My wife and I just returned from our first experience with Celebrity, sailing on the Zenith to the Western Caribbean (12/7-12/21). This was our 14th cruise overall on six lines over the past eight years, and we were both thrilled to finally sail on the cruise line that so many people praise.We were for the most part very pleased with our experience on the Zenith. Our stateroom (outside, Europa Deck, midship) was above average in size (172 sq ft.), storage space, ammenities and comfort. No complaints about the accommodations!
We also found the service to be generally superior: our cabin steward, Francis, was absolutely the best we've ever had; the dining room staff, although somewhat harried, were friendly and efficient; the officers and crew were mostly courteous and helpful; and the cruise director, Shawn Cavanah, and his staff did a great job during the entire cruise (although a couple of the shows we saw were definitely sub-par).
So let's get to the quality of the food. First of all, I am a man who loves to eat good and tasty meals. And I'm anything but a fussy gourmand. Put a well-prepared (but not necessarily well-presented), flavorful dish in front of me and nine times out of ten I'll enjoy it. My wife, on the other hand, has owned and operated several restaurants during her lifetime and tends to be much more critical of food preparation and service than I am.We took dinner in the dining room on twelve of the fourteen nights of our cruise. I was disappointed with the quality of the entrée on three occasions, all of which occurred towards the end of the cruise. I found a codfish dish to be dry and utterly tasteless; the only lobster we were offered to be bland and very chewy; and the meat in a lamb shish kebab to be so tough as to be uncuttable and inedible. I returned two of the dishes which, for me, is practically unheard of! On the other hand, the rack-of-lamb meals (I had two) were superb, as were many of the beef, pork and chicken dishes. But I think that three strikeouts out of twelve tries is a poor batting average for the dining room of such a quality cruise line.
Let me say as to my wife's opinion of the quality of the dinner meals that she found several of the soup dishes to be forgettable, as well as two of her starters and three of her entrées. However, we both found most of the appetizers and all of the desserts to be excellent and very creative. As for the buffet breakfasts and lunches in the Windsurf Café on Deck 11, we agreed that they were uniformly well varied, well presented and quite good tasting. And their cakes and pastries were out of this world!
To be fair and objective about the entire dining experience, I would have to say that while it wasn't up to the standard which we had anticipated, it was about as good as we would expect on a fine cruise ship and slightly better than we have experienced on CCL and NCL. However, all of the people at our dinner table (two of whom were on their eleventh Celebrity cuise) remarked that the serving teams appeared to have too many assigned tables to handle efficiently and expeditiously. Despite this, they all did their very best to please and this was very much appreciated by all of our table mates.
Jack
Post Edited (12-27-03 15:38)
