David Fay

Age: 44
Occupation: small business owner
Number of Cruises: 2
Cruise Line: Celebrity
Name of Ship: Millennium
Sailing Date: February 2nd, 2003
Itinerary: Casa de Campo, San Juan, St. Thomas, Nassau


Dave and Sally's 2/2/03 Millennium review:

Overall grade: A-

Millennium Trip:

The Millennium is a beautiful ship. All the public areas are well laid out, handsome and comfortable.

Embarkation:

Dave’s View:

Sally’s View: Couldn’t have been easier

Boarding:

Dave’s View: filled out a form, showed ID, credit card, on the ship in ten minutes.

Sally’s View: ooh la la. Just love being met with silver tray of champagne as we boarded. That just started the trip off right. Even Dave, who much prefers Budweiser to the bubbly, partook. This is our first time on a Millennium Class ship and the public rooms were absolutely beautiful. We were escorted to our cabin #8172.

Stateroom:

Dave’s View: Our Cat 1B (8172) at the stern was great, very large veranda, comfortable bed and just enough room to store all our gear. Our room steward, Armin, from the Philippines, did a very good job. We would get up early some days and sleep late on others, and whatever time we returned from breakfast, our room was clean, as I was when we returned from dinner.

Sally’s View: We had a category 1B aft. The verandah was huge. We had two covered chaise lounges, 1 “plain” lounge, 2 outdoor chairs and a small table. Info for all the sun worshippers: On Monday, the position of the ship doesn’t give much sun time on his sea day; however, the position of the ship on Friday (sea day) is great for those wanting to get a tan. One observation, it would be great if they had fresh water showers on the verandah to cool off instead of running into the shower in the cabin. It did get quite warm

Armin was our stateroom attendant. He very rarely saw him or his assistant, but our room was always spotless, bed turned down and through a series of notes, would leave request for laundry service, more cans of Diet Coke, etc., and it was all taken care of with dispatch.

Metropolitan Restaurant:

Dave’s View: I found the food in the Metropolitan to be very good to outstanding. Our waiter and assistant were excellent.

Sally’s View: We had requested to be set with a group of our ten friends whom we were traveling with. They were seated on level four while we were seated on level five. A quick trip before sailing to the restaurant took care of this and we were happily moved to level four with our friends. Olwin our waiter from India was very genteel and accommodating. The first night I requested to have ice tea each night and it was always waiting for me. Our assistant waiter (can’t remember his name) had the most beautify smile, it was just a pleasure to see him.

We dined in the Metropolitan save for the evening we spent in the Olympic. Several nights, I substituted shrimp cocktail for the soup and it was no big deal. For all you rack of lamb lovers, Thursday night is the night they serve lamb in the Metropolitan, so don’t book, the Olympic that night if you want lamb..

I only had lunch in the Metropolitan one day and found it fine. Before I even ordered lunch, ice tea appeared. I found this very strange as I hadn’t ordered it and hadn’t seen our dinner waiter or assistant. I can only assume they saw me and had the tea sent over. A nice attention to detail! That or our lunch waiter was telepathic.

Breakfast was always either room service or breakfast buffet.

Ocean Grill:

Dave’s View: Good food most days, the day they had stuff I didn’t really cared for, I got a hotdog and fries from the grill by the pool. It was the best hotdog and fries I’ve ever had.

Ice cream was homemade and very good. Great views almost anywhere you sit in the Ocean Grill. The Ocean grill is well laid out and handsome.

Sally’s View: Good food. Lunch buffets were better than last year. Many more choices. Try the cinnamon ice cream, it is very good. I had to try to French fires as I read on the boards that they were very good. They were good, but I didn’t enjoy them as much as Dave.

Room Service:

Dave’s View: Not bad.

Sally’s View: The lines for the poolside buffet were so long on Island Night when we left Casa de Campo at midnight we gave up and ordered room service. I had a wonderful Chef Salad and cup of chili con carne.

We took pictures of the Grand Buffet but the line was so long we ordered a cheese and fruit tray from room service..

Olympic Restaurant:

Dave’s View: Out F*#2ing standing, beautiful restaurant, outstanding service and food.
Don’t miss the goat cheese soufflé.

Sally’s View: The room was beautiful, the service outstanding and the food pretty good. I had goat cheese soufflé, Steak Diane and Chocolate soufflé. All of it was very good, however, I wish I would have ordered Caesar Salad, Rack of Lamb in puff pastry and the desert sampler. I’ll do that next year.

Entertainment:

Dave’s View: It was Okay

Sally’s View: The first night the Chinese juggler/comedian was fun.
The Celebrity Singers and Dancer’s production of Broadway shows was outstanding. I was very impressed with the quality of talent, the costumes and music.

There was not a production show the night the ship was in Casa De Campo. The casino was closed, but they did show Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya sisterhood and Big Fat Greek Wedding. We spent out time in the Platinum Club drinking Martini’s. After midnight and after the poolside buffet the juggler/comedian performed at Cosmo’s.

As always, the Newlywed Show was funny, the Cruise video was funny and the Banjo player wasn’t as bad as I expected.

