Our Century Cruise November 7, 2005 (Review, very long)

[Desertbelle]

We were a family group of 9 from age 2 to 77. It was my second Celebrity cruise, but most of the group were enjoying Celebrity for the first time.

We had a wonderful time on the Century. I didn't find the Century in any worse ship than the vast majority of the other ships we have cruised...she was a clean as a whistle and the public areas were beautiful. I was getting a little nervous about that as the cruise got closer, having heard so many negative remarks, so I was extremely happy to find the normal, well maintained, lovely Celebrity ship.

The staff was great. I really enjoyed Allan King as the CD, and every crewmember seemed to do whatever they could to help us enjoy our cruise.

The Century cabins are very small, but the storage space is incredible. We had many empty drawers left over after unpacking. For such a small space it’s very well laid out. The shower wasn’t impossibly small. The shower curtain never once stuck to my behind! :D

We really missed having a balcony and we have decided we won't cruise again without one. Without a balcony we just don't feel connected to the ocean. I can't tell you how much we enjoy sitting on our balcony, quietly enjoying our private view of the ocean. On the Century it was near impossible to find a spot, outside, to view the ocean without lots of people around or loud music.

Our bed was very uncomfortable. The cabin steward tried his best to make it better, but they didn't have any egg crate mattresses and the best he could do was add some pads. It helped some but I woke up a few mornings so sore. In the future I will take a new egg crate mattress with us on every cruise, and leave it there afterwards...thus leaving lots of extra space for souvenirs on the trip home and an egg crate mattress for someone in the future! :)

The artwork on the Century was so much better than on the Millennium...I was so relieved! :D In fact there were some photographs that I thought were outstanding and wouldn't mind in my own home. The shopping spread out on three levels made it difficult for those who don’t do stairs, but it didn’t matter to us.

I had a Hot Stone Massage in the AquaSpa that was wonderful. We paid the $89 pp to use the Thalassotherapy Pool, but I don’t think it was worth the money. I used it 5-6 times. The free one on the Millennium was so much nicer. Sitting in the Thalassotherapy Pool in the lovely Solarium on the Millennium was so relaxing and enjoyable. The room that the Thalassotherapy Pool was in on the Century was small, stuffy, and without any ambiance. The ceiling was stained, and there wasn’t anything interesting to look at while lounging in the pool. No sunshine or waterfalls, etc. The shower facilities and sauna on the Century were small, very old and tired looking…the only place on the ship I really felt showed its’ age and usage. They didn’t have out any lotions or fresh flowers. The Thallassotherapy pool itself was great, those jets are so relaxing. I loved being in there…helped with those sore muscles from the bad bed.

We had a few hassles along the way, most very minor, but a huge one was our dining table. Originally they were going to put the 9 of us on a round table for 6!! We were extremely upset. They finally put a top on the table that made it bigger, but it also made the table taller (by about 2 inches, and we are all shorties so this made some of feel like we were sitting in a hole) and very much wider, so conversations were extremely difficult to conduct. We made our reservations 16 months ago...we should have been seated at an oblong table for 10. It's not our fault that so many people requested Main dining, so why did we need to suffer for it? I heard that Late Seating was half empty. They should have insisted that people who booked later eat at Late Seating instead of accommodating so many extras, making the Main Seating room so crowded and our table so uncomfortable. The added width of the table meant that the wait staff couldn't get around the seats easily and our chairs and the chairs of the adjoining table were getting bumped all through dinner. Sometimes the waiter couldn't get to those in the back seats at all and they had to pass plates across other people. I felt it really hampered my enjoyment of dinner. The noise at dinner, because of the crowded situation was very unpleasant. I can understand Celebrity wanting to accommodate as many as possible, but they need to not do that at the expense of others. We were very unhappy.

I thought the food, for the most part, was very good to excellent. Sure, some of the items were a little strange, but we've seen that on every cruise. I think the lack of flavor in some dishes is to accommodate those people who are on low salt diets. I found myself adding salt and pepper to most foods and I almost never do that at home. Presentation wasn't so great, but I am not all that impressed with fancy plates of food...I just want it to taste good! J We felt the food in the buffet was good; the Sushi was OK, not great. The Elegant Teas were wonderful. Even Tea Time in the buffet area was very nice. As usual the Grand Buffet was lovely to look at but tasted horrible for the most part.

