Review Silhouette April 23, 2016 Shakespeare & Scandanavia

Sorry it has taken awhile to post this review but I wanted to give back to CC as everyone here has been a great source of help. If you have any questions just ask.

1) Overview

My DH and I are 47 and 50 respectively. I have been on about six cruises and my DH has been on three cruises before this cruise. Our recent cruises have been on Carnival and RC. This was our first X cruise. We choose this cruise because it was a fantastic price from an online TA with lots of extra perks. We love Europe and had never been to these ports. This was a great way to see this part of Europe.

I want to comment that the ship was beautiful and very clean and well maintained. The layout of the ship was great and we quickly learned where everything was located. Our only issue, and it was because we didn’t know when we booked and I didn’t study the deck plans close enough, was that most of the bars, restaurants, etc. are located at the aft of the ship. We booked closer to the front so we had to walk back a lot to get to the most frequented areas of the ship. In the future, we will book a cabin in the aft section of the ship.

2) Embarkation

Embarkation went very well. Arrived at port around 11am and were processed with no waiting. Then we waited until it was time to board the ship. We were the first group to board after suites and elite. Upgraded our drink package, got drinks, had a lunch of hot dogs and hamburgers from Mast Grill.

3) Cabins

We had a veranda cabin. It was very nice. Décor was nice and everything worked well. We thought the cabin was a nice size and bigger than similar cabins that we have had before. We did not use the balcony much as the weather was cold. The bathroom and shower were very nice also and a good size.

One complaint, and I know everyone is different, but to us the bed was too firm. Compared to our bed at home it was firmer and while we slept well, we woke up with some aches. To some it might be perfect, just for us, it was too firm.

4) Public Rooms

Public rooms were very nice and clean. However this was one of the areas that disappointed me on this cruise. There are two main reasons for my disappointment.

The first reason is that there were quite a few private events that took place in the public rooms that tied them up so other guests could not use them. That wasn’t a huge deal, but it was noticeable.

The second problem, and this was a big deal, was the public room placement and background music. I like to read. I need total silence to concentrate when I read. The placement of the card room, library, and hideaway adjacent to the elevators and the atrium means that there is a lot of noise in these areas. You can hear any noise coming from the atrium, people talking, the constant ding of elevators, and any background music that is playing. I tried using other areas like the Sky Lounge, Solarium, and Cellar Masters but there was almost always some kind of background music playing throughout the ship. It was too cold to sit outside. The only place that was quiet enough that I could read on the ship was in my room. Maybe not a big deal for most but if you want total silence, it was hard to come by on this ship, at least inside of the ship.

5) Dining

This is a difficult category for me to review. The parts that were good were awesome. The parts that were bad tarnished the whole category.

The good. The buffet was awesome. Ate there for breakfast most days and I think dinner once or twice. Food was hot and well prepared and tasted awesome. Not cold or overcooked like some buffets. I think we ate there for lunch once.

We did room service breakfast a few times. It was good. What I really liked was that they called and then the food was delivered in about 5 minutes.

We only did one specialty. Lawn Club Grill. The food was excellent. However, it was very cold and that detracted from the enjoyment. But we knew that going in. We got a 30% discount.

The bad, or not so good. MDR. Ate breakfast here once and several dinners. The food quality and taste ranged from excellent to good. Nothing was especially bad. My main complaint was the selections. I know that they are trying to push people to the specialty restaurants but I think the type of food selection in the MDR was lacking. The only high end selections were one day they had prime rib and another day they had lobster tail. The rest were just okay. A lot of duck, pork, and pasta dishes. The everyday selections were just okay, in my opinion. Another really lacking area was desserts. Not a single soufflé was offered in 9 days. Lots of fruit desserts which I am not fond of. Usually on a cruise I have a hard time finding just one thing to pick to eat and I have two desserts. This cruise I found it hard to find anything to pick to eat and had some very mediocre desserts.

6) Entertainment

We went to three shows on this cruise. We went to the cast production Life, which was great. We went to the cast production Cosmopolitan, which was ok. We also went to a show featuring a woodwind specialist named Olie Nez. It was ok. Overall the shows were pretty good for a cruise ship and I was actually surprised as I had heard that Celebrity shows were not that great.

The house band and musicians were not that good. Several times they were too loud and overall the quality was pretty low in the vocal category. The instrumental part of the music was fine.

7) Internet

We were fortunate and had the new Xcelrate internet. It was $140 for one device unlimited. We shared this one login. It was easy to use. Just connect to Celebrity Wi-Fi and the browser came up to the login page. You logged in and if another device was on you could log them off and you could log on. The speed was not too bad. We were able to download pictures, slowly, and use Skype to call with no problem.

