍽️

That is a good point about the Michelin rating system. I had forgotten that service did not play a factor. We enjoyed our first Michelin-starred restaurant experience last fall in Positano, Italy. The amuse bouche was, believe it or not, a slice of pizza! It was as delicious as it was whimsical! 😊

My husband's motto with these kinds of questions is, "Don't get involved!" Here I am getting involved. LOL! I will say that this is false for us as food is a very important factor to us when cruising or traveling in general. I have been known to make restaurant reservations in distant countries before even booking flights and hotels! Will we get a Michelin experience on our upcoming Millennium cruise? Highly unlikely and not at all expected. But, as an example, we're looking forward to dining at Le Petit Chef as it will offer us something new, fun and unique. I have lunch reservations at a couple of our ABC island stops to savour local fare. We always pre-cruise on land for at least a night or two so pre-cruise dinners are always well researched and planned ahead of time. (I'm waiting for reservations at Marmalade in Old San Juan to open up for March! 🙂) I would agree with others that cruise food is more than just the dishes offered... It's about the ambiance, being on the ocean, drifting from the Martini Bar to the Sunset Bar and soaking in the entertainment along the way. To me, cruise ships are more than just floating hotels. Back in the day, dining and entertainment were some of the main draws of cruising! All of this is that if we were on a cruise and the food and service were lacklustre or subpar, we would likely not sail that line again. We're counting down the days until our March Millie sailing with open minds and joyful (and hungry) hearts!

Yes. It is my understanding from what I've read on Celebrity's website and here on this forum that each passenger (of legal drinking age) is allowed to bring on 2 x 750ml bottles of wine per person. So as long as that bottle of Champers isn't a magnum, you should be fine! 🙂

We booked a March sailing on the Millennium in Aqua Class in December. We wanted all-inclusive and it turned out that Aqua was less than all of the other balcony categories! Of course, without all-inc, the prices for the other categories was less but comparing apples to apples, so to speak, Aqua offered the best value for us. We like Blu and chose a cabin in a location we like so it was a no brainer! We compared pricing on the Apex for similar dates in March and noticed the same thing. Aqua was less than a regular verandah when factoring in all-inclusive. Supply and demand is real! LOL!