Having just returned from our Far East Cruise on our first trip with Celebrity, can honestly say that this wasn’t 5* cruising.
We chose this trip for the itinerary not the ship thank goodness and having read numerous reviews and speaking to lots of other travellers on this cruise, everyone was in agreement that this was 4* at best and that things aboard ship in general weren’t quite right.
The consensus of regular Celebrity travellers was that the ship was in need of a refurbishment, (which we had been told had already been done).
In 5* eateries you generally donot get people painting whilst you are eating, this happened twice in the spa area at lunchtimes, all you could smell was paint! The food, although good lacked finesse and portion control, ordering a steak was a bit of a lottery and as for ordering from the wine list we very rarely got the wine we ordered, although there were no complaints to the quality of what we received.
On P&O cruises, your waiter was always there to welcome you to your seat and petit fours were served after every meal.
The dress code was not adhered to on normal evenings or the formal nights, (i.e polo shirts and jeans to us do not constitute smart-casual never mind formal).
All in all the cruise was good and no major problems, just that this didnot make us feel like celebrities and cannot be described as 5*.
If P&O is 4* this particular ship is 3.5*
