Celebrity Cruises, Celebrity Silhouette Review

Celebrity Silhouette

Was really excited to be cruising with Celebrity. Highlight was the Retreat where all staff know your name from the moment you arrive on the ship-how do they do that, the Retreat is exactly that, a quiet space to relax in. Low points: all the food, without exception, in OceanView cafe was poor, at best; being charged for drinks from the minibar despite "Enjoy your favorite beverages throughout the ship"; poorly maintained lifejackets - inexcusable; hand-sized flakes of paint on balcony. Additional: stop at Olden, was actually at Loen - speaking with others it was generally agreed that no-one really minded, but it would have been better to have the itinerary state that the stop would be in Loen - it just felt a bit 'RyanAir'; on-ship video of port stops advertised the Hansa Museum in Bergen, only to be told that it is closed for the next 2 years; stop in Bergen, was round the corner at a rather industrial wharf, rather than the picturesque wharf that everyone is sold; excursions not staffed by Celebrity means that ship-hygiene-standard is not practised when away. This cruise was shadowed the whole tour by P&O's Iona - which did dock in both Olden and Bergen's historic wharf, making it feel like the premium Cruise Line, rather than Celebrity - despite Celebrity being so very much more expensive.

Will we cruise with Celebrity again, probably not - simply because we expected such a step up from P&O and yet they struggled to even match them.