Suskies

1 hour ago, SF said:

Thank you so much for taking the time to do an in-depth review and for posting pictures. We will be doing the same cruise in December so it was so helpful to get all the information. 

 

Except for the overnight in Bangkok where the passports are needed did you leave them on the ship for the rest of the ports and just take copies?

 

Since you had such a long line for a taxi at disembarkation in Hong Kong do you think it would be wise for us to prebook a car for pickup? Especially since we'll be three or four people.

 

On one of the other threads ( if I remembered correctly) someone mentioned they needed to bring passport photos is this something that is required?

 

I'd also like to see some photos from the various ports. Glad to hear you had such a great cruise. 😀

You need a copy of your passport for the Vietnam Visa. If you forgot it, you can get a copy made when you check in. The ship collected all passports in Bangkok and returned them after our last Vietnam port. 

We took an extra paper copy of our passports ashore in every port, just for peace of mind. We also took the ship's daily planner with the port onformation.

12 hours ago, elaineb said:

I know a silly question - but....how is the hair dryer?  I am leaving on Sunday for the Summit and am debating if I need to bring my own or not.  Thanks!

It depends on your hair. Mine is short and fine. If U had long thick hair I'd probably pack a more powerful dryer.

4 hours ago, jkgourmet said:

Thank you Suskies for ypur time, energy and effort with this thread.  It's much appreciated.

 

One question:  You referred to table sizes in the MDR - that many (most?) Were two tops and close together.  We typically do select and ask to be seated with a larger group - usually it's a table for 8.  Have those been replaced with two tops?  (Say no - please.)

No, there are plenty of large tables for 8.

15 hours ago, ecslady said:

Wonderful Review and Fantastic Pics!

 

Question - Did the chairs on the balcony recline like the old ones did?  They don't look like they do from the pic.

Just a couple of notches not fully flat 

51 minutes ago, Muffinz said:

thank you for your very detailed review and photos.... we are on Millennium March 2021 Hong Kong to Tokyo 14 nights.

I've been watching the Millennium revolution thread and was worried because some posters on that thread were 'nit-picking' saying they don't like the look of this or that and being really critical / negative about the 'make-over' Millennuim has had, but it was good to read your honest review.

Yes, I think a good rule of thumb is, "Is this feature going to ruin my cruise?" For us, the answer was consistently "No." I wouldn't have designed things the way Celebrity did, but I've never stayed at a hotel designed exactly to my taste either, and I've been perfectly comfortable nonetheless. I wish the cabin phones had been replaced with wall phones to give us some extra space on the nightstand--but there's plenty of space in the drawer and shelf underneath.  I'm not a fan of "greige" (gray-beige), but it's very trendy right now with millennials--DD just redid her house in the exact same colors as the Millie. I think the light blue upholstered chairs in the Oceanview Cafe will soon look grimy (I already saw a stain on one) and the colors overall are so trendy that they'll look dated in a few years. But it is very bright and pleasant and we really enjoyed every space on the ship.

1 hour ago, Silkroad said:

Thanks for the wonderful photos of Millie sporting her new look🙂 We’re booked on a future b2b on her, in a Veranda cabin, so I’m especially grateful for your impressions of your cabin. I would love to see your favorite photos of the ports when you have time. I hope you have smooth travels home....

Thanks for your kind words! DH took most of the port photos, and he won't be able to upload them to the cloud until we get home. So it will be a few days but I'll definitely post them.

10 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

Anything you would do different, now that you have this cruise under your belt?

So far, we can't think of anything! It really was a great cruise. We were glad we paced ourselves and didn't try to see everything.

Photos: Elevator & signage

We were really impressed with the signage--made it easy to find one's cabin (though I wish ships would carpet the port and starboard hallways in contrasting colors).

I have not posted photos of the ports but can do so later if anyone's interested--I figured you'd all be more interested in the ship.

Photo: Hallway of shops

Photos: Rendezvous Lounge

Photos: Oceanview Cafe

Photo: Martini Bar

Photos: Metropolitan Dining Room

Photos: Cosmos

Photos: Cellar Masters

Photos: Cafe al Bacio

Photos: Millie Atrium

Photos: Cabin 6025 Sweet 16 balcony 

Photos: Cabin 6025 bathroom

Photos: Cabin 6025 (standard balcony)

Overall Thoughts

Altogether this was one of the two best cruises we’ve ever been on in almost 40 years of cruising. (The other was an eastern Med cruise on Princess.) The ship is lovely, the food mostly very good, and the ports amazing, but what really set this cruise apart was the incredible service—everyone on staff seemed truly anxious to ensure we had an outstanding experience. No, the cruise wasn’t perfect. We wish there was a designated quiet reading room on board, that the fresh fruit was tastier, that the cabins were a bit bigger, and that someone checked the accuracy of the Beatles trivia quiz answers! But those are really small potatoes. This was a trip of a lifetime for us, and we will definitely consider Celebrity along with Princess and HAL for future cruises.

