My wife and I cruised to the Baltic on the Celebrity Eclipse 25/7/15 – 8/8/15 this was our third cruise on the Eclipse in 2 years .
The cabin stewards looked after us very well and were as friendly and attentive as ever , the waiting staff in the bars and restaurants were professional ,friendly and gave excellent service .
Unfortunately we feel the same cannot be said of the Moonlight Sonata restaurant manager his attitude and some of his comments were we found at times to be inappropriate .
Our dining experiences were mixed the first few nights were chaotic with large queues outside the upstairs section of the Moonlight Sonata .We felt that Select dining seemed over subscribed we assumed that this was as a consequence of the main restaurant having been adapted to provide a restaurant to serve exclusively the passengers in Suite Class .
We did not have the flexibility as on previous cruises to dine when we chose and had to wait in the bar with pagers until tables became free we went to dinner later than we would have liked to lessen the waiting time .We were told make reservations but these were subject to availability .
We found the food served in the Moonlight Sonata disappointing definitely not as good as on previous cruises but the food in the self service Ocean ViewCafehad improved .The meals served were the subject of much discussion with other passengers who had previously sailed on the Eclipse and other Celebrity ships .We agreed with one of our fellow passengers who remarked that the meals served in the Moonlight Sonata were like school dinners and that the Ocean ViewCafewas like his works canteen.
We and other passengers noted that the some of the crockery in the self service restaurant was chipped again this was not noted on our previous cruises .
We highly recommend the 5 dinner offer for 3 of the Speciality Restaurants we enjoyed excellent service and superb food at the Murano and Tuscan restaurants well worth the additional charge ,however ,the Qsine restaurant was an odd experience peculiar food combinations and one dessert that had us decorating cup cakes had we been 6 years old and not 60 we would probably have been delighted .
We had the continental type pillows (cushion sized ) to sleep on and asked if these could be changed to usual sized pillows we have at home and which we had on previous cruises and were advised that the ones in the cabin were the only pillows available to us , in the brochure it stated that as part of the Concierge Class we had a pillow menu There seemed to be an issue with linen as the table napkins provided in the Moonlight were damp and un ironed and the hand towels in the toilets on the pool deck were like old fashioned floor cloths this did not compare with our previous experiences on the Eclipse .
We noticed that a number of passengers neglected to use the hand sanitisers provided and this went unchecked by staff and that passengers were refilling water bottles they had been drinking out of at the water dispensers again this went unchecked by the staff .
In general the ship is now looking tired , the the cabins are in need of refurbishment and many of the sun beds were badly stained To end on a positive note the organised tours of St Petersburg were fantastic all the other ports of call we toured independently ,safely and easily using either the hop on bus or taxis the taxis were usually cheaper.
