Review of Carnival Celebration

Following is my (much delayed) review of my 4/8/95 cruise on Carnival's Celebration. This was the second time that I had sailed on the Celebration, having previously sailed on her back in 1989. This was my 16th cruise overall, with prior cruises having been on NCL's Seaward, Norway and Sunward II, Carnival's Celebration and Fantasy, Costa's Costa Classica, Princess' Crown Princess, Dolphin's OceanBreeze and SeaBreeze, Regency's Regent Sun and Regent Star, Crown Cruise Line's Crown Jewel, Cunard Crown's Crown Dynasty, Star Clipper, and Celebrity's Horizon.

This was the first cruise that I had been on in which Eric didn't accompany me, and I missed him. I think that this probably gave me an opportunity to observe some things which I would not otherwise have done. We had originally booked the trip as a present for my brother, who always takes care of our dogs while we go cruising. His travelling companion ducked out on him, so I ended up going in her stead. Tough job, but someone had to do it. The trip was booked around 4 months prior to sailing. We booked a cat. 4 guarantee and received a very nice cat. 7 cabin.

We had booked our own air, arriving on American about 1:30 P.M.. We took a taxi to the ship. Flat rate for the taxi is $15.75, including any number of passengers and bags. Tip is extra. We stood in line around 20 minutes, signed up for our Sail & Sign Card, and received our keys by the gangway. Unlike on many ships these days, all cabin doors were closed, preventing one from getting a view of the other cabins. This procedure irritated me, as a seasoned sailor, as I enjoy being able to wander about checking out cabins on a new ship, prior to other passengers getting onboard.

The cabin we received was on Main Deck and actually a handicapped cabin, which explains, I suppose, why it was available. I assume that Carnival keeps at least one handicapped cabin available until almost the last minute, to accommodate handicapped sailors. In any event, it was nicely located right by the Purser's Desk. As with all the newer Carnival ships, while the cabin was by no means luxurious, cabin space was ample, with 2 twins which did NOT slide together on this cruise (G!!). Hanging space included around 2 linear feet of space, with plenty of hangers. Also, inside the closet were 5 shelves, ranging from the floor to the ceiling. Other storage space included 5 drawers. Storage space was very ample. Inside the closet was a safe, key model, not combination, unfortunately. For some reason, you had to obtain the key from the cabin steward and return it to him on the last night. I prefer a combination lock, but having a safe in the cabin, regardless of combination or key, is a big plus for me. There was a steward call button, which I don't remember seeing in a while on a ship. The beds were very low to the floor and did not allow my (rather large) suitcases to fit under.

The bathroom included a real medicine cabinet, with plenty of storage space for toiletries, which you should have brought from home. Carnival provides NO shampoo, conditioner, lotion, shower cap, etc. The shower was large and had grab bars, in keeping with the handicapped status of the room. The room itself appeared to be a standard size, and the only apparent modifications were the width of the outside door, lowering of the door into the bathroom, and the rails in the shower stall.

The TV provided only about 3 channels most of the week, with one usually showing reruns of ship shows, plus two movie channels, and occasionally ESPN. I never saw either CNN or any other live network broadcasts, although I concede I watched the TV hardly ever. The selection of movies was very good, and included Star Trek Generations, Forrest Gump, Shawshank Redemption, Dumb and Dumber, Little Women, Legends of the Fall, and Nell.

Carnival does not want you to use room service and the "service" that they provide is not good. First, they kind of hide the numbers for room service. The daily programs did not even LIST a number to call room service. It's only mention of room service was to state NOT to call from 4-5 P.M., as it was very busy between those hours. On two different occasions, (and NOT between 4-5 P.M.) I tried to call room service and it rang about 20 times and nobody answered. Our tablemates reported about the same luck with room service, stating they waited over an hour for a sandwich on one occasion and 45 minutes for a fruit plate on another occasion.

After checking out the cabin, we headed up for the welcome aboard buffet. Upon boarding, I was surprised at how many people were about on deck. It seems that on most ships, the ship is a ghost-town until well after sailing. On the Celebration, the area surrounding the Trolley Bar was packed with passengers, getting a start on their drinking (G!!) and listening to the guitarist playing there. The top deck was also packed with passengers, enjoying the steel band music and lining up in the long line for the buffet.

