lynbee

Only from UK to Europe - it was a package deal on an Eastern Med cruise in 2013.  

But we did another cruise out of Venice in 2017 which was cruise only.  I enquired about Celebrity flights and they were asking £600 return for the two of us - it's only a 2 hour flight.  I booked my own flights with a low cost airline from London - into Milan, private transfer for 2 nights hotel in Milan, train to Venice, post cruise private transfer to Venice airport and flight back to London.  That all worked out at less than £600!  

But I wouldn't risk booking "on the day" flights just in case of delays.  We're on another Celebrity cruise out of Barcelona in 2023 and I've done the same thing - 2 nights in Barcelona pre-cruise.  We've been there a few times but love the city.  

Thanks everyone for your help - looks as if we will be getting visas after all but will let Princess take care of them. We've been to Inda and lots of other places in Asia so won't be shocked.

Hi there - we're from the UK and calling at Sihanoukville, Cambodia for one day in early February, but having read reviews don't really fancy gong ashore to be honest. Not been able to get a definitive answer about visas. I originally asked on Trip Advisor and was told that if we were not getting off the ship then we would NOT need to get a visa. However Princess Cruises tell us we will need a visa as we will be in Cambodian waters.

The guy who responded to me on TA thought that we should be considered as "in transit" - the same as you are if you transit through an airport whilst awaiting a flight elsewhere. Are we being ripped off or can anyone who has called at this port give me a definite answer? Princess will of course issue us with visas on board or we can apply ourselves. I even tried to get an answer from the Cambodian Embassy in the UK but they don't respond.

Would appreciate any help please. Thanks.

Honestly don't think I'll bother!

Just returned from 2 weeks on Century (her second to last cruise) and were pretty disappointed with the food offerings.

We were lucky enough to have a suite so had breakfast on our veranda most mornings. Which was fine but some of the hot food was not hot - it depended on how long it had been kept after arriving from the galley I suppose. And of course you can never get decent toast when it has to travel any distance. But most mornings it was just fruit and cereal for us anyway. The MDR was pretty good for breakfast and they had English bacon! Shame we didn't find that out until very late in our cruise as we would have requested it for our veranda breakfasts.

We tried the buffet several times for lunch and found it to be pretty good most days - in fact I'd say we enjoyed the food in there more than in the Grand Restaurant. We looked at the MDR lunch menus several times but only went there once as there wasn't much that appealed to be honest. The one time we did go we felt we were being hurried along with each course appearing as soon as we'd put down our cutlery.

As for the Grand Restaurant I can honestly say that I only really enjoyed my dinner on around 5 occasions. Every time I had fish it was dry and tasteless. Meat dishes tended to be good apart from on Top Chef night when I picked the veal chop which was tough and so salty that I couldn't eat it. I changed it for the barbecue chicken with mac n cheese and that wasn't great either. A chicken breast with a little bottled bbq sauce brushed over it, and a small pot of what looked like pasta shapes (certainly not macaroni) in a watery cheese sauce. It did not resemble mac n cheese in any way! A distinct lack of vegetables as well.

I see lots of people suggest trying the speciality restaurants - we gave it a miss this time as found the food in them not much better than the MDR. (Murano on Equinox Sept 2013 and SS United States on Infinity Sept 2014 - where we were served stone cold Dover Sole). Anyway, most of the dishes on their menus appear at some time in the MDR so why pay the extra?

I have put my comments on my post cruise survey but the food on this cruise was not as good as that on our first Celebrity cruise 2 years ago.

We also found that bar service was a bit slow - especially in the Crystal Room. We waited 20 minutes one evening, despite there being very few people in the room and 2 waiters on duty - one of whom appeared to be just fiddling around with menus, tidying up and ignoring us!

When we were on Infinity last September we weren't able to reserve tables for Select Dining for more than 2 days ahead - and couldn't always specify what size table either. But we were happy to share rather than wait ages for a table for 2.

However, just got back from Century where we were lucky enough to have a suite and our butler reserved us a table for 2 at 8.45 every night of our cruise.

Never had a birthday on board but my husband did order me some flowers as a surprise gift once. They were supposed to be in our stateroom when we boarded but they weren't. He had to chase around to locate them and they finally arrived while we were at dinner on the first night.

They were pretty expensive and very poor value. Just a few cheap flowers stuck into a block of oasis. He was extremely disappointed on my behalf. We could have bought a far nicer bouquet in any British supermarket.

I've never found a good library on any of the 4 cruise lines I've travelled with.

Used to take 3 or 4 paperbacks with me, plus some magazines from home, but now just take my Kindle.

If I manage to get to grips with my newly acquired tablet I may just take that with me!

If you want to read I'd advise taking book(s) or e-reader with you.

The Celebrity website is very poor. It took me several attempts to get online and book a couple of excursions for our cruise next month. Just tried to go on again to possibly book another one and can't load the excursions at all.

And I've had the "try again in 20 minutes" message, plus just got the opportunity to do the customer survey which, as you've guessed, skipped straight to the end and thanked me for participating!

Rubbish website Celebrity - you need to fix it.

We saw the Hot Glass Show on Equinox in 2013. Thought it was quite entertaining for an hour or so on a sea day. Not sure how much longer they can carry on with it though as most "regulars" on Celebrity have probably seen it at some point. You probably wouldn't want to go to it twice. At the end of the last show they auction off the items made for charity.