I hope this has been helpful! It’s been fun to write. I’m happy to answer any questions. I’m posting this before we fly home, so it may be a day or two until I can respond.

Hong Kong Post-Cruise

Once we were out of the cruise ship terminal, we had another really nice day. The weather was great—partly sunny and high in the low 70s. After checking our bags at our hotel, we took the ferry over to Hong Kong Island (the skyline was much more impressive than yesterday!) and used our second Big Bus day to take the green-line tour of southern Hong Kong Island: Stanley, Repulse Bay, and Aberdeen. It was really interesting seeing a somewhat suburban part of Hong Kong. At Aberdeen, we got off the bus to have lunch at the Jumbo Floating Restaurant. We knew it was overpriced, but with its huge menu, it was a fun way to try some traditional Hong Kong food. We also had a sampan ride around Aberdeen Harbour (included with our Big Bus ticket). It was really interesting seeing impoverished fishing boats juxtaposed against yachts and skyscrapers.

Then we took the Big Bus back to the ferry, took the ferry back to Kowloon, and walked to our hotel, the Intercontinental on Salisbury Road. We chose the Intercontinental because the harborfront rooms have incredible views of the Hong Kong skyline including the evening Symphony of Lights show. We enjoyed the view so much that we ordered room service for dinner. The light show has an app that plays the music accompanying the show (if you’re on the Tsim Sha Tsui promenade along the harbor, it’s played on speakers). Then we just kept enjoying the view until bedtime.

The next day—Sunday, March 17—was another beautiful day—sunny and high in the 70s. We started with a leisurely breakfast in the Intercontinental’s lobby with its gorgeous view of the skyline. Then we walked along the Avenue of the Stars on Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade, then took the ferry back over to Hong Kong Island, thinking of taking the tram to Victoria Peak. We found that everyone in Hong Kong is out on nice Sundays. There were groups picnicking on sidewalks and steps! We learned later that a lot of them are Filipino housemaids who get together on Sundays, their only day off. Others were clearly school groups. The line for the Peak Tram was at least an hour, so instead of taking it we walked through Hong Kong Park right next door. Then we walked back to the ferry, taking a shortcut through the Landmark mall and stopping for a very pleasant lunch at Café Landmark. It was really fun people-watching in a super-high-end mall.

In the evening we decided we needed a break from Asian food and ate dinner at King Ludwig’s Beer Hall near our hotel. A lot of Westerners there, as you might imagine. Two Chinese women were singing American pop songs to recorded music. We couldn’t tell if they were karaoke or professional, which tells you something! Then we walked up Nathan Road to the Temple Street Night Market, seeing a whole different side of Hong Kong.

After all the walking on Sunday, we took it easy on Monday. Another leisurely breakfast in the Intercontinental lobby, then I walked back up Nathan Road to do a little souvenir shopping at Yue Hwa Chinese Products Emporium. We then relaxed in the hotel’s lovely lobby until a 3 PM taxi to the airport for our flight home, first to Los Angeles, overnight layover at an airport hotel there, then an early morning flight to the East Coast.

We really enjoyed our 3 ½ days in Hong Kong. We saw a lot of different areas and got a good feel for the city and its people.  If you are thinking of doing Hong Kong on your own, plan on taking 2-3 times as long as you might think to get anywhere or do anything. It’s a big city and lines are long. A lot of streets and intersections are (sensibly) fenced to keep pedestrians from crossing unsafely, so you sometimes have to walk a couple of blocks out of your way to cross a street. There are overhead pedestrian walkways, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to get up to them or where they go. A lot of the intersections don’t have street signs, and my GPS sometimes struggled amid all the skyscrapers. Fortunately there are plenty of visible landmarks in Hong Kong, so it’s hard to get lost.

