Celebrity is my Line of Choice

[Cruise Arizona]

Here is a positive post about my recent Celebrity experiences. In the last year I have sailed 3 times with Celebrity, took my very first Carnival Cruise, did a European brand river cruise, sailed Princess, and toured a HAL ship. Here are some things that I loved about my recent Celebrity cruises compared to some other options.

 

1. MDR Food is still really good! In my 35 nights on Celebrity I did not have one dish in the MDR that wasn't delicious. I even ordered the Branzino twice as it was not very good the one time I had it 5 years ago. It was excellent. While food was just fine in MDR on other cruise lines, so dishes were not served the correct temperature, which deminished enjoyment. I can't recall any misfires on my last three Celebrity cruises.

 

2. Specialty Dining is excellent. We do a special food an wine pairing luncheon in the Tuscan Grill with my wine group, and that meal is always fantastic. We tried the burger lunch at the Lawn club. Again excellent. Service is very polished and attentive. Food was also excellent. We did specialty dining on Ruby Princess, and I don't know what happened at the venue that night, but something must have happened that had them completely in the weeds the night we dined. We were seated 35 minutes after our reservation time, didn't get menus untill about 10 minutes after being seated, ordered an paid for a bottle of wine that we were later told they didn't have, and the waiter forgot to bring me my soup course. We did it two nights later, and things were better, but not the level of service we are used to in Celebrity specialty dining.

 

3. Excellent service. I will quantify this to say that on the Infinity we were in an FO near Concierge Class, so our cabin steward was Concierge Class. He was excellent!!! So helpful, attentive. Any special request was met. He even hunted down empty Pringles cans for us to roll and pack our Panama hats. We also had great dinner service on that cruise. Our waiter always had helpful suggestions and was both friendly and professional. We were seated in a crowded section the first night of the cruise, and with out our even requesting it, the Maitr'd call our room and offered to move us to a better table in a less crowded area of the ship.

 

4. Wine service! What can I say but no other line compares to Celebrity in their selection of wine and the servers knowledge of it. I find that on other lines it is an after thought. Love the Walk Around the World wine tasting event, love going to Cellar Master's and being able to try a different wine every night. Love that when you order wine the MDR you have a trained sommelier with which to consult. Fine wine is afterthought or an extravagance on other lines, but with the upgraded bev package there are many great wines to try by the glass. I got a little tickled on the little Carnival cruise I did when the bar waistress said "Oh you have the beverage package, I can bring you the good Pinot Grigio" .

 

5. Entertainment - No I'm not talking about the cheesy production shows. They are not really my favorite thing about any cruise line, but I'm talking about the featured entertainers. On our cruise to South America they had at least 10 different acts that I found to be world class talent. Many of them were finalist on different versions of "Got Talent" around the world. My favorite in recent cruises were a blonde British lady who was a finalist on Netherland's Got Talent who sang and played piano. She sang songs from Dolly Parton Classics to Nirvana all in her own style and played classical and Liberace style piano. The others were the Argentine Gouchos who were on AGT a few years ago who did all forms of Argentine music and dance! Another favorite was the Folkloric group that performed Peruvian dances during our overnight in Lima. For our recent 10 night Caribbean cruise we had an amazing female Las Vegas vocalist who blew me away with her versions of "I'm the Only One", "Fields of Gold" and a mash-up of "Over the Rainbow" and "Defying Gravity". I will say that we loved the Sing Along Piano bar on Carnival. I would list that is one of the "Fun" things they do really well. Great piano player with outgoing personality who loved to interact with his audience. Celebrity entertainers tend to be less interactive, but still enjoyable. On the South America cruise we did late dining and loved going to the Cellar Master's for about 30 minutes between the end of the 7:00 show and dinner. They rotated the artist there so we had blues, singer songwriter classics, string quartet. All excellent.

 

6. Cabin size! Celebrity cabins are much more generously apportioned than the other cruise lines. We did have a larger cabin on Princess, but only because we booked Cat GTY and got assigned an accessible cabin. But, no sofa seating area in St. Size cabin. You have to book a Mini Suite to get a sofa seating area on Princess. When I toured the Maasdam recently I was surprised to see that the Signature Suites were not much bigger than a St. Balcony on Celebrity.

 

7. Inclusiveness. I love the Go, Big, Better best! So nice to have a nearly all inclusive price available on nearly every sailing. 2 of my cruise this year had it, two did not. We make due with Elite Happy hour and a nice bottle of wine with dinner on the ones that don't have it because they are repositioning.

 

8. Buffet Selections - Carnival actually had a pretty good buffet especially when you include "Guys Burgers" and "Blue Iguana", but Celebrity has great rotating selections and so many fresh veggie options. I loved that they publish the daily them on the buffet. Makes it easy to find the special items.

[Silkroad]

Thanks for the review! I’ve only sailed Celebrity, so I appreciate your comparisons with other lines (validates my decision to avoid them lol). I see you’re recently off Silhouette. We’ll board her in June, so I’m happy to see that you thought well of the MDR and other staff:).

