Our honeymoon on the Celebration

[gizzie4]

:DSpent ages writing about our honeymoon trip earlier, but i deleted itself and said i wasnt logged on, so having to do it again :mad:

 

Well here i go, not very good at this sort of thing and i do tend to waffle on so apologies before i start ;)

 

Flight to Dalaman was very good, followed by a smooth transfer to the ship, where we were met by my son Darren for embarkation which was a lovely surprise :D

 

We were shown quickly to our cabin 492 on deck 3 and our luggage arrived shortly afterwards. First impression of the cabin was a little disappointing as it wasnt one of the refurbished ones and looked a bit tired which we expected and when unpacking, one of the panels above the drawers, fell off, though this was fixed by the next day. Also one of the lights abouve the bed was faulty but was soon fixed. The shower was very good but the surrounding tiles were grotty and bulging in places. There was lots of storage space and the beds were comfy. We were determined that the little problems would not spoil our trip.

 

THe ship looked very clean and had some new carpeting. After lifeboat drill, it was time for the sailaway party. Out on the deck i heard a strange voice ask if i was Darren's mum and came face to face with Stevedeccaman! He was just as i imagined him to be and he DID make me laugh. He and his wife are really lovely, it was a shame that he had a bad leg and i hope it didnt spoil things too much. Steve it was a pleasure meeting you both:D Also met Nuthouse, a really lovely lady who did not resemble a nut of any kind! So nice to put faces to names.

 

Spent a relaxing 2nd day, at sea, finding our way around, which wasnt too hard, although the layout was a bit frustrating when you found yourself at the wrong entrance to the Meridian and had to go back up a deck then over the other side and back down to the right entrance.

 

We ate in the Lido quite a bit, the staff were lovely and very attentive, food on the whole was nice, though my hubby did say it could have been hotter on occasions. Was nice to see peeps using the sanitisers and we had no problems with dicky tums throughout the week.

 

The Meridian was also nice, again, lovely staff. Portions were small but tasty and this suited us as we are not huge eaters and managed all the courses with no waste.

 

We did not eat in Mistrals.

 

Spent a few nights in Liberties, again lovely staff and a special mention to Junella, a young lady,who never stopped smiling the whole week. The ents hosts kept everyone entertained with gameshows and bingo and the dj was good. The resident band Meach and the Peekles were very good Well done to Liz,Angela,Amy,Gareth and Josh the hosts.

 

Daytime entertainment out on the Lido deck was good fun too

 

We never really spent any time in Horizons or Hemmingways, but the entertainment we did hear sounded very good.

 

Now onto the Broadway show lounge, as most of you know, my son is in the Ents team. I have tried not to be biased and give an honest opinion.

The shows on the whole, were very good. I did feel that some of the songs did not suit the people that sang them and some of the characters played were a bit mismatched. The team worked well together and worked very hard to produce some great entertainment with some great singing and dancing, which i observed, everyone enjoyed.

 

We only went to a couple of Cabaret spots in Liberties, I don't like to hear pop songs sung with an operatic voice. Michael Ball and Russell Watson tend to do this and i feel it spoils the song. This was the case in one of the solo cabaret spots.

 

We had the pleasure of dining at the captains table on formal night which was a nice surprise.

 

We had a lovely surprise from Darren and his girlfriend Liz. As a wedding present, they arranged a blessing on the bridge, followed by a meal in Meridian,where they played the wedding march on our entrance and fellow cruisers clapped as we walked in, we were also serenaded by the waiters.

We did visit Istanbul which we enjoyed, though it didnt bowl us over, the Cisterns were interesting. Spent a short time in Izmir. Mykonos is a pretty little place and we wandered around the narrow streets for a morning.

Spent a day in Rhodes visiting some old haunts (we were there for a day in 2009) found a place we'd enjoyed previously called the garden of Socrates.

All in all a lovely first cruise and honeymoon.:D

[Little Nell]

Hi gizzie, welcome back and great to hear you enjoyed your honeymoon. The waiters did the same for us when we had our silver wedding onboard. Thanks for the interesting review and it doesn't ramble ;). Lucky you getting to meet Stevie too and spend time with Darren and what a lovely surprise he arranged for you :)

[driverman]

Sounds as though you had a fabulous time , so glad all went well for you. It really must be nice to put faces to names and see if they are what you expect them to look like . Now I know you must have lots to do but if you could please tell me what the hotel was like ( plz say fab) lol as I am so looking forward to going in august , cannot wait to get away from all this rain . Anyway welcome home

 

Mrs.C

[kruzseeka]

So pleased you enjoyed it gizzie and that you have such fabulous memories of it too. Are you planning to do another cruise now? :)

[gizzie4]

Hi Driverman. The hotel was pretty much as described on trip adviser. We were in the annexe, which wasnt what we had originally asked for, but the hotel said Thomson hadnt sent any requests. However it turned out to be ok. Our room was quite big, plenty of storage space and quite a large balcony and a good shower.