8) Activities

I thought the amount of activities on this cruise was good. There were enough without being too many or too few. However, they were a little redundant with most being General Trivia with a few other trivia’s thrown in. I also saw a little bingo. We went to two trivia events. Since this was a port intensive cruise there was not much time for other activities. Things may be different if there were more sea days. There were several pay activities that we did not participate in like wine tasting and scrapbooking.

9) Shore Excursions

We went on one shore excursion on this cruise. We felt that the majority of the excursions offered were either not interesting or too overpriced. The excursion that we went on was Best of Oslo. The reason we picked this excursion was because it was reasonably priced and it went to three different parts of the city that would have been difficult to get to on your own in a reasonable amount of time. This was a popular excursion and there were multiple tours of this excursion. Overall the excursion was good. I would rate it a B-.

To start the bus went through Oslo and the guide pointed out many sites and gave a lot of great information. The first stop was Vigeland Sculpture Park. The guide was very knowledgeable and we spent an appropriate amount of time at the park. The second stop was the Viking ship museum. This was also a nice stop. Where the excursion disappointed was the third stop. The third stop was the Holkemmon Ski Jump. I am not sure if we were in a rush and the tour was behind schedule or what, but I expected that the bus would stop and we could get out and take pictures and go to the top of the ski jump to take pictures. All we did was stop for about 5 minutes to take pictures of the ski jump itself. The bus never stopped so we could take pictures of the beautiful view below of Oslo.

The guide was very good and also note that the bus had Wi-Fi.

10) Spa & Fitness

We did not use the spa on this cruise. We never use the spa on a cruise. We feel that the prices are too high for what they offer. We used the fitness center once and it is very nice. Lots of modern equipment and a very nice view out the front of the ship. We did not use the outdoor jogging/walking track as it was too cold.

11) Family & Children

Because this cruise was during the school year and was longer than seven days, there were not many families with children on board. We saw a few very small babies and some young teens but I do not recall seeing many children from age 2 to 13. I cannot comment on the family or children activities, as we did not use them, but I will say that the few times that I ended up on the deck with the kid’s clubs, they were empty. I do recall seeing some young children going around the ship with a sheet of paper on a scavenger hunt.

12) Enrichment

This was a Shakespeare cruise so there were several enrichment activities on board. There was a troupe of Shakespeare actors that did short performances. A lecturer that talked about the various port histories. And a Shakespeare expert that gave talks. We wanted to do more of these activities but only ended up going to one Shakespeare lecture about Hamlet. The lectures were in the theater and the performances were in Celebrity Central or the atrium.

13) Service

Service was very good on this cruise. I think the bar staff were excellent. MDR staff was pretty good. We had select dining and I felt that the meals were a little rushed. Staff was good at the beginning of each meal but they were scarcer as the meal progressed. Had to flag down staff for water and drink refills. In the one specialty restaurant that we ate at, LCG, service was excellent, but they were not busy. Room stewards were good but did not seem to go out of their way. Overall the crew was very friendly, outgoing, professional, and did an excellent job.

14) Value-for-Money

I think for the price we paid, we got a great value. We have to take that with a grain of salt though. We got a great price for a balcony cabin but it was a great price because the balcony was pretty much useless due to the weather. It was nice to have basically a picture window, but we did not use the balcony at all.

We booked through a big box TA and ended up with $540 OBC, classic drink package, and a few smaller perks. We used part of our OBC to upgrade to premium drink package. We got a great group rate too. X was a step up for us in quality and service and this added to the value for us.

15) Debarkation

Debarkation went very smoothly. We used self-debark. The Celebrity Today had said that self-debark started at 6:30am. The buffet opened at 6. We ate breakfast at 6 at the buffet and walked off the ship about 6:45, no line. We were told they had actually cleared the ship early and some people walked off at 6. Since we had gone from one EU country to another EU country all we had to do was show our sea pass card to be logged off the ship. There was no customs or passport control to go through.

16) Overall Thoughts

We loved our cruise and had a great time. I think in the future we will not pick such a port intensive cruise. We would like more time to relax. Another thing we discovered was that I think the cruise was a little too long. We have never done a 7 day cruise. This was our longest cruise (9 days) and ones before that the longest was 5 days. We think 7 days will be just right for us.

We loved having the drink package and getting that as a perk will definitely be a consideration for us in the future. We liked X a lot and will look to them in the future when we want to take another cruise. The feel of the ship and demographics suited us well.

Excellent report!

Thank you for the review.

I enjoyed reading your review and like how you organized it.

Keith

I enjoyed reading your review and like how you organized it.

 

Keith

Thank you for all of the positive comments. This was my first detailed review, which is why it took a while to complete.

A good read (which I managed in silence...know how you feel!!). A great itinerary too, would love to cruise that area one day.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thanks for the nice review. We'll be on board in three weeks and I'm glad to hear the service and Internet were good.

Do you happen to have the Celebrity Today's that you could post?