More Century Baltic Comments

[Quickcanuck]

Editor Carolyn's thread on the Century's Baltic itinerary seems to have generated a lot of interest so I thought I'd share some our recent experience as well. We were on the August 2 - 14 sailing out of Amsterdam.

 

We were very fortunate in that the weather was very cooperative for this cruise – we had sunshine at each of the major ports other than Amsterdam. A couple of the sea days were cloudy and cool, but that’s less of problem if you can go and curl up with a good book.

 

Embarkation and disembarkation in Amsterdam was very smooth and fast – probably the fastest I have seen in a dozen cruises. We arrived at the pier at about 12:30 and had only one couple in line ahead of use, we were on board in less than 5 minutes. There was champagne or juice in the foyer, but no offer to show us to our cabin, presumably because they weren’t ready yet.

 

Getting off the ship was also very quick, with only a quick passport check. It was pouring when we got off – the good news is that the gangway allows you to walk into the terminal building without getting wet, the bad news is you have to go to a separate tent area where the luggage is stored, and that trip, along with the walk to taxi area, is completely out in the open. That made the taxi line a bit chaotic as some people waited patiently in the rain while others lurked underneath the tent canvas and tried to pounce on a taxi when it arrived.

 

The changes to the Century have been generally well executed, although as with any such refit there are pluses and minuses. We had an inside cabin, so I can’t comment on the new balconies, but the interior changes are welcome and the overall atmosphere in the cabins is a more updated contemporary look in the European style – new accents on the blond wood and stainless steel look. The new bedding is very comfortable, we have always preferred duvet covers over blankets so this was a plus for us. The bathrooms look very neat with the new raised sinks, but the existing mirrors and panels have not been changed so some de-silvering and wear is still visible. The curved shower rods are a nice change, the guy that thought that one up for the hotels and now ships deserves to get rich. The new hair dryers work well, but there’s a bit of a design lapse here – they have a night light built into the hair dryer, but the night light turns off when you turn off the light switch to the bathroom – duh!

 

The flat panel TV’s are nice, but of course all the programming is in the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio, so the image is distorted on the wide screen. The utilities on the TV are hit and miss. The account review did not work for the first half of the cruise – it actually came up with the wrong names – and the GPS map to show you where you are was a joke, the ship position was off the map half the time, a windows error message was plastered over the image for a day or so, and the map was never centered or zoomed in properly. Hope somebody can fix this, on a Baltic itinerary the map is much needed.

 

I personally wasn’t too thrilled with the change to the back of deck 11 to create the Sunset Bar. That area has long been my favorite place to sit and read a book on both the old Century and on Mercury, and now the space is much smaller, and it was frequently difficult to get a table or a chair there on nice days. The bar stools are another design boo-boo, they’re so far from the counter you can’t even lean your elbows on the bar! With both the bar staff and the Island Café staff hustling through there with trays and drinks it’s not as quiet and restful as it was – too bad. Similarly, the deck space on the back of deck 10, nine, and eight is just a stairwell now.

 

Moreno’s was a wonderful experience. The food was great – my weakness for foe grass finally has an outlet on ship, and the beef and lamb were excellent. The cheese trolley selection and service was the equal of any 5 star landside restaurants, and the deserts and pastries were perfect. The staff and service was impeccable – if you had a table for four, four silver domed plates were presented simultaneously by four waiters, and the tableside preparation was well done and entertaining. We were there for almost three hours. There were a few early customers, so we did see a few tables turn over in the course of the evening, but I think most made a night of it. The only thing not up to par was with the wine service – we wanted to have some wine by the glass with the starters and then half a half bottle of red with the mains, but they were sold out of half bottles of red. Celebrity seems to sell out of the more affordable reds frequently – this happened to us in the dining room on two occasions as well and on several previous cruises. Once is an accident, twice is an unfortunate coincidence, this is looking more like a bad pattern.

