Embarkation – Bayonne was the best embarkation process we have experienced. You drop off you bags at the terminal first and then park. We were on the ship about 15 minutes from when we parked the car. There was a really short bus ride from the check-in terminal to the ship. It took longer to get on and get off the bus then the ride itself. The surrounding area is old and worn down and the parking lots are in need of repaving. You notice it more when you disembark and have to roll your luggage back to the car. For $19 per day to park, can you please actually pave the parking lot? Those huge pot holes make rolling luggage difficult, but they’ve got you money already, right? Once on board, you proceed up to deck 10 to the buffet or you can choose deck 4 to pay for lunch at a specialty restaurant. Rooms are ready around 1:30pm.

Itinerary – I can’t comment since we were supposed to go to Bermuda and instead were diverted due to Hurricane Cristobal to Port Canaveral and Nassau (how many times can one visit Nassau?). It was disappointing since we could have made it to Bermuda and Cristobal passed well west of the island. I think they didn’t want to lose the shore excursion money if the weather was iffy. We paid for a Bermuda cruise which is more expensive than a Bahamas cruise. Then we had to go 12 rounds with guest services to get the difference in port charges credited to our account, which they eventually did and subsequently announced this would occur for everyone on board three days later. Must have been a lot of complaining…

Food – disappointing. Main dining room offers 4 main courses plus standard repeating menu items available on all nights. The duck was poor, salmon was dry, steak overdone. It beats cooking and cleaning at home, but it’s not the premium product Celebrity claims to have. I sailed on the Horizon to Bermuda in 1991 and the food was the best I’ve experienced on a cruise. On each subsequent Celebrity cruise (1998, 2002, and now 2014), the food seems to get more and more unappealing. The service was also just average. There were occasionally long lapses between servings or odd occurrences (such as serving salad to 6 out of 7 of us and then 10 minutes later bringing out the last salad.) The cheesecake was absolutely delicious. The desserts were the best part of the menu, which was a good thing but also says a lot about the declining quality of main entrees on Celebrity. The cruise line, of course, took every opportunity to pat themselves on the back and the head chef was as prominent as the egotistical captain. Read more