The Wheelhouse Bar and Grill is the buffet restaurant on the Celebration and represented what I considered one of the major deficiencies on the ship. The physical facilities for the buffet lines on the Celebration class of ship are sadly deficient. The problem is that the lines require that the passenger go inside the area where the hamburgers, etc., are being cooked. This area is VERY small, and gets very warm. At lunch, there is iced tea and lemonade provided. However, since the area is so warm, any lemonade or tea is immediately watered down to an undrinkable state, once you put ice in it. Also, since the lines are so short, there is little room to display food and the selection is pitiful. The lunch selection was almost exactly the same every day--hamburgers, hotdogs, chicken sandwiches, french fries, potato salad, slaw, assorted desserts, plus ONE hot entre, and ONE hot vegetable each day. At lunch, there was a separate salad bar which was a nice relief from the only choices of hamburgers and hotdogs. Breakfast in the Wheelhouse provided the same meager display of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, cereal, danish, and a fruit salad. There were NO eggs cooked to order, no omelettes, no french toast, no pancakes, no oranges, watermelon or pineapple for breakfast. In order to obtain any drinks, hot or cold, you have to go inside the food line, as opposed to most ships, where the beverage line is separate from the food line. Also, there are no tables aft outside by the Wheelhouse to enjoy your meal. If you want to eat outside on the Celebration class ships, the only tables are in the center of the ship, not in the sun and with very little exposure to sea breezes. Servers brought around coffee in the mornings and cleanup of dirty tables seemed fairly prompt, except for one day at sea, when service seemed very slow. As a consequence of the extremely limited buffet menu, and the limited outside eating area, we ate in the main dining room for all breakfasts except one and all lunches except two.

Supposedly some passengers had been delayed by weather, which I thought unusual, since it was April, but we left port around one hour late, to the tunes of Cathy Lee singing "If They Could See Me Now", being played over the loudspeakers. At this point, I was convinced that I had made a mistake picking Carnival, but what the heck, the trip was paid for and I wasn't expected back to work for a week anyway!

With leaving late, plus the obligatory lifeboat drill, it was soon time for our second seating dinner. We ended up with a table for 4. Our tablemates were quite a bit younger than I and we didn't have a lot in common, but we had an enjoyable enough time anyway. However, given my choice, I will always choose a larger table for 8 or 10, as there is much more opportunity for conversation there. There are a large number of tables for 4 on the Celebration class ships.

We had an agreeable waiter named Amin, who while not being the best waiter I have ever had by far, was fun to talk to and made very few mistakes in the delivery of food orders. One night I ordered three appetizers and he blinked not an eye. Another night, I ordered a cold shrimp bisque soup which I took one sip of and pronounced that I could not eat. I think that he suspected that I wouldn't like it, as he hovered close and whisked it away with no murmur whatsoever. A couple of nights, I asked his advice for entre orders, and he rarely steered me wrong. He did not, however, bring the desserts to show us what each one looked like--a sign to me of a really good waiter. One of the best times of the week that we had involved a joke that I played on Amin, but we'll leave that till we get to St. Marten.

Our busboy for the week was Michael. This was his very first week on ANY ship. He worked very hard to keep our glasses filled and plates cleared away. However, he was often in physical jeopardy, as our table was right by the entrance for the galley, and all the waiters had to pass by our table with huge platters of food. Michael often just BARELY got out of their way. We had several chuckles over his just barely getting out of the way of a huge tray of food. That's something that he will learn in time. Actually, I kind of wondered how much actual food service experience that Michael had. One day, I wanted some fresh ground pepper for my steak. Michael disappeared for a long time and came back, finally, with a pepper mill and sat it on the table and walked away. Our tablemates said me to "Wasn't he supposed to do that for you?" We laughed a lot. I was convinced that he didn't know how to operate the pepper mill, and that's why he just left it. On the last day at sea, we ate in the dining room for lunch, as we usually did, and Amin let Michael take our orders. I wanted the lasagna and also wanted the french fries that were on the menu, next to the steak sandwich. I told Michael I wanted the lasagna and some french fries, and told him I saw them on the menu, so he couldn't say that he didn't have them! We laughed and I got my french fries and we had some good fun. Michael had a nice personality and I'm sure he will eventually be a good waiter himself.

After dinner, it was time for my brother to attend the single's party (too many spring breakers on board, he said), and for me to lose a little money in the casino, then off to bed after a busy day.

