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Name: Blaise Keen
Email: tbkeen@mail.tqci.net
Age: 46
Occupation: Program Manager
NumberOfCruises: 3
TravelAgent: No
Ship: Celebrity-Century
SailingDate: 9 May 1998
Itinerary: Eastern Caribean
FoodDiningRoom: 93
CruiseDirector: 80
CabinComfort: 92
FoodRoomService:
CruiseStaff: 85
CabinAmenities: 85
FoodLidoDeck: 90
DiningRoomService: 90
CabinQuietness: 85
FoodMidnightBuffets: 88
CabinSteward: 90
ShoreExcVariety: 80
FoodVariety: 95
DeckService:
ShoreExcValue: 75
GoodForHoneymoon: 85
CasinoStaff:
PrivateIsland:
GoodForFamilies: 85
LoungeService: 85
TenderService: 83
GoodForSeniors: 90
BeautySalonStaff:
EntertainmentLounges: 88
WheelchairAccess:
ExerciseFacilities: 90
EntertShowLounge: 88
OverallPortsofCall: 80
BeautySalon:
EntertainmentPoolside: 85
CruiseActivities: 80
Casino:
AirSeaProgram:
MedicalFacilities:
ShipCleanliness: 95
EmbarkDisembark: 88
DiscoNightclubs: 88
DeckSpace: 93
Stabilization: 85
ShopsOnBoard: 83
SpaceRatio: 95
OverallCruiseValue: 90
Submit: Submit Review
Date: 24 May 1998
Time: 21:30:47
Remote Name: 207.199.190.74
Remote User:
Comments
We chose this cruise because the departure date matched our plans
and our cruise travel agent gave us a good deal. Our group
included me, my wife, and
sons ( 21 and 19). We drove to Ft Lauderdale, so I can't comment
on flight arrangements. By car, finding the Century is a breeze.
After unloading the car, you
have to drive to a parking garage which cost $7 per day ($49
total), there are shuttle buses to and from the garage.
Unloading, parking, and shuttling back to
the ship was very efficient.
We arrived about 1:00 PM and it took about an hour to get on
board. As people arrive, they are given a ticket with a number.
You then go to the large waiting
area and wait for your number to be called.
On board, Century is a beautiful vessel. Everything was clean and
shiny. I particularly like all the real wood that was used in the
public spaces -- like the dining
room and Rendezvous Square. The Hemisphere lounge is impressive
with a wraparound view of the water. All the lounges are very
nice.
The health club is large, well equipped and has great views of
the water. I recall about 8 treadmills, 6 step machines, 6-7
bikes, an assortment of Nautilus
machines, and nice rack of dumbells. There is an adjacent aerobic
workout area. If you are a runner, plan to use the treadmills.
The treadmill have sign-up logs
and are supposed to be limited to 30 minutes sessions. I didn't
notice any significant waiting for the treadmills. Usually, there
was one available. The sign-up
sheet seems to be a precautionary measure.
There is a lot of space on Century. The only place I ever really
noticed a crowd was in the dining room. The pool area can get
crowded, but this is to be
expected.
I read some review complaints about too many kids, during our
cruise I would say there were not many kids.
We had inside cabins 8074 and 8078 and found them to be quiet --
never noticed noise from other cabins. We did hear some
complaints from our dinner table
companions. Overall we found the cabins to be very comfortable
and significantly larger than the room on a previous ship and
cruise. The beds were
comfortable. My only complaint was that I didn't like the
pillows. I like pillow that lets your head sink deeply. Century
pillows were too firm for me. Truthfully, I find
most motels and hotels use a similar pillow. I think they must
look better when the bed is made. Having a safe in the room was
nice. There is plenty of closet and
drawer space. The bathroom and shower are reasonably spacious
too.
Food was very good to excellent everywhere. On a previous cruise
line, only the dining room had good food, while the buffets were
mediocre. On Century, the
buffet food was very good to excellent. We didn't sample much of
the midnight food, because we were still full from late seating
dinner, which generally wrapped
up about 10:30 pm. We did sample some of the Tex Mex buffet and
found the Tacos to be excellent. In general desserts were very
good everywhere. Those
that are fond of soup found them to be excellent in both the
dining room and buffets. I experimented with a number of the cold
soups. The fruit soups were
similar to a fruit sherbet in taste -- black cherry and rhubarb
were good. The only one that I didn't care for was a beet soup --
not surprising since I don't care
for beets either. One of our dinner table companions, Marvin, has
a gluten intolerance, so he avoided pasta, bread, and anything
else made of wheat. When the
maitre'd learned this, he produce a plate of gluten free bread.
