Having just returned from our first Celebrity Cruise aboard the Celebrity Century and I wanted to post a review that hopefully others can benefit from it.Some background on our cruising experience. This is our 6th cruise we have taken in the last 20 years so by no means are we what you would call experts. Nor would you call us rookies either. In the past 20 years we have cruised with Royal Caribbean, Disney, Carnival and Holland (twice). We have been also fortunate enough to attain a financial level where the last 3 cruises have been at the Suite level.We booked the Celebrity Century out of Miami Florida, as we wanted to take a New Years Eve Cruise. A word of caution if you are looking to take a cruise over any New Year you will want to book very early. For example, the first week of October there were several options on several cruise lines. In the second week of October most all of these choices we gone.
There were four of us in our party and we purchased one water card and one beer card for the four of us. I cannot recommend these cards enough. On the water you get your choice of Evian stilled and Perrigrino Sparkling. You get bottled water at no charge at every bar, every restaurant and all day everyday. These are not the small bottles either - these are the large bottles of water all the way to the 1.5 liter size. During dinner we easily went through 5 bottles a night.
The same goes for the beer card. The beer card gives you every can or bottle of beer at no charge. This includes both domestic and imports. To make the math work on a beer card you need to drink about 6 beers per day. You can only order one beer at a time, but on the pool deck there are 4 bars in the immediate vicinity. At first we simply each took my card to each different bar and ordered a beer. Then one of the waiters came over and asked told us that we did not need to come to the bar because he would make the bar "come to us". I then told him we were looking for some good service and slipped him a $20 in his pocket. That was it - we never had to make another "beer run" the rest of the cruise. Regardless of the number of beers we wanted - he brought them over and put them on the free card. On every cruise you should always tip your waiter early in cash and I promise you that you will get better service than you ever have had in the past.
A note on tipping. At first I felt a little guilty when the bartender or waiter gave me a bottle of water or beer and the charge slip had zero, but a spot for additional tip. Then I remembered that Celebrity had had 15% to the cost of the card for the gratuity. In essence the gratuity on these drinks was pre-paid.Also remember to double check your charge slip to make sure the waiter did not charge you. We did have 3 separate incidents where the waiter inadvertently charged us. The good news is as soon as we pointed it out they reversed the charge.A more professional cruise experience? The cruise on the Celebrity Century felt like it was designed for the more seasoned cruiser. It is highly likely that what I am about to describe is common through out the Celebrity Cruise Line, but since this is my one and only cruise with Celebrity, I can not say this for certain.
Compared to all of the other cruises I have experienced, I never felt "sold to". Unlike other cruises there was not the constant announcements about a jewelry sale, art auction, bingo game, etc. Our mail box / cabin was also not littered with flyers and coupons reminding us of the same. It was a nice break. This is not to say that Celebrity did not keep us informed about what was happening aboard the Celebrity Century. There were occasional announcements and of course the daily itinerary of events was delivered to our cabin nightly. But if you waited to be told what to do next aboard the Celebrity Century you would have missed out on various activities.
