We finally went on that cruise I’ve promised Becky this past week. We went on the Celebrity Century ship on a 5-day cruise with stops in Jamaica and Grand Cayman. We had a really good time. It was a good chance to get away and it was fun to experience the different cuisine and cultures. Plus, it seems like everyone’s been on a cruise, so we had to take one to see what all the fuss was about.
I’m going to write 4 blogs about the trip – this general one, one about the food (it was that noteworthy), one about Jamaica and one on Grand Cayman. I actually hand wrote the food and Jamaica one on the flight back, which marks the first time in 10 years I’ve written more than two sentences by hand.
Travel
We had to wake up at 3:40 to catch our 5am flight which got us into Miami at 11:30. It turned out to be pretty good timing because after eating lunch, we headed to the ship and were able to board right away at about 1:30. The process of getting on the ship was pretty easy – we had to wait in one line for about 10 minutes, so that wasn’t too bad.
The ride home wasn’t quite as smooth. We were supposed to dock at 7am and fly home at 12:30pm. We weren’t sure if that was enough time to get through customs, get to the airport and get through security. On the second day on the ship, we were presented with the option for an early disembarkation which starts at 6:15. I asked the guest relations lady if she thought we’d be on time for our flight out if we left at the normal time. She said "you should be able to make it on time" and I didn’t want to risk the "shoud", so we signed up for the early option. That meant we had to get up prior to 6am Eastern and be ready to go by 6:20. The catch with this plan we had to carry our own luggage off. We were allowed to disembark at 6:25 – we breezed through customs and made it to the cab by 6:43 and to the airport by 6:59. So we were just a little early for our 12:30pm flight. People who dined with us on the ship left at the normal disembarkation at 7am and were to the airport by 8:15.
We finally boarded our flight ready to head home, and, of course, there was a mechanical problem. We sat on the runway for an hour and a half because an indicator light was showing a problem that didn’t exist. We landed in Minneapolis at 4:58 to catch our 5:00 flight, but they wouldn’t let us on. So we were scheduled for the 9:00 flight which would get us home at 10:00 and mean that our girls couldn’t come see us at the airport. We ended up begging our way on to the 6:45 flight so we got home at 7:45 and got to be greeted by our girls. Our bags ended up on another flight, so thankfully my dad was able to give us a ride home as I stashed my keys away in our big suitcase. The girls were really happy to see us and it was fun to be greeted like that.
Room
We opted for an interior room which is pretty much the cheapest room on the cruise ship. I don’t think it really mattered – having a porthole wouldn’t have added much to our experience. The room was tiny, but it really had everything we needed. There were three closets for all our clothes, a 23" flat-screen TV with ESPN, a small but sufficient bathroom and two twin beds shoved together. We actually spent a fair amount of time there just reading in bed, since it was nice and quiet. The room was actually cleaned twice a day, which was good because you basically had to shower twice – once in the morning as you got in your swimsuits and once at night before dinner. Our biggest complaint was that there was no alarm clock – you had to look at the tiny display on the phone to see what time it is.
Activities
I guess we had the impression there would be activities going on all the time on the ship. That was true, to an extent, but several of the featured events were Bingo or chances to shop. We ended up taking part in several activities during the days:
- Geography trivia – we played that one morning, and unfortunately we took second. We lost out on some fantastic looking pens
- Battle of the Sexes – the women completely dominated the men, but no prizes awarded
- Shuffleboard – we played that out on the deck – a cruise must
- Cooking demonstration – the executive chef showed us how to make Atlantic Cod, but the more interesting part was asking him questions about he cooks for 2000 people every night
- Dancing – we went to two dance classes. The first was to learn the cha cha. It was an extra challenge to try to dance on a moving ship. Then we learned the tango and the mambo. This will come in really handy 40 years from now when we are retired and have time to dance
- Gambling – there was a full casino on board with all the slots you could imagine and one table of most games – roulette, craps, Hold ‘Em and several tables of blackjack. There were poker tournaments on the 2 sail dates, but we didn’t partake. We tried to play poker several times, but the table was rarely open. It took 4 people to get a game started and there wasn’t enough traffic to make that happen until late at night. I ended up playing twice and the first night I started with $80 and was up to almost $300 until I blew it all. The next time I made $24 in a very uneventful session.
Entertainment
Cruises are apparently known for their entertainment as well. We partook in most of the big shows – there were two musical presentations by the Celebrity singers and dancers, a comedian and a "ladder guy". We skipped the ladder guy, since we just couldn’t get excited about that. We watched the two musicals which were very high energy shows. The songs were mainly 50-60’s songs and they were done well with no breaks through the whole performance. It was well done and good, but we just didn’t love it. The comedian was Rich Ceisler. I hadn’t heard of him before, but he was good. He was an observational type comic with good one liners.
Because of the enormous amount of food we ate over the week, we tried to get as much exercise as possible on the ship. We were on the 5th floor and walked up to the 11th floor for the buffet and that’s where the pool and laying out deck were. We spent some time laying out on the first day at sea, but the chairs were in such demand that once we got up, we could never sit down again.
We had a great time and would recommend the cruise option to anyone. If we were to go again, we’d probably try a different cruise line just to see what else is out there. It seemed like our cruise was maybe a little more targeted towards older folks that love to eat. We’d probably try a Disney or Norwegian cruise if we went again so we could take the kids along.
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