A review of our first cruise
Day 2 (Sunday)
At sea

We were amazed to realize that we’d been on board for less than a day, and still had six full days remaining. You can have a lot of fun in 24 hours when you don’t have to drive, unpack, and wait for a dinner table.

We had breakfast on the deck – fresh fruit, eggs, potatoes, and pastries, out of the many items available. We then went to the theatre for a shopping preview of San Juan and St. Thomas, our first two ports of call. Maps and discount coupons were available there.

Then, we relaxed on the deck. Unlike Carnival, Century had plenty of lounge chairs. The staff was eager to remove used towels and bring fresh ones. It was strange to watch the volleyball tournament with the ocean passing by in the background! Vibz played again, getting everyone in the mood with calypso, reggae, and other island music. Annie enjoyed some time in one of the four Jacuzzis.

We noticed that Century never seemed crowded, even with a full passenger load. Its major public areas are placed away from each other, spreading the passenger load around the ship. Even the pool area was generally not packed with people. We had worried before the cruise about feeling massed-in, but that didn't happen.

The ship still looked perfect. No marks on the carpet, no smudges on the mirrors, no spots on the wood. The Century housekeeping staff is welcome to tidy up my house any time. We even saw one employee with a tiny brush at the end of a long stick, removing invisible dust from the inch or so of glass mirror that trimmed the baseboards.

We noticed a bit more rolling of the ship, which we attributed to higher speeds. It was sometimes awkward on the stairs, but not all that bothersome. We had no fear of being seasick, given Century’s stabilization system (and my belief that most seasickness is caused by worrying about it too much.) We went to the casino again to play a few quarters, and watched part of the art auction.

We also checked out card rooms, which looked very cozy and clubby with a fine ocean view. The library had lots of books and board games for check-out. We chatted with several of our cruise-savvy shipmates, all of whom said Celebrity was the best cruise they’d had to that point (most of them were on Celebrity for the first time.) We ate lunch in the dining room.

Note: The buffet is open for breakfast and lunch each day, but not for dinner. The dining room is open for all three meals, with open seating at breakfast and lunch, where the waiters seat you to fill up one large table at a time.

Another dining option was the outdoor buffet by the pool: hamburgers with all the trimmings, hot dogs, French fries, pasta of the day, dessert, and an item of the day (fried rock shrimp one day, gyros another, barbecued chicken on another.) I will confess that the burgers were so good that a couple of times I got one not long after finishing lunch. You could also get fresh-made pizza at certain times out on the pool deck, most notably 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. for a late night snack.

The lunch menu contained one of my favorites, Pad Thai, which is a Thai noodle, meat, and peanut dish, along with spring rolls. I eat at Thai restaurants regularly, and Century's versions of these dishes were as good as any I’ve had. I also had a great bread pudding topped with fruit, along with iced tea.

Curious fact: Century’s cold beverages on the buffet were horrible. You could get only lemonade or iced tea, and both were made from concentrates and were not palatable, in my opinion. In the dining room, however, the iced tea was fine. Soda was available, but at $2.30 per can with gratuity. None of us could figure why the sodas couldn’t be free, given that most restaurants get them dirt cheap in fountain form. You can bring your own soda on board for in-cabin consumption (we brought a 12-pack of Pepsi One) but for meals, we always had iced tea or water.

We noticed that the smaller kids on board were being treated very well. The waiters were always joking with them, bringing them fruit or hotdogs to eat (even at the formal dinners!) and having their pictures taken with them. In fact, I wish I’d taken a picture of the waiter in dinner jacket and gloves, cutting a six year old’s hamburger and shaking the ketchup bottle to get it started.

Since we’d gone to bed late the night before (late for old folks like us, anyway) we did some reading on deck, and then in the cabin, followed by a nap. Since it was a day at sea, it was formal dress after 6 p.m. For us guys, that meant dark suit. For the girls, long dresses.

Our show time for the evening was 9:00. Most shows had two times, one for the main dinner seating passengers, another for the late seating. The production show had singing and dancing, lots of energy and special effects like bubbles, explosions, and sparklers.

I’m no theater critic, and I’ve heard complaints that Celebrity’s shows aren’t up to Las Vegas standards. I thought the show was just fine. The orchestra and young entertainers did a good job.

After the show, we took our now-customary walk around the ship. The acapello singing group (Home Run) were singing on the staircase of the Grand Foyer. They were wonderful again.

We ordered room service late, just to say we did later. You can order directly from the interactive TV in your room, from a limited menu. We tried the pizza (pretty good,) one of the sandwiches (nothing special.) and a couple of desserts.

My advice here is to order room service only in desperation. The predefined menu is dull and barely edible, except maybe the pizza. If there’s food available anywhere else on the ship, which is usually the case, go there instead.

Note: we learned an important fact, although not in time to benefit us, as you’ll read later. You can order room service from the dinner menu during dinner hours, rather than from the limited room service menu. I wish we'd known this earlier. You simply ask your cabin steward for a menu, and place the order by telephone instead of over the TV system.

We watched some TV. Century has some pretty good movies on one channel, along with ESPN and CNN. We wondered why soccer was always on ESPN until we realized it was ESPN International. You don’t see many American football games, but soccer is on all the time.

Century has a channel with shore excursion information (you can book them right from the TV) and another with ship videos (galley tour, control room tour, etc.) I was disappointed that Celebrity doesn’t offer a real galley tour, but at least the video was better than nothing. Another channel had a live camera shot taken from the front of the ship, with air and water temperatures displayed over it.

Celebrity’s literature speaks extensively about the high-tech wizardry on Century, sponsored in a partnership with Sony. We weren’t impressed. The "video wall" gracing the Grand Foyer either didn’t work, or maybe I just couldn’t figure out what it was displaying or why. The room TV had a pretty lousy picture on some channels, and some of the interactive functions didn’t work (the "future cruises" schedule ran only through April 1998, seven months out of date.) Playstations were in some lounge areas, but not all of them worked. The Electronic Solitaire kiosk in Hemisphere Lounge was an old Windows 3.1 version of Microsoft Solitaire with a touch screen.

Note: I think Celebrity is off base with the high-tech connection. That kind of stuff dates itself very quickly unless you devote lots of resources to keeping it current (ask Disney about Epcot!) We didn’t think it added anything to the overall cruise experience.