Millennium April 16 Review

[Duanerice1]

We just returned from a 7 day cruise on the Millennium. Contrary to what some have said, the ship is still awesome and the trip was fantastic! We are used to Celebrity so we might be a bit more critical than others. But, with that said, anything negative in the report is not really negative, just not up to the Celebrity standards we are used to. We took the Millennium last year for the alternate Eastern Caribbean route. Overall the cruise awesome!

 

Since we live in South Florida, we thought we’d add a day to our vacation so we drove over to Ft Lauderdale on Saturday. I went out to Priceline and bid on a 3 star. I forgot that this was Easter weekend, so ended up paying $92 with tax and fees for the Holiday Inn on the Beach (Hotel.com has it for $179 before taxes). Not sure why this is a 3 star. Unfortunately this is a very old Holiday Inn and it shows. I hear the rooms are being refurbished, but we didn’t secure one. OK for a pre-cruise stay, but I sure wouldn’t want to spend my vacation there. It is right on the beach but a bit north of any area I would want to walk around at night.

 

Embarkation (boarding for us normal people). Arrived at the port at 11:30 on Sunday. The place was full of people that were still embarking from the ship. This is the same time we always arrive and I have never seen anyone from the prior cruise, other than the occasional straggler. Dropped off baggage and went to park the car. Made it back around 12:00 and had to wait in line for our “boarding number”. They were giving out slips of papers with numbers on them and that was how you would be called to board. We’ve never had to do this before; we usually just walk right in. Every cruise we have been on we have had an easy time boarding, so now I’m thinking it’s our turn. I remembering all boarding horror stories that people have posted about boarding and getting set for a hour or so wait. Not to be in this case. This is where being in CC class really helped. I mentioned we were in CC class so we received priority passes and were told to wait with another pack of people. Within 5 minutes they called for us to go through. We were whisked through security and in front of an attendant for our pass card/key within 15 minutes of getting in the first line. What we thought was going to be a long wait turned out to be a very quick process. Way to recover Celebrity. I’ve heard others waited up to 90 minutes, even with CC. They didn’t know to ask. It pays to know your benefits.

 

Need to pause and mention the security. Why can’t the airlines be like this? I still had my watch and shoes on, wallet and belt with no problem going through the machine. They pushed the carryon though the conveyor as fast as we could walk through. I know, it isn’t as important on a ship, but a happy medium would be nice. Very impressed with how fast we made it through.

 

On the way to our cabin we stopped into a Penthouse Suite, a Royal Suite and a Sky Suite. Very nice. The Royal and Sky suites are nicer than I expected. The Penthouse is just amazing. We did get the opportunity to look into a Celebrity suite which looked pretty good. It was just a quick peek though. .

 

Cabin: Of course we had the pictures and Champagne upon boarding the ship. They did ask if we knew where we were going so maybe they would have escorted us, who knows. We went to our cabin first, cabin 6144. I specifically booked this one because of the large wood balcony. It is the typical CC room inside. It is not any bigger than the other CC class cabins. The balcony is what makes this room awesome. The balcony is great with 2 padded loungers, 2 padded chairs a large table and wood deck. We could fit more out there, it is that big. The wood deck is great. The floor is so rough on the normal balconies that it hurts my feet. I know, I know, I’m sensitive. Seriously though, my wife mentions it too. If there is a drawback it would be that there is no shade if the sun is on your side and it was pretty hot today. We are used to deck 9 with the overhang and pretty much full time shade. For the majority of the cruise, it was not an issue. I lived out there. Someone on these boards gave me a tip, since the service area is right next door, you can open the balcony divider and gain about 4 more feet. Just opens up your view even more.

 

The only drawback is the room has one of those tiny seats in it. You can’t really call it a love seat as it is too small. I thought in CC class you always had a larger sofa. At least the last few times we did. Now for most people this would not be an issue, but my wife loves stretching out on the sofa to watch TV. She’ll take a nap there at least once a day. This is one of the reasons we book CC class. Doesn’t matter as we are still on a cruise! I will definetly look for this cabin in the future.