There wasnt much of a view as the whole place is surrounded by trees but we could see the paragliders coming down. The staff don't seem to understand or speak English very well but were mostly friendly and helpful.

The main pool was lovely, the water just the right temperature. the pool in the annexe is a nice size although we did not use it.

The buffet restaurant offered a large variety of food, it was nice but we did find that apart from the soup, it was never very hot.

Was a little disappointed with the AI drinks, beer is in Tuborg in half pints, my hubby said it tasted watered down. As i only drink liqueurs there was not really much for me to drink as the local liqueurs available were cheap fruit ones and i had these with lemonade but they didnt taste of much, so i drank coke most of the time. There is local vodka, brandy and gin for those who like spirits and you can have the Belcekiz cocktail free, again this tasted a bit watery.

Daytime entertainment is done by the locals, they tried very hard and were really nice. They do the same thing every day, killer darts, killer pool, water polo and water gym. They were giving a prize of a free sunset photo to the winner, but be warned, we did this and spent a fun half hour on the beach and by the pool with the photographer, but afterwards, he tried to sell us a photo package which started at around 192 lira.

They have a nice amphitheatre where they bring in acts, we watched an acrobatic show which was very good, it then moves to the plaza bar for the rest of the night. It does get packed in there, so if you choose to see the show first, you may not get a seat afterwards as it is open to the public. They played mostly club music in here so we didnt tend to stay.

We didnt do any trips, but we did go to the water park in Ovicek. They have about 6 slides there which isnt a lot so we spent an hour there. It cost us 30 lira each to get in plus dolmus fare so if you do go, it works out slightly cheaper to do it with the local trip seller as they charge £10 each.

Oludeniz is a pretty resort, and the beach is nice.

We went to sugar beach instead of the lagoon as it was free and you get a free taxi from the hotel, it was well worth a visit.

Hisaronu was probably the best place, it takes 10 minutes to get there and is very lively, lots of bars and a mini fairground, a bit like Blackpool, we went there in the evening and the last bus brings you back around 1am.

I just felt it was not for us, a lot of people loved it. The hotel is lovely but even though we joined in when we could, we did feel it was a bit big and impersonal. Hope you have a great holiday.:D

[driverman]

Thank you ever so much gizzie for that detailed report ,great to hear from someone who has been there ..

Roll on august ,just to get away from this rain will be enough :(

 

Mrs.C

[Julessmiles]

Hisaronu was probably the best place, it takes 10 minutes to get there and is very lively, lots of bars and a mini fairground, a bit like Blackpool, we went there in the evening and the last bus brings you back around 1am.

I just felt it was not for us, a lot of people loved it. .:D

 

Good to read your cruise review and Turkey review. Sad to read about Hisaronu :mad:. We stayed there for 2 weeks about 18 years ago and absolutely loved the quiet little village; old village roads (no tarmac, just gravel!) a couple of little shops, quite a few traditional restaurants where they had open fires and sofas outside where we used to sit & while away the evening over a few drinks after a nice meal - the only entertainment there was; bliss! Sounds like it has changed slightly!!! ( Beautiful area around there but I have seen Hisarnou in the brochures & think it would upset me too much to go back - shame how tourism can sometimes spoil places).

[stevedeccaman]

come on Gill and John bump yourselves up to to the top :D

 

Stevie

[gizzie4]

trying steve. lol cant find your email address have a lovely pic of you and your bh. was sure i had it safe but as pieces of paper tend to go missing well..... cant you get it to me somehow :)

[stevedeccaman]

Hi Gill,

not supposed to give out e-mails but I don't care as I have a super duper spam filter which takes all my e-mails to a special folder and does only accept e-mails from nice people :D

 

here we are steve@decca1.plus.com

 

to all you other nice peeps , Jim the Scott, RR from (IE Forum) and Kalos (and who could forget Kruzee) and others too numerous to mention please feel free to e-mail me and my special super duper robot will check you out,and will even know how long you have left towels on sunbeds :cool:

 

Stevie

'ell must do boardreader reults have forgot :) think Kalos did on my behalf last week:confused:

[gizzie4]

Thanks Steve sending the piccie now :D