Celebrity Galaxy 12/29/05 cruise

[Ricci]

My family and two college age children went on this cruise over New Year's. First let me say, all in all, we had a nice time and love cruising. The service and food on the Galaxy were impeccable. The ship is in nice shape, very clean, but the pool deck definitely needs resurfacing.

We only did one shore excursion through the ship which was the 6x6 excursion in Costa Rica. It was overpriced but we had a good time and it was educational. ( We hit a parked car in the middle of the rain forest in Costa Rica....go figure!) We rented a jeep in Grand Cayman and drove the island ourselves since we have stayed there for a week previously. Lots of vegetation damage, and still many damaged houses, especially on the south side of the island. Cozumel.....went back to a jewelry store where I had purchased a bracelet on a cruise last March. I found out the bracelet was not at all what the store had told me it was. ( I should have had it appraised immediately upon returning home, but I didn't...my fault.) Anyway, Regal Attocha, didn't even question my statements and said they would give me my money back but couldn't because of a zillion reasons too numerous to mention and all lies. They are very good con artists and had a lie to answer everything. Basically, what their attitude is , they are in Mexico and we are Americans and there is nothing we can do , so tough. I talked with the shopping guide onboard and he said that they are not an approved cruise ship vendor, even though the store shows everyone a cruise ship magazine with their ad in it. That was why I bought from them in the first place, they were supposedly endorsed by the cruise lines. Live and learn. :( I have found out since that many jewelry stores in Cozumel sell fraudulant goods... but many of you probably already know that and I am new to this board.

Ok, back to the ship... we like to have fun on a cruise, not drinking fun... just plain old fun. We also like to relax, but............

We found the activities to be BORING. Mostly trivial pursuit, scattagories, tribond, catchphrase, ....the same thing every day. Some of the time, we were the only ones attending... it was sad. If we wanted to play board games, we would have stayed at home. We were chosen for the not so newlywed game in the auditorium at night and it was fun. If you like to play bingo, then this is the cruise for you. And bring lots of money!!! The activities team was minimal (only 6 members and one was solely for sports and one was solely for children's activities), so that leaves 4 people for 2000 passengers!! While they were very nice, they had no idea how to get passengers involved and have fun.

As far as the age group of the passengers, I would estimate that 90 - 95% were over the age of 55. There was a group of students from Arizona Univ. there as part of their tourism class. If not for them, I think my children were the only other teenagers on the ship. Maybe not...but it certainly seemed that way.

Would I sail Celebrity again? No, only because we had soooo much more fun on other cruise lines.

[cookie1961]

Hi Ricci,

 

We were on the same cruise and also had an awesome time :) I found there were many teens on the ship during that sailing. My 15 year old was with a group of close to 15 teens that hung out daily with the activities coordinators. That grouping may have been too young for your children though. They certainly had a really wonderful time. I found that my 11 year old didn't have as many kids to play with. Given it was a holiday sailing, I found there were a lot of families on it.

 

My husband, along with two other men were dubbed "The Celebrity Back up Dancers" :lol

 

All in all, it was truly an awesome vacation for all of us :)

 

 

Teri

[Ricci]

Teri,

 

I saw your husband along with his co-horts every day dancing by the pool. I told my family that those guys need to take a cruise on the MSC Opera!!! Dancing by the pool everyday was common on the Opera and the activities team certainly knew how to get everyone involved. I felt sorry for your husband and the two others because they were dancing by themselves so often!! ;)

[tawcat]

we too were on that cruise. we don't have children but we sure saw a lot of children and teens. one day i was attacked by the "pirates." guess that was the activities theme for the day with all the little ones, it was quite fun. if you guys were in the rendezvous or the savoy you probably saw our group dancing. there were six of us, one was in a wheel chair. i guess we fit into ricci's group of "over 55." but i think thats what you find on celebrity and especially a longer cruise. i concur about the activities staff, many of them have no idea how to get folks involved, but we have never relied on them to get us involved anyway!!!

 

sorry to hear you won't be sailing X again, as this was our second time with them on the same ship and itinerary and loved it both times. never heard of the MSC Opera, which line and where do they sail?

[Texed]

I think Ricci's cruise was ruined by the bracelet he/she shouldn't have bought.:rolleyes:

[trcori]

thanks for the review.

 

fwiw that is exactly WHY I like Celebrity (and for the record I am not over 50) -- it is NOT full of people, whether activities personnel or overly spirited fellow passengers, trying to whip you into a frenzy of "fun." We are taking this same cruise in two and a half months, and the idea of 12 days/nights of quiet relaxation positively thrills me to the bone. I have a noisy, busy, intense job, and cruising is the antidote. We'll play trivia a couple times, bingo once or twice, spend a lot of time reading, soaking in the hot tubs ... and our almost-10-y-o son will be happy in the kids' program whether he has 10 compatriots or 100 (he's experienced both in our six X cruises so far).

 

but if that wasn't your cup of tea, at least you know, so you can go to one of those "it's all about the fun" (Carnival for sure, RCL too, I would guess) lines next time -- TR

[Phyljim]

We will have to agree with cookie and tawcat, we were on this cruise also. And had a wonderful time. We definitely fit into the over 55 group, but we saw lots of kids also. In our CC group that had chatted before hand, there were lots of families with teenagers traveling. They were planning on getting the kids together. We did tours off the ship, and independent tours from the pier. We found plenty to do on sea days, loved those relaxing sea days.

Sorry you did not enjoy. That was our first Celebrity cruise....and we have two more booked.

Maybe like Texed said....shouldn't have bought that bracelet....that would sour things.