 

Our room Steward, Violeta, is very nice, probably the best we’ve had. She is also the one that cleans the Penthouse and Royal Suites. She said it takes her 1 hour to clean the suite. Monday afternoon when she delivered the canapés we told her no thanks that we didn’t like them. A few minutes later she knocked again and gave us some extra treats from the Penthouse. Little cheesecakes with fruit, banana bread and assorted other goodies. Very nice although it didn’t happen on any other day.

[Duanerice1]

Dining: We had breakfast on the balcony everyday and dinner in the Metropolitan every night but two. My wife likes going to the “formal” type of dinner, so I go. I could live without it. We did dress properly, tux on formal nights and suit on informal nights (at least for me). We had late seating for dinner, which we requested, and they gave us the table we requested. I wasn’t sure, but I put a request in for a specific table and they honored it. Might not work all the time, but it worked this trip.

 

For the most part dinner was very good. Some of the items were not as good as others, but some were great. We were not that impressed with the menu. There were nights when we said, ahh not sure what to get because nothing looks particularly great. Don’t get me wrong, everything we did order was from good to delicious, it’s just the selection was underwhelming for us. I’m sure others will rave and I hope they do. Maybe we just get a bit jaded after a few cruises with them, I don’t know. We were both also a bit disappointed in the desserts, more so than the main courses. I think they are trying to outdo themselves. The cheesecake was always good as was the ice cream and the crème brulee, but we didn’t think the other choices were up to snuff. My thought is, if it is desert and doesn’t have chocolate, why make it . And when they made it chocolate it always had a sponge cake in it or liquor flavor or something weird.

 

Service was OK. The assistant said maybe 5 words through any meal. Our waiter wasn’t much more social. He was cordial, but not talkative like our waiter on the last cruise. Unfortunately the group of tables our waiter had was always one of the last to be served any course. A couple of nights we waited for 30 minutes to get bread. The normal was getting our entrée around 10:00 p.m. I don’t like to rush per se, but I hate just sitting there watching other tables moving along. This was killing me . A 2 hour meal is OK sometime, but everyinght was a bit too much.

 

We had dinner at the casual area up on the 10th floor. Great service, limited menu but the food was pretty good. Don’t know why, but I thought you could get the dining room food in there. But they have their own special menu. Nice change of pace. In and out within an hour and we didn’t rush anything. That’s my kind of dining.

 

On the last formal night the seas were a bit wavy and the ship was rocking. I could barely feel it, but it was making my wife woozy. Well, this was lobster night so we ended up ordering off the menu for room service. The only issue is they bring all of the meal at once. We knew this ahead of time so we were prepared for it and it wasn’t a big issue. The issue I have with ordering this and breakfast is that my room steward has to deliver our order. They are busy enough, I feel kind of guilty having them delivering our food. We gave her $10 for the dinner because we had a lot of plates.

 

We start everyday with breakfast on the balcony. Good as usual. On the first day our steward just placed the tray on the table instead of setting it up for us. Again, not a negative, just not the same as prior cruises. I mean come on, it was breakfast on the balcony, how could it be bad. Sure beats the Slim Fast I usually have for breakfast on a Monday morning . The next day under special requests on the menu I wrote table cloth and she set the table up for us with flowers. Just a bit nicer that way. She set it up every day for the rest of the cruise. I always tip $5 for breakfast room service.

 

Had lunch room service and it was great. My wife had a steak at said it was terrific, better than in the restaurant. Everything was nice and hot. Very impressed.

 

Had snacks from the Aqua Spa a few times. The food there is usually pretty good but I didn’t partake in a lot of their offerings. Guess I don’t eat as healthy as I thought or should. The main buffet was very good for a buffet. Lot’s of options if you scoped them out. They always had a sandwich of the day in the back, from a Philly Cheese steak to a Monte Cristo. Pizza was as good as usual.

 

Tried the sushi one night. YUCK! Just don’t have the taste for it. Tried a variety and didn’t really like anything. Oh well, more for those that like it. Never did have the “made to order” omelets or the waffles.

