Pros and Cons of Celebrity Eclipse | Honest Review

Hey everybody, I'm Josh.

And I'm Rachael.

And we just spent the last 8 nights on Celebrity Eclipse and we got a lot of pros and a few cons we want to share with you.

Let's go!

All right, so like we said, we just spent 8 nights on Celebrity Eclipse. Our itinerary was an Eastern Caribbean to Antigua, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and St. Maarten out of Fort Lauderdale. The big key to that is the Fort Lauderdale part because that is where we embarked, and embarkation was smooth as could be.

Smooth sailing from the minute we arrived. It was very well organized, even for Uber drop-off. They know exactly where to go. A porter is there to take your bags and you go right in.

And our keys were ready the moment we got on ship, which was before 1 o'clock. I think it was about 5 minutes to get through security. Get our pictures taken.

Yeah.

Yeah. We are in a Veranda Room. It is pretty standard size. I did not feel like it was overly large, but it was definitely not small. I thought that the bathroom was decently sized, and it has the plastic shower, which is key.

And it has a lady bar, which is key. And it also has a lot of storage.

Lots more storage. Yeah. And even compared to like a Royal Caribbean ship, where a lot of times they have shelves but they don't have a This one had a door. Yeah, I ended up loving the fact that it has a little door on it. Also in the shower, it does have shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, which is always a step up from the 3-in-1, 5-in-1 product that you get on a lot of cruise lines.

Agreed. The toilet is also at a good angle. If you watched any previous cruises, we had one cruise where it was kind of cockeyed. This one here is right next to the shower, and right on the right-hand side of it is also like A little garbage can, extra toilet paper, Kleenex, everything you need.

Yeah, uh, they also come with lotion, which not all cruise lines come with lotion. The room itself, initially I did not think that it had a lot of storage space, but as we started to put things away, um, the closet is quite large and it does have the spot where you can bring the bars down so you can have more space. Yeah, lots of hangers. One of the sneaky good spots for us was above the bed.

Yeah.

There is a huge—

Storage shelf? I mean, it really is a shelf.

It's like a giant shelf and it closes so you don't have to like stare at all your clothes hanging out. There is some drawers about— I'm looking at 5 drawers straight ahead of me, but those are the only drawers here. So there's not a lot of drawers, but the shelf over the bed I think made up for that.

I agree. And underneath the bed is a great place to store your suitcases.

True. One of the big downsides This ship is about 15 years old and it shows, especially in outlets.

Yeah.

There are 2 outlets in the entire room. They're right next to the mirror and that's it.

And ours is a mess.

It is quite a mess.

It really is a mess.

There's even like a European outlet style, but like I have an adapter, I can't get it all the way in there. It's— I don't know, it's weird. Okay, you can't use it that way, so it's It's difficult if you have to plug in a lot of different things, which a lot of us do since we have to charge a lot of stuff. So that part is a bit of a pain in the butt. There is a fridge in the room, but it does also come stocked with minibar items, which are not free even if you have the drink package. But you can put your stuff in there. There is a safe, and our balcony was very nice.

I loved the balcony. I thought it was a perfect amount of room.

Yeah, lots of space. There is a table and 2 chairs out there.

In addition to the table and 2 chairs out on the balcony, inside there a couch that we believe folds into a bed and a nice chair to probably sit down and get ready for. It looks very comfy.

Yeah, I will say the couch I did think looked quite dated.

Yeah.

Um, the one that we're sitting on right now. Um, and that's like a minor downgrade, but not bad. They also still do twice a day turndown service, which is always so nice. You know, until you switch back and forth with once a day to twice a day, Like, you don't realize how nice it is. And we loved it.

I was gonna say, I feel very spoiled.

Yes, it has been great.

And at night they put little chocolates on your pillow.

They do.

So it's kind of fun.

Hey everybody, future Josh.

And Rachael.