Never mind, like a Debenhams sale it'll be along again soon! (For non-UK people Debenhams is a UK department store renowned for having a "sale" every few weeks).

Have visited all these ports both on cruises and on land holidays. They're all places with plenty to see and do so overnight gives you the opportunity to visit several places without rushing around. No doubt you'll do your own research and decide what sights you'd like to see.

We recently did a cruise on Infinity with 3 overnights and it didn't detract from our enjoyment.

We had a Classic Drinks Package given to us as part of the 1-2-3 offer in the UK. Quite happy with what was offered, apart from beer choice which seemed to be fairly limited to American/continental lagers. Wine by the glass was offered from a list in the dining room and we drank from that every night - they weren't stingy with the drinks either. Other than wine/soft drinks we normally had a G & T before dinner and I usually had a Bailey's after dinner.

I managed to get a list of what was included when we got on board - I did have a couple of cocktails which were extra and yes they do charge you the whole price of a drink if it's not in the package, not just the difference in price. Coffees were included at the café as well - I made good use of that. During the first few days we were always asked if we'd like to upgrade to the Premium drinks package but I don't think it would have been worth our while.

But, we would not have chosen to buy the package as it would have cost us around US$112 a day. Drinks may well have cost that on a couple of sea days but most of the time we wouldn't hit that. We have the same offer on our next cruise in March on Century.

We found Bistro on Five a complete waste of time too. Only went because we were sold a "deal" for dinner with champagne at SS United States (on Infinity) which included a voucher for a free meal at Bo5. We used it for lunch on one of our last sea days and the only good thing to say is that we didn't have to pay. It didn't seem to be very well used and the staff didn't seem to be very happy to be working there. Re the "crepes" you can buy packs of them in any supermarket in the UK, all ready cooked, just need to be filled and heated. Can't remember what type I had but bland, boring and tasteless.

I don't believe that they actually have someone behind the counter making them fresh for each order!

Thanks for your replies - very helpful. Will remember to ask the butler to collect some pads for our loungers!

Glad to see we're not the only tea drinkers! They didn't have the kettles in all staterooms as some people we spoke to didn't have one. It's nice to be able to have a cuppa first thing in the morning without having to run to the buffet or café to collect it, but we'll survive without it on our next cruise (Singapore to Dubai on Century).

When I first looked at the menu I thought it said CAT food!

Sounds pretty good - certainly much better than Bistro on Five which I think is a complete waste of time.

We've just been on Infinity and had a kettle and mugs in our stateroom when we boarded. We were asked if we needed them and kept them but only used them a few times as the tea provided wasn't really to our taste. If we'd known we would have brought our own tea bags on board but as we didn't have a kettle on Equinox last year assumed that in common with other US ships Celebrity did not provide tea/coffee making facilities in staterooms. So if you don't get a kettle ask for one!

One thing niggled though - our cruise left from Harwich, England and was mostly UK guests (1800 out of 2100) but they ran out of English Breakfast tea several days before the end of the trip. Boxes of Tetley teabags were brought on board in Vigo but appeared to be rationed as we seldom saw them on the buffet However there were plenty of the flavoured/green teas available.

As we had a Classic drinks package we could get tea in a pot or good coffee from Il Bacio - which we did regularly, even getting takeout cups first thing in the morning.

In the UK we personally drink semi skimmed milk - but this was never on offer - only skimmed, full fat milk or half and half. Half and Half good in coffee (I assume this is some kind of half cream product?) but skimmed milk is too watery in tea and full fat too creamy. Just our taste though.

We've booked Sky Suite 1073 on Century sailing from Singapore Next March. Re the Bulgari toiletries - do they replenish these when you run out?

Also do they have loungers on the balcony?

Any other info about the suite would be appreciated - we were unable to get a veranda stateroom so as it was a special occasion went for the Sky Suite.

We've found priority boarding a bit hit and miss - not had a suite on either of our 2 previous Celebrity Cruises but on the last one were invited to use the priority boarding line for suites to check in at Harwich. Last year on Equinox we were regularly invited to re-board the ship via the "Suites only" gazebo. So I think if there is no queue they let you use either.

We've just returned from Infinity and attended the Captain's Q & A session. The Hotel Director confirmed that Celebrity are experimenting with serving pre-plated portions of food on the buffets and I think this will be coming in by the end of the year. In fact on Infinity they were already serving portions of various salads in bowls ready to go.

We didn't mind not having a tray - am sure other lines do this as well? It was a bit annoying if you had a full plate though and then wanted to keep some bread separate.

If Celebrity consider mac and cheese and bbq pork to be high class meals in the MDR then I'll stick with the buffet!

Hi Richard and John - just read your report on Century and glad to hear you're enjoying it. We are on her next March too - flying out from UK to Singapore for a couple of days, then boarding on what will be our 40th wedding anniversary. May see you on board! Lynda and Tony.

We've been thinking about taking a Caribbean cruise on board Azura but some of the reviews have put us off. Does anyone have some positive things to say about this ship?

We did the Caribbean on Ventura 3 years ago and enjoyed it but again there are so many poor reviews on it now that we don't think we'd travel on her again.

Is it just these ships or P & O in general who have gone downhill?

Having been on Celebrity recently for a special occasion we found them far superior to P & O, however not keen on flying into a US port to board for their Caribbean itineraries.