David,
Love to ballroom dance? Don't go on the Millennium. Go on the Century. Or Galaxy, Mercury, Zenith, or Horizon.
The Millennium is an OK ship at best. I don't particularly think it is a very well designed ship. Much of the ship is shops, one part of the ship meeting rooms, another part of the ship a big flower shop called the conservatory. There's silly design in this ship like the long wings in the dining room, the lack of writing desks in the library, and many other things. The Millennium class is a huge disappointment in terms of Celebrity's creativity. Go on the Century, Galaxy, and Mercury and you go on 3 different ships, although each are unmistably Celebrity. Each is a custom ship with its own dining room, own Rendezvous, own, foyer, own furnishings with their own layout, own personalities showing different aspects of Celebrity style. Go on the Millennium ships and you find carbon copies of the dining rooms (different colors and textures but same furnishings and layout) and most other public rooms from the Millennium to the Infinity to the Summit to the Constellation.
The reason that I say go on the Century and not the Millennium? The Millennium is 91,000 tons yet only has 2 dance floors and fewer public areas than Century. The Zenith is 47,000 tons and has 3 dance floors. The Century ships also have 3 dance floors. On the Millennium, and the other ships that are Millennium class, you get a Rendezvous lounge that has a duo that performs and people can dance. You then have, directly above it, the Platinum lounge martini/bar that has a hole in the floor where you can listen to the duo and watch people dance. You can not go directly below via a stiarway to dance you must exit the top Platinum lounge area and go downstairs to the Rendezvous lounge to dance. Silly design. Both are H-shaped walkthrough areas and not destination areas. The only other option for a dance floor is up in the observation lounge where the disco is and is not a ballroom type atmosphere. And you have to go a long way to get there.
On the Century what do you have? A 1930s re-creation ambiance in the Crystal room. It is aft in the ship, is not a walkthrough, has a wonderful dance floor, chandeliers, and looks like it comes straight out of Fred and Ginger. Galaxy has a somewhat similar room that may be even more stylish. Nothing whatsever like this exist on the Millennium or any of the Millennium class ships, those ships may sport the specialty dining room, that doesn't exist on the Century class, but they are lounge deficient, they don't have nearly enough lounges or public areas for their size. They don't necessarily have intimate spaces either. The spaces are large on the Millennium and are not separated into intimate sections with railings and different levels as is done on the Century and Horizon class of ships. For this design faux pax Celebrity turned their oversized Michael's Club cigar smoking lounges into piano bars. But they didn't put dance floors in them. On Century class these remain smoking bars.
The Millennium ships are nothing but revenue producing-designed ships for RCI/Celebrity Corp. These were not designed with the daring and creativity that the Century ships were designed with. They were not designed from the ground up to give a uniquely Celebrity experience the way the Century and Horizon class ships were. These are go-with-the-Joneses current generation ships.
The Century is a fabulous, unique, timeless vessel with a magnificent dining room that surpasses the Millennium ships in both luxury and style (much more work was put into the Century's dining room ambiance to get it right than was the Millennium, according to the designer of the both of their dining rooms, Birch Coffey). The Millennium, for all of her luxury content, is run-of-the-mill premium mass market ship. Want to ballroom dance? Century has the venue and they do ballroom dancing onboard frequently in this room (that's the purpose and music that Birch Coffey had in mind when he designed the room). Millennium lacks the venue for it and offers it in a much less ambiance-filled observation lounge when it is offered. Put pics side by side of Crystal room vs. Platinum club. Both rooms are stylish, but Crystal room has dance floors and more intimate seating and sections and more "period" feel to it.
I'd cancel Millennium and go with Century if you want the *real* Celebrity and not the Celebrity/RCI hybrid that the Millennium class ship is.
For me, look past the newness of the Millennium and her sisters, and it is a very flawed ship.