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The only issue I can say with the room, and it's just something to aware of is there is a little, I don't know, 3 to 4-inch ledge to walk into the bathroom. So if you're not noticing that or you're expecting it to be like even level with the rest of the room, it is noticeable. You can catch your foot on there if you're not paying attention.

And the other thing about the bathroom, you don't notice this as much with the newer ships, but there is no nightlight in the bathroom. And it's the same style where the light switch is on the outside of the bathroom door. So if somebody goes into the bathroom during the night, It is full blast light in the entire room.

Yep.

As far as dining goes, we did a pretty good variety of things. Now—

I would say so too.

There is not a lot of specialty dining on this ship. It is— it's not one of the larger ships, it's not the smallest ship, but we did do— we did do the buffet, we did do main dining room, we did—

Mast Grill.

Oh yes, up by the pool. We did do the Spa Cafe multiple times for breakfast. We did the Asian Uh, Sushi on Five twice, and we did Tavern Grill. Other places that we did not eat at is Le Petit Chef, Blu, and Murano. Murano, yes. So those are also available, we just cannot speak about them. I would say I'm gonna start with like the disappointment for me, and that was the buffet. I thought it was very standard, and our last cruise with Celebrity, we felt like everything was kind of like a step up. This didn't. Uh, we had just come off of an older Royal Caribbean ship and we enjoyed that buffet more than we did this one. So take that as you want.

The nice part about the buffet though, on a good note, is that its hours are throughout the entire day. Every time we wanted a snack or we needed to go get something to eat, even as late as like 9 or 9:30 at night, it was open. So that is a nice piece about the buffet and There were a couple times, and it just depends on the time of day you go, that it felt very crowded and there wasn't enough seating. Yeah, but it was busy up there a couple of times too.

Also, the main dining room we ended up going to 3 times. We'll probably go again tonight because we've enjoyed it. Yeah, the, the food is quite good, and I think the variety is decent.

I do too.

The appetizers is very limited.

Yeah, the only thing I would like to say about that, and again, it comes from The first time we went on a Celebrity cruise, I think we were shocked and in awe that they had 4 different dining rooms. And here there's only 1 main dining room, but it's okay because they do offer a different menu every night. They have their classics, but they do have different things every night. And every night but lobster night, they have a chef's special. So that's something that's not on the menu that we really enjoyed both times we've ordered it.

True. And last night during lobster night, the cool thing was we could order— each of us ordered a Beef Wellington plate and said, can we just get the lobster tail and not get a full plate? Because a lot of times if you order 2 entrees, they just bring you full entrees that are made up, and I don't need 2 servings of green beans and carrots and mashed potatoes with my other stuff.

But talk about the part you really enjoyed about the lobster tail that you said you hadn't seen since your early cruising years.

Yes, my— the, the waiter ended up, uh, trimming the lobster tail out of the shell, which I have not seen for a while. And so that was really nice. It's just Sometimes there's that extra touch that helps. As far as Mast Grill, it is like the perfect pool food. It is hot dogs, it is hamburgers, it's french fries.

And there's soft serve ice cream up there.

What's not to like?

We also did go to El Bacio for— that's where specialty coffee—

Café El Bacio.

Yeah, Café El Bacio. And that's where specialty coffees are. And I would call them finger foods.

Yeah.

And they were delicious.

Like little sandwiches, little desserts. You can get them all throughout the day. They are free, even though the coffee is not free.

Yeah, and they have some amazing cocktails there. Coffee cocktails.

Yes, we had a Carajillo day one and boy was it strong.

It was good.

It does come at a cost though. It does.

Our favorite spot for breakfast ended up being Spa Cafe.

Yes, maybe it's just because we were closer to the front of the ship.

Yeah.

But it also, it was limited but just what you needed.

Yeah, I think there were 5 options every morning.

Every day.

Um, you could also do like build your own yogurt parfaits and they had smoothies. At an upcharge, but you could also get coffee, water, and juices up there.

Yeah, it was really convenient and there was almost never a crowd there.

Correct.

So we got a table quickly.