For those of you who don't know, the Celebration's itinerary goes to the Eastern Caribbean from Miami, sailing on Saturday to San Juan, St. Thomas and St. Marten, with 2 days at sea on each end. I enjoy this itinerary, in that it gives one lots of time at sea. Sunday, therefore, was at sea, and we did very little during the day, not being able to get much sun, as the weather was kind of dark, even though it never actually rained. Forrest Gump played on the TV on Sunday, and I should have watched it, as I have not, to this day, seen it. Sunday afternoon also gave me the opportunity to play some $.25 roulette. On sea days, from noon to 7 P.M., the Celebration has $.25 roulette, which I took ample advantage of.

On Sunday, I also attended the first of two art auctions that I attended for the week, purchasing a signed lithograph for $60. Later on in the week, I purchased a framed, original oil for $120. It was fun and they shipped the items directly home for me by UPS. It's a nice way of obtaining a good souvenir of the trip, plus there was free champagne. A good combination, all the way around.

Sunday evening was the first formal night and the night of the captain's cocktail party. Unlike most any other captain's party we have attended, there were real HOT hor d'oeuvres on the Celebration, and plenty of them. There were quiches, crab puffs, meatballs, and some other offerings, and we got plenty to eat, as well as 2 glasses of champagne. The seats in the balcony section of the main show lounge have a nice feature, which is a pull out slide attached to each seat, on which you can place your drinks. We also attended the captain's farewell party on the second formal night, and we also got plenty of hor d'ouevres there. I was impressed. What I was NOT impressed with, however, was that there was apparently NO repeaters party at all, as I indicated on the card that I had sailed with Carnival before and we got no invitation to any repeaters party.

After dinner, I attended the main show with my brother and suffered through a horrible performance by the Celebration dancers. Production shows on cruise ships are not really my thing at all, but these people were truly horrible. The cruise director, Steve Cassell, has a juggling act which is quite the opposite, and it was a delight to watch. Steve Cassell was the cruise director on the Celebration in 1989 when we first sailed this ship, and according to some notes I have seen on $P$, he has since been on some other Carnival ships, but he was back, as of our trip. He is a very entertaining juggler, plus he does a wonderful fiddle performance at the end of the passenger talent show. I don't normally go to passenger talent shows, but his act is good. You might want to just catch the end of the show to see him.

One of the more lasting impressions that I have of this cruise was NOISE. It seemed that everywhere I went, the noise level was very high. I noticed this almost from the first moment I arrived on the ship. It started with the fellow singing and playing guitar at the Trolley Bar. The guitar player MAY have been a very talented fellow. However, his music was just too loud for me to be anywhere in the area of the Trolley Bar when he was playing. There seemed to be constant announcements on deck and I REALLY could have done without Cathy Lee's melodious tones at an ear-splitting level. The steel band also played much too loud to be enjoyable. I believe it was Sunday evening, there was a Dixieland Jazz band, playing in the casino. That was very loud, for such an enclosed space.

I don't know if it was because of the particular week that we sailed or not, but entertainment for the week was slanted heavily to comedy and variety acts, as opposed to your standard "production" shows, which was fine with me. I believe there were only two nights when there were production shows, Sunday night, then one other, Best of Broadway, type show. I didn't go to the latter. There was a steel band on board, which, frankly, was very bad. There was another band, named Stampede, which I thought only played country music, so I avoided them early in the week. I found out later in the week that they also played light rock and did a great job. Check them out. On three different nights, there were late night comedy acts, which were billed as "R" rated, but were not really that raunchy. They were generally fun, except for the one Sunday night. Sunday evening was the first of the late night comedy shows. This show was absolutely PACKED and not worth the trouble, for us. We had to sit on the floor, and had the misfortune to be seated by a couple of drunks who tried their darnedest to disrupt the show.

That brings me to the subject of Carnival and "spring breakers". We sailed the week prior to Easter and there were quite a few college aged kids on board. As I said, our cabin was on Main Deck, very close to the Purser's Desk. The lowest deck of passenger cabins on the Celebration is the Riviera deck, one deck below us. According to our dinner tablemates, Riviera deck was heavily populated by spring breakers, and some of the passengers on Riviera made a practice of leaving their cabin doors open, building beer can pyramids, playing walkmans at a loud volume, running the hallways at 3 A.M., etc. We PERSONALLY did not have any problems in that respect, although we did get the pleasure of listening to arguments through the cabin walls on several occasions, about 2 A.M. It seems that the walls on the Celebration are very thin. Other than the drunks in the comedy show, we really didn't have much contact with the spring breakers, as we generally stayed out of the disco, where they generally hung out. However, there were at least two fist fights in the disco for the week. None of this interfered with our enjoyment of the week, although I think it would have a whole different story if we had been on Riviera deck. Actually, it kind of makes sense that the spring breakers would end up getting placed in the cheapest cabins on the lowest decks.