 

Shows: The first night show was very good. I do not remember it from last year. Very fast paced and lively. They are a talented troop. Found out one of the dancers is our Cruise Director’s wife. Unfortunately, we were getting tired and called it a day after the show. The second night was the same as last year, the Tribute to Broadway with Joel Gray kicking it off. They also had the FantaSea later in the week which is the same as last year. It was still pretty good. We skipped one of the shows but did see the 2 comedians and they were pretty good. I wish they had a late night comedian show for adults.

 

Cruise Critic Meeting: We had the Cruise Critic gathering on the first sea day at 10:00 a.m. in Michaels Club. We had 55 signed up and about a dozen of us showed up. Simon the Cruise Director was there and he is a real pleasure to talk to. He talked a bit about how each cruise is different, and you need change things around based on the clientele. He mentioned that the 7 day Caribbean cruises are the easiest. They pretty much have it down pat. The South America Cruise is the toughest because they don’t do it that often and it’s a cold weather cruise for a good portion of the trip so no one is at the pool. Everything has to be done inside. Another issue is that they also miss some ports because of the weather and it gets pretty stressful having to rearrange the agenda.

 

He also enlightened us as to what happened with the tour bus accident. How they had to round up the other 45 people in the party and tell them the news and how they watched CNN to make sure the news didn’t break before they had a chance to tell the rest of the ship. How they decided to tell the ship and what was said. Sad but very interesting in how they handled it.

 

We did talk about Cruise Critic. I asked him if he reads it and he said yes, giving us a few examples of recent posts. He does not respond of course, but he did mention how others stick up for Celebrity. Pretty funny because you do see that on the board. He seems to be very nice. Very funny guy too.

 

Simon also set up a meeting on the last day, kind of to give him some feedback or so we thought. He never showed and it was just a few of us from the Cruise Critic Boards. It was a little disappointing because he said he be interested in hearing about our cruise. Guess he got busy. Based on our little discussion he would have got an ear full on the chair hogs!

[Duanerice1]

Gym: The gym is pretty well equipped. Even on sea days I could usually work in all the machines and there was always at least on treadmill open. You just need to be a little flexible and don’t have your mind set on the order you want to do the exercises. I caught the end of a seminar and sat through another. They gave some decent information, but it always led up to what they sell, either a spa service or products. I went to one on flatten your stomach. I thought they were going to show us exercises, but they were pitching Red Algae for detoxification. The first seminar they were pitching a booklet on a specific diet and some of their detoxification treatments. Very tacky.

 

Ports:

Puerto Rico: One of those been there done that ports. We have been to Puerto Rico a few times on a cruise and on a land vacation. The best part about this port is that we were docked as close as you could get to the shopping area. We had plans to take a cab up to the fort and then hike back down. We’ll we ended up just walking a few of the streets for about 3 hours.

 

Antigua: We took the Paddles Kayak and Snorkel tour. Very professionally run. We were picked up at noon and directed to a bus that took us for about a 30 minute ride, with at least 10 minutes just getting out of town. We enjoyed seeing the country side. We were met by Jeannie (I think that’s her name) and they headed us to the boats. After about a 15 minute boat ride we ended up on a nice little beach. We went for the walk up to the top of the island, short 5 minute walk and a great view. We then went snorkeling for about 45 minutes. The snorkeling was OK, nothing special, especially if you have snorkeled in some great spots. Everyone was finished snorkeling and we sat around waiting for about 20 minutes for the guides to heard us up and take us to the kayaking place. On the way it started raining. I don’t mean a sprinkle, it was pouring. Here we are going like a bat out of heck in the boat freezing to death. It was ice cold! We were all freezing huddled up together. When we got to the kayaks, it was still poring and no one wanted to go. Actually a few of us jumped into the water because it was much warmer than outside. It was like jumping into a bath and felt great. They ended up taking us all back to the pier until it stopped raining. Once it stopped they asked who wanted to go kayaking and about ½ the people went. We decided to stay back and keep dry. She called a bus early so we ended up back at the pier around 4:30. It wasn’t a great excurison, but it wasn’t Jeannie’s fault. It just happens.

 

What I find strange is that you have 2 ships full of people all coming back from excursions around 4:30 – 5:00 and all of the shops were closing around 4:45, very few even stayed open until 5:00. You would think they’d stay open for an hour or so extra to catch all the people coming back. Strange.