Aqua Spa, T-Pool, Workout Facilities:

Dave’s View: nice, but the gyms machines are not Cybex, if your used to working out with Cybex, everything else is junk.

Sally’s View: Used the T–pool once and enjoyed it. Didn’t use the gym and didn’t have time for the spa treatments. I did notice that the spa treatments were much more expensive than the Zenith spa treatments last year.

Cruise Critic Party:

Dave’s View: It was okay.

Sally’s View: Our party was scheduled for 10:30 to 11 am on Tuesday in Michael’s Club. While we had a nice turnout from the board, and I do appreciate Celebrity giving us a place to meet, I was somewhat disappointed in the manner Celebrity handled the gathering. The social hostess, Amanda Reid was hosting the party, yet she never introduced herself. We were the fourth and fifth person to arrive and I thought she just didn’t introduce herself to us so I listened to see if she introduced herself to any of the other’s that came in and she didn’t. I didn’t have my glasses with me and couldn’t read her name tag, and since she was busy during the first evening that they introduced the ship staff, I had no clue who she was.

She did offer us pastries, but they were still wrapped in plastic and no one wants to be the first one to pop the plastic. They sat untouched the entire time. She didn’t do anything to get the conversation going. She listened to us about Casa de Campo and just smiled. She did say that Celebrity did invest a huge amount of money in getting more buses for transportation to the resort. She also got the photographer to take our picture.

I had to ask her if it was alright that we introduce ourselves and our screen names. I also had hoped she would give a small talk on life aboard the ship. I think the party would have been much more of a success if it were handled differently and more professionally.

Saying all of that, it was fun to meet everyone!! Somewhere Dave has the picture and I’ll get him to post it.

Ports:

San Juan

Dave’s View: I really liked San Juan (old), I liked the fort and the look and streets of old San Juan. I wouldn’t want to drive around San Juan, don’t rent a car, let a taxi dent his cab in that mayday.

Sally’s View; I was not impressed with San Juan at all. I felt like we were in a large US city where all the signs were in Spanish. The traffic was horrendous and the city dirty. I did have the VERY Y BEST Pina Colada at Macchino’s (birthplace of the Pina Colada) be sure and have one or two.

La Romania/Casa de Campo

Dave’s View: Casa de Campo, pretty but boring, nothing to do, unless you like shopping for super expensive baby outfits from Italy. Lots of large homes, nice golf courses and yachts, but a security guard on every corner. It looks to me as if the folks that live in Casa de Campo will be the first ones lined up and shot when the revolution starts.

Arriving at 3pm is also very limiting and there are few shore excursions, Celebrity does seem to have the shuttle bus problem under control.

Also, where the ship docks, there is a very large sugar mill about a 1/4 mile away. When we were in port the wind was blowing the smoke away from the ship, (thank God) if the wind was blowing at the ship, this could be a really, really bad scene. The sugar mill seems to have 1930's type pollution controls (none) and belches lot of thick black and white smoke. Basically, Casa de Campo just sucks.

Sally’s View: I didn’t get off the ship. We had a cocktail party on the verandah and enjoyed the sunset.

St. Thomas:

Dave’s View: One of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean. Sally didn’t like the long walk from the pier, but she’s a wimp when it comes to walking. (I didn’t think it was that long).

In the morning, we did a private tour of the island with our taxi driver (Terrance Todman, cell: 690-2676) He knew all the history of the island and gave us a great tour.
At 1pm we went on the BOB, Breathable underwater Observation Bubble, the BOB was like something out of a 1969 Johnny Quest cartoon. It was loads of fun. Best excursion yet.

Sally’s View: In the am we walked to the tram. Our ship was last at the pier, the walk was long and I was not a happy camper. I didn’t think the view was as breathtaking as the $15 per person price suggested. The perfume prices weren’t near as good as I had hoped. They were $1 cheaper than the price I pay at our outlet mall in Indiana.
We had a great taxi driver who took us on a private tour. Contact us at: to get his name and number. You won’t be sorry.

Afternoon in St. Thomas: WAY COOL. I had never snorkeled before and it was absolutely FANTASTIC. The BOB was fun, but I didn’t like it as much as Dave did. I was glad I did it as some folks decided not to, but I don’t necessarily think I would have to do it again. I am, however, hooked on snorkeling. The Captain of our ferry said he could just go slowly back to the ship and I could snorkel all the way back. That would have been fine by me.

Nassau, Bahamas:

Dave’s View: Very nice. Crystal clear water.

Sally’s View: We swam with the stingrays at Black Beards’ Cay. The stingrays felt like soft, fat rubber. Got to snorkel again – YAHOO!!! Didn’t have time to shop the straw market. Wanted to shop. I would have much rather spend more time at Nassau than in San Juan.

Debarkation: Several people did not show up on time for US Immigration inspection and delayed the departure of everyone else for 1 hour and 10 Minutes. I don’t know if these folks decided to over sleep or take a long breakfast or what. They were US citizens and you would think they knew how to read or at least hear their names and cabin numbers be called over the PA system. Other than the delay caused the a few people, debarkation went very well.

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