Anyone just back from Galaxy 9/4/2006?

[jplewis]

If so, did you go to Turkey? If not, where did you visit instead?

Also, we have questions on the dining times. Were there two or four seatings?

Thanks for any info.

[tupper10]

We just returned from the Galaxy Sept 4th sailing. No we did not do Turkey and I don't think the next cruise will go either. To find out call and speak to a supervisor at Celebrity the agents will tell you they don't know. There are two seatings for dinner. I know the early one is around 6:30 PM the late seating is at 8:45 PM. Given that we were actually doing tours till late I would recommend the late seating if you can hold out for it. This a very port intensive cruise and you don't want to be rushing back to the ship to change to eat dinner. Instead of two formal nights we had three since a day at sea was added. We personally did not like the change of the itinerary. I think many people on this cruise, including us, chose this trip because of Turkey. The other ports we felt were a poor substitution and we would not have gone on the cruise had this been the itinerary shown when we booked. The hot tubs on the ship were working for only about 2 days, the rest of the time none of them were functioning. Even the thalosotherapy whirlpool was broken. The ship staff said they couldn't get the parts and we should understand that it was a problem to fix the ship while traveling. If this is the case then they should dry dock the ship and fix the hot tubs as many people were very disappointed that none were working by the end of the cruise. (Everyone was allowed to use the one hot tub in the thalosotherapy area during the cruise until that one broke too.) We saw new mattresses being delivered when we were in port in Italy. The new mattress (we had one) is very hard so make sure to ask for an egg crate when you first get on board. We actually got 2 egg crates for ours which made it comfortable so we had no problem at all. The ports on the whole were very crowded which surprised us. Athens tour to the Acropolis was like being on the subway during rush hour. This was true at Pompeii as well. The tours we enjoyed the most were Delos and hiking the Volcano. I am not into shopping so I can't comment on the ports from this aspect. We had a nice cruise but my husband and I decided that the next time we cruise we will try a different cruise line perhaps Holland America. Every time something went wrong from major to minor the senior staff could never manage to use the words "I'm sorry" - this was true even when on disembarkation a woman was put on our bus to the airport when she should have been placed on a bus to do the tour of Rome. They had given her the wrong tickets and told her that it was her responsibility to check to see if her luggage and bus was correct. Believe me this is not what she wanted to hear since she was missing her tour of Rome which she had paid for and should have been on. The crew - that is our room steward and wait staff was wonderful, no complaints there. Some rooms are in great need of refurbishing our room was okay but we don't mind frayed furniture. We upgraded to a sky suite and had to leave this room as the furniture was literally falling apart, when I opened the drawers the faces of the drawers came off in my hand, we went back to our lower grade stateroom and received a call from the staff wanting to know if we had slept in the sky suite room. I suppose they wanted to charge us for the one night but since we had slept in our lower grade cabin they could not. We thought that was pretty poor practice on the senior staff's part given that it was the condition of the room that caused us to move twice - once to the upgraded room and then back to our "old" room. We even had to move ourselves since noone had come to help and in the middle of the night our room steward let us into our old room so we could actually get to sleep on a bed that was bearable. We noted that they never gave this sky suite to anyone else as people at our table were also on the wait list and when we gave the room up they were not told a room was available. Obviously the staff knew of the problems. Our phone in our room CC room was broken and despite requests to fix it when we were off the ship it never did get fixed and worked only some of the time. Even given all of the above the bottom line is our vacation sure beat working!!!! Have a wonderful time.

[Pecoraro]

We upgraded to a sky suite and had to leave this room as the furniture was literally falling apart, when I opened the drawers the faces of the drawers came off in my hand, we went back to our lower grade stateroom and received a call from the staff wanting to know if we had slept in the sky suite room.

 

Sounds like the room we had. Nice to know that nothing has changed in the past year. To me the post by tupper10 is a very accurate assessment of what life is like on Galaxy.

[judyush]

Tupper10

I am so sorry to hear of your experience with Celebrity. Can you tell me the number of the sky suite you moved out of? Hope to goodness its not the one i've booked ! If you had the benefit of hindsight would you have cancelled? Judy

[WooKeef]

Tupper10,

This is very dissappointing since we leave in 5 days. When were you made aware of the port change. Did they know when they would fix the whirlpools?

I am constantly amazed and the desparity between reviews for Galaxy. I remain confused.

[Pecoraro]

Did they know when they would fix the whirlpools?

I am constantly amazed and the desparity between reviews for Galaxy. I remain confused.

 

We were aboard in November 2005. The whirlpools were not working for that cruise either. We are now 10 months later and there are still problems with them and the thaloosatherapy pool. Does that perhaps answer your question.