[Ricci]

We will have to agree with cookie and tawcat, we were on this cruise also. And had a wonderful time. We definitely fit into the over 55 group, but we saw lots of kids also. In our CC group that had chatted before hand, there were lots of families with teenagers traveling. They were planning on getting the kids together. We did tours off the ship, and independent tours from the pier. We found plenty to do on sea days, loved those relaxing sea days.

Sorry you did not enjoy. That was our first Celebrity cruise....and we have two more booked.

Maybe like Texed said....shouldn't have bought that bracelet....that would sour things.

 

I find it amazing that, on this board, if you say anything the slightest bit detrimental about a particular cuise line, you don't know what you are talking about and you are influenced by outside factors. My bracelet experience had no bearance whatsoever on my opinion of the activities team on the Galaxy. As I said in my first post, I like to have fun and also relax on a cruise. The activities team was sorely lacking on the fun portion.

I also did not say I did not enjoy the cruise....I said I had a nice time and went on to say what I liked very much about the cruise.

It's very interesting that different people can read the same post and come away with very different opinions of what I actually said.

I honestly stated my opinion.... that's all it was.

[tawcat]

ricci i don't think anyone here is slamming anyone here. to your point of

"find it amazing that, on this board, if you say anything the slightest bit detrimental about a particular cuise line, you don't know what you are talking about and you are influenced by outside factors." i don't think anyone said that, what we did say is that we too were on the same cruise and find it kind of odd that we saw plenty of kids and you did not. i concur with the cruise staff, but then, if you compare the celebrity crusie staff to a carnival cruise staff you find two different mentalities catering to totally different groups of people. and that is a fact that one must consider regardless of cruise line. i did take offense to the remark of "over 55." i am not sure of your age and could really care less, but just know this, one day you will be among that age group like it or not. we are very mobile, very young looking and give a crap less of who is on our cruise. my point to you is, if your idea of fun is a bunch of loud rude mismannered drunk adults/kids running around to a wild cruise staff then i suggest you stick with carnival, as you can see by my list of cruises, we have sailed carnival and we don't sail them anymore because of the aforementioned fact.

 

cruising is like any vacation, some are gonna love it and some aren't. i am sorry that your feelings toward celebrity are not the best, for us, we have found and make it our goal to make the ship our destination. what goes on from there is up to us and we never count on anyone for the fun factor. fun is in the eye of the beholder and i can tell you we have not been on any cruise, including the carnival, that we did not have a perverbial blast. happy cruising in the future, still would like to know about the msc opera, thanks.

[Ricci]

ricci i don't think anyone here is slamming anyone here. to your point of

"find it amazing that, on this board, if you say anything the slightest bit detrimental about a particular cuise line, you don't know what you are talking about and you are influenced by outside factors." i don't think anyone said that, what we did say is that we too were on the same cruise and find it kind of odd that we saw plenty of kids and you did not. i concur with the cruise staff, but then, if you compare the celebrity crusie staff to a carnival cruise staff you find two different mentalities catering to totally different groups of people. and that is a fact that one must consider regardless of cruise line. i did take offense to the remark of "over 55." i am not sure of your age and could really care less, but just know this, one day you will be among that age group like it or not. we are very mobile, very young looking and give a crap less of who is on our cruise. my point to you is, if your idea of fun is a bunch of loud rude mismannered drunk adults/kids running around to a wild cruise staff then i suggest you stick with carnival, as you can see by my list of cruises, we have sailed carnival and we don't sail them anymore because of the aforementioned fact.

 

 

Wow, where did this come from? If you reread my post, I was referring to the two comments about the bracelet incident clouding my opinion about the activities team. I didn't even mention the difference of opinions about the number of children onboard.

I am truly baffled that one would take offense about my comment about the number of passengers over the age of 55. Why would you take offense at that? I was just stating a fact.

My idea of fun is not " a bunch of loud rude mismannered drunk adults/kids running around to a wild cruise staff ". Did I say that? I don't think so..... We don't even drink and my children are very respectful and well behaved.

By the way, my husband and myself are 58 and 56, respectively.

[flashdog_1]

MSC is Mediterranean Shipping Company. When they became a cruise line they kept the name of the cargo company. They have several new ships, have great staterooms and I hear nothing but good stuff. They are Italian and only recently been in the American competition. I have not sailed with them but would not hesitate based on reviews. I have not simply because their very interesting itineraries have not contained the ONE port in a region that I want to visit. Go to a site like ***** and click cruiselines and read about them. I suppose alll the sites would have the info.

[tawcat]

maybe i misread your post. didn't mean to offend. so sorry.

 

flasdog, thanks for that info.

[Ricci]

tawcat,

 

thanks for the apology :)

 

The MSC Opera is a wonderful ship which I think you would enjoy. They only book through travel agencies.... I booked mine through faredeals.com. You can't book through MSC's website. If you check out the MSC boards, you can find out much more than I can tell you.

The food is wonderful, the service excellent, and the ship is only 2 years old. More of a European experience which I enjoyed.

I have never sailed Carnival, and I really don't have any desire to.... just not my style. The animation team on the Opera basically knows after the first day or two who likes to participate in the fun and who likes to just relax and be left alone. We like to participate and we had more fun than we have had on any cruise, ever. (HAL, RCCL, Princess, NCL, Disney)

Hope this helps.

 

Ricci

 

Ps. ;) I probably should have clarified myself in my original post... I had said my children were college age.... my son is 18 and my daughter is 20. We honestly didn't see any other kids of that age group other than the students from Arizona University. And there were very little activities for passengers of that age.