They— but when they were ready to close, they closed. It's still like, get your coffee. Yeah, they came around and asked, do you want anything else? Nope. And then, I mean, like, it was cleared out.

Yeah, all the food was gone. The coffee was shut down. It's not coffee throughout the day like in the buffet.

That's true.

Sushi on Five, we did do for lunch on day 2, and we did it for dinner, I think on day like 4 or 5. Loved it.

Absolutely great.

It, it's the same price, it's the same menu whether you're doing lunch or dinner, which I love that sometimes because I, I don't want to have to like choose a watered-down menu for lunch, especially at a place like that where I can eat the, the same, the same serving size. Basically. But they do a— it's $40 per person. You get 1 appetizer, 2 choices of entrees, and 1 dessert. Which the nice thing is they already said, if you don't want a dessert, just get some more sushi.

Yeah.

And so we did.

Yeah, so we did.

Yeah, that was good. And then Tavern Grill, we were able to get a bunch of handmade pastas. We both got a steak. We both got some desserts.

They had some flatbreads.

The flatbread and the pastas I thought were the winners. If you go there, you should definitely try those.

Another option for dining here on Celebrity that we did not do this time around is room service. So there is a room service menu. Most breakfast items— I would believe it's most continental breakfast items— are included in the price. And for an upcharge of $9.95, you can get room service throughout the day. That's a different key too, because most places are just like breakfast room service, and this was all day long.

Yeah, we just didn't do it.

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All right, for shows and entertainment, I was pleasantly surprised. Um, you know, sometimes when you're on an older ship, when you're on a smaller cruise ship, You— your expectations come down a little bit. And I felt like the majority of the production shows here were very, very good.

I thought so too.

And one thing I really liked— we learned this by doing a backstage tour— was that this theater has 1,100 seats, whereas like on Celebrity Beyond they said it's around 700, even though— yeah, even though there's more people that are on Celebrity Beyond And it showed. Like initially I was like, oh man, this is weird. There's not a lot of people here in the theater. But no, it's just a much larger theater. And it was great because we just showed up within 5 minutes every time, got a decent seat, and there was still enough of a crowd that you didn't feel like it was just you and the performers.

Yeah, it was very nice. And I think it offered a variety of shows. There was a comedian a couple of nights. A music performance, and then I would call them like production shows. Is that what you call them?

And I think there was a juggler a couple nights. We didn't go to all of them, but what we did go to for the most part was pretty good. We don't understand all the art of some, some shows, but the ones we did, the ones where the songs we enjoyed, we enjoyed the shows.

Yeah. Outside of the main theater, there are activities going on everywhere.

There is.

Every single place.

They do have bingo. They do have Deal or No Deal. They do have activities going on up on the water deck.

They have trivia. There are late-night DJs. There was silent disco.

They have a lawn.

Yeah, they have a lawn.

The lawn.

With lawn games.

Yeah, I almost forgot about this. Like, you know, a lot of cruise ships have like a miniature golf and, you know, people might do it once and then that's it. Like, they have a putting green.

Yeah.

But they have like a, just a lawn setup upstairs, and I loved it. It's one of just the most natural beauty type things. Well, it's not natural at all. You're 15 stories above the water out on the ocean with green grass, but it was wonderful. I loved it.

The other cool part about that is they have the big screen TV up there, so that's where they do movies at night. So you're not in the pool, you're actually sitting out on a lawn. And we watched football up there one night.

Yep. So they had Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football, but they did not have any of the games Sunday day, in case you care.

Another cool part for Celebrity, and we actually took part in a couple of different activities on the ship, is they have ship excursions. So one of our first ship excursions, and this is only available on the Solstice class, is a glassblowing class.

It was so cool.

It was amazing. So you sign up and it was a 20-minute session. They did an, um, sail away party first and showed you about them. But then we got to make our own glasses.

Yeah, we each made one. So Rachael made the brown and gold and I made the blue and orange.

Yeah.

And it's awesome.

And they're such like sturdy glasses.

Hefty.