 

St Martin: Great day. We rented a jeep from Arthur’s Car Rental. He is a very friendly guy and I will do business with him again. The reason I chose him was recommendations from the board and he was willing to work with us as to the return time. Everyone else said we had to be back by 5:00 p.m. he allowed us to bring it back at 7:00 p.m. even though he closes at 5:00 p.m.. His place was a little tough to find. Actually his place was easy once you figured how to get out of the pier area. Once you get out of the pier area, it is just a few hundred feet up the road. We ended up with a Jeep with 15,000 miles on it. We spent the first 3 hours shopping downtown although parking was a bit tough. My wife ended up with a pair of Tanzanite earrings to go with the ring she got in St Thomas.

 

There are a few people running around downtown trying to get you to see a timeshare. They give you a lottery type ticket then tell you that you’ve won one of 3 prizes. Only need a 1 hour tour. Almost went then asked myself why do I want to spend an hour of my day seeing a sales pitch? If you want to go fine, but I put it in the trip report just to warn others.

 

After shopping we ended up at Orient beach although we took the long way exploring all the nooks and crannies along the way. Oh yea, we bought gas for the jeep since it was just about empty. $20 US didn’t even buy a ¼ tank. We didn’t use much more than that anyway, so it was OK. Just don’t fill you car  Orient beach was very nice. Wide beach and it would be a nice place if you wanted to hang out for the day. Rent a chair and umbrella and all would be good with the world. Saw a lot of deals, chair, umbrella and a beer for $8 or so. They have all the activities you’d want. We strolled along the beach for about an hour walking in the water and enjoying the scenery.

 

Ended up over by Grand Case but didn’t get a chance to stop because we couldn’t find anywhere to park. It really didn’t look like a place I’d hang out anyway. Not sure what the draw is. I might think differently if we spent some time there but the beach didn’t seem that big. To be fair, everything is behind the buildings so we didn’t see a lot.

 

Next stop was Marigot. Wasn’t sure where to go so we ended up by the water, figuring you can’t go wrong there. We looked around a bit and did some shopping. It is not as, “store upon store” as Phillipsburg was and there were a lot of empty stores. We did end up getting some awesome French bread and a desert. The bread was the best! The town did have a very French feel to it. And yes for the most part everyone was friendly. In a small store they even told us not to buy the bread because it was hard. They sent us down the street. Very nice. By this time we were pretty tired so we ended up heading back to the ship. Dropped the car off at 6:00 and Arthur took us back to the ship which was only a 5 minute walk.

 

You do not need a jeep, but a convertible is nice. We loved having the top down, made sightseeing that much better. The roads aren’t very well marked. If you just plan on staying on the main road it is not an issue. But we wanted to explore the little side roads. We ended up turning around a lot! All in all a very fun day.

 

Last 2 days were sea days. Since we go to relax and not necessarily to visit the islands, this is great for us. We started off with almost 2 full days at sea from the time we left to the time we arrived in Puerto Rico and then ended the cruise with 2 full sea days.

 

Debarkation: This was breeze. We were off the ship, took the shuttle to the car and had paid for parking by 9:02 a.m. SWEET! I like this. We were home in Ft Myers (110 miles) by noon after picking up our dog, getting a few groceries and running by the business to switch the phones. Some people were not even on their plane by then. I’m sure people that live in Ft Lauderdale were probably home by 10:00 so I guess my trip wasn’t that special. But it was a great ending for us.

[Duanerice1]

Why we take Celebrity: There are a few reasons we take Celebrity. As a note, we do take at least one weekend cruise a year out of Miami. It is usually on Carnival, on one of their older ships and in an inside cabin. We always have a blast. But, for week long cruises we have always taken Celebrity. We have only been on 3, but they have been great.

 

The people are so nice. Every crew member I meet is genuinely nice. They do not seem to be faking it. In conversation they seem to like talking to you. They offer a genuine hello. It makes me feel comfortable, kind of like they want me on the ship.

