Four day Century Atmosphere...Worried.

[lookingforward]

I just finished reading a review about the four day Century cruise. The writer loved the ship and service but observed that the four day crowd was more Carnival like, with young people on prepaid drink packages and a lot of first time cruisers. I am not against these things but my husband and I are sailing on a four night cruise in March and, quite frankly, are looking for a quiet and relaxing time. Any recent four night cruisers?

[HMK]

I just finished reading a review about the four day Century cruise. The writer loved the ship and service but observed that the four day crowd was more Carnival like, with young people on prepaid drink packages and a lot of first time cruisers. I am not against these things but my husband and I are sailing on a four night cruise in March and, quite frankly, are looking for a quiet and relaxing time. Any recent four night cruisers?

 

I just came off the 2/1 sailing on the Century. I do not feel the crowd was a Carnival crowd. The age group was mixed, the setting was relaxed. I really enjoyed my time on the Century, I would not worry, you will have a great time!

[CruznTom]

FWIW - there could be many Spring breakers on your 3/15 cruise as that week has by far the most college students on break. Spring Break Calendar

Breakers tend to go for the shorter cruises.

[C 2 C]

We were on a four day previous to our 5 day in January. If you opt for a balcony you can escape to your space away from the rowdies. However we heard reports from a fellow cruiser about the people grunting while doing the nasty on the balcony next to them at breakfast time...:eek:... Not exactly the grandma and grandpa crowd.;)

[chessbriar]

FWIW - there could be many Spring breakers on your 3/15 cruise as that week has by far the most college students on break. Spring Break Calendar

Breakers tend to go for the shorter cruises.

 

Celebrity requires one person in a room be at least 25. Not many 25 year olds still in school

[DancerOT]

X has no prepaid drink packages except for soda. On our 5 day cruise, the mix was no different than on longer cruises. It may, however, be different due to the timing of yours.

[emcee207]

Relax, you'll have a great time. I stressed tons before my first cruise. All kinds of people, just like real life. You'll be fine

[CruznTom]

It wasn't that bad, but we were on Zenith last March 6 for a 5 day and it was rowdier than usual.

[brigittetom]

Celebrity requires one person in a room be at least 25. Not many 25 year olds still in school

 

I don't know how they did it but the cruise Cruzn Tom is talking about had about 500 20 yo and there wasn't an older person among them. They had an extra beer station by the pool and they took over casual dining in the evenings. There certainly wasn't anyone to stop them from yelling in the hall ways either. Not a problem but the language wasn't appreciated. :rolleyes:

 

In all fairness though, we hadn't done a cruise under 10 days in years so obviously we are used to a more sedate cruise.

 

lookingforward, Have a wonderful cruise. On our cruise the young people all congreated in one place and there is always another place to go for peace and quiet.

[jerseygirl3]

Celebrity requires one person in a room be at least 25. Not many 25 year olds still in school

 

 

I believe they only require someone in the cabin to be at least 25 years old if someone in the cabin is under the age of 21. Otherwise, anybody over the age of 21 can book. Most college seniors are 21.

[lookingforward]

Thanks everyone! I totally understand that there will always be other places on board to go, and we do have a balcony so that will be nice. (we are in a sky suite ). That said, we have two teenagers and an elementary student we are leaving HOME and my husband works for the coast guard and I work for a south florida police department (and really did just take the three kids on a new years cruise on a Carnival ship) so we really, truly are looking for peace on this little get away! :)

 

Oh well, we will have a great time regardless!

[brigittetom]

Goodheavens, I was hoping that the students we cruised with were not the norm. Our students certainly were not 21 yo. because logically they would be better equipt to handle a social situation. The group we traveled with were rude and obnoxious. The yelling up and down the hallways wasn't so much a problem, The bad language was. It wasn't a problem with adult spring breakers . It was a problem with Spring Breakers period. Our cruise was filled with highschool kids. Or at the very least, highschool kids on their way to collage. I certainly don't need anyone to tell me how Celebrity enforces their rules. Been there done that.

 

We love to cruise but to have teens take over all spaces, it's time to move on. I've been told by Celebrity that the springbreakers have as much right to their cruise as we have. Certainly they do but after having taken a cruise with the spring breakers. No thank you. Never again.

