Chose a different Celebrity cruise around NZ but for 'reasons' unable to take it. Rather than lose my deposit, I searched around for the cheapest cruise I could find. And this 7-day cruise around the Southern Caribbean was it. DH and I hadn't been to this part of the world before, so there we are. That's how we chose this cruise. I booked via Celebrity themselves, and I didn't have any problems switching the booking over. I will say, I booked a concierge cabin, and changed my mind 3 times over. This cruise seemed to be only half full for ages, and I got lucky in being able to change my 3rd choice cabin in Cat 3 to an aft balcony Cat 1 at no extra charge! When I checked before sailing the cruise suddenly filled up, so I was very appreciative of the previous lull.

We had two full days (given the ship sails at 8.30pm) and decided to forego the oft-mentioned Concierge lunch in favour of a 2nd day of sight-seeing (Arecibo Observatory) although we were on board by 3.30pm. At that time of day there was no line to speak of, and the process was very easy, except that DH's seapass didn't work; he had to have his photo taken a 2nd time, and even then had to report to Guest relations with his passport and have it taken a 3rd time.

We ate in Qsine that first night because I knew it would be going after the ship's re-fit. Got 20% off too, but that's pretty standard. We did enjoy the food there, but didn't appreciate a service charge being added ... and then a space for additional gratuities. The rest of the week we were happy enough in the MDR for dinner, and the Cafe for lunch on a couple of days. We used room service for breakfast most days so that we could make use of our huge balcony, without having to get dressed and leave the room. We typically don't eat breakfast at home, so room service was fine, but on the sea day we ate in the MDR and you could really tell the difference in quality. Read more