 

The T-Pool is one of the main reasons I go on Celebrity. My wife doesn’t even go in, so this one is mine. The pool is awesome. Not just the part where you sit with the bubbles, but the jets that come out the side and flow of water that you can stand under and get a “massage”. I love that pool! I would hate to go on a ship without one.

 

No announcements, or very few. Pretty much once a day the Captain came on and that was about it.

 

I like the passengers. As Forrest Gump says, “that’s all I’m going to say about that”.

 

Very few kids. OK, this was Easter and there were a bit more than usual, but for the most part they were well behaved. Normally we have very few kids aboard. This just isn’t a kid’s cruise like some of the others.

 

We like the little amenities with Concierge Class. The towels, the flowers, the extra room, the robes, the breakfast room service menu, the priority embarkation, etc. It is worth it for us especially this time with the wait at the pier.

 

The food is pretty good. It is still served for 2,000 plus people, but it is pretty good. The buffets are above par and the dinning room is above average.

 

Anyway, we like Celebrity. We spend a considerable amount of money to go on this cruise each year and I want it to be right. I am a little afraid of switching lines then saying why didn’t I just go with Celebrity. We will I’m sure because we will run out of ports and may actually have to fly to a port – yuck. But based on our weekend Carnival cruise, I wouldn’t want to spend a week on that boat. Not really fair to Carnival because the boat is smaller and older and the weekend passengers are probably a little more “fun” than the week long passengers.

 

I have heard people complain about having problems and Celebrity not fixing them. They seem to be good when things go OK, but not to good when things don’t. I don’t have any personal experience on this because we really haven’t had any issues I needed them to respond to. After 3 cruises with them and no issues, that says it all right there. I guess I’d rather not have the problems rather than go on a cruise where they are good at fixing problems.

 

Miscellaneous Comments and observations:

 

Alcohol brought back on board from Ports. We were behind a woman that brought on 4 bottles of liquor in St Martin. She put them through the metal detector and they actually made quite a racquet as they fell over, so she certainly wasn’t sneaking them on board. They didn’t say anything so she picked them up and took them to her cabin. She even said to me that she thought they would take them and bring them to her the last night. I guess it depends on who is manning the security when you come back.

 

Cold Towels: We didn’t receive cold towels even once when we came back on board. At one port, Antigua I think it was, I did see the set up, but there were no towels. Ditto with the water.

 

Sewage smell: We did notice a smell once or twice around the ship. I think it was somewhere on the sixth floor. Wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t around my cabin either. The seas were rather calm the entire trip until we headed out of St Martin.

 

Cabin: I love cabin 6144. It is a ways from pretty much everything on the ship, but it is in a quite location and has a great balcony. Not sure I could be in an aft cabin and not see what is going on out front 

 

Awesome trip, the ship is in pretty good shape as far as I could tell. Put a 2008 cruise on hold until the final dates come out. Once they are out, I can transfer that cruise over and still keep the onboard credit.

 

If you have any questions, let me know.

Thanks for Reading,

Duane

[ilovhywd]

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed and interesting trip report!

[BrooklynGirl2]

Thanks Duane. Glad you had such a good time. I really enjoyed reading your review.

[TheMommyBird]

Hi Duanerice1,

Wow, my first comment, although I have been lurking for quite sometime. Thank You for that great review. My family and I were also on this cruise. We didn't make the cruise critic gathering. Truthfully, we were soo busy and excited, we forgot. We made this a family/friend cruise. There was my family, (hubby and I, and 3 kids, (11, 15, and 17)), My inlaws, my mom and her friend, and another family friend and her son. Our entire crew had an awesome time. This was our third cruise aboard X. Our 11, and 17yo have also been on a X cruise. The 15 year old cruised with his grandparents aboard RCC last year. My sons review would be quite different than mine though. He LOVED RCC. There were more things that held his interest on RCC. He did enjoy X though. My 17 yo daughter absolutely LOVES X. She did every dance class, bingo, and most teen events. She performed in both the kids, and the adult talent show. The 11 yo loved everything he encountered. The programing, by his opinion was far better than visiting these "old boring islands". (His words). We did make him visit the "old boring islands". Hopefully someday he will apreciate that.

