century post dry dock report?

[fernem]

Any one back from the first sailing after Century's week long dry dock? I would love to hear how she looks and what changes you could identify.

 

Thanks in advance. We are sailing on her in eleven days and are very excited!

 

Fern :D

[TommyD3]

I am just back from the week long cruise right after drydock.

The drydock took place in Freeport.

I guess they were late arriving in Miami because they delayed embarkation until 12:30 (said that Public Health had not cleared the ship). They tried to let the people on in the order they had arrived. That worked for maybe the first 50 people, but then everyone (at least several hundred) made a mad rush to get on. No priority for Suites, Concierge or Elite. Kind of disappointing.

As for the drydock work:

They replaced lots of carpet in public areas.

Some of the carpet in the cabins - we had interconnecting Concierge and one cabin had new carpet the other had the old worn out stuff.

I think if it was stained it was replaced - otherwise not.

They replaced some of the air conditioning equipment. Had some problems with it. The Cruise Critic Connections party was in the Crystal Room in the raised area by the bar on the morning of the first full day. It must have been 90!!! They did get it fixed, because that is where the Elite lounge was every day and it was fine after that.

They refinished the floor in the buffet running around the serving areas. I think the idea was to make it skid proof.

They Solsticized a number of the public rest rooms !!! The restrooms just outside the Deck 6 entrance to the MDR and Deck 11 entrance to the buffet. Maybe others too. Totally renovated with wood looking paneling.

Talked to some of the bridge officers - they also replaced the propellors which had some major chunks missing. Refinished basically the entire surface area below the water line including the stabalizers & rudders.

Thats about it.

[fernem]

Thanks, Tommy.

I appreciate it.

 

Fern

[tls630]

I was on this cruise also.I talked to the Captain several times and he said that all the time was spent on mechanicals. If there was any carpet or decorating changes it was severly needed,I didn't see any.They also did some engine work and changed the props. The Captain is constantly around the ship. He is one great guy. He also told me that X is not getting rid of the Century anytime soon, and also said that there would be no major updates anytime soon.

[Literary Lynne]

Hi TommyD3

 

We are booked into an interconnecting C1 cabin (9072) which connects with 9076 for our trip on Century in September. Were you in either of those? Was it noisy being connected to the cabin next door? Maybe you had booked both cabins and this wouldn't be a problem for you anyway. We took the C1 as a guarantee and are a bit unsettled to find it is connected to the one next door.

 

Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks

Lynne :)

[ghstudio]

I wonder if replacing the props reduced or eliminated the vibration/shaking that many have noticed on the century....

[dkjretired]

I wonder if replacing the props reduced or eliminated the vibration/shaking that many have noticed on the century....

 

Probably not, I was on her when she was new and in certain areas it was really bad...

[tls630]

Liberty Lynne

We were in cabin 9170 and it was very quiet. That would be on the other side of the ship from you but basicly the same except for sides.

[patty1955]

We were in 8145 and there was some vibration and a fair amount of noise. If they replaced the flooring around the buffet island to reduce slips, it didn't work. I slid on it everytime it was wet, regardless of the shoes I was wearing/

[RCIGUY]

DW and I just returned from the 7 night as well. Had an absolutely wonderful time. Updates/refreshing were for the most part seamlessly integrated. Considering her age relative to the fleet she looked really good. Even a new ship can have drawbacks.

 

The best part for us...the crew! Always friendly, always smiling, and always willing to please us! (If you're reading this Ti-Ann, your "Mom and Dad" at sea thank you again for everything.)

 

My big negative was the coffee, which seemed to be a universal theme throughout the week. The wet paint in the filled/functional pool was a bit of a nuisance as well (stuck to your feet a bit), but it was almost dry by the end of the week. Go with an open mind and you should certainly be happy, we definitely were! We would sail her again in a heartbeat!

[TommyD3]

Hi TommyD3

 

We are booked into an interconnecting C1 cabin (9072) which connects with 9076 for our trip on Century in September. Were you in either of those? Was it noisy being connected to the cabin next door? Maybe you had booked both cabins and this wouldn't be a problem for you anyway. We took the C1 as a guarantee and are a bit unsettled to find it is connected to the one next door.

 

Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks

Lynne :)

 

We booked 9188 & 9190 on purpose. In this case the door was VERY well sealed. Could not hear anything thru it. We normally pass notes under the door in the morning when we wake up, but it was so well sealed nothing went thru.

 

We have been in some other cabin pairs where you definately can hear what is going on in the adjoining cabin.

