Last trip Horizon

Hi ,

On 10-22-2005 i left Philadelphia on board of Horizon . I was expecting wonderfully experience with Celebrity Cruises,but received half of the experience for the maximum price.

Problems:

Not working coffee machines

Not working sound system on pool deck

Short supplies of basic items

Cold drinks machines off at 10 PM

Broken chairs and lounges

Cockroaches going up the wall during breakfast

Members of the crew apologizing for management

Lock of interest from management

and many more

John

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

I certainly won't be taking that ship . . . oh, nevermind, not an issue.

;)

Too late now, but I have always thought, never book a mainden voyage...new ship, new staff, unproven systems. Never take a cruise late in a ships tenure, for all the reasons you have described.

She was such a great ship...I wish you could have sailed her at her best.

Thank you for your short review. I was booked on this cruise at first but read reviews from the last cruise of the Meridian from fellow cruise critics who advised against it and I changed to the 11/10 Constellation in a CC cabin for the same price and two extra days.

I agree with John and Bo. They happened to be our friends cruising with us. This was their 2nd cruise but my 13th with Celebrity. It was like the crew could care less. Not all of them, there was a few that were very nice. But what upset me was the fact that I was trying to eat ( lunch) my seat was next to the wall and I saw something move, it was a couple of roaches, luckily my husband was able to jump up and kill them. That was only part of the many problems. There was a list which is way too long to post.I do have to say this was by far the worst Celebrity cruise. Diane:mad:

She will be Island Star soon, after she has had a £25m refit. She will be a regular in the Caribbean too. Its a shame that she was effectively finished on her life with Celebrity when you sailed on her, a real shame that she bowed out in such a miserable way. Its possible that some of the crew were to lose their jobs too but although understandable, its not really a good excuse for a dark mood aboard her.

Very sad.

What a difference a day makes. We cruised on the Horizon from Phila to Bermuda and back October 15 through 22 and observed none of the problems stated in this thread. (I cannot verify the soda machine status). Our group noted that cleaning and maintenance was continuing and other than a few stains around the weather deck door carpets the ship was in good shape considerind it was to be sold in a week. The entire crew must have had an attitude change between the morning and the afternoon of October 22.

Our waiter, assistant waiter and Matre D were excellent, the bartenders were above average and the entertainment and cruise staff were great.

We are somewhat experienced cruisers as this was our eleventh cruise and the third on Celebrity. I would place our cruise experience on the Horizon just above average and above NCL, Carnival and even with RCCL.

I forgot to ask. How was the weather on the last trip of the Horizon to Bermuda?????????????????????

Hello ! To answer your question about the weather, Seas were rough going over. Monday had a little rain, Tuesday it poured for a few hours, Wednesday it was nice, sun and clouds but did manage to get to Horse shoe Bay, and Thursday when we were leaving the sun was out strong. Friday - Cold and rainy, very windy and VERY ROUGH SEAS, they asked everyone on board not to go outside. The ship was rocking bad. Diane

Sorry to hear that her last cruise wasn't so great. In April of '04, my wife and I had our best cruise ever aboard her. We judge all cruises by that cruise now. We're sorry to see her go..........

Hi ,

On 10-22-2005 i left Philadelphia on board of Horizon . I was expecting wonderfully experience with Celebrity Cruises,but received half of the experience for the maximum price.

Problems:

 

Not working coffee machines

Not working sound system on pool deck

Short supplies of basic items

Cold drinks machines off at 10 PM

Broken chairs and lounges

Cockroaches going up the wall during breakfast

Members of the crew apologizing for management

Lock of interest from management

and many more

John

Ok, I have to admit it was my worst Pretend Celebrity Cruise, I would like to have pretended it was going to be my best, but to sum it up, it sucked!

The wifester and I had a great time, we always do, but some of the comments above, I'm sorry to say, don't ring true!

Out of 4 machines in the buffet, I always found at least 1 that worked, still not exceptable!

I listened to the band, it began with an 'I' (I was drinking too much to remember the name), every day unless it rained, and then they had some kind of music on if the band wasn't playing, the sound system worked fine the whole cruise!

Yes, they were running out of things, the cheapest beers, some condom mints, no shrimp cocktail every night (pissed me off), bars closed at 11:00 on the last night, I was forced to drink my listerine!

I could always get a cold beer after 10:00, except the last night!

I never once sat in a broken chair, most chairs seemed to move, especially at sea, but maybe that was just me!

I never saw a cockroach, I wasn't looking for them, but I did stare a lot, not one womans breast had a cockroach on it!

Some of the crew really didn't care, I admit that, including my room stewart, but the bar staff was great, and the waiters were great, and the shows, well, I didn't see any shows, but I heard they were great!

I don't know how to respond to the 'Lock of Interest for management', except for the one chastity belt I ran into, they were very nice!

Over all, honestly, Celebrity dropped the ball on this one, I would never sail on a final cruise again, I was very disappointed, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the cruise, but I enjoy every cruise, I gave them a bad review on their questionaire, the first time I ever had to do that, I'm sorry, Celebrity, you blew it!