We had the main seating in the dining room. There was only 1 night we did not attend dinner. On Wed. night we had reservations in Olympic. The boys said they had reservations at the grill. My daughter went with the inlaws to the Met. though. She loves to be waited on. She is such a princess. We loved our dining room staff. They took the time to notice our likes and dislikes. On the first formal night our waiter decided to pull a joke on my husband, he pretended to spill the sorbet on my husbands suit. It was really priceless. We have not laughed that hard in years. My 15 year old son put $20.00 in an envelope for "Vladimir" for going above and beyond the call of duty, and pulling something on his dad. We had put our tips on our room card. The wait staff always had sodas waiting for the boys. They always had earl gray tea for my husband, and a herbal tea for my daughter.

I purchased soda cards for the boys. I would not recomend doing that. Other than dinner, it was always an effort to get soda. I didn't really like having my 11 year old having to up to the bar to get a soda. He is tiny, and many times he would not be noticed. There were times when my husband or I would order it for him, but if we did not order a drink for ourselves, the soda would never come.

Our cabin attendant, Mary, was also wonderful. She would alway leave extra candy for the boys. The one thing I liked most about her was her daily spanish lesson with the 11 year old.

Truthfully, I only noticed a slight rotten egg smell once. It was slight, and gone as quick as it came. I can only say it was on the ninth floor. I dont remember where, because our travel companion were all scattered on the ninth floor.

My only other complaints, beside the soda card is I didn't win the BINGO jackpot. My son did however win the bingo raffle for the Celebrity DVD. Truthfully , I would like to have been shown to our cabin instead of having to fend for ourselves. When we sailed on the Mercury, and the Zenith, we were escorted to our rooms. This time we were told which elevator was the quickest.

I would definately sail Celebrity again, although I would like to try RCC. I only have to convince the hubby. He is a dihard X fan.

Robin

[Duanerice1]

Hi Robin. Glad your group had a good time. This time it was only my wife and I.

 

I like your comment "There were times when my husband or I would order it for him, but if we did not order a drink for ourselves, the soda would never come"

 

So, if I get this straight, in order to get your son a soda you needed to get yourself a drink. Hmmm... seems like a plan to me. I've never used that excuse myself, I'll have to try it next time :). Might be worth buying the soda card just for that!

 

Glad you guys had fun,

Duane

[CaribbeanBound]

Great review.

We were on the April 9 voyage in an inside cabin.

It was nice to see a thorough review from a different cabin perspective.

(Sorry we were late getting off).

 

Glad to see you tried the Sushi. We love the stuff.

The important thing is that you gave it a go. Good for you!

[Andy]

Hi DuaneRice1 !

 

Thanks for the great review !

[dagadget]

Cruise Critic Meeting: We had the Cruise Critic gathering on the first sea day at 10:00 a.m. in Michaels Club. We had 55 signed up and about a dozen of us showed up. Simon the Cruise Director was there and he is a real pleasure to talk to. He talked a bit about how each cruise is different, and you need change things around based on the clientele. He mentioned that the 7 day Caribbean cruises are the easiest. They pretty much have it down pat. The South America Cruise is the toughest because they don’t do it that often and it’s a cold weather cruise for a good portion of the trip so no one is at the pool. Everything has to be done inside. Another issue is that they also miss some ports because of the weather and it gets pretty stressful having to rearrange the agenda.

 

 

We did talk about Cruise Critic. I asked him if he reads it and he said yes, giving us a few examples of recent posts. He does not respond of course, but he did mention how others stick up for Celebrity. Pretty funny because you do see that on the board. He seems to be very nice. Very funny guy too.

 

Simon also set up a meeting on the last day, kind of to give him some feedback or so we thought. He never showed and it was just a few of us from the Cruise Critic Boards. It was a little disappointing because he said he be interested in hearing about our cruise. Guess he got busy. Based on our little discussion he would have got an ear full on the chair hogs!

