We last sailed on Celebrity Eclipse two years ago, so any comparisons I make refer to then. Embarkation was very straight forward. We parked our car and the luggage was taken off in vans whilst we walked to the terminal. We were sitting in bistro on five having lunch within an hour of us pulling up into the car park. We took advice from here and had a lovely lunch at bistro on 5. By the time we had finished our stateroom was ready. We were in concierge, on deck 10 - room 1231, which meant that we had one of the larger balconies on the hump which we really enjoyed. Once we had unpacked the cabin was perfectly adequate for our needs but I did find that the storage was a bit lacking! Doris and Bryan our stateroom attendants did a fantastic job throughout the cruise. Our luggage was quite late appearing but we did manage to unpack before dinner.

We had chosen select dining - this was the first time for us and worked really well. As expected the first night was a little chaotic but after that the service settled down. We ate in the Tuscan Grille on the second night - which was lovely - the portions are enormous. We had great views over the back of the ship. The service was great and the food beautiful. On the third and the fourth nights, we ate in the buffet restaurant. The third night because the menu in the MDR didn't appeal and the fourth night because they held a special Spanish / Portuguese buffet which was excellent. For the rest of the cruise we ate in the MDR. We found one particular section that we really liked with waiters Iresh and Ghosh looking after us. They were exceptional and we tried to make sure we were sitting on their section each night. On the whole the food was very good although not as good as last time. The portions were smaller but that was a good thing as we found the portions far too big on our previous time. We did notice that the waiters were serving drinks to those with classic packages - rather than the sommelier and that the number of sommeliers was reduced. Other than the first night, this seemed to work very efficiently.

We know the benefits of concierge class are much disputed but we enjoy the extra amenities. We particularly liked our cabin location, the fresh delivery of daily fruit, the plusher bath robes and the enhanced room service menu. We dispensed of the canapés after the first day. Read more