Celebrity ship cruises Baltics with new amenities
Posted on Sunday, October 15, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Travel/169811/
AT SEA IN THE BALTIC — There was something not quite right with the Century.
Back in the mid-1990 s, the decoration and furnishing of the gleaming new MS Celebrity Century was the personal project of Mrs. Myrto Chandris, doyenne of the cruise line’s founding family.
In early 2006, despite its worn carpeting and decade-old facilities, it still appealed to a loyal, if steadily shrinking, cadre of senior citizen cruisers.
But for younger ocean travelers, the ship named the Century was, well, just so 20 th century.
Cruisers in the 21 st century have been demanding luxury improvements found on more elegant vessels, like those of other leading cruise companies, as well as on Celebrity’s newer ships, like the Millennium (launched in 2000 ) and the Summit (launched in 2001 ).
In the wake of some customer criticism, Celebrity Cruises booked its relatively old Century in for a complete makeover at a Sicilian shipyard. The drastic beauty treatment and major surgery was accomplished in just over a month, between April 28 and May 29.
The improvements were put to the test during a recent 12-night Baltic Sea Cruise out of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The itinerary included Copenhagen, Denmark; Stockholm, Sweden; Helsinki, Finland; Oslo, Norway; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.
Celebrity’s Baltic Cruise was offered several times this summer on the Century. It will be repeated next year.
The Celebrity fleet consists mainly of two classes of vessels. The more elegant choices are the Millennium, the Summit, the Infinity and the Constellation. Considered more modest are the Galaxy, the Mercury, and until recently at least, the Century.
“Now many of the Century improvements are features previously found only in the Millennium Class,” said Keith Ashley, the Century’s hotel director. He directs everything on board the ship except its navigation and physical well-being, the responsibilities of the captain.
CHANGES Balconies are the main thing, he said. Today’s cruisers demand private verandas on their staterooms. The previous Century provided a measly 40 balconies. The new Century managed to add them to 314 more staterooms without reducing the size of the cabins. Also during the renovation, workers lifted in a prefabricated section of 26 balconied cabins, replacing a seldom-used feature called the Sky Bar. Not that there aren’t plenty of other bars and lounges available, including the new Martini Bar, with its frozen wall of ice and 230 varieties of martinis, and the hip, new Sushi Bar on the Resort Deck.
The Century had also been criticized by some for the lack of an alternate restaurant beside the regular Grand Dining Room. This has now been corrected with the addition of Murano, a swanky new Italian restaurant, whose meals are available at an extra charge. (Reservations required. )
Many other features were added to the staterooms and the public areas, Ashley said. There are new and better mattresses fitted with Egyptian cotton sheets, for example. And there are LCD wide-screen televisions in the cabins.
Some things may yet need to be adjusted. In the cabin that my wife and I occupied, the flat-screen TV seemed to flatten our heads. We were not able to contact the 24-hour room service when we were awake at 4 a. m. due to jet lag problems. The hard-to-read map of the Century’s 12 decks gave passengers no indication of the floor numbers, just the name of each deck.
The captain of the Century provided interesting daily announcements from the bridge, but unfortunately his voice could only be heard on speakers in the public areas and not inside the staterooms. On other ships we’ve seen, this kind of thing could be found on a TV channel, which passengers could decide whether to turn on or not.
On the other hand, some of the many handy interactive features on the cabin TV kept us informed as to exactly how much money we were spending on the ship and allowed us to reserve our places at various classes and other events. What with shore excursions and other add-ons, the screen soon revealed that we had reached what was for us a financial high-water mark, an amount no doubt multiplied several times by less economically inhibited passengers — especially those who used the TV gambling feature.
Wireless e-mail access is also available throughout the ship, although the quality is subject to frequent variations in the satellite reception. This kind of thing was a bargain on a previous cruise we made aboard the Celebrity Summit, but now much more expensive on the Century, which charges between 50 cents and 75 cents a minute, depending on various package deals.
One new offering we’ve never seen available on any cruise ship, including others in the Celebrity fleet, was acupuncture. My needle-savvy wife sprang for the $ 115 treatment and was glad she did. (Package arrangements are available. ) Other passengers enjoyed spa facilities that were not available on the previous incarnation of the Century. The AquaSpa includes its own separate restaurant, with special, health-conscious offerings. We missed that one, but liked the food in all the other locations we sampled on board.