I have to admit, I've been looking at it, the calendar, every day since then and going, I wonder if we can get back there. It was just a really cool experience.

Yeah.

I would highly recommend. It is something that can sell out. So if you book a Celebrity cruise on a Solstice-class ship, make sure you book early. Plus you can get a discount if you book early.

Yeah, I would say book early so you can get a discount. But we've seen that there's— they're going like all the time. They're like going 12 hours a day. So you could probably get in, but if you want to save a little bit of money, go ahead and book it early.

Yeah, it was a— it was just one of the coolest experiences we've had on the ship. The next ship excursion we did was a pizza-making class. And we had tried to do one of these on Celebrity Beyond and it got canceled, so we signed up again. Again, book it early or— and book it before you get on the ship because we got it for like a 55% discount. We got to make our own pizzas in the galley today, so it was pretty fun.

Which is good because I thought the pizza in the buffet was not very good, and so I was a little disappointed. But then the pizza that we made, it was way better.

It was so good. Yeah, and they give you a recipe at the end, and, um, I believe we got a free cocktail. We just had a good time with it. It was really, really a fun experience.

As far as bars and lounges, there's a lot of them.

I think I read 15.

I believe that. What I like here is there's a hefty amount of theming going on. Yeah, you know, there is a like wine cellar that really has this like moody tone to it. The martini bar has like snow and ice on the bar top. I've never seen that before. And so I thought that was one of the coolest things. You know, Sunset Bar is still there and it's a great place to see sunsets. At the front of the ship on Deck 14—

I think it's called the Sky Lounge.

Sky Lounge. Beautiful. We ended up going there multiple times for happy hour. I thought it was great.

Yeah, it's gorgeous and it's like huge.

Yeah.

Huge area.

There is a really nice bar in the casino which also has a TV, which if you want— if you got to watch your football or sports or something, They always had sports going on there. And there's a bunch of others, but we didn't really make it to all of them because there's so many. There is live music a lot of the time down in the— I think it's 3rd floor. Like a Centrum type area.

Yeah.

They don't call it a Centrum, but it's like where you can see from 5 down to 3. A beautiful staircase, beautiful setting for Christmas time. And there was music there almost all the time.

Yeah, there was also live music up on the pool deck. We heard that a couple different times.

I feel like service was quite good almost all the time. I, I don't feel like we waited very long for much of anything.

No.

So if you're— if you are going to a bar to grab a drink, it's gonna be there pretty quick.

Yeah.

As far as the pool goes, there are 2 fairly large pools. One is 3 feet tall, one is about 6 feet tall, 4 hot tubs, and then there's a solarium area which I haven't seen how deep that one goes, but—

I haven't either.

There's also 2 hot tubs in there. So there's a total of 6 hot tubs, 3 pools. I thought it was really good and it was never crowded.

No, the only thing I didn't like is Josh had mentioned there's one that's, I think it was like 5'9 deep, and that's deep throughout the entire pool, which means for someone my height, 5'3, you're not standing in that pool. But then the other one, which was like 2'9 was too short.

It was definitely too short. They need to like level that out a little bit.

Yeah, it was just awkward. And the hot tubs, more than 3 people in them and that thing is crowded. At least the ones out on the pool deck.

The ones out on the pool deck are definitely— if you have 4 people in there, you are rubbing knees.

It's, it's weird. It is awkward.

And in the Solarium, you could probably fit about 6 people in there. Yeah, but then you'd still be close friends.

But they were nicer. I think the ones in the Solarium would be my preference over the ones outside.

The Solarium ones were just— they were nicer hot tubs. So if you're looking for a hot tub, get there. As far as seating goes, initially it looks great. On sunny sea days, it, it gets crowded. Yep. Good luck finding seats. We did not sit out too much if we didn't have good chairs. So we just like went in the pool and then like eyeballed waiting for stuff. But that's what you got to do, uh, because we weren't going to go up there at 8 AM and hoard chairs.

