Mediterranean excitement Celebrity Galaxy
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This report consists of two sections, the cruise and the ship overall and secondly, the ports visited, tours taken and our impressions on what to see or do.
Overall, the cruise and the ship were outstanding. Yes, there were a few items which could have been improved or were not ideal, but mostly they had to do with individual people not the cruise line or the ship.
The Galaxy had just come out or a minor refurbishing and dry dock in March, but it was unclear on what was improved etc. The ship certainly did not get a complete paint job or refurbishing, but in general, it was in great shape. Our cabin (1041) was nice and well appointed. The carpet seemed to be fairly new and there were only minor scrapes on the baseboard or some areas. We were very pleased with it.
Some people were concerned about the Windows in the Stratosphere lounge. I went there one day just to check it out and it seemed that only a few on the side were still milky, everything else was fine. As we didn’t use the lounge or most other lounges, we didn’t care.
Ship Overall: The Galaxy was in great shape and the crew did a good job keeping things updated and clean. Some items outside could have been repainted during the latest dry dock, but overall, all was in good working order considering the age of the ship. The items we noticed were on the outside (balcony etc), inside all was well. Celebrity seemed to be really concerned in making sure everything was clean and that the passengers felt taken care of. As some other cruise lines had problems in the past with Norwalk Virus, Celebrity took great care and made every effort to avoid any issues. Each public Bathroom had multiple signs to wash hands, the main buffet dining room had hand wipes available before entering to sanitize you hands, when you entered the ship from an excursion or shore visit, the hand wipes were there again and you couldn’t avoid taking one. All well done and appreciated.
Cabin Steward and Butler service were outstanding. We left in the morning for breakfast, came back and the room was done. We left in the evening for dinner, came back and the room was taken care of. We never saw our steward in the cabin. All in all, great service and friendliness by everyone.
Dining: We had late seating which meant dinner at 8:45 PM. We initially thought this was a good time considering being in the Mediterranean and being on shore often. But 8:45 pm is pretty late and we usually were done with dinner at 10:15 or later. It was ok for us but it’s something to keep in mind when you have children (we didn’t) or like to turn in early. Service was great, unobtrusive and efficient. Only the wine steward needed some initial reminders J. Also getting bar service/soft drink service in the dining room was difficult. While there are designated bar servers, we gave up after a while and our assistant waiter took care of it. Not a big deal, but it was difficult flagging them down to get some. Once we figured out that our assistant waiter was a much more efficient solution, all was well.
Food: Again, no complaints here. The selection was good and there was never a problem what to choose. Celebrity even had certain items like Steak or Onion soup available all the time should one not find something on the menu. Could some of the items be improved ? Yes. I understand they are currently in the midst of changing the menu/executive chef…so maybe that had something to do with this. But overall, it was good cruise fare. The only thing which definitely needs to be improved would be the salad, both in selection and quality. Salads seemed to be prepared well in advance and stored for the day, arriving dry and bland looking at the table. Also the presentation of those plates was “well…bland”. The rest of the dinner was great and the portions had a good size.
For breakfast and lunch we used the buffet restaurant on Deck 11. Great selection and taste too. If you didn’t find something you liked, it was your own fault. There were two stations for omelets to order which had longer lines sometimes, but otherwise no problems getting what you needed. They had two large sections for lunch and breakfast with the same selections, plus two omelet stations, two ice cream stations, one wrap and sandwich station and an Asian breakfast/lunch station. That was a refreshing addition to the overall selection. Not only did the food taste great, they had a reasonable selection of sushi and rolls every day at 5 pm. Great for a snack when we were back early. Sushi on the Mediterranean ….nice.
Casino, Lounges, Bars: Can’t say much as we didn’t use either. Bar Service on the open deck was efficient.
Ship Organization: Very efficient and never a long wait for embarkation or disembarkation. Tours were organized well and getting off the boat at various ports all worked well. Staff did a great job communicating considering the various amounts of languages spoken on the ship. As the ship’s currency was Dollar and the Euro quite high in comparison, the ship had a large contingency of European visitors, the majority of which were Spanish speaking. So the announcement prior to tours was usually in the following order:
1. Make announcement in English that there will be an announcement in Spanish
2. Make announcement in Spanish that there will be an announcement in English and please let them make without interruption or noise.
3. Make regular announcement in English about topic.
4. Make same announcement in Spanish
5. Make announcement in other languages if necessary.
This was quite funny actually, but otherwise, the first announcement would have been drowned out most of the time by chatter in spanish.
Staff: Friendly, helpful in all aspects.
Tours: We did a mix between tours provided by the cruise line and our own. Overall, tours provided by the cruise line were well organized, efficient and in line with other prices offered by outside vendors. Some were only available by the cruise line due to late arrival in the day (Mykonos).
Mykonos/Delos: The Galaxy arrived in the afternoon and the tour to Delos left almost immediately. The ship had tendered and we were brought by tenders to the pier where we got onto the tour boat bringing us to Delos. There were about 100-120 people on the boat and the weather had been windy, sea was a bit rough. It had been initially questionable if the boat would be able to make it (more a question of whether the passengers were able to make it while the boat was rocking over the waves). They decided to make the trip afterall and it was worth the effort. It took about 45 minutes to an hour to reach Delos where we were split into individual groups with individual tour guides showing us the sights and explaining the important aspects of Delos. Very impressive place full of history.
Trip back was equally rocky, but fun and we saw the coast of Mykonos. We asked our tour guide for a restaurant recommendation, we wanted to have a traditional Greek Fish Dinner and she recommended Kounelas. Great place. You selected the appetizers from the menu, but then went to the front store, selected your fish or other seafood and they prepared it right there on a hot charcoal grill. Wonderful. Watched the sunset, then back on the ship. Nice.