 

The new gym is very well done, lots of equipment, although it was also frequently fully used on sea days. Again some dumb stuff – no cold water to refill a bottle, just some silly paper cups that were useless in the equipment cup holders. They finally got around to hooking up the video monitors on the equipment during the course of the cruise.

 

We tried the Spa Café for lunch one day – nice to see the Moreno staff from the previous evening manning the café, and they immediately recognized us and made us feel at home and cooked our lunch to order. Quality was good, but for me the portions were a bit on the light side. It’s nice to have one more option to the restaurant and the Island Café.

 

Our experience in the Dining Room was very good, as it has been on every one of our 5 Celebrity cruises. I think in those 5 cruises the menus were pretty much identical, so I think perhaps a menu refresh once in a while might add an element of surprise, but the selections available (counting the off-menu options) have always been more than adequate, the presentation and variety of preparation have always been just a bit more than interesting than the mainstream (with the exceptions of salads, which can get a bit boring), and we have always been fortunate with our luck of the draw for wait staff and table mates, and have been genuinely sorry at the end of each cruise to leave new friendships behind.

 

There were absolutely no tough lobster tails or steaks on this trip. Out table of eight would usually see at least one person try each of the options for starters, soups, salads, and mains, and I didn’t hear of any real duds to be avoided. My DW is usually quick to complain about stingy sauce servings and is not shy to ask to waiter to go back to the kitchen to get more, but that happened much less often on this cruise than one the last couple of trips on the Mercury.

 

Breakfast in both the dining room and the Island Café are pretty standard – there’s two omelet stations at the rear of the Island Café and one Waffle and Pancake station at the front, the lineups were usually reasonable. We tend to eat less at lunch now than when we first started cruising, so that we can leave some room for teatime and sushi, so we usually pick up a few items at the buffet, and the sandwich of the day at the rear of the buffet was frequently the best choice for us. I found it interesting that early in the cruise there was always lots of cooked shrimp in the salad bar - and there were always a number of cruisers that would load up whole plates heaped with nothing but shrimp. But sure enough, halfway through the cruise, there was no more shrimp in the buffet…

 

We tend to do most of our exploring in ports on our own. As others have noted, in the Baltic’s that means that you usually end up paying $40 per couple per day for shuttle service for most of the ports except Oslo. On all of our past cruises Celebrity footed the bill for shuttles, so that’s not good news. I guess you have to take that into account when comparing the cost of various cruise options. On a positive note, there are no tender ports in this itinerary, and in most cases it’s very easy to do your own touring using public transportation – and you’re not constantly harassed by vendors or hair braiders or worse!

 

We wished we could have done St. Pete’s on our own as well, but that wasn’t possible. We used the Demurs Value Tour, which was well done as tours go, but I like to play around with different photo angles and to stop and sit down for a coffee at a sidewalk café, and tours are not set up to allow that pace.

 

All in all, we had a wonderful time, certainly on par with any previous Celebrity cruise, and the changes to the Century were generally well done and provided some welcome new options such as Moreno’s.

 

I had followed the Century Baltic thread that editor Carolyn had started just before we left, and we were a bit worried about some of the comments about the service, thinking about the cruise now I wonder if some of that wasn’t due to the fact that Carolyn did not use the dining room after her initial bad experience. We found that our first couple of evenings the staff were polite but a bit formal, but as the cruise progressed and we had the chance to chat with the wait staff everyone loosened up and became much friendlier and genuine, and by the end of the cruise we were all relaxed, happy, and laughing. Since the dining room experience is the most interaction you have with the staff, I’d guess that would have a pretty heavy weighting in your definition of a “happy ship”.

[bandit0000]

Thanks for your very informative review, glad you had a good time.

We will be on the Century on 6th Oct, can you tell me if at any time during your cruise they offered Murano's at a reduced cost, like they do on a lot of other lines.

I have not cruised Celebrity for a while & cannot remember if they do this or not. Also did you find booking Murano's easy, or did you have to book as soon as you board to be able to get in.

