We're back from the Zenith

[Joanandjoe]

We haven't yet finished unpacking, but Joan has already written a review, which I've edited very lightly. We've posted it, and it should be up in the next few days.

We had a great trip. but we've tried to be very objective in the review. It was very good, which is better than most land trips; but didn't quite reach the standard of excellent. Part of it was room size, While some cruise crazies have praised the room size (172 square feet), to us it was tiny and almost claustrophobic--by far the smallest we've every had. Had we felt more compfortable in the small room, and if we had had a better room attendant than "Miss Clueless", we might have rated the trip as excellent.

All in all, Celebrity does a pretty good job, and Bermuda is wonderful. Joe

[TheSkipper]

Will be watching for your review, Joe. Submitted ours of the Coral Princess and it should be up soon also.

Glad you had a good time. We've sailed on the Zenith three times over the years. :wink:

[schatje]

Welcome back! Thank goodness we don't spend alot of time in our cabins. Look forward to reading your review. We sailed on her in Dec. 2003.

[DaCruzNut]

Welcome back; you were sorely missed. Glad you had a good time.

She may be getting a little old, but she's still one of my favorite ships...

[Joanandjoe]

Thanks, all. Our problem is that we DO spend a lot of time in our cabins, especially on sea days; so size does matter to us. Our review of the sister ship, Horizon, was more favorable because we had a suite with extra room and a bathtub. Then the price difference was small, this time it would have been large. Also, we wanted to see if we could be comfortable in a standard Celebrity cabin, since all Celebrity standard cabins are 170 to 175 square feet. Unfortunately, the answer is no--we need more room. That meant that we did not sign up for some wonderful Norway and British Isles itineraries on Century next May, 2007--we just didn't think we'd be comfortable. A real shame!

As for Zenith, we saw no problems with this supposedly aging ship, other than cabin size. The staff was friendly and (except for the cabin attendant), wonderfully helpful. If we would sail Celebity again on any ship, we certainly would sail Zenith. We don't know how we can escape the cabin size and lack of bathtub problems: suites are simply too expensive.

[rogue]

Welcome back. Glad you had a nice cruise. Now back to reality. :grin:

[Mebert]

Joanandjoe,

Welcome back. I'm looking forward to seeing how I cope on Celebrity Mercury. Thanks for the heads up. I'm sort of spoiled by the size of Carnival cabins.

I'm sorry that you got a lemon cabin attendent. Sometimes it's a crap shoot that works out for the positive most of the time.

[Joanandjoe]

Cabin size and all, it was still a great cruise. For people who just sleep and change clothes in the room, it's probably more than adequate. Celebrity rooms are BIGGER than those on most ships going to Bermuda, which we think is scary.

[JoeyandDavid]

[sailinglisa]

Joan and Joe - the Century is in dry dock right now adding dozens of balcony and new categories of cabins......many of which will be larger than the Celebrity standard size cabins. I would check the Celebrity website and see if the new SV cabins might interest you.