Celebrity Millenium--Concierge or Balcony

[n2cruisin2]

My husband and I are going on a 15 day cruise in less than a month and currently we have a 2C balcony cabin on Deck 6 in the front right side of the ship. Also, the money for the trip is now commited and nonrefundable. Since we have just recently booked this cruise, we took whatever room was available to us at the time, but we actually prefer the aft cabins if we had booked more in advance.

 

An opportunity has come up where we can possibly secure an aft cabin, but the choice is between a 2A balcony Deck 7 (slightly less @$200), the other is concierge balcony Deck 8 (slightly more @$550). This cruise is a special one in that we are celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary.

 

My question is whether a concierge cabin or balcony is a better choice for us--we won't be issued any refunds so we will not get a credit for the less expensive cabin if we go with that one. Yet the other cabin is a little bit more in price.

 

I'm torn because one part of me wants the perks the concierge cabin will give us and would also make the cruise and our anniversary a bit more special, yet we've never had anything better than a balcony and balcony rooms are nice, too. When I originally booked the cruise, I thought it was for a ocean view room--not realizing we had instead been booked for a balcony. I was thrilled when the TA told us it was indeed a "deluxe ocean view cabin", a balcony. The thing that's most important is that we have a great vacation.

 

We are definitely going to make a room change --primarily because both Deck 7 and 8 are between sleeping cabins and the cabin we have now (Deck 6) is just above the theater and lifeboats.

 

Thanks for any and all responses. I hope I didn't confuse anyone with the way I worded this question. I've tried three times to write this and everytime I apparently hit a computer button that made me lose what I had written. So I'm doing good this time to write anything readible. LOL:rolleyes:

[alcpa1]

I have been on the Millie, and three other Millie class ships.

If the CC cabin is a true aft, not a starboard or port cabin, I would jump on it and enjoy the wonderful aft balcony. The exception to this are 4 cabins on deck six - 6135/6136/6143/6144. We have stayed in 6144 and it and its sister 6143 are the primo side CC cabins. There is only one cabin adjacent to them. The forward side is a butler's pantry which is generally only used during the day and early evening.

These two cabins are also the largest CC cabins on deck six, with 6135-6136 a tad smaller, but still larger than the standard CC cabin.

The aft portion of the ship, especially on 6, is very quiet. We never heard noise from the restaurant below. There are so few cabins on the aft corridors of deck six that it is quiet all of the time.

We debate the value of the CC cabins all of the time and I prefer the enhanced breakfast menu of the CC cabins since I enjoy a cup of coffee each morning on the balcony. The afternoon canapes are nothing to write home about but you can ask for fruit or sweets. The pillow menu is really available in a regular cabin if you just ask. Priority embarkation and disembarkation is handy. I noticed in a TA's guide, which was a gift from our TA, that the priority tendering was not listed. We have always had this and did on our last CC cruise in September.

We were on the Millie for two weeks and I was glad to have the extra space. We have opted for a 2B for our next cruise on the Connie, but will switch to CC if an aft becomes available. There are only 12 CC aft cabins so grabbing one is a real coup.

Happy anniversary and enjoy your cruise.

[claud925]

I answered a question you had over at the Cabin Location forum; however, I see now that you have a 2C, forward, on the Millie.

 

Is your 2C one of the "sweet sixteens"? If so, these cabins (eight on port; eight on starboard - all on Deck 6) have twice the balcony-size (in depth) as other cat 2 cabins.

 

If you have never heard of the sweet 16s, I highly recommend you do a search in the Celebrity forum. Just type in "sweet sixteen". There are a wealth of threads that discuss these great 2C cabins with the bigger balconies.

 

Let us know what you wind up with.

[n2cruisin2]

To clarify how this whole question came about, it started with someone writing on one of boards about the speciality cabins and CC amenites so....when we secured a cabin is was a regular cabin on Deck 6 (2C)--we had been assigned 6032, then we transferred to a regular cabin on Deck 7 (better viewing balcony-7170). We started hearing about the CC and the speciality cabins on Deck 6. I began to wonder if these cabins were ones we needed to try and get.

 

Today on the cruise site for availability, cabin 6135 (CC) has opened up. We are leaving Fort Lauderdale heading west, turning south between Key West and Mexico, going through the Panama Canal, then north up to San Francisco. If I change to this cabin, the views will primarily on the ocean side.

 

Would this be a good change or should I just leave well enough alone and stay with my starboard, regular cabin on Deck 7? Would it be worth the extra bucks to move because from Deck 6 to Deck 7, we had a $200 reduction in the cabin charge. To secure the 6135 cabin, it would now cost us about $700 more. Crazy, huh?

[wolfshadow]

Well, 6135 is a great CC cabin with a very large balcony. The port side would not be any problem after clearing the canal because as you travel up the Mexico coast you really won't see much anyway until you pull into port. And, sailing up the CA coast, you are so far from shore you wouldn't miss anything there as well. We were on the port side during our Mexican Riviera trip and we don't feel that we missed anything because of it. I would go with the CC 6135 for the big balcony. I scored one of the aft CC cabins, 8170, for our upcoming Alaska cruise. Just got lucky seeing it when it first became available on the Celeb site. We're thrilled! Have a great cruise!

[n2cruisin2]

Thanks. You've been most helpful :)