First experience of Celebrity

We returned last week from a cruise to the Med on the Eclipse. She’s a beautiful ship and we found most of the crew really friendly and helpful. We have previously cruised with P&O and Cunard and we expected this cruise to surpass the others because the Eclipse is classed as a 5* ship. We booked AquaClass because we’d had a very difficult year and felt we deserved some special attention. However, we were in room 1512 and soon discovered that, when the ship was designed, it was decided to put the Fitness Centre directly over the Forward Starboard rooms – which is where our room was located. The noise was terrible – from 6.00am to 10.00pm – and on one occasion until 10.45 because it was being used by the crew. I would definitely advice anybody going on the Eclipse to avoid the rooms in that area. We were found a room on another deck after 9 days but it definitely spoilt our holiday.

As on many ships, we found the Ocean View very crowded and chaotic at times. As AquaClass passengers we dined in the evening in Blu and it was excellent. Both the food and the service couldn’t be faulted.

We found the staff in Excursions to be particularly unhelpful, especially as my husband has mobility problems and they tried very hard to tell us none of the excursions were suitable. We decided to take a chance and book a couple and found that there were actually no problems at all – both the disembarkation crew and the tour operators were very helpful. I wonder how many other people missed out because of bad advice from the excursion staff.

We didn’t go ashore at each port but we enjoyed the ones we visited. The weather was wet and miserable on some days – which I hasten to add has nothing to do with the cruise company! – and that meant that the ship felt quite crowded on sea days. We both enjoy the chance to read while on holiday and have previously found the ship library to be full of interesting books but we were both very disappointed with the books on board Eclipse.

I would love to give the Cleanliness rating 5 stars because the crew worked very hard to maintain the cleanliness of the ship but, unfortunately, I was one of the passengers who spent two days in isolation because of the noro-virus on board. The crew worked very hard to keep the spread to a minimum but the necessary restrictions which they had to make obviously added to our problems.

So, just to summarize, taking all our experiences into account, it has left us feeling that we prefer not to cruise with Celebrity again.