Grand Celebration Review

4.0 / 5.0
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New Years eve was excellent. Champagne was offered everywhere on the ship

Review for the Bahamas Cruise on Grand Celebration
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ALWAYS CRUZIN
10+ Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Dec 2018

We sailed on this ship when it started about 15 years ago when the ship was called the Bahamas Celebration and it was terrible. A local family purchased it and now it is very nice. In many cases better than carnival. The ship is in excellent repair for as old as it is. Most all the personnel are wonderful, the drinks are NOT water down at all. Excellent drinks. There 10 coupon drink offer is only $82.00 with gratuity, $8.20 a drink is a super price for excellent mixed drinks, What is nice about it. If you purchase a drink package on other ships, you MUST purchase one for everyone in your cabin. That is because they are unlimited. With this one you can offer the coupon to anyone for a drink. A couple that are moderate drinkers, it is a great deal. The soda package for only $24.00 with gratuity is UNLIMITED soda. That also is a great price considering a single can is $3.54 each with gratuity included. Not offered a great selection but the normal sodas. Both days the buffet lunches were excellent, yes excellent. Far better than on many of the big Cruise lines. Dinner buffet was not so good at all. Ether night. We did the dining room on the last cruise and it was as expected. Far better than the buffet but not as good as the big cruise lines. Unless you love Mexican food than stay away from the 11PM-1AM snacks. ALL MEXICAN both nights. Very disappointing for sure. No variety at all. Also disappointing is the soft sever machines are closed down after lunch. It would be nice if they closed them down at 1AM . Getting off the ship at the end was a very long wait. Not all booths were taken by customs. They split up those that had pass ports and those that did not. About 10% of the guests had pass ports. That line was very short, but still slow. Very slow, many got irritated at they staff and they had no control. People need patients some times. Now for the negative. We had cruised on both of there ships before, both are very nice but we prefer the Grand Celebration and this time was shocking for sure. Over 80% of the 1600 guests were of Spanish origin. So they catered to them 100% of the time. Not happy with that, but understandable. Almost every announcement was in English and Spanish including the bingo. Again, certainly understandable. All guests were super nice people that we were able to talk to. New Years Eve was no exception. We decided to do New Years Eve in the sports bar. Did not know it should have been called the Spanish Bar. All the DJ played was Spanish music all in Spanish. When I asked him if he could mix it up a bit. I was taken back by his answer to me. He replied sarcastically, . If we do not like it, we could just leave and go somewhere else. Everywhere else was jammed packed and most of the music there was live but Spanish, however you could hear different songs every other song or so. That was nice. But no room. So we sat outside of the bar and enjoyed ourselves anyhow. The sports bar had very few people in it. I wonder why? The DJ was the ONLY arrogant employee we had encountered. ALL the others were super nice and made up for him. There is always one, isn't there? So all in all if you do not mind rubbing elbows with mostly Spanish travelers this cruise, but this ship in particular is excellent for an inexpensive get away. I do recommend it.

One last think. My wife left her nice favorite sweeter on the bed when we left. i call as soon as we arrived home. Still no reply from the cruise line about the sweeter. i am sure they had it.

Response from ChristineK, Social Media Team @Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line

We are sincerely grateful for the time you spent to share your comments on your recent stay on our ship. Your detailed review will certainly assist in order to keep on improving the quality...

Cabin Review

Cabin Ocean View

Our cabin was right next to where you get on and off the ship. Excellent location, excellent cabin. Very happy with the cabin steward and the cabin itself. We would get the same one again.

Port Reviews

Freeport

Problem with Freeport is. If here are no other ships docked but one of these two. The port is closed down. meaning, you have nothing there at all so you must take an excursion, go to town or just stay on the ship. They did have some nice things to do on the ship. We did not go anywhere. been their many, many times before. The Celebration used to dock on the other side of the docks so getting off you would be where the stores and action is. Not now. You would need to do a bit of a walk. not that bad. But only if another big ship is htere.

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