[mason525]

Hi all-

I have posted before regarding our experience on Zenith 3/10/06. I don't want to put a damper on your expectations but I think I cruised with Brigettetom last year & it was Crazy! I have young adults in my family & yes whenever & whereever we've ever cruised there have been all these strict rules about age requirements for each cabin. However, they were completely ignored because these kids were not 21 let alone 25. Most of the kids that we met were lovely- polite, upbeat & fun. But even they were embassassed by peers who were so over served & obnoxious. The pool games that the staff ran were right off of MTV's Spring Break & if I was there with my kids I would have been furious. Pole dancing doesn't really fit my idea of Celebrity. The security staff could NOT control these kids who insisted on bringing glass beer bottles into the pools & breaking other common sense safety rules. We were in CC rooms so nighttime noise issues did not affect us but spoke to many who never got a good night's sleep.

My group was a girl's trip w/Moms whose kids were around the same ages as the kids on board. We were very amused & had the best time but felt badly for the families who were on with teenagers. I think that Century has a somewhat higher price point than Zenith but ours was a 5night cruise.

I would say that it's worth a call to see what the age makeup of your sailing will be & ask how they are planning to deal with Spring Breakers. Good luck. Meg

[CruznTom]

Hi all-

 

I would say that it's worth a call to see what the age makeup of your sailing will be & ask how they are planning to deal with Spring Breakers. Good luck. Meg

 

Not hardley. You are allowed to ask the question, the answer will be that you have no right to the answer. I did complain to Celebrity that our cruise consisted of Spring Breakers taking over our cruise. They were in the Casino in the nonsmoking side smoking, they took over the casual dining area in bathingsuits while no bathingsuits were allowed but the rest of us first of all couldn't find a place to sit, second, we certainly wouldn't have been allowed in the area wearing a bathingsuit. The worst was the kids jumping from one booth to another. In otherwords, the kids just took over the room and no one else would have any desire to dine there. The staff was abused, and no one cared. When I did call Celebrity to complain about this cruise, I was just simply told that the Spring Breakers had as much of a right to their cruise as we did. Well, I guess they did. Unfortunately, Celebritry didn't take into account that we will be the ones booking cruisies in the future while the spoiled teens will go home and probably never cruise again. Oh well, we will book NCL, Princess, and RCL. We will probably come back to Celebrity but it will take a good rate.

[caviargal]

Yes, it is different on Century doing the shorter cruisers. Far more casual crowd in terms of behavior and attire, more kids than the norm, noisy atmosphere by the pool.

 

It was fine for what it was but it was not the traditional Celebrity experience.

[Host Anne]

Lookingforward ~ First, I hope you and your husband have a terrific cruise. I will be very anxious to hear from you afterwards to hear how it was. Unfortunately, we were on the March 10, 2006 Zenith cruise with Mason525 and while there were a couple of good things about it (we were on a ship and we ended up getting one of our favorite dining room waiters from a previous cruise), this was definitely not a typical Celebrity cruise. I won't bring up all the issues again here (there is a review in the REVIEWS section here on Cruise Critic). But suffice it to say, if there are spring breakers on your cruise (Celebrity was definitely NOT enforcing the "someone over 25 in each cabin rule" last year), it will be far more rowdy that even the typical four and five day sailings on Century.

 

I'm hoping that Celebrity learned their lesson last year when they sold their short cruises over spring break to mostly college kids (80% on our cruise were college spring breakers) and did not do the same thing this year. I'll be looking forward to hearing from you and hoping your experience is far better than ours was last year. We are trying a 7-night on HAL out of Tampa this year so we'll see how that goes. I'm hopeful it will be a quiet relaxing time, too!

 

ENJOY!

[Drew B]

Not hardley. You are allowed to ask the question, the answer will be that you have no right to the answer. I did complain to Celebrity that our cruise consisted of Spring Breakers taking over our cruise. They were in the Casino in the nonsmoking side smoking, they took over the casual dining area in bathingsuits while no bathingsuits were allowed but the rest of us first of all couldn't find a place to sit, second, we certainly wouldn't have been allowed in the area wearing a bathingsuit. The worst was the kids jumping from one booth to another. In otherwords, the kids just took over the room and no one else would have any desire to dine there. The staff was abused, and no one cared. When I did call Celebrity to complain about this cruise, I was just simply told that the Spring Breakers had as much of a right to their cruise as we did. Well, I guess they did. Unfortunately, Celebritry didn't take into account that we will be the ones booking cruisies in the future while the spoiled teens will go home and probably never cruise again. Oh well, we will book NCL, Princess, and RCL. We will probably come back to Celebrity but it will take a good rate.

 

 

The Spring Breakers absolutely did have as much right to their cruise as you did. However, they also have as much obligation to follow the rules and not impinge on others' enjoyment as you did. Your complaint should not be that they were young or on Spring Break, but rather that they were out of control and intrusive. If a group of seniors exhibited the same behavior, I expect and hope that you would be every bit as upset!