Day 15: Disembark in Hong Kong

We’ve been on several delightful cruises whose disembarkation processes left a bad taste in our mouths and, sadly, that happened a bit today. The process for leaving the ship and collecting our luggage was very smooth, but the line for taxis stretched the equivalent of a good two city blocks, and we were in line 45 minutes until we finally got a taxi. I know technically this isn’t Celebrity’s fault (and an NCL ship was disembarking at the same time), but Celebrity had to be aware of this and could have been more proactive in organizing other transportation—something like airport shuttle van services that drop people off at various downtown hotels.

Day 14: Hong Kong

Today was our first day with rain—we woke up to gloomy drizzle. Hong Kong wasn’t very picturesque—we could barely see the skyscrapers from the ship. We would be staying in Hong Kong two extra nights, so we decided to stay on the ship in the morning and leave right after an early lunch. We read good reviews of Hong Kong’s Big Bus Tours, and we’ve had good experiences with their tours in other cities, so we bought their two-day package and set out to take their red-line tour of the northern end of Hong Kong Island.

Hong Kong has two cruise ship piers, and the one the Millie was docked at—Kai Tak—is not well located for do-it-yourselfers. For unknown reasons, there’s no bus or shuttle to spots in Hong Kong like the Star Ferry terminal. You can take a shuttle bus to a nearby mall and take the subway from there (changing trains once or twice depending on where you’re going), take a taxi (and they are paid in Hong Kong dollars and don’t like to give much change), or take Uber (which is rare and relatively expensive). We went for option 2, and it wasn’t hard, but it took a long time. We waited about 15 minutes for a taxi to arrive, took it to the Star Ferry Pier, then took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong Island, then took the Big Bus tour. It was wonderful seeing the skyline from the ferry but, as DH remarked, his photos during the tour were all gray because of the heavy overcast. After the tour, we got a snack at Café 8 on Pier 8, then took the ferry back to Kowloon. We thought about taking the blue-line tour of Kowloon, but decided it was just too gray to be enjoyable. We walked through the Peninsula (right during their high tea—gorgeous!) then took a taxi back to the ship.

The ship seemed quite empty, and after the evening show (a ventriloquist), the cruise director noted that a few hundred guests had already left to catch overnight flights and others were ashore enjoying Hong Kong nightlife.

Day 13: At sea

Last day at sea! We are thoroughly spoiled. It’s going to be so hard to return to real life after two weeks of no cooking, no cleaning, no laundry, no making beds, and service at our beck and call. This morning I woke up early and found out the The Revolution isn’t completed on the Millie: staff were sanding the Solarium floor on Deck 10. It looks noticeably brighter.

After a horrible cruise on a very old, very cramped NCL ship many years ago, I’ve chosen ships in part by their tonnage rate: square feet per passenger. But I’m now realizing that’s no longer a good measure, because so many passenger spaces are off-limits to us, either because we’re not elite passengers or because we don’t want to pay extra. The extra-charge sushi restaurant, for example, was carved out of Cellar Masters, leaving fewer seats in CM. (We’ve never sat there because every time we’ve walked through it’s been virtually full.) Similarly, Luminae and Blu have carved space and seats out of the MDR. This is not complaint about Celebrity—every cruise line is doing this—just an observation.

Today was another eat-relax-eat-relax day. This morning the clocks were set to Hong Kong time, so everyone got up slowly. It was overcast, windy, and a bit chilly, so there were more people indoors today. We ate all three meals in the MDR and saw A Star is Born in the afternoon in the theater. Tonight was our last Celebrity Chic night, and the dinner menu included beef wellington and lobster tails, with baked Alaska for dessert. When our server delivered my lobster, he whispered, “Would you like another one?” Of course I did! They were very tender.

Which reminds me…I forgot to note another great example of service about halfway into our cruise. I’ve mentioned our frustration that most of the two-top tables in the MDR are extremely close together. One of us has a hearing loss and wears hearing aids, and with people talking on both sides, it was very hard for us to have a conversation. We finally took our problem to Guest Services, and the staffer there had the perfect solution. She made a note in our record for the MDR hostess (Simona), explaining that we need a quiet table for two. Simona found us a perfect table every night (we never made a reservation). Breakfasts and lunches in the MDR are quieter, so we only asked for a quiet table at dinner.

Tonight we asked at Guest Services about getting HK dollars for a taxi at the pier. The staffer said there is no ATM at the pier, but there is a money changer…or money can be changed at Guest Services onboard. We had no idea the ship offered that service, and we’ll keep that in mind for future cruises.