Great experience: OK Shore excursions
Written: Jun 20 '04 (Updated Jun 22 '04)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Service, food, location, friendly staff, the ship, entertainment.. almost everything
Cons: Shore excursions are not so good, tip and shore excursions can make it expensive
The Bottom Line: A great cruise experience.
|
|
|
| awesome007's Full Review: Celebrity Millennium |
Rating:
Overall: A
Service: A+
Food: A+
Accommodation: A+
Ship: A+
Entertainment: A
Shore Excursions: C
Price: B
Note:
When you look at the price, keep the following in consideration.
- On average people spend $600/person for shore excursions
- Recommended Tip for a day = $30/person (~$350/person)
**** New information about the ship *****
Many readers have asked for more information about the ship. I will try my best:
This is a beautiful ship. We had a stateroom without a window (the least expensive one) on the deck#9, midship. The room was not very large (not very small either). I guess it was 8'x12'. The room was quite clean and very well maintained. The bathroom has a bit of wet smell. I would recommend that you keep a travel can of Lysol spray. The room attendant provided excellent service. They will come make your room when you ask them, they will put a chocolate on a pillow by the time you come back from the dinner.
Overall: Excellent service and good room
We really liked the fact that one of the TV channel shows live cam from the front of the ship. When you go to sleep, you have no idea when the morning breaks. We kept our TV on and were able to lighten our room as the sun rose.
SPAs: Get your reservations done as soon as you board. They get filled very quickly. It is quite expensive (almost double the standard price).
Exercise room: I did not use the room. The room was empty most of the time. I used the running track on the 11th deck. It was a great experience.
Food: You have multiple choices of food. The main formal dinning was amazing. They also have a vegetarian menu. You can look at both menus and pick your food. The waiters were extremely attentive. It was truly a great experience. The desserts were unbelievable. The dinning room is very well decorated with many windows.
It is like going to a five star restaurant every night when someone else is paying for it. We always ordered multiple appetizers and desserts to try out. If we had to pay for it, it would have been $125/person/day.
You also have a grill, sushi bar, pizza bar, and many other variety of food available. They also organized Indian food a couple of times.
Overall: Cannot ask for more in terms of quality and quantity of the food.
Entertainment:
They had a different program everyday. It was similar to Broadway experience. I have been to the Broadway shows and this was certainly not as good (but very close). They also had a couple of comedy shows that were good. You also have an option of piano bar, disco, and other live music everyday.
Activities: You can have bridge game, shuffle board (it is worn out but still fun), table tennis, basketball court.. The amazing thing was that none of these were crowded. They have many activities on the ship and each attract different crowd.
That's all I can remember. Other than the shore excursion, the cruise was the best.
Good:
This is a beautiful ship. It can accommodate 2000 passengers and 1000 crew but you will never feel crowded. The only place that gets a little crowded is the pool side on the day at Sea.
The food is excellent. They also are very good at accommodating your special needs (skim milk, vegetarian meals, late dinner, etc.) They teat you like a king. You truly enjoy the five course meals and you can order more than one entrée and desert if you like. Their fast food is also excellent. Don’t forget to check out the healthy food by the spa. They have best healthy food you ever try. It is a rare occasion when healthy food tests better than fatty food.
Overall service is excellent. They remember small details (you need extra comforter, water without ice) without asking twice. The staff is really friendly.
The port selection is excellent. They have combination of fast & big, and small & cozy locations on the trip. They have also divided the days at sea evenly to provide you time for relaxing.
Bad
The shore excursions were not so impressive. The following outlines sequence of events in the shore excursions:
1. Everyone gathers in a designated room
2. You receive a bus number sequence (10 mins)
3. You wait for your turn to leave the ship (10 mins)
4. You walk to the bus/boat (10 mins)
5. If the bus ride is more than an hour, there will be a restroom break (30 mins)
6. If lunch is included, (1.5-2.5 hours, including the time to go to the restaurant)
7. You drive back (10-80) minutes
8. All buses arrives at the same time, and the security line to get back to the ship is long (15 mins)
Overall you spend a lot of time in the logistics instead of spending time at the locations you want. Another disadvantage is that you have to follow your guide during all of your walks (50 other people are following the same guide). You do not get to enjoy the walk and look at the great architecture because you are too worried about getting lost.
Another disadvantage is that you do not get to select how much time you want to spend at a given location. I really liked setting my own pace. I had booked shore excursions for each day, I cancelled all of them after the first 3 days. I thought that you only spent 30% of the shore excursion time for enjoying the rest was about getting there and coming back.
A few more notes about the shore excursions:
1. Some of the locations are far out and sometimes difficult to reach. (You can always take public transportation. We talked to the concierge and he told us how to use public transportation). If you have a group of 4 or more a personal cab will cost less than the shore excursions (make sure you set your price and bargain)
2. Language barrier: The public transportation requires a bit of adventure. You should know a few words of local language.
3. Guide: Our guides were OK. You can always hire a local guide if you go on your own.
Locations where I did not take shore excursions:
1. Santorini: You get dropped off at the foothill. You can take a donkey ride or a cable cart to go up. You will be in the town called Fira. There is a bus station in a 10 minutes walk. Make sure you visit Oia. It is a beautiful location with a great sunset. It is 30 minutes in bus (0.90 Euro/person each way). You can use the bus to go to other locations too.
2. Mykonos, Greece: No need for a shore excursion. You are dropped off in the downtown. Everything is in the walking distance
3. Athens: The train station is 35 minutes walk (6 Euro for cab). The train station name is Piraeus. Take a map from the concierge. You will be taking a green line train to the central location and switch to the red line to go to the acropolis. Once you get off, it is all the walking distance. You can hire a local guide. They chard 60 euros for an hour. You have to find other people like you to share the cost. We found 10 people in no time, and paid only 5 Euros/person.
4. Dubrovnik: You are dropped off at the main city. It is only 1 mile in diameter and you can walk everywhere.
5. Venice: The tender will drop you off at the main square. You can walk for the rest of the day or take a 24 hour water bus (not taxi) for 10.5 Euro/person. If you are staying an extra day in Venice, the 24 hour pass can be used to take a bus to the airport (bus #5). The water taxi will cost 90 Euros. Taxi from the port to the airport is about 70 Euros and normally gets very crowded. The ship provides a free bus to the bus station/water taxi station. You can pay 5 euro/person to take a bus to the airport.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
awesome007
|
|
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.