 

As for reduced vibration, it was slightly better than earlier this year, but still night & day more than the newer ships with Azipods :)

[MMastell]

I was on the 5/3, seven day cruise. Most of the drydock concentrated on mechanicals. The upper part of the ship did not get repainted and it needed it. However, there was a lot of work on air conditioning, power and replacement of the propellers. It could have used another couple of days in drydock to finish cleaning but they got the dust on the upper decks off by the second day and I had a lot of paint chips and small debris on my aft balcony. It took four days before it was hosed down. I had a FV balcony (9232) and the vibrations were noticeable but not unbearable. It did not wake me on the mornings I was sleeping when we pulled into port. However the "normal" 4.5 Richter scale vibration was felt in the dining room when we pulled out of port.

 

I do have to say that I was not impressed with the FV and won't pay the extra money again for it. It is better than a SV but the layout of the cabin is too weird. You cannot get a good view of the TV from the bed unless you are as far over to the side as you can go and to hear it you need to have the volume up loud enough that it could annoy your next door neighbor. The movies that were available were excellent and I did watch "The Hurt Locker" and "State of Play". BTW: They were unedited (language/nudity) and these were the free movies. Watching movies isn't something I normally do on a cruise but these played at the right time and I wanted to see them. The couch is very uncomfortable to sit on for any period of time so the only alternative was to sit in an armchair. I was the only one in the cabin and while it was nice to have the large balcony a CC would have been a better and less expensive choice. The FV does not have the CC amenities.

 

There were sporadic air conditioning problems throughout the week as they got the bugs worked out. I had no air for the first day but after that it worked fine except for a couple of short outages. The CC party in the Crystal Room was "hot", very hot. :)

 

The flooring in the buffet may have been replaced to stop slipping but whatever they put in didn't work. It was slippery, very slippery and I have no mobility issues.

 

Don't get me wrong I had a great cruise and the ship, overall, is in good shape but I was hoping for a little fresher look after the drydock.

 

Take care,

Mike

[Bestbubba]

Can anyone tell me if the films on the stateroom TV have closed captions? (Sub-titles). According to Celebrity, all TVs fleetwide are closed captioned for the hearing impaired but our "all-singing/all dancing/bells and whistles TV" on our Equinox cruise was sadly lacking....

 

Sue

[Solstice23]

I was also on the 7 day sailing, and service and food was still great but I cannot see them keeping the Century in the fleet for more then 2 more years. Why I say this is that unless they upgrade the ship to be like the Solstice or the New Solstizied Millennium class it will not fit with the line. Although I enjoyed the Century size wise, its missing the Modern edge in the "Designed for you Platform"

 

I give it until sometime in 2012 and it will not be in the fleet

[misterbuds]

We were also on this sailing and had a great time. My husband talked to one of the officers after the cc party and we also had the pleasure of going on a shore excursion of which Ben the Asst. Cruise Director/Activity Manager went on. There were only 5 of us on this excursion so we had alot of time to talk, etc and he told us some of things they upgraded. Mainly mechanical work was done, engine work, and they also did repaint the pool (yes it was still tacky and I had the blue paint on my toe nail polish to prove it:eek:). He seemed alittle shocked about that one. LOL. He told us they did software upgrades in the bridge, appliance upgrades in the kitchens, work around the buffets, worked on public bathrooms. The AC system was worked on I think, but they seemed to have problems bringing it back on line since it was hot is different parts of the ship, including our cabin. No matter what we did, we couldn't never get the temperature to go below 70 (my travel alarm clock has a thermometer)and we had it cranked all the way down. I didn't see any carpeting changed, nor any cosmetic changes, and they did repaint the ships hull (which got nicely scuffed up in playa del carmen by the tenders!) I think someone also said they also did some work on the shops, but I'm not certain as I had never sailed Century before.

 

As far as vibrations and noise. We were in cabin 9063 and we felt the vibrations when pulling in to port, but i didn't find it to be that bad. It did wake us up, but i feel back to sleep.

 

Also to the poster who asked about the cabin 9072, while we didn't have a connecting cabin and ours was on the other side(9063), our cabin was across the hall from the door that the stewards went in an out of with the carts. It was a noisy location, but convenient to the elevator. The door seemed to always slam in the morning when they started their shifts and it was noisy particularly since they seemed to always chat with each other. Sometimes I could also hear the pax in the adjacent staterooms, so i don't think the walls were well insulated, so not sure if the connecting room would matter or not in regards to the noise.

[Literary Lynne]

Thanks tls630, TommyD3 and misterbuds for responding to my query about interconnecting cabin noise - all very useful.

