Pearls of the Aegean - Review

[john_l]

Another great Thomson cruise with a wonderful itinerary, great food and entertainment and in the most part, friendly and helpful staff throughout the ship. All-in-All the Celebration is still a good value and entertaining cruise.

 

The negatives:

 

The onboard atmosphere and service has been broken in certain parts of the ship which was most notable out on the Lido deck. During our cruise in March, the Lido waiting staff were Philippino and bent over backwards to help. They all wore green tee-shirts to signal that they served drinks, were all smiles and liked a laugh and joke. “Another drink Mr John,” they would shout as they passed, “we won’t tell your wife,” they would say laughing. They took it as a bit of a personal insult if you walked up the bar yourself as if they had not done their job properly. “Please sit down sir,” they would say, “we will bring it over.”

 

How things have changed, the staff is now mixture of Malaysian and Greek. During the first day at sea, the bar was 5 deep with people trying to get a drink like a busy Friday night in a city centre pub. I couldn’t work it out whether this was due to staff cut backs or that the staff on duty just couldn’t be bothered or were simply not good at their jobs. I asked a few of the Malaysian waitresses for a drink about 4 times, and all I got back was “in a minute Sir, I am busy” and they were never seen again. There was one Greek waiter who I watched who was fetching a single drink at a time rather than takes multiple orders from a number of tables and serving them all at the same time like they did in March.

 

Also we had trouble a couple of times with the AI package. Some of the Greek staff insisted you could only order one drink per card at a time. We have never had this issue before and so avoided the particular bar person involved. The wife who likes to relax on the sun beds during the day found it impossible to get a drink ordered and had to keep waving me to go and get her a drink.

 

The rest of the week was not as bad as the first day although still a long way off the service provided on other Thomson cruises.

 

This needs to be fixed right away or it will mean that Thomson lose some of their regular customers.

 

Lido Restaurant:

 

No sure if this is a negative really, but the Lido has now become self service like on the Spirit and I actually prefer this to getting served by the chefs because it allows you to pick exactly what you want. Not sure if this has come about by customer demand or simply to save staff costs.

 

The positives:

 

If you have booked a cruise on the Celebration or are thinking of, please do not let my comments above scare you off. The ship and experience is still worth while overall. The same great staff are still present throughout most of the ship. The entertainment team is still first class and so are the household and waiting staff in both the Meridian and Lido restaurants. The food is as good as ever and the entertainment itself excellent. We particularly like the crews own talent show. They have some fantastic talent amongst the crew. Do not miss this show !

 

Ports of call:

 

The wife was recovering from a recent operation, so the purpose of the cruise for us was relaxation. We never took any excursions and so my advice is all based on “staying local”. Anyone wanting advice about excursions and getting about should read some of the other excellent reviews such as Kruzseeka’s here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=992096&highlight=celebration+adriatic+explorer+pearls+the+aegean

 

Aghios Nikolaos – Crete

 

A wonderful little port with all the main attractions within easy walking distance of the ship. Head right out of the port for about 100 yards and you come to 3 main shopping streets in front of you. Lots of tourist type shops selling the usual gifts. Each of these streets takes you up to a roundabout at the top of the street. Take a left at the roundabout down to a lovely sandy beach which is perfect for the kids to play and swim in.

Alternatively, when leaving port, take a left along the coast for a couple of hundred yards and you will come to a pebbled beach in a nice cove. Keep walking left along the winding coastal path the clings to the rocks for a further couple of hundred yards and you will come to the same sandy beach that I mention above without going through the shopping streets.

Basically one route takes you up and over the cliff to the sandy beach; the other takes you around the side to the same destination.

 

It would be very easy to break everything down into a morning afternoon session at Aghios Nikolaos. For instance you could visit the shops and lake Voulismeni in the morning, get back on board for some lunch and then visit the beach in the afternoon.

 

Kusadasi -Turkey

 

There is one main street in Kusadasi where you will find all the reputable shops like banks etc. On each side if the main street are a rabbit warren of Souk type streets all selling their wares. “Genuine original fakes” as the signs say. Prada, Coco, Armani fakes of all types and styles. Watches, bags clothes etc.

 

The traders are quite forceful and will attempt to do anything to get you into their store. However, unlike in Morocco the will not follow you down the street and will take no for an answer.

