Just back from an Eclipse cruise.

[jenpet]

We got back yesterday from a Western Med cruise on the Eclipse.

What a beautiful ship with lovely cabins.

The staff are wonderful.

But......... The food in the Moonlight Sonata at dinner was NEVER hot enough & vegetables too repetetive.

The entertainment was not up to much except for the shows put on by The Edge.

Not enough seats in the dark & gloomy bars.

Sun beds jammed in so tight, but not enough of them!

Drink, beauty salon & excursion prices extortionate!

 

Celebrity need to sort out these things, especially their high prices. Several passengers used hair salons in ports because of the high prices on board.

[AEGBRG]

We got back yesterday from a Western Med cruise on the Eclipse.

What a beautiful ship with lovely cabins.

The staff are wonderful.

But......... The food in the Moonlight Sonata at dinner was NEVER hot enough & vegetables too repetetive.

The entertainment was not up to much except for the shows put on by The Edge.

Not enough seats in the dark & gloomy bars.

Sun beds jammed in so tight, but not enough of them!

Drink, beauty salon & excursion prices extortionate!

 

Celebrity need to sort out these things, especially their high prices. Several passengers used hair salons in ports because of the hi prices on board.

 

We are doing the exact same cruise on the July 2nd sailing. Sounds like a lukewarm review, but I hope you had a great time.

 

How was the food on the ship? We have always been to loyal to Celebrity -- were on the Equinox last year-- because of how amazing the food is. However, we know when we take Celebrity we sacrifice a bit on entertainment -- their entertainment has always been mediocre at best. It sounds like the entertainment is not any better on this ship.

 

What excursions did you do or what would you recommend? --or anyone else who has been to these ports, what do you think? So far what we have planned is:

 

Gibraltar: Doing this port on our own. Taking the cable car up the rock.

 

Toulon: My mom really wants to go to St.Tropez, so we booked the cruises tour to there. It is really expensive though -- $145 pp. Wonder if there are any other options to get there on our own?

 

Florence: Already been to Florence multiple times, so we booked a private excursion with Papillon tours to Tuscany -- specifically, San Gimignano and Siena.

 

Rome: We have already been to Rome multiple times so we are kind of clueless on what to do (already done pretty much everything). We will take the train on our own and probably just walk around the city.

 

Cagliari: Probably just going to take the bus to Poetto Beach.

 

Cadiz: We are going to do Celebrity's Seville tour without lunch. Debated whether to just take Celebrity's Seville transfer on your own, but figured we should go with a tour since we have not been there before. Ideally, we want to do Seville on our own by train, but we are crunched for time and do not want to risk missing the boat.

 

Lisbon: We are going to Lisbon on our own -- heard it is very easy to do on your own.

 

Vigo: Doing Celebrity's tour of Santiago De Compostela. Again, ideally, we would like to take the train on our own, but same as Seville, we risk missing the boat because we are crunched for time.

 

Any thoughts or different recommendations of what we have planned would be much appreciated.

 

I agree Celebrity's drink prices and excursion prices are ridiculous, but sometimes it is just worth taking the ship's tour for peace of mind of not missing the boat. Hope you had a great time though!

[chigley]

Hi Aegbrg. I thought i had done all my homework to get to poetta beach. However, due to a couple of misunderstandings and it being a Sunday with a short time in port we gave up. There is a private bus within the port to the beach that we accidently passed that the tourist info point further along the dock does not aknowledge. She referred us to the local bus where it was impossible to buy a ticket(not on the bus, and not at the kiosk 3 officials sent us to). In the meantime, the taxi drivers wanted 40 euro each way.

 

Very frustrating for us, but I am sure you can research this better now you are forewarned

[kellyclayt]

I'm glad I read this. I too am on the July 2 Eclipse trip that stops at Cagliari on a Sunday. I had planned to use the local bus to Poetto beach based on information from trip advisor:

 

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g187881-i1180-k3644678-Public_bus_from_Cruise_Terminal_to_Poetto_Beach-Cagliari_Sardinia.html

 

which says to buy tickets at a newsstand or tobacconist at the Port. But now I am rethinking this if you are saying you were unable to buy tickets. Maybe we should just take the tourist bus?

 

Thanks for the heads-up!

 

Hi Aegbrg. I thought i had done all my homework to get to poetta beach. However, due to a couple of misunderstandings and it being a Sunday with a short time in port we gave up. There is a private bus within the port to the beach that we accidently passed that the tourist info point further along the dock does not aknowledge. She referred us to the local bus where it was impossible to buy a ticket(not on the bus, and not at the kiosk 3 officials sent us to). In the meantime, the taxi drivers wanted 40 euro each way.

 

Very frustrating for us, but I am sure you can research this better now you are forewarned