 

Why don't you ask others about the roof over the rear pool. I took a look at some recent photos posted by a passenger and see that it is still stuck in the same position as it was back in November. We were on a beautiful sea day in the caribbean and over a hundred of us requested that they open the roof. We were told by management that the roof had not worked for the past three years so don't expect it to work this cruise either - it didn't. The funny thing is they can't quite close it so when it rains it pours in through the 6 foot gap at the end. It becomes unbearably hot because it is basically a solarium or greenhouse. And then there are the infamous windows in the stratosphere lounge at the bow. They have been glazed over for several years now with no firm date to fix them.

 

By the sounds of the comments with respect to the new mattresses it would appear they have done nothing to improve the situation. We had a sky suite that was in horrible repair and they didn't even offer to move us - just said this is what it is and this is what it will always be for this cruise (and apparently a years worth of other cruises as well).

 

When it comes to the high maintenance areas of this ship Celebrity just does not care and as long as people come back with their glowing reports and rebooking Celebrity has no incentive to fix the conditions on board.

[Tinwoman]

I have to say I am just gob smacked at the differences in opinion on this cruise ship!!

Some people love it, some are so disappointed.

We are booked on the Nov. 20 Med. Cruise, room 1200 CC. I really don’t care about the whirlpools (huh the bacteria) and we are going just to have a good time, I don’t care if we visit Turkey or not, if I wanted to see Turkey I would fly there and MAKE sure I saw Turkey.

We want to just have a good time, get good food, meet new people and make new friends!! I want a clean room, clean ship and nice service. :) I suppose if I wanted a premium experience I would book a premium cruise line, but as I am on a standard budget, we booked a standard cruise line. :o

Since we have never cruised before I will try to give my opinion as an inexperienced cruiser when I get back. Here’s hoping for the best.

[jplewis]

Hi Tinwoman, have you joined our roll call for the Nov. 20 cruise? If not, come on over and join us. Also, register for the Celebrity Cruise Critic party.

Looking forward to meeting you.

Thanks to Tupper10 for info. We have been getting conflicting reports on dining times. I'm beginning to wonder if it may change from cruise to cruise. We have been to Dubrovnik so are hoping they don't reroute us there.

Patsy

[Tinwoman]

Hi jp, been meaning to hit the roll call but thought it was a little early, I will get over there soon.

I guess I am lucky, because I have never been to the Med. so I can look forward to whereever they dock.

I hope everybody realizes that we are coming in to the Muslim Holiday of Ramadan<sp> so I would not hold out for a Turkish stop.

[jplewis]

Tinwoman, it's not too early for roll call, a good many of us have already made plans for excursions, transfers, etc.

I thought from something I read that Ramadan would be over before we were there.

Patsy

[Tinwoman]

Ramadan is from Sept. 24th until Oct. 23rd this year.

[sarh]

We were on Galaxy eastern med and loved it. However I am reconsidering my opinion of Celebrity with this Turkey situation. I cannot see why they are still omitting it. I am visiting New York in a couple of months and am far more concerned about the risks there than I would about the risks in Istanbul. The Sunday Times did a double page spread last week on Istanbul being the current "hottest" destination for weekend breaks and easyjet have just lauched new flights between London and Istanbul - why is CC so scared to visit? We have booked the Baltics for next year - I'm hoping there is nothing which will make them decide to miss St Petersburg

[tupper10]

The sky suite was 1051 our CC room was 1096 with a wonderful room steward. I know the ship is not going to Turkey for the cruise coming up since the staff told us that. Noone knew anything about future cruises. We knew about the change of itinerary but we had our airline tickets, needed a vacation and decided to go even given the changes. The fact that Oceania which was in port with us in Santorini went to Turkey left many us frustrated since it seems that Royal Carribbean, Ltd was the only line that didn't go to Turkey - all the others did. The cruise ticket allows ports to be changed at any time for any reason by the cruise line so we knew this when we went. We will visit Turkey "by land" so we can be assured of actually going. I hope all of you going have a wonderful time. I think it will be less crowded for you in the various ports. We had wonderful weather and yes I would go again but as I said we are looking to try a different cruise line. All suggestions for other lines would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Wilcoam]

Thx for the honest report and the Sky Suite #. My wife and I leave on this Itin Sept 25th and have a sky suite (but luckily not that one).

 

The next itin on the Galaxy never included Turkish ports, so we will hold out that the staff knew this, and we are still going there...

 

Funny, I've never seen such a wide disparity of reports as of from recent Galaxy cruises. Some say 2 dinner seatings other insist 4. Many say Hot tubs down, but T-pool great, others say both, some say in disrepair, others say hogwash, alot of disgareement on the new beds, pro n con, or whether they're are nu beds, but everyone still agrees service n food is topnotch. Guess we will all find out for ourselves....

 

I would personally recommend HAL Vista class for Europe (same size ships as X) except it's a much older pax, and I'm dying to try Oceana.

 

Thx again..

jc

toronto

Galaxy Sept 25-06