 

Beware of the prices; they attempt to get the tourist to pay 15 Euros a tee shirt at the first attempt and lots of people were paying it. However, be forceful yourself, and don’t get embarrassed and be prepared to haggle. My son got 3 of the same fake tee-shirts for 10 Euros for all 3 in another less busy street.

 

If you take a left at the terminal building you will come to a small pebbled beach about 100 yards to the left although it is nothing special.

Thira – Santorini

 

Cancelled due to something about not being able to dock because of winds. Never quite heard the entire announcement but was surprised because it was a lovely day. The captain announced that instead of spending a extra day at seas we were heading to.........

 

Pythagorion –Samos

 

What a great surprise this stop turned out to be. A lovely picture postcard horseshoe harbour lined with bars and restaurants, and unlike most seafront bars very reasonably priced. Access to the harbour is by tender from the Celebration. There is a lovely beach to the right of the harbour lined with some great restaurants which are situation literally on the beach with the water within 5 feet from your table.

 

There is one main shopping street that runs from the harbour. Access to another beach is similar to the way it is in Aghios Nikolaos. That is to say you walk to the top of the shopping street then left down to beach or take a left immediately when you get off the tender and walk the coastal route which takes about 10 minutes. Absolutely loved this stop and it is difficult to describe in words what a lovely experience it was.

 

Piraeus - Greece

 

Not much to say about this other than you really need to take a organised excursion otherwise there is not much to see the port itself is just dockland. My wife was not up to travelling on a coach so we just had a lazy day on board the ship.

 

Katakolon - Greece

Katakolon was another lovely stop on this cruise. One main shopping street that has some good quality jewellers shop along it. My wife was looking for a special christening gift and found some lovely options from which to choose

 

Just to the left of the port is another lovely sandy beach which is decked out in a Hawaiian theme with large straw sun umbrellas and which has sun beds to hire.

 

Summary :|

 

This cruise was perfect for us in that every stop apart from Piraeus had local relaxing options for my wife who was seeking relaxation over sightseeing. Each day was a pleasure and access to and from the ship to what the local stopover had to offer was very easy to reach. If anyone has any questions I will try my best to answer them.

 

I have brought copies of the cruise news home with me and I will try to scan and upload them when I get into work on Tuesday.

[kruzseeka]

Thanks for your great review, john. :) So pleased you had a good time and hope that your wife is making a good recovery.

 

I've taken note of your instructions to get to the beach at Ag Nik - that's a good option for us next time we go and the alternative to Santorini was obviously a success - so much better than another sea day!

 

It seems as though there are issues then relating to service in certain parts of the ship! I can't help but think that the change of staff (with imposed Greek crew?) is having a noticeable impact. As you say, they need to fix this otherwise loyal passengers may look elsewhere - after all it was one of the best features of Celebration. In May, when there were only a few 'replacement' staff, we noticed the difference in bar service in the show lounge - like you, we saw one of the 'new' waiters delivering one drink at a time - and then he couldn't remember where to deliver it! (And got it wrong too on occasions!) Not up to the standard for which Celebration is renowned!

 

Hopefully feedback on evaluations will ensure they do their best to remedy the situation a.s.a.p. (and I can't see regular customers not mentioning it!) Perhaps once they leave Corfu as a base port, things will begin to return to normal.

 

But as you say, it's a package and whilst you can take note of such issues, it's important to keep positive and enjoy the good aspects too - which you obviously did. It won't put us off the Celebration - at least not yet and we sincerely hope that next time we go, we see a return to the kind of service levels that we have come to expect from Thomson.

[sobral]

Thanks for the review. We too had disappointing service on our recent cruise on the Destiny, later found out that they shipped in some staff from other ships in the second week to help since quite alot of passengers were complaining. I too hope Thomsons redress this issue with service since recently they scored very highly(much to the annoyance of some other cruisers from other cruiselines! LOL) on the other site's survey and service was one of the highest features!

[john_l]

Copies of the "Cruise news" for anyone interested.