[pete_coach]

We love Celebrity too but I must say, Oceania Rivieira was worth every penny in all regards. Food, cabin, specialty restaurants, drinks, all was really excellent.

Also, we recently went on NCL out of New Orleans. The food was great and the entertainment was far superior to any we have seen on Celebrity.

What is disappointing on Celebrity is the under use of the Sky Lounge.

[jkgourmet]

Here is a positive post about my recent Celebrity experiences. In the last year I have sailed 3 times with Celebrity, took my very first Carnival Cruise, did a European brand river cruise, sailed Princess, and toured a HAL ship. Here are some things that I loved about my recent Celebrity cruises compared to some other options.

 

 

I know, OT. But do you mind answering which European river cruise line that you used, and what you thought of it? Or a link to your review? Thanks.

[Cruise Arizona]

The River Cruise company was CroiseEurope.

 

I actually really liked it, but felt that it might not be a good fit for every cruiser. The value is certainly there with their top price for a 7 day cruise being about $3300 all inclusive - meaning open bar and all excursions included for North American customers. Optional anonymous tipping via envelope in box at end of cruise. Tours were fantastic, and food was Excellent. The cruise was in and around Bordeaux and as an wine lover, I was in heaven.

 

For the tours we got on the English speaking bus which was 1/2 full. We had a tour guides in each town who spoke english but sometimes struggled for the correct English word. We went to wineries and historic sites every day. It was kind of a spoke and wheel itinerary, so we spent atleast 3 nights of the cruise moored in the town of Bordeaux.

 

But here is why it might not be a good fit for everyone. 75% of the other guest spoke French as their first language. There was a small group from Spain who only spoke Catalan and Spanish - but understood French. The other 20% or so were Brits and our group of 12 Americans. The fact that we had a fun group of 12 mitigated the language barriers. The cruise was conducted in both English and French, but if you went as a couple you and your significant other might end up the only English speakers on board. Most likely there would be Brits on board, but you never know.

 

Croise builds their ships for each location, so since the rivers in Bordeaux are shallow, the ship had a shallow draft. Water level in lowest level cabins is about knee hight, not chest height like a Viking ship. Ceilings were very low as this was a three deck ship and still had to clear the bridges. If you were about 6 ft 4 inches you would have to be very careful to duck under sprinkler heads and ac vents. If you are much taller than that you would be stooped the entire time.

 

Here is the caveat about the food. Lunch and Dinner were "Plat de Jour" meaning 4 courses were served but you had no menu or choice, they just brought out each course. By doing this they ensure quality and save money. They do make accommodations for special diets or aversions - gluten free, food allergies, not seafood, no red meat, no organ meat ect, but there is no choice for any of the courses. Now that being said, I am pretty much an omnivore and loved everything that was presented. There are a few reviews of Croise here on Cruise Critic dissing the food, but I actually really loved the food. My husband would have hated not having a choice, but I was with a friend who is a wine maker, and she was good with the Plat de Jour just as I was.

 

Service and crew was excellent - friendly English speaking crew, were attentive to all our needs.

 

Entertainment is very low key on a river cruise. We had folk dancers, a french cabaret singer, crew sketch night, trivia night, and a musical duo that played dance music. It reminded me much of the cruise ship entertainment in the 70's.

 

I got off that cruise and flew to London to meet my Husband for the Norwegian Fjords cruise and felt the quality of the food was about the same, but it was nice to have a choice again once I was back on Celebrity. Nice high ceilings, grander entertainment and more variety entertainment. Really not a fair comparison because a river cruise is always going to be a smaller more intimate experience.

[Texed]

Suzanne,

Thanks for posting your positive review. :)

[George C]

Celebrity still is not close to rccl in entertainment , but food is good and buffet is so much better than rccl and other lines. We did a music charter that was amazing on summit, will do another charter on celebrity again next year but will also try a normal cruise, love most of the suite perks .

[BOLOTRAVEL]

We only Cruise Celebrity for many of the reasons you have mentioned. The food is always superb. Wine and adult beverage selection is outstanding. The entertainment in the lounges, atrium and Michael's Club are top notch and very open to conversation. Most of all, Celebrity service is the best around. I agree also, the Perks packages, being able to go all inclusive makes the cruise a that much better.

 

Everytime at even think about looking at other cruiselines the reviews never match the level of ratings that Celebrity receives.

 

We cruise on Infinity in 14 days and as always are do excited!!

 

Thank you for your in depth review!!

[Luvcrusn]

Thanks for your review. One thing we love about Celebrity over all the other lines we've cruised is the absence of indoor smoking anywhere on the ship especially the casino. If you have a problem with smoke, Celebrity is for you!

[Lastdance]

Thanks for your review. One thing we love about Celebrity over all the other lines we've cruised is the absence of indoor smoking anywhere on the ship especially the casino. If you have a problem with smoke, Celebrity is for you!

 

I totally agree; their smoking policy is great and made me a happy client. Viking also appears to be one worth trying, but my next two are Celebrity! Reflection in Europe at the end of April and Edge for the first TA.