Rhodes: Here we decided to explore on our own. Town has lots of history; Knights Templar etc and just walking the streets gave you a great impression. We had lunch as a local restaurant and just enjoyed the place. Based on recommendations by a local shopkeeper, we took a tour with the “train” around town and to the major sites of the northern part of the island. Temple of Apollo, etc. The train is actually a street version of a “train” open air seating pulled by a truck made to look like a “train”. Cost was 5 Euro per person including free bottled water. Certainly worth it as we would have never walked to all those places or even considered. And it was fun to boot. Half of the people on the train were international tourists, the other half were locals or greek tourists. Nice mix and everyone had fun.
People on Rhodes were friendly and helpful. We had a great time.
Santorini: What to say. This place is just beautiful. We got off the boat early, tendered to the cable car station and were up in Fira in no-time. Walked around a little bit but then made our way to the bus station where we took the local bus to Oia, a town at the far end of the island, about 14 miles away. This is the place you usually see on pictures when you see Santorini. The white washed buildings, the blue roofs, wonderful. Bus ride was 1.40 Euro per person and took about 30 minutes. Then it was just feasting your eyes. We had lunch at a local restaurant overlooking the caldera with the Galaxy right in the middle. Nothing much to do there; it’s just a gorgeous place. We took the bus back to Fira, walked the town a bit, visited a local internet café and then took the cable car back to the ship. Most people stayed in Fira, so Oia was not too crowded. If you go to Santorini, make sure you go to Oia. Fira is the bigger place and you will see shops, shops etc…not much of the sites.
Istanbul: We had booked the 2 day tour with Celebrity. Again, well organized, buses well all air conditioned and plenty of space. Went to all the Blue Mosque which was impressive, but a zoo (people people everywhere). There wasn’t a lot of time to take in the grandeur of this place due to the large amount of visitors, people neck to neck, etc. We then walked to the Topkapi palace across the street. This again was impressive, but time was too short to see much and we were actually to hot and tired to do much. Tour guide tried to explain the history, but we all had problems with the amplifier she was using so half of the information was lost.
Hint: Do not repeat: Do not buy any food or drinks at the Topkapi museum restaurant. Just a can of coke was 8 Dollars….there are plenty of cheaper places outside.
We then drove to the grand Bazaar for shopping. Even if you are not interested in shopping, this is a site worthwhile. Just the colors and impressions of this covered area were amazing. We spent about an hour there.
Next day same bus and tour guide (Mrs. Flower) picked us up at the ship and we drove over to the Asian side of Istanbul. Our tour guide (and the guide in Ephesus the next day), spent a lot of time telling us about how different Turkey is from the rest of the Muslim world, how open they are, etc…it almost became a political lecture. It sounded like they were required to do this as both had almost the same topics and points. We then stopped at an overlook (well…overlook was too much) to look from Asia onto Europe. The overlook was a street parallel the wire mesh fence of a local army station. Not quite the scenic place we all had in mind.
Then off to the Hagia Sophia museum. It was presented as a museum, but it turned out not to be a museum in the common sense. It was the church/mosque building etc. Again, great to visit and lots of history, but unfortunately Turkey doesn’t have a lot of money to preserve the buildings and they are starting to crumble. Inside there were many iron scaffoldings holding up the roof etc.
Then off to a carpet demonstration in a local shop…quite interesting even if you didn’t want to buy any carpet. Once the demonstration was over, there was very little sales pressure….you said no, not interested and they left you alone. Pleasantly surprised.
Tour ended with a lunch at a local restaurant sampling Turkish food.
Ephesus/Kusadasi: Took the cruise line tour to the major sites. Same tour company as in Ephesus and they seem to also do individual tours. Again, organization was efficient and no waits. But if you think the site in Istanbul were crowded, this was even worse. But it would have been a shame to miss this place. We drove to the upper entrance of the park, and then walked mostly down hill through the site, taking in the history and grandeur of it. There is much you can find on the web about this site and I’m not going into the history etc. But definitely a place to visit. Part of our tour was the “optional” visit to a carpet store. Our tour guide however, realized there wasn’t much interest (and he didn’t seem to want to go there either), so we all voted to skip it.
Did some shopping in the small bazaar at Kusadasi, but it was far from the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. It was fun to see the theatrics of some of the shop keepers trying to get you to stop, shop etc. Usually it was the: Where are you from? Come to my store…we have better prices then…. What do I have to do to buy this… etc. But two places stuck out. The first one looks at me and says: “How can I take your money if you continue walking away.”, the second one tells my wife and daughter who were walking about 6 yds in front of me: “I know what you did last summer”. He then realized I was with them and we all had to laugh about this…friendly people everywhere.
Athens: Probably the low point of our trip. Not because anything bad happened, but having seen everything we had already seen before…it was somewhat underwhelming. Athens was hot and gritty. The Parthenon on the Acropolis was well…stones, columns and again, tons of people. I leave it up to this. Tour had 2 ½ hours time to spend in the old town of Athens, the Plaka area. Mostly shops and restaurants and too hot to do much.
Naples: We took a trip out to Pompeii organized by the cruise line. Again, well organized and worthwhile.
Next day was Rome and the end of our cruise. We spent 4 more days in Rome afterwards and took in the sites of this wonderful city. Quite a few people seem to have come to Rome first, then took the cruise, however, we found that doing it the other way around was much better.
We arrived in Rome in the morning, got on the boat and then had a day at sea. This was great to recoup from the trip, take care of the jetlag and then enjoy the rest of the trip.
In closing: I would highly recommend this itinerary, Celebrity and the ship.
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