We chose Celebrity as our estate agent led us to believe it was a luxury cruise company, but I wouldn't have said so from our experience recently on the Celebrity Eclipse. I travelled with my 82 year old mother for her birthday to various ports across the mediteranian. We chose an Aqua class cabin and should have had priority boarding due to my mother's age and her being registered disabled. However on arrival to embark aboard the ship we were told Aqua class means nothing and were told to stand in an hour long queue in blazing sunshine of 29 degrees centigrade. This took it's toll on my mother and was a poor start to the holiday. Problems such as this continued at some ports throughout and made for a very tiring and painful experience for my mother on occasion. They simply are not bothered about disabled or elderly and you are expected to just get on with it. Unfortunately added to this the majority of passengers were American and barge you out of the way or push you aside, they lack empathy for the elderly or disabled too it seems. And so if you struggle with mobility you may wish to rethink booking with celebrity. Our state rooms were pleasant although the balcony and seats splattered with white paint everywhere. Looked shabby I'm surprised this wasn't noticed, they must have checked after works were completed.

The food was of a very high standard and the staff were brilliant. Very friendly and helpful. Our state room attendant Connie was exceptionally helpful to my mum, particularly when our luggage went missing when we embarked. We had to wait 5 hours to find our suitcase was held back for security purposes only to find when scanned there was nothing wrong at all. We needed medical supplies and it was very upsetting for my mum after the struggle to board. The sunset bar is lovely in the evening. Unfortunately we were told to move by an American group so they could take pictures one evening. This seems fairly normal on this ship, English are second class and the staff seem to be used to being spoken to poorly by Americans. We enjoyed the sushi restaurant very much but decided to not attend the bars in the evening after a few nights, had an unpleasant experience eith a drunken male passenger becoming aggressive. Reported it but heard nothing further. The casino is sizable! And the martini bar is fun with its iced bar surface. The staff in the jewellery shops are very pushy. I was approached and explained I wished to browse to see if something caught my eye as I didn't have anything specific in mind. I was then told I must want something to catch my eye and I needed to try something on so that I would want to buy it. I didn't return after that. The shower pressure was an issue some days, often sounded like a tractor! But some nice refinements like a demisting bathroom mirror. Bed was very comfortable and state rooms well organised. Robes were very useful.

It did feel like they were constantly trying to extract more money from you wherever possible. As soon as you arrive on the ship, in fact even before we set foot aboard, immediately after checking in whilst still on the quay, staff will stop you and ask if you have a drinks package and push hard yo sell you one if you do not. We had already purchased the classic passage and when I explained this I was told I needed to upgrade to premium because it was much better for me. When I asked why they bothered with other levels of drink package if the premium was the only one worth having they had no answer for me. Classic was ample for our needs, but we were stopped several more times with the hard sell when we stepped aboard. And we had to have customer services cancel charges from our bill twice which were added incorrectly as the drinks were included in our package. Worryingly I had not signed to authorise the charges. So generally keep an eye on yiu r bill daily using the tv in the state room. They are supposed to give you a breakdown the night before disembarking but they didn't for us. The spa is very nice but very expensive. $65 to change the shellac colour of my nails, just an example. The excursions celebrity offer are also very expensive indeed. Wait until you get to the port you will be able to organise much more reasonably. We were charged $25 for one transfer from ship to port and realised a few metres from the ship there was a free bus service. Many passengers saw, remarked, felt this was unreasonable. Read more