Many thanks,

Lisa

[ACCagent]

<<We tend to do most of our exploring in ports on our own. As others have noted, in the Baltic’s that means that you usually end up paying $40 per couple per day for shuttle service for most of the ports except Oslo. On all of our past cruises Celebrity footed the bill for shuttles, so that’s not good news. I guess you have to take that into account when comparing the cost of various cruise options. On a positive note, there are no tender ports in this itinerary, and in most cases it’s very easy to do your own touring using public transportation – and you’re not constantly harassed by vendors or hair braiders or worse!>>

 

Great review! We were on the same cruise. You've done a very thorough review and I'd concur with most everything but did want to point out that the shuttles were $5.00 each segment so a roundtrip per couple was actually only $20 instead of $40. Not trying to be picky but since this is a sore spot with some I don't want people to think it's worse than it is. In most cases they were well worth it. I believe we used them in Stockholm and Helsinki and one way in Tallinn.

[Quickcanuck]

Thanks for your very informative review, glad you had a good time.

We will be on the Century on 6th Oct, can you tell me if at any time during your cruise they offered Murano's at a reduced cost, like they do on a lot of other lines.

I have not cruised Celebrity for a while & cannot remember if they do this or not. Also did you find booking Murano's easy, or did you have to book as soon as you board to be able to get in.

Many thanks,

Lisa

I'm not aware of any reduced rates for Murano's, my guess is that since's it's not that large a restaurant that demand will exceed supply for the time being.

 

We booked prior to departure using the Captain's Club desk, and would recommend going that route if you can (limited to one booking). If you're not CC I would err on the side of caution and book as soon as possible, but I don't have any data about whether others had difficulty getting the bookings they wanted.

 

Good luck!

[Quickcanuck]

I'd concur with most everything but did want to point out that the shuttles were $5.00 each segment so a roundtrip per couple was actually only $20 instead of $40. Not trying to be picky but since this is a sore spot with some I don't want people to think it's worse than it is. In most cases they were well worth it. I believe we used them in Stockholm and Helsinki and one way in Tallinn.

Right you are, I guess my math is still a bit jet-lagged!

 

Should point out that the there was some mis-communication on the ship about where the ship would moor in Stockholm - the port talks and the daily blurb said one thing, but our check on the Stockholm cruise port webside prior to leaving had a different location - and that was the correct one. Those that chose to walk may have found the map provided a bit puzzling...

[Andy]

Hi Quickcanuck !

 

Thank you for the great comments. It sounds like you had an excellent time on Century !

 

One quick comment, you mentioned that the menus need to be updated. Celebrity recently did update the Dinner menus, but it was a very slight change. Most of the old favorites are still there, so it is barely noticable.

[bbro]

Excellent review QC! Thank you! We're booked for the Century in August of 2007 for their Norwegian Fjords cruise. We have one of the new aft cabins right under the sunset bar. I'm a little nervous that it might be noisy since you mentioned it was crowded. What are your thoughts?

[bandit0000]

We booked prior to departure using the Captain's Club desk, and would recommend going that route if you can (limited to one booking). If you're not CC I would err on the side of caution and book as soon as possible, but I don't have any data about whether others had difficulty getting the bookings they wanted.

 

Good luck!

 

Hi,

Where do I find the captains club desk please?

Thanks.

Lisa

[drk]

Enjoyed your review and information on the Century. We've sailed her once before the refit and will be on her again next May. One question...were there saunas available for use in the new locker rooms at no charge? Thanks.

[Gordon1]

We were on the Century August 2nd Baltic Cruise. was our 2nd time on the Celebrity Lines, first on the Galaxy to the Panama Canal in March 2006.

We were told of the $ 55M improvement to the Century and we selected a balcony stateroom and were very pleased with the balcony and the new bedding, but with all of the money spent, the carpet in the rooms, corridors and in front of the elevators were filthy, and why these weren't changed when all of the reovations were made is inexcuseable.

