Just Back from the Galaxy & it was great!

[sarh]

We sailed Eastern Med Galaxy in the summer and were shocked by some of the negative views we later read on here. It was the best holiday ever - interesting ports, great food and the kids (14 and 8) had a ball. I feel sorry for the many people who must have been put off by all the complaining about uncomfortable beds, misty windows and poor service - they have really missed something special.

[leenie29]

We sailed Eastern Med Galaxy in the summer and were shocked by some of the negative views we later read on here. It was the best holiday ever - interesting ports, great food and the kids (14 and 8) had a ball. I feel sorry for the many people who must have been put off by all the complaining about uncomfortable beds, misty windows and poor service - they have really missed something special.

 

Sarh,

 

That's what I kept saying to myself when I was onboard "What ship were the complainers on?" It couldn't have been the Galaxy because we had great service (okay maybe I've got low standards but someone -our waiter and the Cova guy who had pastries every afternoon - who says hi to me with a big smile, remembers that I love dark chocolate and offers it to me when they see me is tops in my book), the kids loved the cruise -the crew was very nice to them and all the ship's shore excursions were very good to excellent. It was also our best vacation ever. I was so exhausted after our shore excursions I could have fallen asleep on anything but our beds were very comfortable and loved the duvet.

 

Good thing I didn't listen to the complainers and cancel because I would have missed out on something wonderful.

 

Eileen

[Sheik]

Exactly leenie29! The cruise onboard the Galaxy was our VERY BEST cruise vacation ever. It's hard to explain why, but the total experience (ship/itinerary) was just perfect for us.

 

We say a happy crew and happy passengers. Maybe not much cruisecritic members onboard that cruise ;)

[chessbriar]

Leenie29,

 

Do you happen to have the program with the dancers names in it? If you do, are Merideth and David there?

[leenie29]

Leenie29,

 

Do you happen to have the program with the dancers names in it? If you do, are Merideth and David there?

 

Sorry Rick I didn't find a thing about dancers. Eileen

[Arubalisa]

Leenie29,

 

Do you happen to have the program with the dancers names in it? If you do, are Merideth and David there?

Rick I will see if I can find out for you and post back here when we return on the 2nd.

[chessbriar]

Thanks Lisa. We've sailed with David 3x and Merideth 2x. Each time we do we like to bring along a disc of the shows we saw. They don't get many pictures to send home to the family. Merideth is from South Carolina and David's from Florida.

 

I hope you have a great time. Say Hi to Melanie CC Hostess for me.

[2sightseers]

We were on the 11/20 sailing of the Galaxy Eastern Med and it was a great and amazing vacation. It was my husband, myself and our two boys ages 12 and 8.

I'm not going to give you a review of the ship but will tell you that for our purposes the ship was fine and the service was excellent. The beds were very comfortable. The boys didn't use the kids club at all so I can't tell you about that program. They were too exhausted by the shore excursions to do anything. Yes it is an older ship without all the fancy amenities of the newer ships but it's not the Caribbean where the ship matters more. This itinerary makes the ship more of a floating hotel than being on a cruise ship.

We landed in Rome one day pre-cruise which was great because we were able to get used to the time difference and see a bit of the city. One tour I would recommend is ICON tours' Ancient Rome Forum and the Colosseum. The guide had the boys attention the entire 3 hours and this was after an overnight flight from Newark. After the cruise we also had one night in Rome post cruise and saw the Vatican on our own. Thankfully we had a flight on Saturday because Alitalia had a strike on Friday plus there was bad weather on Friday in the states that delayed or cancelled most flights.

Re Late Seating: We did late seating (8:30 PM) which was great if you wanted to tour during the day and wanted to rest before dinner. A few of our shore excursions didn't get back until almost the start of the early seating so we were very happy that we had the later seating. I'm not sure what the early seating people did for dinner that night.

Re Formal Nights: We had 2 formal nights on the sea days and Thanksgiving was also a formal night. That formal night was a little tougher because we were in the port of Rhodes and were kinda of exhausted from walking around the town all day. Celebrity should keep formal nights in the Med to sea days because it's a more relaxing easy going day than a port day.

The itinerary is amazing ... Italy, Greece, and Turkey, WOW! We did miss Santorini due to the bad winds, which was the only disappointing thing we had (in our opinion) on our sailing but on the plus side it did give us an extra day to relax. However it meant that we got into Istanbul at 8 AM instead of 1 PM. This caused a bit of problem because Celebrity decided to turn our two day 5 hour each day Classic Istanbul Tour into a 10 hour one day tour which would have been too exhausting for many people (or those of us with kids who couldn't handle 10 straight hours touring). Enough people got angry enough to get the attention of Hotel Director and the Shore Excursion Manager that they manage to give us the option (after much discussion between the passengers and the two managers) of the 2 day tour or a 10 hour tour.

Re: Celebrity Shore Excursions. We did the Delos excursion, 2 day Classic Istanbul excursion, Ephesus excursion, Athens sightseeing and 3 hours in the Plaka excursion, and Pompeii. Two tours were excellent because of the guides, Amaryllis in Delos was amazing entertaining, very knowledgble and very funny and George in Ephesus was hysterical. My boys found him really funny and loved his tour. The rest were very good and we really enjoyed them.

Any questions?

Eileen

Dear Eileen,

 

You are a most enthusiastic poster and I can hardly wait to take this cruise on 9/3. I hope my fellow cruisers are as outgoing and interesting as you are - wish I could have been on your cruise. I have been reading the thread of your trip and the group sounded delightful and so helpful and supportive to each other.

 

My thread of 9/3 has had some activity and I am learning so much from yours that I will share with my fellow cruisers regarding Rome shuttles, tours etc.

 

By the way, I live in Lakewood, so we are neighbors to say the least. My e-mail is bjslater22@verizon.net and I would love to hear from you and discuss the cruise with you. You sound just delightful and write with gusto and humor!

 

Happy New Year!

 

Barb

[reggierail]

To find a thread with a very positive slant. I too have been on cruises that I would rate as excellent, only to observe some people constantly complaining. I sometimes want to tell them to shut their pie holes. :p

It's truly a puzzle why these constant complainers don't just save their

money and stay at home. It would make for a much more pleasant cruise for everyone else. :rolleyes:

 

Reggie :D

[grandsix]

We were on the 11/10/06 sailing and found the Galaxy to be a well managed ship. There seemed to be a good chemistry between mangement and the crew which filtered down to the guests. This was our determining factor to return to the Galaxy in March.