Celebrity could have made the last voyage special -- I believe many people were nostalgic about the ship. I have taken eight cruises with Celebrity and until this cruise had never seen them run out of basics like butter, or have such dispirited staff, or not pay attention to detail. The Captain didn't show up for any Captain's Club events and was nowhere to be seen. It made me wonder whether Celebrity was in trouble as a company. The whole cruise started out on an awful note when I found out that I was booked into a cabin with a double bed that apparently could not be separated -- with a co-worker with whom I was traveling. Guest relations told me that Celebrity takes no notice of gender and last names and books non-couples of the same sex in double bed rooms all the time, and anyway, it was the travel agent's fault and they could do nothing about it. Outrageous, especially since I paid top dollar for the cruise. No one should be treated this way. On a positive note, the waiter and cabin steward were fine people and did a great job. I worried about their futures, and I know I wasn't the only one. I have always been a huge Celebrity fan, and never anticipated this.

Bo!!!!!!!!!

How are you? Diane told us on the Millie thread that you and John were taking the same cruise with her and Kurt. It's a real shame that the final voyage of the Horizon sounded like the pits. We were on her twice and enjoyed her both times. What did they do with everything that said Horizon on it?

Anita

What did they do with everything that said Horizon on it?

I hope that you guys got/took some freebies to make up for the less then par cruise. I feel really bad for you guys. This cruise should have been a special goodbye and farewell. Maybe Celebrity did this on purpose so people don't miss Horizon to much.

I thought her to be old and run down when we sailed in 2003! But who am I to complain, as long as we weren't at home "The Horizon was Fabulous!" I always said, any ship you happen to be at that moment is the best ship of all!

Stop me if I lie!

Cruizinrican:)

The new look Horizon/Island Star...just incase anyone gets to spot her in the Caribbean...although she will be hard to miss with that damn great flower on her side:rolleyes:

http://www.islandcruises.com/index.php?tpl=58&pg=explore

No I probably won't do a final voyage of a ship again. I could tell some of the crew just wanted to go home. The breakfast in Coral Seas cafe left something to be desired and you could tell the last morning they just wanted to get us out of there. But on the other side, it was fun. The waiters were cool and the bar staff. Rusty was fun Newt huh?

Hey, what's the big deal about a couple of cockroaches? ;)

That is so sad.

I also would think twice about going on a last voyage after a Panama Canal trip on Ocean Princess. It was going over to P&O to be the Oceania.

Nearing the end, things got scarce. They were running out of wine. You would go through the wine list with the waiter for five minutes every night until you hit on one that was still on the shelves. They finally printed up a sheet with the few brands they had left.

Then they started to dismantle all the stores in the shopping arcade.

It was so ugly to see big cardboard boxes piled behind all the windows and totally empty shelves.

Very tacky.

Service was still good though. No one was losing their jobs that we heard of. They all seemed to be transferring to other ships.

So not as bad as Horizon, but a somewhat dissapointing experience.

No roaches though.

At least none that we saw.:D

sable

I didn't see any roaches either, but not that it couldn't have happened.

Sadly Bermuda has a fair number of roaches and since the larger ones fly (believe me a flying roach is worse then one crawling on the ground :eek: ) I wouldn't be surprised if a few hitched a ride on the ship every time it landed in Bermuda.

Newt- Who was your stateroom attendent?? Ours was the worst we ever had- his name was Jose. Was yours the same?

Reese1717 I could not reply to your questions the week you were leaving.

I returned from Horizon on 10/15. The cruise that was really rough. The reason the coffee machines were not working on your cruise was due to the fact they had all fallen on floor when we hit the swells. It also knocked out the sound system by the pool. This all occured on Friday Oct. 15th. Was your trip rough? Heard it was not a final Hurray for the Horizon. I have sailed on over 30 cruises all out of New York mostly and just recently Pa.

I will continue to sail and plan on going on the Zenith out of Bayonne next spring. (I have sailed on her 2 times so far and 3 on the Horizon):confused:

Hello everybody! Kita - That may explain why the coffee machines were not working right. Reese - It was nice meeting you, as for stateroom attendants, ours was terrible too. I'm sure my next cruise will be much better.

Diane:)

Newt- Who was your stateroom attendent?? Ours was the worst we ever had- his name was Jose. Was yours the same?

Reese, sorry you couldn't sit with us, you guys would have fit in perfect with the crowd we had, like you mentioned on the other thread, all we did for 2 hours each night was laugh, but the brothers changed their minds, and decided to come back to the best table in the dining room! As far as our stateroom attendent, how can I put this, he sucked, his name was Antonio, I had one request, an extra towel for the wifester to wash her hair. Every night I had to roam the passageways, looking for Antonio and beg for an extra towel. On the last night I insisted the wifester go to dinner with dirty hair, I brought the towel home, the jokes on Antonio!

Nice to meet you Kat and Diane too, and the other 200 people who's names I don't remember, I owe you all a drink!