 

Day at sea

 

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/5776/sea1e.jpg

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8228/sea2bfq.jpg

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/5960/sea3f.jpg

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/9844/sea4.jpg

 

Aghios Nicklois

 

http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/5729/age1.jpg

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/4876/age2x.jpg

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9226/age3.jpg

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/3672/age4l.jpg

 

Kusadasi

 

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/4185/kus1.jpg

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/9928/kus2.jpg

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/979/kus3.jpg

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/4250/kus4i.jpg

 

Piraeus

 

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/2415/pir1.jpg

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/9630/pir2.jpg

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/7734/pir3.jpg

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1209/pir4o.jpg

 

Samos

 

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/3530/sam1esh.jpg

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/9688/sam2o.jpg

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/57/sam3c.jpg

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/6908/sam4.jpg

 

Katakolon

 

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1838/kat1b.jpg

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4018/kat2q.jpg

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5465/kat3l.jpg

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1165/kat4y.jpg

[scottishlynne]

I was also on the cruise at the same time as you and we did the first week in the Adriatic and 2nd week in the Aegean. We were on Celebration 3 years ago and my husband and I both felt the bar and waiting service were not the same, probably due to staff cuts due to the current economic climate (that's what we are figuring) we did meet some staff from the previous cruise.

 

We have no complaints, were disappointed not getting to Santorini but it seems a common occurence but we also loved Samos. We were not keen on Kusadasi, we did the trip to Ephesus but coaches insisted on dropping you in the main shopping area and trying to persuade you to go into a carpet show. We loved all the ports of call we did a few excursions (Venice; Dubrovnic, Piraues for Athens and Ephesus) but most of the ports were easy to walk into all the places we visited.

 

We had Cabin 062 on Deck 8 and it was perfectly situated, we heard there was some flooding on Deck 3 early last Friday morning (28th).

 

We would recommend cruising with Thomsons.

 

Scottish Lynne :)

[jojo67]

Thank you so much for posting those, it has been great to see what goes on onboard! Glad you had a good trip.

[kruzseeka]

Thanks john for copying the Cruise News - that's great. :) I've had a look at the evening's entertainment and see that it is a different duo in Explorers from when we were last on board. Pleased you rated the entertainment - it was a bit ragged round the edges early in the season, but it looks as if it's come together now. Didn't that Katy Setterfield take part in one of those TV reality shows where people impersonated famous singers? In fact did she win it? In any case I seem to remember she was very good. Thanks again - just wanted to know what to expect next month.

[kruzseeka]

This Cruise News info is so useful for Thomson first timers (or those new to cruising) we ought to have a means of bookmarking your post john. We could direct members to it when they want info on entertainment/kids clubs/salon offers/daytime activities etc. I know the details will change from ship to ship and from season to season but it gives a brilliant insight into life on board. Well done and thanks for taking the trouble to copy it all. I'm sure lots of other CC members will really appreciate it too. :)

[john_l]

This Cruise News info is so useful for Thomson first timers (or those new to cruising) we ought to have a means of bookmarking your post john. We could direct members to it when they want info on entertainment/kids clubs/salon offers/daytime activities etc. I know the details will change from ship to ship and from season to season but it gives a brilliant insight into life on board. Well done and thanks for taking the trouble to copy it all. I'm sure lots of other CC members will really appreciate it too. :)

 

Thanks Kruzseeka, I hope people do find it useful. I know people do worry about their first cruise, so I hope it goes some way to show people what they can expect during a Thomson cruise.

[john_l]

Didn't that Katy Setterfield take part in one of those TV reality shows where people impersonated famous singers? In fact did she win it? .

 

Hi Kruzseeka

 

Yes you are right, she won the "one and only" show

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/theoneandonly/

[hanra222]

I was also on the cruise at the same time as you and we did the first week in the Adriatic and 2nd week in the Aegean. We were on Celebration 3 years ago and my husband and I both felt the bar and waiting service were not the same, probably due to staff cuts due to the current economic climate (that's what we are figuring) we did meet some staff from the previous cruise.

 

We have no complaints, were disappointed not getting to Santorini but it seems a common occurence but we also loved Samos. We were not keen on Kusadasi, we did the trip to Ephesus but coaches insisted on dropping you in the main shopping area and trying to persuade you to go into a carpet show. We loved all the ports of call we did a few excursions (Venice; Dubrovnic, Piraues for Athens and Ephesus) but most of the ports were easy to walk into all the places we visited.

 

We had Cabin 062 on Deck 8 and it was perfectly situated, we heard there was some flooding on Deck 3 early last Friday morning (28th).

 

We would recommend cruising with Thomsons.

 

Scottish Lynne :)

 

Hi,

We are going on the Celebration for New Year and have pre-booked cabin 062, can you tell me the layout as it looks a little different to the shape of 016 which we had previously on deck 9.

Is it unobstructed view?

Thanks, be great to hear back from you.