OurTV worked once in a while and we couldn't bring up our account until the last day before docking.

I am diabetic and the choices of deserts were very poor, and at breakfast sugar free syrup on most mornings was not available.

The ship sponsered tour in Helsinki for $ 155 was certainly not worth the price, as we went to a farm and saw a few horses and had lunch that consisted of fish mixed with tomatoes, onions and something else which no one ate,the Rock Church was very interesting, and also the visit to Porvoo, although very high prices on everything.

We took a tour in St Petersburg with Denrus and saw just about everything of interest.

We could never activate the wake up call and had to call the deskwhen we needed to get up early.

All in all we had a wonderful trip, and we would go again on the Century , but NEW CARPET IS NEEDED.

[Gitte]

I am very sorry :o but most of the carpets are new! :( :o

 

Gitte

[Quickcanuck]

Hi,

Where do I find the captains club desk please?

Thanks.

Lisa

Captain's Club is Celebrity's "club" for those who have sailed Celebrity before. If you have been on a previous Celebrity Cruise you should have received some information on it. If not, you won't be eligible to join until after you complete your first cruise. You can find more information by clicking on the Captain's Club section of the Celebrity Web site.

[Quickcanuck]

Enjoyed your review and information on the Century. We've sailed her once before the refit and will be on her again next May. One question...were there saunas available for use in the new locker rooms at no charge? Thanks.

There is a Sauna, and a large head shower in the Men's change room (didn't check the Ladies :D) and I assume it's free to use although I didn't try it. There's also one in the Persian Garden but there is a charge for that I think.

[bandit0000]

Captain's Club is Celebrity's "club" for those who have sailed Celebrity before. If you have been on a previous Celebrity Cruise you should have received some information on it. If not, you won't be eligible to join until after you complete your first cruise. You can find more information by clicking on the Captain's Club section of the Celebrity Web site.

 

Hi,

I am a member of CC, but did not know if you were referring to a CC desk at check in. Did you mean you booked it online prior to departure?

Many thanks,

Lisa

[tom_uk]

I personally wasn’t too thrilled with the change to the back of deck 11 to create the Sunset Bar. That area has long been my favorite place to sit and read a book on both the old Century and on Mercury, and now the space is much smaller, and it was frequently difficult to get a table or a chair there on nice days.....With both the bar staff and the Island Café staff hustling through there with trays and drinks it’s not as quiet and restful as it was – too bad. Similarly, the deck space on the back of deck 10, nine, and eight is just a stairwell now.

 

That's a blow. My wife & I found exactly those spots on Galaxy to be absolutely perfect this June in the Mediterranean.

 

So - let's hope Galaxy's drydock will continue to not be announced!

[Quickcanuck]

Hi,

I am a member of CC, but did not know if you were referring to a CC desk at check in. Did you mean you booked it online prior to departure?

Many thanks,

Lisa

 

You can call the Captain's Club 800 number in advance of your departure and book your rerservation for Murano's. When I did this 6 weeks ago they did not have the Century bookings in their system yet, but they took my request and emailed the ship, and confirmed a few days later.

[bandit0000]

Many thanks, I'll try that.

Regards,

Lisa

[canlobef]

Thanks for a detailed and informative review. We're booked for the June 2007 Baltic cruise.. Something to look forward to.. Thanks again.. Angel:cool:

[Quickcanuck]

Excellent review QC! Thank you! We're booked for the Century in August of 2007 for their Norwegian Fjords cruise. We have one of the new aft cabins right under the sunset bar. I'm a little nervous that it might be noisy since you mentioned it was crowded. What are your thoughts?

Sorry, I missed your question until now.

 

The Sunset bar area is busier than it used to be, but that in itself doesn't really make it noisy, just less peaceful. As you may have read there's an acoustic guitarist / singer that plays late afternoons and evenings, so if you were hoping to have silence that might bother you, but I found him easy to listen to. They also play a couple of CD's at fairly low volume at other times.