Century March 9 - 18, 2006 Review -Very Long

[dcwlopez]

I learned so much from Cruise Critic prior to going on this cruise that I thought I would share my review of our cruise on Century.

 

 

Intro: This was our first cruise with Celebrity. We’ve previously sailed a short 3 day cruise with Royal Caribbean 4 years ago (to find out if we get seasick or not), and then a 7 day cruise on the Disney Magic. We are in our late thirties and traveled without our son on this cruise. This was a 9 day cruise going to Grand Cayman, Ocho Rios Jamaica, Aruba, and Curacao. We were in an outside room on deck 5 with a port hole rather than a window (which we liked since it let in some light in the morning, but not too much).

 

Embarkation: We arrived at the docks at 11:10. We took a taxi from the Holiday Inn Express rather than taking the shuttle. The taxi cost us $7 ($10 with a tip). We stood in line for about 2 minutes when official looking people started milling about and moving signs and then another 2 minutes later we were walking through the doors to start the process. We used the Express Pass and had no difficulties getting our room keys, a map (which we promptly used to get lost), and a paper telling what was going on for the day (mini-list until we could get into the staterooms). We got a very harried looking picture taken of us boarding the ship, got our mugshots for the sea pass cards taken, and then got a very nice glasses of champagne and orange juice. We then went down to the spa to try to sign up for the Rasul Etruscan Chamber ceremony (we were celebrating our 10th anniversary and several people told us this would be wonderful to do), only to find out that the room was not operational and we would not be able to do it. Since we didn’t know what we were missing out on, we weren’t really disappointed so no big loss to us. Then we went up to the buffet and had the first of several very nice meals on board.

 

Dining: The food was excellent on the cruise. I had one meal where I ordered the salmon (against the advice of our waiter) and was disappointed. At which point he promptly brought me some roasted pork (which he had recommended) which was of course wonderful. The food in the main dining rooms emphasizes quality rather than quantity. We were always content after dinner without the Thanksgiving over-full feeling. We dined in the main dining room every evening and once for lunch. We decided that we preferred eating at the buffet for lunch because we had more options without it taking quite as large of a chunk of time out of our day. We are not early risers so we never tried the main dining room for breakfast, but had a good breakfast at the buffet most mornings. On our Jamaica day we had an early excursion so we ordered room service for breakfast. Everything was served hot (including the toast) and arrived just a few minutes before the requested time. On days that we were in port we had “tea” (i.e. small sandwich nibbles and cookies) one day, a hamburger from the grill one day, and sushi on two days as we never ate lunch while on shore (we hit travel mode and forget) and fortunately we had late seating for dinner. We also attended a formal tea one sea day and had wonderful scones and finger sandwiches. There were also several late night buffets, but we only attended the Grand buffet which our waiter insisted we had to go to because of the beef Wellington. We’re glad we did because it was wonderful. The artistry of the buffet was well worth the night late trip as well. Overall we loved the food and we were pleasantly surprised to learn that after 9 days, I had gained only 1 pound, and my husband only 3 pounds. On our previous 7 night cruise, we both gained 5 pounds. My husband thinks we’re learning to “free feed” better, but I strongly believe that the portions served were smaller and more flavorful so we did not feel the need to eat more. We had a wonderful table for 8 with 3 other couples from cruise critics. They were all wonderful people and we really enjoyed their company. We had three anniversary celebrations at our table during the week which led to lots of singing and yummy chocolate cake.

 

Shows: The first show was a “sampler” of things to come with a couple of songs by the celebrity singers and then a brief piece by the comedian Fred Klett who entertained the audience mostly by harassing some of the other passengers. The first show was with the celebrity singers and dancers called “Shout”. It was based on music from the 50’s and 60’s and while we really enjoyed the singing, the dancing seemed like they had not quite learned all of their moves yet. I don’t know if this was because of slightly rougher seas than normal or if it was a new show for them. The next night was the comedian Fred Klett. His longer show was more enjoyable, although he did still harass some of the audience for laughs. We heard several of his skits/lines being used through the cruise by both passengers and crew alike. I missed the vocal performer, but my husband said he was fantastic - performing all sorts of music. The next show, a medley of Broadway songs and dances, was excellent. The singers were outstanding. Ralph Heid, is a xylophonist and was outstanding to watch. I’ve never seen anyone’s hands move so quickly. Tian Jiang gave 2 beautiful performances on the piano. The next song and dance show was a mix of routines from various countries and again the singing was excellent. There were also 2 specialist dancers, Mark Lange and Esther who were fabulous and had beautiful aerial and strength routines on 2 of the nights along with the other shows. Overall, the shows were good. We’ve seen better, but we’re pretty spoiled with the shows we get here at our university.