Monday dawned bright and sunny, so I headed on out early in the morning to grab a deck chair above the pool deck. I then headed down to breakfast in the dining room, to an excellent omelette, then back up for some more sun. Lunch again in the dining room, then down to some $.25 roulette prior to arriving in San Juan. We arrived early in the area of San Juan, as Celebration usually does, apparently. Around 4:15, the casino was closed. We sat by the Trolley Bar and looked out the window to see San Juan approaching. The weather had clouded up again, but it didn't rain. As we approached, we noted that only the Regent Sun was in port.

One of my pet peeves involves ships, like the Celebration, which visit San Juan only at night. I love San Juan during the day. There is lots to see and do, seeing the forts and the shopping district downtown, the Bacardi factory, the rain forest, etc. NONE of that is available to do when ships have only evening port calls, like the Celebration. We scurried off the ship, as soon as we were able, around 5:30 P.M. and practically RAN up the hill to Fort Cristobal, as my brother hadn't seen it. We had thought that the forts were open till dusk. However, we were too late, as they apparently close at 5 P.M. year-round, regardless of when dark comes. We walked almost all the way to El Morro along the coast, then headed back over toward the ship, stopping along the way at the famous park of the pigeons. Right by the pier, we purchased a 6 pack of cokes to drink on the ship and headed back for dinner.

Because of being in port in San Juan, dinner time on the Celebration is changed for this evening only, with second seating being at 7 P.M. We got back to the ship just in time for dinner. We headed down for the French dinner, to an almost deserted dining room. My brother had escargot for the first time and pronounced it good. (No accounting for taste!). This night, as usual, the menu included 3-5 appetizers, 3 soups (one cold), 2 salads, and 6 or so entres. Entres usually consisted of beef, chicken, pasta, fish, vegetarian, veal or pork. Food in the dining room always arrived warm (or cold, if appropriate) and we had almost nothing in the dining room that was unsatisfactory. Beef dishes were a slight exception for me, as most appeared overcooked. There was NO lobster for the week at all. It didn't particularly bother me, but some people miss it. I was pleasantly surprised with the dining room food, overall, and had few complaints with the dining room food, except for the practice of putting the salad dressing on the salad in the kitchen, and with the vegetables also being placed on the plate in the kitchen. I prefer being able to select fresh vegetables from the serving tray. There was no table-side preparation of any food items, although I'm not sure that I really expected it. Desserts were good, although nothing in the category of my favorite, Celebrity.

There were the standard parades around the dining room with baked alaska, bananas flambe, and one other dessert, the name of which escapes me at the moment. Even though when my waiter, Amin, invited me, I did get out of my seat and join the conga line around the dining room, I'm a bit of a fuddy-duddy, I guess, as I didn't miss those parades at all on our recent cruise on the Horizon. Personally, I was embarrassed on behalf of the dining room staff on one night, when they were required to parade around the dining room carrying an American flag and singing "God Bless America". ("My Home, Sweet Home"???)

Tuesday on the Celebration is St. Thomas. The only other ships in port were the Crown Jewel and the Royal Princess. We arrived around 8 A.M., and headed out to the Ramada Yacht Haven to get my brother signed up for a scuba dive. We got him signed up for a 2 tank dive ($90) and I headed back to the ship for breakfast prior to heading out for a morning of shopping, then over to Coki beach for some snorkeling. Snorkelling at Coki is great, right off the beach. I paid $8 for the cab to Coki, by myself. Presumably, the fare would have been about the same for two. Snorkelling gear (for the day) was $10. The guy that I rented snorkel gear from kept my things in a lockbox for me, until I returned, after some really neat snorkelling. Coki has restrooms and changing rooms, so I changed back into my clothes, and headed back to ship for lunch.