It tasted like a heavy whole wheat bread. Marvin explained that
such bread was a rare treat for
him as it cost about $5 a loaf in health food store. Marvin had
gluten free bread all week. The Century chefs bake all the bread
on board, and as a practice,
prepare a dozen loaves of this gluten free bread each week. I
enjoyed the fruit at the breakfast buffet. The grapefruit was
sweet, fresh pineapple was terrific,
some days they had raspberries and blackberries. They had papaya
one morning. One of the midnight buffets had a tropical fruit
theme and many more unusual
(at least for us) fruits were served.
One review that I read complained of a lack of food other than
pizza between 2:30 and the 8:30 late dinner seating. Our trip had
an 'afternoon tea' in the
Islands Cafe from 4 to 5 pm. This was another buffet -- not like
lunch, but certainly enough to prevent hunger (ha ha) before
dinner. We liked to go to afternoon
tea for the desserts. There was also a 'formal' tea one day, it
was a separate affair and we didn't attend. The pizza was decent,
but not as good Pizza Hut or
Papa Johns. It was fully cooked -- the crust was baked
completely. The cheese was consistently not browned, but it was
hot and melted. Personally, I like
browned cheese, but Century pizza is OK.
We didn't partake in any of the official shore excursions. In San
Juan, it is easy enough to walk to the nearby historic sites. In
St. Thomas we just went shopping.
In St. Maarten, we rented a car from one of the street vendors
standing at the pier with a 'car rental' sign. The car was $50
plus $5 tax plus $10 for CDW. Gas
was my responsibility. The tank was empty when I got the car. I
put 20 liters (about 5 gallons) of gas in the car, which cost
$15. This was plenty of fuel for the few
hours that we drove around. The car, a Toyota, didn't look like
much, but it ran well and the air-conditioning worked -- very
important, because it was very hot.
We checked out Orient beach -- it was very nice. Drove through
Margoli (?). Generally, when you look from shore at the water,
St. Maarten is pretty. Look inland
and it was fairly desolate. Expect to travel on some dirt roads
too.
On Thursday, at sea, we hit some rough water. As big as Century
is, it still rolls in the heavy seas. It wasn't terrible, but it
was enough to do in those susceptible
to seasickness. Those that didn't get seasick found the rolling
interesting.
The cruise director's staff made an effort to record the last
episode of Seinfeld for playback at midnight in the Celebrity
Theater. The rough seas apparently
interfered with their capability to keep their antenna pointed at
the satelite. The playback had many lost segments -- though I
think all the commercials came
through fine. In any case, it was a galant attempt by the cruise
director to do something different. They posed a list of
Seinfield trivia questions before the
showing. There was a plan to hold a Kramer look-alike contest,
but we left before the end of showing and don't know if it
actually occured.
Generally, we thought the entertainment was good. The Celebrity
singers and dancer performed well. The comedian was OK -- seen
better, seen worse. We
didn't go to see the one man song show by Mark Preston --
'formerly with the Letterman'. Our favorite act was the 'Gravity
comedy of Rick Schnitker'. If he is on
your cruise, don't miss him. My only complaint with the shows
were the fireworks used inside the Celebrity Theater during some
of dance routines. The smoke
filled the room with nasty fumes. I found myself taking short
breaths in a subconcious attempt not to breathe the smoke. I
don't know how the singers and
dancers put up with it. The various bands and lounge musicians
were very good. We enjoyed the string quartet that played in the
dining room each evening.
The Eastern Caribean cruise has a lot of 'at sea' time. This was
fine with us, because we were there for the ship not the
ports-of-call. We had an extra full day at
sea on Friday, because the captain diverted course in the middle
of the night to get close enough to another island so the USCG
could airlift (helocopter) a
heart-attack victim from the ship. This delayed the arrival time
in Nassau to the point where the captain decided to forego the
port call.
Overall, we had a great time and would recommend Century to
anyone. Since we are still interested in a West Caribean cruise
in the future, we will seriously
consider taking it on Century or another Celebrity ship.
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