EXPLORING THE BALTIC The interior decorating of the new Century is indeed elegant from stem to stern. But from our point of view the greatest attraction of the ship was its Baltic Sea itinerary. It provided a taste of all four Scandinavian capitals, plus the wonderful art and architecture of St. Petersburg and Tallinn. It was good to see them in the summer, too, when the winterweary residents of these northern countries were in a mood to soak up the sun.
Several shore excursions are offered through the ship in all these ports, although we varied our approach, sometimes finding our own way around the city, sometimes taking tours we found ourselves. In Copenhagen, we opted for a ship-sponsored bicycle tour ($ 85 ), allowing us to join local cyclists to cover a lot of the flat urban landscape. Our first stop was to the famous waterside Little Mermaid statue. Then we pedaled through parks and gardens and eventually, using bike lanes, along busy streets. Stops included the royal surroundings at Amaliehaven Square and the nautical neighborhood at the Nyhaven Canals.
A day in Stockholm for us included a ride on the top deck of a double-decker tour bus we found in town by ourselves, giving us a giant’s eye view of the Royal Palace and other historic buildings. A pedestrians-only street colorfully draped with flags provided an interesting shopping experience. Other passengers took in the 1990 Vasa Museum, featuring the only intact 17 th-century ship in the world, but we thought the weather too lovely to spend indoors.
Helsinki was more pleasant than I had imagined, and easy to explore. The Sibelius Memorial, a steel sculpture created in 1967, impressed us. It was designed to reflect the Finnish composer’s musical style in visual form. The striking, modern Temppeliaukio Church was also memorable. It is built into solid rock and light is brought into the structure through 180 narrow windows under a copper dome. The center of the city is dominated by the imposing Helsinki Cathedral, built in 1830.
Oslo, which we had visited before, we explored mostly on our own this time around. The ship tied up beside the 13 thcentury Akershus Fort, and it was an easy walk from there into town. Other cruisers took in the almost obligatory Viking ship museum, and the famous outdoor statues in the Gustav Vigeland Sculpture Park.
In St. Petersburg (incidentally the site of July’s G-8 Summit meeting ), we took the ship’s combo tour of the city and the wonderful Hermitage Museum on one day, and a river-canal cruise on the second day, immersing ourselves in art and architectural treasures from Imperial Russia and earlier. Besides the Hermitage, highlights for us included the interiors of two recently refurbished cathedrals, St. Isaac’s and the Peter and Paul cathedral in the fortress island in the Neva River. The latter includes a chapel where the remains of the assassinated Czar Nicholas II, his family and servants are interred.
The biggest surprise was Tallinn, the charming capital of Estonia, whose genuine medieval atmosphere invited us to explore many of its winding and narrow cobblestone streets and open plazas in the old town. Tallinn is known as a musical place, and the Eurovision Song Contest is held there annually. When we wandered into the main square, a large and very professional concert band was playing popular and classical music.
All in all, the Baltic Sea seemed an ideal proving ground for the new Century, and an experience we will be happy to remember. WAYS AND MEANS
The 70, 606-ton MS Celebrity Century normally carries 1, 750 passengers in 875 cabins. Facilities include eight bars, casino, cinema, discotheque, health club, computer room, two swimming pools, sauna, Jacuzzi, several shops, three dining areas and a theater for entertainment. There are special programs for children.
The Baltic Sea itinerary described here is scheduled again for June 3, June 15, June 27, July 21, Aug. 2 and Aug. 14 in 2007.
Prices for the 12-day cruise vary depending on individual arrangements and exact dates. For August 2007, they will be approximately $ 2, 000 per person for an inside cabin, $ 2, 500 per person for an ocean view stateroom, $ 3, 000 per person for veranda accommodations and $ 4, 000 per person for a suite. Staterooms vary in size from the 1, 101-square-foot Penthouse Suite, which has a 118-squarefoot veranda to a ®-squarefoot inside stateroom. Deluxe ocean view rooms are 170 square feet, with a 42-squarefoot veranda. On the Baltic Cruise, three-hour tours ran around $ 50 to $ 80; all-day tours ran from around $ 150 to $ 200, and usually included lunch. The Century has scheduled other European itineraries for the Fall season and will operate in the Caribbean Sea during the winter. FOR MORE INFORMATION Celebrity Cruises Inc., 1080 Caribbean Way, Miami, Fla., 33132; phone: (800 ) 437-3111; email: info@celebritycruises. com.
— Robert W. Bone