This is a trip that started out as a living hell through no fault of Celebrity. Our flight on U.S. Air from Miami never left the ground and I can truly say that after 60 -- plus -- flights in the past dozen years throughout the world on almost a dozen different airlines -- this was the worst non-customer service attitude that we have ever experienced. Thankfully, our expert travel agency -- Express Travel of Miami -- and American Airlines and it's OneWorld partners came through at the last minute and got us to Venice within hours of our original scheduled arrival time. We need a wheelchair accessible vehicle to get from the airport to the ship and it was waiting for us, in spite of our arrival time had changed three times, and whisked us to the ship. Check-in and embarkation was very quick, friendly, and a pleasure.

Now to Celebrity. This was our fourth Celebrity cruise in two years -- twenty-sixth in the past dozen years. Because my lovely wife is confined to a wheelchair, we require a wheelchair accessible suite. Our suite was in the Sky Suite category. The suite was perfect -- clean with all our necessities, roomy, and totally wheelchair accessible. This category offers us the service of a butler. Our three previous butlers were excellent. On this cruise, Manuel Moreno, was excellent -- plus. We were spoiled at every turn. He was always available and went far beyond the call. He took care of every request and problem. Our stateroom attendant, Suta, and assistant attendant, Andi, were efficient and kept our suite very clean and well stocked.

Did I mention that, even though we made it to Venice, our luggage did not. To the rescue came Jon Pilling, the most capable concierge that we have ever had the pleasure to meet. First, he gave us clothes and toiletries to hold us over until our luggage arrived. Then he stayed on top of tracking down and getting our luggage to us [two pieces before we left Venice and the other two via special delivery truck when we arrived in Ravenna]. Read more