 

Spa: Initially, I didn’t intend to use the spa after we could not get the Rasul ceremony that we wanted. However, they had a “ladies night” special for $40 where you could use the thalassotherapy pool, the sauna, the steam room, and learn how to give yourself a facial with all of their supplies for 2 hours. It ended up being two and a half hours (which is why I missed the vocalist and was a tad late for dinner), but I enjoyed it. The t-pool was interesting and felt really nice on my shoulders, but I’m not sure I’d be willing to pay for it on a daily basis. There were 4 of us and we were able to use the $40 towards any product purchase we wanted. I caved in and bought the body scrub (it smelled wonderful). They made a nice list of body care and face care routines for each of us, based on our skin and our likes and dislikes. It was nice without being pushy at all. I also went back a couple of days later and got a back and foot massage at a reduced price (daily special). I was pleasantly surprised at how low key the staff was about products. There wasn’t any of the high pressure sales pitch to buy products and I actually had to ask about the price of the body scrub because I loved it.

 

Stateroom: Our stateroom was very nice, especially the storage space. The only part of the room that felt crowded was the small table and chair shoved in front of the fridge under the TV. The rest of the room was very nice. We brought a memory foam pad with us for the bed due to the comments that we had heard about the conditions of the mattresses. We’re very glad that we did as the mattresses are very worn and you can feel the springs. Our stateroom attendant was very kind and made up the bed for us with the mattress pad while we were at the show the first night. We had no problems using the safe in our room although there were two couples on our cruise that had their room safes broken into during the trip and they were unable to get resolution prior to the end of the cruise. I’m hoping that all works out well for them. The only issue that we had was very minor although annoying at the time. I had been saving all of the daily list of events to bring home to share. I had been placing these along with all of my travel documents in the black binder on the desk in the stateroom. This is the binder that has the room service menu and the stationary in it. We wrongly assumed that this would not be touched. We had all of the dailies thrown out as well as our travel documents. This included the information for our return flight. Fortunately I had hand written down our flight numbers and times on the back of an invitation so that I could go down to the front desk to fill out our disembarkation forms without risking losing the originals. At first I was upset that the travel documents were missing and that without the confirmation number we wouldn’t be able to use the luggage valet service. The staff guaranteed me that they would be able to make it work for us and get us the information if we really needed it. The most disappointing part was the loss of the dailies though. After being “huffy” for a bit, I realized that this was minor and in no way was impacting the present enjoyment of my trip. We were able to use the luggage valet and get our boarding passes without incident (which I highly recommend if you are flying out of the Fort Lauderdale airport with a later flight, as they were not allowing people to check in their luggage in the morning if they had afternoon flights so people were forced to drag their luggage around the airport with them).

 

Ports: Our first stop was Georgetown, Grand Cayman. We had a lovely time wandering around the shops before our excursion. We splurged on the Bubble Sub (we thought it might be our only opportunity since we were sailing without our son) and were completely in awe. I have perforated eardrums so scuba-diving was not an option. The Bubble Sub took me to places that I would not have been able to see any other way. The crew was wonderful and we have some beautiful pictures from the trip.