 

Lynne :)

[bernnj]

I too was on the Century 5/3/10 week cruise. I had a C1 cabin on deck 9. The ship's staff/crew and service were excellent. Perhaps, I had my expectation set too high knowing the Century was in dry dock the week before. I did not see improvements to my cabin, carpet was somewhat worn and some painting chips and dirt/debris on my balcony. I was hoping to have breakfast out on my balcony every morning we were in port but I only ate there on 2 of the 4 mornings. I was also surprised that we were told not to wear lifejackets for the drill (evidentally this is a change that occured a few months ago). On a personal note, that was a little disappointing as I find wearing the lifejackets as fun and believe that just putting it on should be mandatory. I was also disappointed that I was not allowed to exchange my bottle of bubbly that came with the room for a bottle or red wine in the dining room. I was willing to pay the $ difference but was told that I could not. So I shared the bottle with my dining companions on our first formal night.

 

In spite of those few disappointments, I did enjoy my cruise and the lovely people I met onboard.

[misterbuds]

I was also disappointed that I was not allowed to exchange my bottle of bubbly that came with the room for a bottle or red wine in the dining room. I was willing to pay the $ difference but was told that I could not. So I shared the bottle with my dining companions on our first formal night.

 

We were on the same cruise and we also tried to ask our steward if we could exchange our bottle of champagne as we prefer wine. He said he couldn't but that maybe we could ask the wine steward in the dining room. We were going to, but didn't bother and we ended up telling him to ice it and drank it. Maybe we had the same steward!

[Solstice23]

We had Sky Suite 1234 and I am not a loud person at all but the passegners in the next room complained to the front desk in the middle of the day the night and a few other times about our talking. Honestly I have never had this before on any cruise. then to make matters worse she came banging on our door the last night of the cruise using profanities towards me, I was not impressed I called security. She had told them that I had parties with dancing etc??? Ummm No way that never happened. I will say that we could hear the noise from the pool parties and deck music and talking all the time since the wind carries it right down to our room crystal clear.

 

The Sky suite had the most storage of any Sky suite I have ever had

[TommyD3]

Can anyone tell me if the films on the stateroom TV have closed captions? (Sub-titles). According to Celebrity' date=' all TVs fleetwide are closed captioned for the hearing impaired but our "all-singing/all dancing/bells and whistles TV" on our Equinox cruise was sadly lacking....[/size']

 

Sue

 

I wear hearing aids and AWAYS use the closed captions at home. Unfortunately closed caption on ALL of the Celebrity ships are sadly lacking. A few channels will have closed cations, but the majority wont. Of the 6-8 live channels (CNN, ESPN, Fox News, Sky News, etc) maybe two displayed closed cations. The movie channels also had maybe one or two with closed captions. This is as opposed to my cable TV at home where EVERY single channel that I watch has closed captions.

[Xcruiser]

I will say that we could hear the noise from the pool parties and deck music and talking all the time since the wind carries it right down to our room crystal clear.

 

Hum, I always thought that noise travels at the speed of sound and wind not quite so fast, maybe I learned wrong:rolleyes::D;).

 

Joel

[Bestbubba]

I wear hearing aids and AWAYS use the closed captions at home. Unfortunately closed caption on ALL of the Celebrity ships are sadly lacking. A few channels will have closed cations, but the majority wont. Of the 6-8 live channels (CNN, ESPN, Fox News, Sky News, etc) maybe two displayed closed cations. The movie channels also had maybe one or two with closed captions. This is as opposed to my cable TV at home where EVERY single channel that I watch has closed captions.

 

Thanks for your reply...your experiences match mine:( Such a simple thing isn't it, but it makes such a difference....

 

Sue

[misterbuds]

We had Sky Suite 1234 and I am not a loud person at all but the passegners in the next room complained to the front desk in the middle of the day the night and a few other times about our talking. Honestly I have never had this before on any cruise. then to make matters worse she came banging on our door the last night of the cruise using profanities towards me, I was not impressed I called security. She had told them that I had parties with dancing etc??? Ummm No way that never happened. I will say that we could hear the noise from the pool parties and deck music and talking all the time since the wind carries it right down to our room crystal clear.

 

 

Wow!! How rude of that person. You wonder if this person couldn't realize that deck 12 was near the pool deck, etc where there were always people, activities, dancing on the outdoor party night, etc. and thus.... noise.

[MMastell]

Hum, I always thought that noise travels at the speed of sound and wind not quite so fast, maybe I learned wrong:rolleyes::D;).

 

Joel

 

I take it you haven't done much hunting. While sound moves at 612 MPH, at sea level, the air is what conducts the sound from point A to point B. If the movement of the air is from point B to A then B will not hear a sound from A as well as if the air movement is from A to B. Then B will hear the sound at a louder volume. It's like a powerful canoe going upstream. While it will still get there it takes longer to fight the current.

 

Take care,

Mike

[helen haywood]

I, too, was on the Century May 3. To each their own...but its funny to hear that people did not like the coffee because I really enjoyed it. It definitely is stronger than other cruise lines I have been on....and I was properly energized!! Maybe that's why my steps are dragging now that I'm home....