April 9 - Millennium Review - Part I: Precruise

[CaribbeanBound]

B]Celebrity Millennium

April 9 - April 16, 2006

Eastern Caribbean[/b]

 

Part I - Precruise

A. Inception

We chose Celebrity due to our prior experience. We chose Millennium because we had not previously experienced Celebrities largest ships. We generally prefer the Eastern Caribbean ports over Western Caribbean ports.

 

B. Cruise Critic

Cruisecritic.com was once again very helpful in securing key information for all of our ports of call and getting to know some of our fellow travelers before the cruise.

 

C. Choice of Route

We have cruised the Western Caribbean and the Eastern Caribbean. We have found the Eastern ports have the best beaches and are generally more hospitable.

 

D. Choice of cabin

We booked this cruise during a Celebrity Tuesday "Happy Hour" Sale less than 30 days before the cruise. We chose two inside cabins (Category 9 on the Vista Deck) entirely based upon price. Interestingly, it was less expensive to book two cabins than to attempt to stuff all four of us into one cabin. Each inside cabin has 170 square feet of space. The cabins (7101, and 7093) are spacious.

 

E. Price

We paid about $600 per person ($86/day/person) including port fees and taxes (but not including tips and incidentals). Note: I only include price information because it was requested by fellow travelers following my previous reviews.

 

F. Passports

We brought our passports which we got four years ago. Our kids did not have passports. Instead, a picture ID and an original birth certificate were required. Hint: AAA members can get really good passport pictures for free at AAA offices.

 

G. Insurance

I insured the trip through Travelex, opting for their TraveLite product, which I concluded was a good choice due to: relative cost comparisons, ease of access and booking, good disclosures, excellent coverage for what I needed, and especially because their insurance is "primary", meaning that I do not have to involve any other insurance in the claims process. I had no interest in proprietary insurance offered by a travel agency or cruise companies because if either goes under your insurance is worthless and defeats the purpose. We bought the insurance within 14 days of our booking to assure their would be no questions about "existing medical conditions", although I am not aware we have any. Thankfully we never had a need for the insurance. Here are 16 great tips on How to Select Cruise Insurance: *****

 

H. Prebooking Excursions

All of our port excursions were done privately with the exception of Dominican Republic. We bought this excursion on the ship simply because there was not sufficient information on the boards to make our own arrangements. More details below.

 

I. Packing

Packing hints came from this board. We packed for 2 Formal nights (suit and tie / fine dinner dress), 2 Semi-Formal nights (aloha shirt with dinner jacket / dinner dress), and 3 Casual nights (polo's and Dockers, blouses and skirts), in addition to enough clothing to cover us for 7 days. Among the most helpful "extra items" we packed were battery powered alarm clock, shoe rack, rounded scissors (under 6"), bottled water, cards, camera, film, sunscreen, binoculars, highlighters, collapsible dirty clothes bag, and a water camera. We also made seven 8x10 posters for our cabin door (one for each day, "If this is Saturday, it must be Nassau!" and the like) and mentioning Cruise Critic in hopes that someone else on the boards would notice and strike up a conversation. The cabin doors are metal. We held up our signs with little magnets.

 

Complete review can be seen on one page at: http://www.lavasurfer.com/info/millennium.html