 

Our second port of call was Ocho Rios, Jamaica. We prearranged a tour with Phil LaFayette and we’re very glad that we did. We went early in the morning to Dunn’s River Falls and hiking the falls. This is the scariest thing that I have ever done on an excursion and yet I’m so proud of myself for doing it. The falls are beautiful. There is a shopping “village” as you exit the falls, but you can just ignore it and go back out the way you came to mostly avoid being hassled. Several people in our tour group (including my husband) were still asked if they wanted drugs, but it was at least limited somewhat by avoiding the village. The one couple that did go through had to be “rescued” from some aggressive salespeople by Phil in order to make it back to the bus. We then went tubing down a river. This was probably the most fun thing that I have ever done on an excursion. (Scary and fun all in one day, sheesh). The only downer of the day happened when one of the men in our tour group lost a $100 bill. He thought that someone had stolen it and was very upset. Everyone spent some time looking for it, but to no avail. We decided to continue on with the tour and Phil would take them back to the cruise ship to get some more cash to pay the tubing people. After we had been driving about 10 minutes Phil’s cell phone rang and one of the guys from the tubing group had found the money. It had gotten caught up in the tip that he gave a guy. This young man got on his bicycle and rode down to meet us to return the money. I was very impressed with that, especially given the economic situations there. We had a lovely tour of Fern Gully and drove by several large houses. After the tour some went shopping, while we decided to head back to the ship to get cleaned up. Back on the ship, we heard several people complaining about their time on shore and found out that many came back on board and decided not to go back on shore. A few even cancelled their afternoon shore-excursions after returning to the ship in the morning. We saw lots of things, but felt very protected by Phil. I think going with an experienced local guide is the only way to go here.

 

Aruba was the next port. There were many similarities between the landscape in Aruba and where I live in Arizona. They have similar cacti, trees, and lizards (although theirs seem bigger than most of ours). The beaches are beautiful and the water incredibly clear. We took the Sea and See excursion and went out to see the sunken ship and a natural reef before going out to see the California lighthouse, the natural bridges (including the collapsed one) as well as some fun rock formations. We got a nice tour of the island and learned a lot about the history of the island and its people from our tour guide. We walked around the shops and malls near where the ship docked and were very impressed with the friendliness of the people. Some people asked us if we would like a tour and when we said “No thank you” they actually responded with “You’re welcome, have a nice day”. A little thing, but it was nice.

 

Curacao was our last port. We took the Discover Curacao excursion and went to see the Curacao museum (takes about 15 minutes), flamingoes, Hato caves, liquor factory, and lots of buildings. The Hato caves were the best part of the tour and we enjoyed walking through a living cave. Our tour guide was very nice, but not as interesting as our one on Curacao. We learned the same information from her as we did from the Celebrity Daily. Curacao is very photogenic, but we did not enjoy it as much as Aruba. I would not mind going back to Aruba, but I’m not sure what I would do if we went back to Curacao.

 

Summary: Overall, I loved the cruise. The food is wonderful; the crew is very helpful and friendly; and the ship is very “classy”. I think the Celebrity Century is a perfect ship for a quiet, romantic get-away. If we had our son with us, I think he would have been very bored (he’s 12). I saw several younger children and older teenagers enjoying themselves, the 12 to 15 age group seemed to be constantly out of place (one even ended up playing board games with us on several days, because the teen club was not doing anything he wanted to do). Century is an elegant ship and I look forward to sailing her again in the future.

[mcgovernsandra]

THAT WAS US! We were mortified that the money was gone and people on the bus would think we were a pair of scam artists! My husband and I were, like yourself, shocked that anyone would call and return a $100 tip, but pleasantly suprised. All in all, it turned out to be a great tour and a great cruise.

[dcwlopez]

We were all feeling so bad when the money went missing. There isn't much worse than losing money especially that much. We were so glad when the guy called and actually returned the money. I thought your husband was very classy in giving the guy an extra tip for being honest. I certainly never expected that money to return. I have a very nice picture of your husband jumping off of the cliff too. :)

[mcgovernsandra]

REALLY! I'd love to see it. I did not have the digital camera with us, in fear it would get we so I don;t have any pics of the jump. Can you send it to me if possible? mcgovernsandra@yahoo.com thanks so much! You and your husband seemed very nice! Glad you enjoyed the cruise as much as we did.

[Gypsea]

Great review. Thanks for your time and effort. I hear the Dunns River Falls is a must. Glad you liked it.

[imacruizer]

Wonderful review, Darlene. Makes me feel like I am back on the ship. It was delightful to meet both of you. Happy cruising.

 

Beth and Jerry