After lunch, and meeting back up with my brother, we headed out for a tour of St. Thomas. We paid $20 PP for a 2 hour tour of all the standard places in St. Thomas. I hadn't been to Mountain Top in several years, and was impressed with the view from Mountain Top, plus the drinks of a banana daiquiri and a rum and coke for $8.50.

The taxi driver dropped us off at the cable car, which is fairly new, and an easy walk from the cruise ship docks. The cost for the cable car is $10 PP and certainly worth it, at least once, anyway. The trip is around 5 minutes each way, and affords a spectacular view at the top, plus on the way up, especially if one has a video camera to record the ride. At the top are several shops, plus a bar and restaurant overlooking the fantastic view of the water and the ships. We shared the ride both ways, plus some nice conversation, with a fellow from the Regal Princess, then headed back to the ship.

Once onboard, we enjoyed the sailaway party, with (free) chips, guacamole, and salsa, plus (not free) sangria, on deck, to tunes from the steel band, prior to heading down for the chinese dinner. I had three appetizers (marinated cold chicken, eggroll, and shrimp cocktail), plus an entre of shrimp stir-fry, and bananas flambe' for dessert. One of my most enjoyable meals of the week.

The show this evening was a magic show with Rand Woodbury, whom Eric and I had enjoyed before as the cruise director on some ship, although I can't remember which one. His was a wonderful show, and we also enjoyed the late night comedy show, which was much less crowded than the first show, and therefore, much more enjoyable.

Wednesday was St. Marten. My brother had signed up for the certified scuba dive offered by the ship, at $65. I headed out for some shopping for a couple of t-shirts, and some postcards, then out to Java Wraps to purchase another one of their wrap skirt outfits which I have grown to love, and grabbed a cab over to Orient Beach for the morning. I met my brother back at the ship for some lunch, then headed out for a tour of the island. Since I had been to St. Marten several times on ships, plus stayed there for a week earlier this year, I knew where I wanted to go. I instructed our driver to head out to Marigot, then drive down through Grand Case, and stop at Orient Beach. We then stopped on the hill overlooking Green Cay Village, which is a group of villas above Orient Beach where Eric and I had stayed earlier In the year. Our driver, (Suzie) charged us $25 per hour for the tour, and we considered it well worth it. While driving past, Suzie pointed out The Seaman's Club. Suzie proclaimed (with some contempt) that The Seaman's Club was where men from off the cruise ships came to satisfy their "baser desires". Suzie took us back to the ship via Oyster Pond. As St. Marten disappeared in the distance, my brother proclaimed that "it was a shame to see all of that go out of sight" as he had enjoyed St. Marten so much.

This evening at dinner, as our waiter, Amin, was bringing our dessert order, I asked whether he had been to The Seaman's Club today. His face took on a kind of scared look and he turned somewhat pale, and he asked me "Who told you? Who told you?" He called over the assistant maître d' for our area and asked me to ask him that same question. We laughed long and hard with Amin and the assistant maitre d' and got some strange looks from other diners in the dining room, wondering what the ruckus was all about.

Thursday was a day at sea and featured "The Great Pig Race". As I stated before, back in 1989, Steve Cassell was the cruise director on the Celebration. At that time, he touted, as one of the big events of the week, "The Great Pig Race". Passengers were instructed to go to a certain store in St. Thomas and purchase a mechanical pig, so we could enter them in the pig race on Thursday. We did NOT purchase one in 1989 and I had not heard the last of it from Eric ever since. Therefore, when I boarded the Celebration this time, I knew that I MUST purchase a pig and enter the pig race. I purchased my pig in St. Thomas (complete with hat and sunglasses) and my brother and I set about decorating it. We went to the Trolley Bar, ordered a rum and coke and a beer, and told the bartender that we needed a RED umbrella and a BLUE umbrella for our drinks. We affixed these to our pig's hat, along with a flag made from a drink straw and a sugar package that said "Carnival" on it, put a red bow tie on our pig and "Greased Lightning" was ready for the pig race. Well, I guess all that paraphernalia interfered with his mental preparation for the race, as we finished dead last, but we had several people take pictures of our pig and we had a great time.

So I could prove to Eric that we entered the pig race, along with bringing home our prized pig, I ordered the "Voyage Video" for this day. Carnival sells separate videos of each day's activities, plus one video of the highlights of the week. Since Eric is the video taker, not I, we didn't take the video camera this trip, and I wanted him to see the race. The video cost $32 for the daily video, $42 for the highlights video, and is supposedly mailed to your home around 4-6 weeks later. As I write this, I have been back home for 1 month, and have not seen the video yet.

