Celebrity Cruises
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Some pros and some cons.
We went on a celebrity cruise around parts of Austrailia and New Zealand. We flew from from UK to Sydney and spent a few days there before beginning our cruise in Sydney Harbour. I'm giving three stars because there are some pros and some cons. The ships are fabulous with the most marvelous facilities and itineraries. The gyms and dining rooms are first class. Dances were fun. Champagne bar great. Most staff on board were really nice. Cleanliness and standards very high. The downsides were that dress code was not properly enforced. What happened was that some folk turned up and were allowed into the really fine dining rooms in the evening, dressed like scruffs with baseball hats and shorts on. This was unfair to the rest of us who made an effort in smart clothes and evening wear. I think the staff were nervous of enforcing the dresscode in the fine dining areas. Likewise, some folks turned up to the fine dining with children in prams, which is simply not appropriate. This could have been easily remedied by keeping the casual family dining room (on our ship this was on the top deck) open until late. The staff at the fine dining restaurants could then direct the 'casually dressed' or the parents with prams to the casual dining room. I realize that some folk don't want to dress for evening dinner for whatever reason, so surely just make it clear to them that they won't be allowed in the fine dining areas. Another difficult area if you're a newbie to cruising is that it was rather buried in the small print about not having curling tongs or travel iron in your luggage. I guess if you're a veteran cruiser you'll know this but we didn't and hence I had curling tongs and a travel iron. My luggage was commandeered by the crew as were quite a few other people's luggage. It was a fuss having to queue up to get the luggage back and staff dealing with the matter were a bit off hand in their attitude. Given that packing is so fundamental, make it really prominent about the ban on items with any heating elements. So many new passengers made this mistake. Transfer in New Zealand was rather chaotic.