Well we think you can appreciate from the above report that there were a lot of problems on this cruise. Many were not the fault of Celebrity, but clearly some of the scheduling, dining, and tendering issues definitely were. Posters on some Bulletin Boards were quick to coin this "The Cruise From Hell," and in many cases we can't fault their reasoning. However, missed ports are an unfortunate reality of cruising, and have happened to us on several occasions. We think Celebrity made an earnest attempt to provide alternate arrangements when these things happened, but unfortunately some of those even backfired. Celebrity does however suffer from a severe case of "poor communication" when dealing with problems, something we also noticed on the Mercury.
Another reality of the cruise experience is that shore excursions do not always run on time! Thus, individuals who choose early seating are always at risk of not arriving back from some excursions before the dinner hour, or having very little time after they get back from one to shower and get dressed for dinner. That is the PRIMARY reason many people select late seating! Late seating has its own set of drawbacks, including nightly buffets that occur just 1-1½ hours after they finish their meal, and frequently rescheduled theater entertainment to accommodate other evening activities. We think Celebrity did a commendable job of accommodating late arriving 1st seating passengers at 2nd seating in Villefranche and Civitavecchia, but fault them badly for the open seating fiasco in Le Havre. We were also very surprised that at least one of the four buffet sections in the Ocean Café was not available every evening, as is common on many other cruise lines. This would be preferable to the existing alternative dining concept which is mostly buffet style food service anyway. And in the case of Le Havre, the limited hours and methods by which a passenger can make reservations to dine here precluded those who suspected they might be late for regular dining to do so.
We are very sympathetic to those who feel so cheated by this cruise. Had it been our first cruise with Celebrity, we might be inclined not to want to cruise with them again (although it is our practice to never form a permanent opinion about any cruise line until we have sailed with them at least twice). Had this been our first trip to Europe, we would have been terribly disappointed at missing two of the major ports. But our past experiences have taught us to also remember the positive aspects of each cruise (and there are always some), lest we return from our vacation more stressed out over the problems we encountered, than we were before we left. Of course we fully realize that our Captain's Club membership alleviated the embarkation delays encountered by many, that our suite amenities allowed us to avoid the dining and tendering problems which arose, and the fact that we had been to all the destinations before insulated us from being affected by the missed ports. However, if you were someone who was adversely impacted by ALL these problems, it might be very difficult to put a positive spin on the experience.
But for Tommie and I this was a thoroughly enjoyable cruise, and we will not hesitate to cruise with Celebrity again. However, we will return on the Mercury or other 'older' ships in the fleet, and NOT choose to sail on the Millennium again, nor any of her sister ships. We do not feel the service issues in the dining room and other parts of the ship can be corrected because of the ship's design, and of course the location of the suites–which we took issue with earlier in this report–cannot be moved. Unfortunately, most of the cruise staff (restaurant waiters, cabin stewards, butlers, bar waiters, social hostesses, and others) that we talked to during the cruise all felt the same way - they can't wait for their current contracts to expire so they can return to one of the other ships. Perhaps this may account for some of the attitude of the crew ....
We hope that some of the information contained in this report will be of assistance to those who might be contemplating a cruise on Millennium, and would welcome any questions or comments at the email address shown at the beginning of the report.
