New Cruise Review: Celebrity Eclipse

Frequent cruisers and Cruise Diva contributors, Mary and Vincent Finelli share the enjoyment of a pre-holiday cruise aboard Celebrity Cruises' Celebrity Eclipse and offer their impressions of the third of Celebrity's hugely successful Solstice-class ships to launch since 2008.

While I was somewhat disturbed that Vincent related, "There has been insinuations by some readers that our reviews are not critical enough, since they contain only a few negative points and bias for the special treatments we receive from officers and crew. And this is somewhat true; how could we write a negative criticism when we have had a great cruise, where everybody made us feel very special, where everything we desired we received?"

Vincent continues, "Naturally, our demands are reasonable and we know what to expect when we book a cruise on a given ship. This was our 93rd cruise and by now we know well many cruise lines and their ships. Thus, we know what to expect from most of them and we can choose our cruises accordingly to our desires and preferences. Furthermore, since in the last few years we both have had to deal with limited mobility and need a wheelchair accessible cabin, we cruise only with those lines which do best to accommodate disabled passengers. In the past we have raised issues about availability, location, and comfort of accessible cabins with several cruise lines, but only some of them have heard our plea by making their new ships more wheelchair-friendly (ie, Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, Princess, and Norwegian), while some others have ignore the problem (ie, Costa, Carnival, and Holland American). Actually, there is something that can be improved even in this ship. The gangway at the entry point to the ship on deck 5 is a bit too steep for Mary's wheelchair pedals thus she had to be helped to access the ship."

I hope it wasn't Cruise Diva readers who criticized this very generous couple—they spend more time sharing information about the ships, the facilities, the dining, and entertainment than they spend on their personal preferences. And their experiences are invaluable for anyone with mobility issues who is considering a cruise on the ships they review. Follow the link above and I'm sure you will agree.

Photo Courtesy of Celebrity Cruises