The rest of Thursday included lots more sun, some more $.25 roulette for me, a galley tour for my brother, and the second formal evening of the week, with the captain's farewell party in the Islands in the Sky lounge, with the same good selection of hot hor doureves. Voyage Video came by and my brother and I each talked on camera for a moment. I haven't seen it yet, but he says that they cut his comments altogether and left mine in. It should be interesting. We didn't go to the Gala Buffet, as the line was just too long.

Friday was another day at sea, and time to do the disagreeable job of packing up to go home. At 11 o'clock, my brother and I took the bridge tour, which was interesting. I tried to stir up some trouble in the question session, when the tour guide stated that there were 3 pairs of eyes watching the sea from the bridge at all times, in addition to the radar equipment. I asked him how it was then that the Celebration cut that freighter in half a couple of years ago. He kind of choked, said that the people on the freighter had no lights on, and were up to no good, but somehow never answered the question. Voyage Video taped the bridge tour, including the question session, but somehow, my question got bleeped from the tape. They must have been experiencing a technical difficulty at that time.

Friday evening brought our final dinner with our tablemates and our opportunity to tip our waiter, busboy and cabin steward. I was absolutely pleasantly surprised that we got absolutely NO talk from the waiter about the comment cards. NOT ONE WORD. I don't know whether the cruise director gave the standard "Give excellent on all ratings" talk or not, as we didn't go to the debarkation talk.

Our cabin steward was a joy for the week. Early on in the week, we had each purchased a stuffed animal, and we started a game putting various headcoverings on the animals, setting them in the window with suntan lotion and a paperback book, etc. Our cabin steward joined in the game, leaving our mints for the evening with the animals, then making a rabbit and later a crab out of a t-shirt or my nightgown. He did a superb job of keeping our cabin clean and tidy, getting me an extra blanket for the bed, keeping the ice filled, etc.

One gripe that I had was that you had to get towels to take off the ship from your cabin steward. There were none by the gangplank and none up on the pool deck (I tried that!). The two mornings that I went ashore, I practically had to hunt him down to get towels. It wasn't his fault, but a bad organizational problem, I thought. We have been on many ships where they require you to sign out towels by the gangplank, but they just have one fellow there doing it. A much better idea than this having to hunt down your cabin steward. During days at sea, there were always plenty of fresh towels on deck.

SUMMARY--Overall, I think I understand why Carnival sells the most cruises, although not necessarily to the most experienced cruisers, like myself. Personally, while I had a great time on the Celebration, my favorite cruise line is probably Celebrity, because of the caliber of the food and service. Carnival attracts a high number of people who are on their first cruise, and they take a Carnival cruise because they are afraid of the classic perception of cruising as being for the elite and for stuffy people. There is certainly something to be said for the concept of having FUN while at sea, and Carnival has this formula down pat. There are the pig races, the pillow fighting, the knobby knees contests, the newlywed games, etc. The dining room is a lively place, with lots of parades, etc. On another ship, I would never have even THOUGHT to bring our pig to dinner in the dining room, as we did on the Celebration for the last formal night. In that respect, dress for dinner is CASUAL for every meal, except to the two formal dinners. I think many first time cruisers are very happy with that formula, with not having to dress for dinner most of the time.

Different people look for different things in a cruise. That's why there are so many different ships out there. If you are looking for a ship with lots of different things going on and lots of different entertainment at the same time, a very lively casino, a buffet at 1:30 A.M., in addition to the midnight buffet, a casual attitude toward dress, and an attitude that people take themselves too seriously in their every day life, then Carnival is for you. The decor on the Celebration class ships, while it cannot be called muted, cannot be compared to the larger Fantasy class ships, with their 8 story neon atriums. The Fantasy class ships do have the advantage of a much larger exercise area, with co-ed jacuzzis. The Celebration's only jacuzzi's are inside the sauna area and separate for men and women and have no view of anything. The Fantasy class ships also have much better buffet facilities.

To use a very old, tired, cliche, my very best day at work is much worse than my very worst day at sea could ever be. Onboard the Celebration, I purchased a t-shirt which has my own personal philsophy of life on it--"The one who takes the most cruises wins!" Well, here's to winning!!

Carol