My first Celebrity experience.

We arrived at Southampton port early and were onboard by 11 am. which is so much better than queuing at an airport!   As we boarded we were met with a happy smile and glass of champagne. This was our first Celebrity cruise and Silhouette is a beautiful ship. After a few hours of exploring and getting to know the ship, we found our two children outside the Ocean Cafe – buffet. They were not impressed and wanted their grandfather to fetch them and take them home.

Celebrity is really more of an adult ship compared to Royal Caribbean which they are used too. Fortunately, after a few days, they started to enjoy themselves.  We as adults definitely noticed the slight touches which we did not get with Royal. Chocolates on our pillows every night, fantastic entertainment and that attention to detail that has gone missing from the old days of cruising.

We were fortunate to have a balcony cabin on deck 7. It was lovely but a little crowded for the four of us. Storage was definitely not well thought out  – strangely we had better storage in our outside cabin on Independence of the seas. Our cabin attendant was a lovely lady from Trinidad. She turned out to be the best attendant we have ever had and promised that we would come to get her if we ever won the lottery.

Our cruise was a 14-night cruise to Ireland and Iceland so the majority of passengers on board were from the USA and Canada. Our first few days were spent in warmish weather as our itinerary took us to Guernsey first then up to Cork before sailing up to Belfast. In my next blog, I will write about the ports of call.

The service, entertainment and food were of a much higher standard than what we had been used too. Our entertainments manager was from Wales and probably the best we had ever had on a cruise. A nice touch was to see him on the day of disembarkation wishing everyone a goodbye as we left the ship.