Great ship for lazy loungers and deck party shenanigans!
One of the best things about the ship was the solarium. Celebrity has a wide variety of plush loungers and great seating areas, and the over sixteen pool in the solarium was fantastic. Their hot tubs are huge. I LOVED THE CASINO. As a non smoker I appreciated the fact that the casino is no smoking, and basic drinks are free for active gamblers. I am fond of video poker and they had a good amount of machines available. My ocean view room was extremely comfortable and the view was awesome. The food in the buffet and the MDR was very good, but did not have as much variety as a Princess cruise. I think the desserts were better on Celebrity, however! And the Shine the Night party has to be the best deck party at sea! (Sorry Princess) Otherwise, I find Celebrity and Princess to be very comparable. The ports are great. Key West is always a blast, but you can sleep in, because all of Key West does. Bimini has beautiful beaches, but you will need to either rent a golf cart(inexpensive) to get around or book at one of the resorts. There is very little in the port area itself, and the southern tip of the island has a phenomenal beach. We had a great time, even if the oncoming hurricane made the sea rougher than usual. I would definitely take this cruise again in the future.
Great ship, friendly staff, awesome casino host. But there are a few things I wish I knew before the trip.
1) On this ship you must hit cash out and get a white piece of paper. Money you won is NOT loaded to your room key, like other ships. I left money in the machines for the first two days, not knowing this.
2. When you swipe your room key to start a machine, you must see your name and a green light on the screen, if the light goes blue, you are not earning points. This happens a lot if you get a machine bonus, check your light is green after each bonus. I’m sure I missed casino points on the buffalo game each time I got 3 gold coins.
3) Machine turned off on me, during a bonus spin…. It was weird, had to wait 5-10 minutes for machine to reboot. Stopped winning after the reboot???!?!
4) They delivered free room offers, the night before our last day at sea… seemed early because I earned a bunch more points after I got the offer, not sure why they give offers so early on this ship.
I will go again with Celebrity, but I’ll be more aware of the casino rules and I’ll ALWAYS hit cash out :)
The employees were very friendly, I was under the impression celebrity was known for top quality food. What we experienced was Luke warm tasteless food, dining room or buffet. The casino had some oppressive rules for bj 6/5 pay on bj. Craps only allowed one times bet on pass line unless you placed $50 pass line bet. This is the last cruise I will take. I thought celebrity was higher quality.
It seemed like they were cutting corners and finding a way to squeeze additional money out of you.
Never again I feel I wasted 11 days taking this trip