Celebrity Millennium Cruise Review
Cruise Line: Celebrity
Cruise Ship: Millennium
Cruise Destination: Scandinavia and Russia
Date of Cruise: July 29-August 12, 2000
Guest Contributor: Paul M. Jaffe, paulmj@earthlink.net
(c) Paul M. Jaffe, 2000
Introduction:
Accompanying this review are quite a few digital photos that were taken using a new, Casio QV-3000-EX 3.3 mega pixel digital camera. Rather than clutter the review with a lot of pictures, I have included links to web-based albums at the end of the review.
The pictures are categorized in these albums and contain pictures taken of the ship and at each of the port stops along the way.
For those who care about such things, I reduced the size of the pictures from 2048 x 1536 pixels as they come out of the camera to 800 x 600. I also increased the compression on the produced JPEG file to a 75% quality. All of this was done to reduce the file size by approximately 85% and thereby make the pictures easier to download. These changes should be undetectable when viewed on a monitor screen. However, the resultant pictures may not as good for printing.
If someone wants a copy of a particular picture in maximum resolution, send me an email and I'll be happy to email the file back to you and you can do with it what you want.
For any questions or further discussion of issues discussed in this review, feel free to email me at paulmj@earthlink.net
Overview:
First things first: After seventeen prior cruises over as many years, Celebrity's brand new Millenniumwas for us the most fabulous ship on which we have ever sailed.
It is bigger, classier, more opulent and simply more beautiful than anything we have ever seen before. This includes all the newest ships from Princess, Royal Caribbean and Renaissance, our basis of comparison. It is a splendid ship indeed.
Arguably, this may have been the finest all around cruise experience we have ever had.
We found this crew to be the best in the business. Celebrity offered their top people from their other ships a chance to work on their new flagship. This level of experience was in evidence in every way, every day.
In this review, I will leave to others impressions of the video game arcade, the top-deck sports activity center, and the cigar smoking club. We also had no occasion to use the spa nor the pool, although we walked by it. Others seemed to like it. Because the therapy pool is filled with hot, chlorinated sea water, there were signs warning that swimsuit colors might fade.
Like most modern cruise ships, the Millenniumhad a large number of bars, all very nice in appearance, with opportunities for dancing or just looking out the window at the sea. We visited one or two, but have no particular comment other than the fact that no one should be disappointed with the facilities.
The weather was particularly good for us. We had two or three days with brief afternoon showers and the evening in Copenhagen was rainy. The skies were sunny some days and cloudy on others. Daytime temperatures were pretty close to normal for this part of the world, that is, in the mid to upper 60s.
We spent some time in the after-dinner shows, but not a lot. So, I plan to offer details more aligned to what we specifically did and what-to-expect for future cruisers with the hope that such information will be helpful, will answer any pending questions, and alleviate any concerns they may have.
One comment concerning shore excursions: Two years ago, we sailed a similar itinerary on RCI's Splendour of the Seas. A link to this review can be found at the end of this report. Since we did a lot of the "must-see" sightseeing at that time, we didn't want to do the same thing all over again. Therefore, to get a more complete picture of our impressions of what-to-do in each port of call, you may want to consult both this review and the Splendourreview.
Getting there:
We live in the Los Angeles area. We flew non-stop from LAX to Amsterdam's Schipol Airport on a KLM 747, a 10 hour journey. Although we have traveled often to Europe, we had never been to Amsterdam before.
We always like to eliminate any uncertainties of connecting with the ship when we travel. We decided to fly in two days before sailing. Because we used frequent flyer mileage, we were limited to Monday to Thursday travel. This required us also to stay on in Amsterdam two days after the cruise was over.
Amsterdam is a particularly delightful place to visit, so these few extra days we were able be there were very much appreciated. You can easily see the highlights of Amsterdam in the time we allotted.
Page 2 > > More of the Baltic Cruise review on the Celebrity Millennium > >
Cruise Ship: Millennium
Cruise Destination: Scandinavia and Russia
Date of Cruise: July 29-August 12, 2000
Guest Contributor: Paul M. Jaffe, paulmj@earthlink.net
(c) Paul M. Jaffe, 2000
Introduction:
Accompanying this review are quite a few digital photos that were taken using a new, Casio QV-3000-EX 3.3 mega pixel digital camera. Rather than clutter the review with a lot of pictures, I have included links to web-based albums at the end of the review.
The pictures are categorized in these albums and contain pictures taken of the ship and at each of the port stops along the way.
For those who care about such things, I reduced the size of the pictures from 2048 x 1536 pixels as they come out of the camera to 800 x 600. I also increased the compression on the produced JPEG file to a 75% quality. All of this was done to reduce the file size by approximately 85% and thereby make the pictures easier to download. These changes should be undetectable when viewed on a monitor screen. However, the resultant pictures may not as good for printing.
If someone wants a copy of a particular picture in maximum resolution, send me an email and I'll be happy to email the file back to you and you can do with it what you want.
For any questions or further discussion of issues discussed in this review, feel free to email me at paulmj@earthlink.net
Overview:
First things first: After seventeen prior cruises over as many years, Celebrity's brand new Millenniumwas for us the most fabulous ship on which we have ever sailed.
It is bigger, classier, more opulent and simply more beautiful than anything we have ever seen before. This includes all the newest ships from Princess, Royal Caribbean and Renaissance, our basis of comparison. It is a splendid ship indeed.
Arguably, this may have been the finest all around cruise experience we have ever had.
We found this crew to be the best in the business. Celebrity offered their top people from their other ships a chance to work on their new flagship. This level of experience was in evidence in every way, every day.
In this review, I will leave to others impressions of the video game arcade, the top-deck sports activity center, and the cigar smoking club. We also had no occasion to use the spa nor the pool, although we walked by it. Others seemed to like it. Because the therapy pool is filled with hot, chlorinated sea water, there were signs warning that swimsuit colors might fade.
Like most modern cruise ships, the Millenniumhad a large number of bars, all very nice in appearance, with opportunities for dancing or just looking out the window at the sea. We visited one or two, but have no particular comment other than the fact that no one should be disappointed with the facilities.
The weather was particularly good for us. We had two or three days with brief afternoon showers and the evening in Copenhagen was rainy. The skies were sunny some days and cloudy on others. Daytime temperatures were pretty close to normal for this part of the world, that is, in the mid to upper 60s.
We spent some time in the after-dinner shows, but not a lot. So, I plan to offer details more aligned to what we specifically did and what-to-expect for future cruisers with the hope that such information will be helpful, will answer any pending questions, and alleviate any concerns they may have.
One comment concerning shore excursions: Two years ago, we sailed a similar itinerary on RCI's Splendour of the Seas. A link to this review can be found at the end of this report. Since we did a lot of the "must-see" sightseeing at that time, we didn't want to do the same thing all over again. Therefore, to get a more complete picture of our impressions of what-to-do in each port of call, you may want to consult both this review and the Splendourreview.
Getting there:
We live in the Los Angeles area. We flew non-stop from LAX to Amsterdam's Schipol Airport on a KLM 747, a 10 hour journey. Although we have traveled often to Europe, we had never been to Amsterdam before.
We always like to eliminate any uncertainties of connecting with the ship when we travel. We decided to fly in two days before sailing. Because we used frequent flyer mileage, we were limited to Monday to Thursday travel. This required us also to stay on in Amsterdam two days after the cruise was over.
Amsterdam is a particularly delightful place to visit, so these few extra days we were able be there were very much appreciated. You can easily see the highlights of Amsterdam in the time we allotted.
Page 2 > > More of the Baltic Cruise review on the Celebrity Millennium > >
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