The ports were excellent. We enjoyed every single thing we did. Jamaica was blast. We did some snorkeling and climbed Dunn’s River Falls. It looks a lot harder than it was. My daughter carried Tommy, 2 ½ years old, up the falls, so not a difficult climb at all. At times I thought all that handholding was silly. Margaritaville was extremely bawdy, but fun.

Costa Rica was lovely. We used Oscar Brown in Costa Rica...he wasn't as great as everyone makes him out to be, his excursion was good but not exceptional in any way. We went to Marina’s Animal Shelter in Costa Rica and that was outstanding. What a blast to get a private tour of the grounds by the owners and to get to hold and interact with so many species…lizards, sloths, monkeys, birds, etc. Also ate the best bananas ever!

The Panama Canal was interesting and lovely. We booked the Canal by Ferry Boat from the cruise line. It was an excellent tour.

Aruba was the most beautiful island I have ever been to!! The beaches were perfect and the snorkeling was the best ever...and we have snorkeled all over the world. Can't wait to go back there. We took a chance on Shoretrips.com to book excursions in Jamaica and Aruba and we were very pleased. We would use them again without hesitation.

All in all, Celebrity does a great job. The Century wasn’t as “elegant” as the Millennium. There were more announcements and silly activities, but that wasn’t anything that we had a problem with. They sure know how to move people on and off a ship without problems. Even with the seriously long delay at disembarkation in Ft. Lauderdale, the actual off-loading of people went very smoothly.

One of our pieces of luggage was mistakenly loaded onto a Greyhound bus heading to Mississippi. We are still waiting on its return. Celebrity had no idea where it was. We only found it because a very nice Greyhound driver called me directly to say she had found it unclaimed after a tour group had gotten off the bus. The good news is that all our dirty laundry was in that bag, so I haven’t had to do any laundry yet!! :D

We booked a family cruise while onboard. Ogla, the cruise booking agent, was extremely helpful. We will be on the Mercury for Thanksgiving in 2006 with all our children and their families...balconies, of course!!

I have already posted our cruise pictures on Webshots...enjoy! There are three Caribbean Cruise on the Century albums, so check them all out.

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.

[dcwlopez]

Thank you very much for your review. We'll be on Century in March 2006 for our anniversary and its nice to hear what its like now. I've heard about the bed issues before so I've purchases an inflatable mattress topper to try out. I'm hoping that will help with the sore back issues.

[sailorgirl]

Yes, how individual a review is! We each have a different experience. But , like Desertbelle, we had a wonderful time on Century Nov. 7th itinerary. This was our first cruise on Celebrity (having sailed Cunard, Crystal, Radisson and Princess). We were impresssed and we will return. In fact, we have booked Millennium for 14 night S.A. itinerary March 5th.

 

Briefly, our embarkation was extremely quick and we were on board being served champagne by 11:30 a.m. Our Sky Suite on deck 12 was terrific. Huge verandah and so convenient to the restaurant and the pool area. But, having been warned, I immediately checked out the bed and sure enough - I could feel springs and it squeaked! I called Housekeeping and they took care of the problem while we were having dinner. Either they changed the mattress or they added a nice thick pad but it was very comfortable after that. Guest Relations was very pleasant and they stand ready to assist with any problem. The air conditioning was very cool the first few days (the way we happen to like it) but it got rather warm toward the end of the ten day cruise. We called and they got it cooler promptly.

 

We would like to have known in advance what amenities came with a Sky Suite and what we could expect of the butler. We did find out that use of the Spa was free as part of our being a Suite passenger. My husband enjoyed the gym every morning while I enjoyed coffee on our verandah,

 

We were pretty much making a comparison to Princess and would have to say that the food and service is better on Celebrity. We thought the presentation was good. We did have to do a lot of seasoning - particularly with the soups which were only fair. Desserts were very good.