 

 

After that review I decided to delete what I had started :) I would have like to have seen Simon come back into the second meeting as well. He would have gotten an ear full I am sure on the chair hogging. I did show a couple of the others our stateroom 9038 and they were impressed with that verandah. Maybe Simon will read this and make a note of that. (chair hogging) I did appreciate the idea of changing the meeting time in the future to improve the attendance. That was a nice idea on his part. I am thinking of sending an email to Clebrity with this chair hog reduction in mind. "Towels issued from the Pool Butlers (max number = to total in room) using sea pass. After 1 hour of no one on the chair or in the area the pool butlers take the towels and charge $28 for lost towels (that would stop them going to breakfast) The incident of one lady with 10 towels on sun chairs and 10 on shade chairs was just one bad example of the problem. (You reading this Simon?) Anyway it was a great cruise and I plan on taking another next year in March (probably the one on the 16th) on Galaxy. Great review and hope to see you on our next trip as well.

 

David

 

PS for Simon watch those quartering seas :D

[sissy f]

My husband and I were also on the Millie this week. I enjoyed the review from Duane & I am in agreement with alot he had to say. We were main seating & thoroughly enjoyed the food. My filet had been one of the best I have ever had. We were on this ship also last Easter & had the Star booked for this week(wanted to try a different ship). After the incident, I jumped ship knowing how wonderful of a ship "the Millie" was. Our favorites were the aqua spa and therapy pool, loved the lunches served in that area also, liked the selections of music in pool area, loved the martini tasting (first night) what a deal! 6 selections of fairly nice sized martinis(2oz?) for $9.50. Embarking was the worst of all the Celebrity cruises we had taken (4 X) but disembarking was good. We, too booked the excursion "Paddles" and this one I would have to disagree on. Of all the private excursions we have taken, this by far was "not good" and I can't understand why so many people had such high recommendations to this. Bird Island was nothing special? The only birds I saw seemed to be pigeons, the snorkeling was nothing special, and the beach was the worst beach I have ever been on. By the time the boats docked, there was really no beach & to try to swim in the area, the bottom was completely grasses so it wasn't pleasant to walk in & very murky.The boat ride back was out of there control & yes it did rain & it was cold. When we got to the kayak area, we also jumped in & the water feltlike bath water, but we needed to get back into the boat & taken back to the house. We were told to wait a bit & then whomever was interested in going back kayaking could. At this point I feel The owner should have given everyone back a small amount of refund to make everyone happy& called it a day, but she said the weather would be fine. 1/2 of us went back, but the weather was touch and go & we jumped into the kayaks, paddled very quickly around an island jumped on the boat & returned. By no means was that relaxing as we didn't paddle & take out time & enjoy the scenery around us, we just paddled hard.We did have rum punch & some type of bread waiting for us. We then returned back by bus to pier area. In my opinion (Im sure others will disagree) I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. If indeed Antigua has 365 beaches, they certainly could have chosen a better one to beach at. Yes, we were one of those people who got sucked in to the vacation talk (St Maarten)as we were convinced that we were the only winner of the scratch off for the last 2 weeks. She was so totally convincing & after spending the 1 hour listening to their speech, we then patiently told the person no (about 10 times) & then were dismissed with a voucher for a 4 night vacation. I mailed in the voucher & we'll see shortly what we really won!? Yes, I was disappointed in myself for alloqwing to be talked into that & I am totally accountable for that decision. (my husband thought it saved him lots of $$ from shopping) We also brought on alcohol on the ship in San Juan - 6 bottles & were never stopped and in St Maarten brought in another 5 bottles & also never stopped. This is the first time that has ever happened to us! We really could have had a great party w/all that was in our room, but then it would have spoiled a day at sea w/a huge hangover. Been there, done that & Im through doing those games. Hope this helps answer any questions, some may have. Can't wait to book our next one! The only way to relieve the cruise blues is :eek: have one ready for you to go on in the future!!!

[Duanerice1]

Hi Sissy,

I was trying to be kind on the Paddles tour. I will not go back because as you have said, there are many, many fine beaches and snorkeling areas. I was not impressed.

 

Glad to know you did get the kayaking in even though you were rushed. Makes me glad I didn't go back as my wife would not have been happy.

 

I like your comment about the timeshare..... look how much money you saved from shopping. So true!

 

Duane