 

Now, I'm not sure what you hoped to accomplish by calling after the cruise was over. Did you ask the staff aboard the ship to do something about the rowdy, rule-breaking behavior? They have the power to force rule-breakers off the ship at the next port. Heck, they can even lock them up in the brig if they deem it necessary. However, after the cruise is over, it's too late to do anything about it...

[CruznTom]

From Drew B

"Now, I'm not sure what you hoped to accomplish by calling after the cruise was over. Did you ask the staff aboard the ship to do something about the rowdy, rule-breaking behavior? They have the power to force rule-breakers off the ship at the next port. Heck, they can even lock them up in the brig if they deem it necessary. However, after the cruise is over, it's too late to do anything about it..."

We reported it once or twice in each venue in which we observed inappropriate bevavior , only to be told "there’s nothing we can really do about it" We recieved the same "pat" answer from "Guest Relations", who also suggested taking it up with Miami.

*

What I don’t understand is why does anyone think it is the passengers’ responsibility to report the flagrant policy violations? All the crew were on the same ship, in the same venues and I didn’t see a single one using a white cane!

*

Realizing early on that our efforts were futile, we avoided the offenders and proceeded to have a good cruise.

[C 2 C]

We reported it once or twice in each venue in which we observed inappropriate behavior , only to be told "there’s nothing we can really do about it" We recieved the same "pat" answer from "Guest Relations", who also suggested taking it up with Miami.

 

X's apparent attitude is illustrated:

[C 2 C]

One characteristic of shorter cruises: the breakfast special cart before 9 am.

[Host Anne]

I have to jump in here because I definitely took action onboard Zenith last year. The final straw was when two young college students verbally abused an elderly passenger who was complaining about noise and lanugage to the guest services staff. I immediately asked to speak with the hotel director who agreed to meet with me. I felt he was VERY honest in stating that this was the third cruise in a row that was this way and that the crew was helpless to take steps to control the actions of so many. I was told that there simply was not a way for the staff to handle all the situations that arose during these cruises, including but not limited to fights in the lounges in the evening, throwing others seated on lounge chairs into the pool lounge chair and all, etc.

 

I certainly did write to Celebrity when we returned as the behavior of many passengers onboard Zenith (regardless of their age) was absolutely unacceptable. My purpose in writing was not only to inform them of the activities on the ship (which they already knew) but to let them know that they were alienating long time Celebrity cruisers by allowing these types of cruises to happen (which they knowingly did by selling the ship to 75% of folks under the age of 22).

 

We were compensated with future cruise credits ($100 per passenger) for the disruptions on our cruise. So while it seems futile to voice opinions (before, during and after the cruise), it's important to do so. We certainly do not want to sail in this situation again.

[Radio]

One characteristic of shorter cruises: the breakfast special cart before 9 am.

 

 

Ha ha... I saw that cart at 7:30Am last month on Century.....

 

Ouch...

 

Radio

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Host Anne]

I should have noted that we used the future cruise credits on a 5-day Century cruise in December and had a wonderful time. It was a very different cruise experience from Zenith (the certificates could only be used on another 5-day cruise).

 

Lookingfoward....here's hoping you have a wonderful cruise!

[BEAV]

I just finished reading a review about the four day Century cruise. The writer loved the ship and service but observed that the four day crowd was more Carnival like, with young people on prepaid drink packages and a lot of first time cruisers. I am not against these things but my husband and I are sailing on a four night cruise in March and, quite frankly, are looking for a quiet and relaxing time. Any recent four night cruisers?

 

We no longer book cruises of 7 days or less (especially from Florida) for the same reasons you're fearing.

 

From the sounds of Century's refurbishment, I'm surprised she's relagated to cheap quickie Caribbean cruises! Sounds like she deserves longer, more exotic itineraries!

[newmexicoNita]

Celebrity requires one person in a room be at least 25. Not many 25 year olds still in school

Not so: our granddaughter got married on Celebrity and what you are refering to is only if there is a minor in the cabin. We had 3 different cabins, friends of the bride and groom where no one in the cabin was 25; heck the bride and groom weren't even 25. I am the first to say I would not want to be on a 4 day cruise in mid March. As for the OP, you have your reservations, you can't cancel and you will be alright. No matter how many spring breakers are on board you will still have a great time. Just find some quiet place on the ship to read and make sure, if you want pool time you get out there by 8am. LOl