 

One buffet lunch I was able to get a veal sweetbread crepe! Now, how many ships have you ever had that treat served on? By the way, we never had a problem finding a place to seat in the buffet area and were usually in the stern area.

 

We had tea delivered to our Sky Suite every afternoon and there was a nice selection of sandwiches and pastries. But then, an hour later, the hors'deurves (I know I spelled that wrong) were delivered for our cocktail hour. And then, we were main seating at 6 p.m.!! All too close together.

 

We liked the entertainment a lot - the Broadway style singers and dancers were so talented, the violinist was also wonderful, as well as the piano player, and a pretty good comedian. Also a juggler - not my favorite form of entertainment - but he was good if you like that sort of thing.

 

The crew were very pleasant and service was excellent.

 

The lectures on Personality and Financial Planning were simply too basic. Might have been good for younger first time cruisers.

 

Getting on our AOL Internet was highway robbery at 75 cents a minute. We purchased an advance of 200 minutes for 60 cents a minute but that goes quickly. Sometimes, logging on or sending mail takes several minutes.

 

The excursions were good and we enjoyed ours. Everything was handled smoothly.

 

The two hour delay at disembarkation was not, so I understand, the fault of Celebrity. I hope people didn't miss their flights. We live in Florida and drove, so it wasn't a problem.

 

The bottom line here is that we are now Celebrity fans!

[lel5344]

We spent the night prior to the cruise in Ft. Lauderdale (astonishing to see all the damage from Wilma), dropped off our rental car and took the airport free shuttle to the cruise terminal). At that point, we discovered that we didn't have our cruise documents! Panic!

 

But Celebrity took care of us just perfect! We just had to redo our stuff (we had the info about our reservation handy) and we had no trouble. We were on board by noon.

 

We were in concierge class 1001 and our stateroom attendant, Nicoleta, immediately showed her stuff. Pillows were taked care of immediately and we requested fruit and cheese and crackers instead of canapes in the afternoon. We also requested that our mini-refrigerator be emptied. In addition, could we have a couple of wine glasses daily (for the stuff we brought on board - hassle free). All no problem and attended to almost instanteously. Nicoleta is by far te best stateroom attendant we have ever experienced (5 previous cruises, but this is our first on Celebrity).

 

Ship's condition: we thought she was absolutely lovely! Yes, some sign of wear, but she's 10 years old and has probably seen more than 800,000 passengers and 1,000,000 miles. Cleanliness everywhere and maintenance seemed to be constant.

 

Activities: not our cup of tea. We don't do much in the way of bingo, trivia, art auctions, etc. But there seemed to be plenty of opportunity for shipboard activities.

 

Ports: We were off and on the ship with no hassles at all 4 ports.

 

Dining Room Service: we were at table 507 (table for 6) which is lower level, right next to the captain's table at the very aft end of the dining room. Our service was pracically perfect. Our waiter, Emil, and our assistant waiter, Armando were delightful table companions and seemd to share our table's sense of humor.

 

We don't drink shipboard drinks, so I have no comment on bar service.

 

Casino: I only play blackjack and the dealers were friendly and courteous (and sometimes very amusing).

 

This is just a capsule commentary, and is probably better directed to those who have never cruised on Celebrity (or Century) before.

 

Was it better than our NCL cruises? Yes, in many ways, no in a few other ways (for example, I think that NCL's dining room breakfasts are far superior in variety and taste to Celebrity's).

 

Would I recommend Celebrity? You bet!

 

Would we cruise Celebrity again? In a heartbeat, dependent, of course, on finding the right itinerary for us!

 

I know there is so much more to be covered, but a true review would take pages and pages, and I'm not into a desire for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

 

But if you post questions here, I'll try to answer with my own personal opinions.

[sunshine426]

Thanks for the reviews. We are contemplating cruising on the Century in March. My husband and I will be traveling with our two daughters ages 24 and 21 . Is there much of a night light for these two young women? I am sure that we will all enjoy the casino's, pool time, meals, etc and of course the lovely ports of call, but am curious about the night life on this ship. Any comments would be appreciated.