No. And the nice part is, is they do have some seating tables up by the Mast Bar and Mast Grill to sit at to enjoy your lunch, or you can take it with you obviously down to the pool chairs. But there was a lot of chairs that way. There's also a second deck above the pool that has a ton of chairs, but again, it gets crowded.

Yeah.

And We were on a Caribbean cruise. Expected it to be crowded.

Yeah, but overall we had a good experience with the pool.

As far as shore excursions with Celebrity Eclipse, we didn't do any this time around. We had one booked and it got canceled, so yeah.

Unfortunately that one got canceled, but we did not hear anything bad from other guests. Uh, no big gripes, no huge lines at the shore excursions desk, so that's usually a good sign.

Yeah, they seem pretty organized in the mornings because we were heading out about as early as they were.

Yeah, we did go to the gym several times, and there is also a walking track up on 14. The walking track is kind of terrible.

It's small. There was— I think it said 8 laps equals a mile.

But also, it's, it's in between all the sun chairs, and so it is— there's constantly people. So don't expect to do a lot of running or anything strenuous out there because there's so many people and they're going in all different directions. And so you're not really getting a good flow. So you're probably gonna end up in the gym, which I thought the gym was decent.

I thought it was too. Um, there was one day we went, and again, we went at prime time and it was hard to find a treadmill, but I would have hoarded that thing too because we ended up on the elliptical. I mean, but so there, there were plenty of treadmills, but then there were ellipticals, there were bikes, there was free weights, there was places to do like your own workout. Um, in a little side room. So there was a lot to do. Plus each day, um, they had like a wake-up and stretch part, um, on the pool deck and in the lawn, and they would have water aerobics as well. Yep.

And there was also a spin class area, so if you are into that. But there was lots of fitness opportunities.

Yeah.

The overall vibe of the cruise ship I thought was good.

I thought it was relaxing. Yeah, probably one of the most relaxing.

It's not super high energy. You know, Celebrity does lean to an older crowd, and I think it showed. I mean, there was not a lot of children, there was not a lot of screaming.

There was only screaming in the casino.

I know, sometimes random people would. But, uh, no, it was— I think it was good. It was very relaxing. I think that's the best way to put it. It was, you know, if you want a relaxing cruise, this is a good spot for it.

Yeah, and it never felt crowded, so I like that part as well.

Right. Yeah, I, I didn't feel crowded ever. As far as the size and layout of the ship, when I first booked this, I was very nervous that there wasn't going to be enough to do, um, but I ended up loving it. It felt like a really good-sized ship for the amount of guests that are on here.

I agree, and I thought there was stuff to do either all the time that you either wanted to do, and I never felt like things were overbooking each other. Like, I felt if you wanted to do something in the theater and then go down to the 3rd floor or whatever, you could, and it didn't feel like that was—

Yeah.

A long walk or that you were missing out on anything.

Well, speaking of long walk, I thought what's funny is like you could leave your room or anywhere on the ship with 3 minutes to go and you'll make it on time.

You'll make it.

Yeah, for anything. Like you can be anywhere.

Yeah.

Uh, the elevators do get very overused on like port days and embarkation day. I'm assuming tomorrow on disembarkation day it will as well. But yeah, you know, it— that comes with cruise ships.

Yep, and you expect that. It is dated in certain areas. You can tell the carpets are dated, they're a little bit different color. The couches feel dated. The color scheme itself is still a little dated, but otherwise it's still kept up really well.

Yeah, I, I really enjoyed it. I didn't have any problem with that. As far as the casino goes, I thought the You know, it was, it was pretty dang good for this size ship.

Yeah, I enjoy it because it's non-smoking.

Yeah, it's non-smoking. Uh, there is one side that opens up to a mall area, which really makes it not feel like you're sectioned off from the rest of the ship. Yeah, there's lots of different games. Um, it does lean more towards newer slot machines if you're into that. Uh, there was craps, there is roulette, there is blackjack, there's 3-card poker, all those things that you could want.

They did have a Texas Hold'em tournament and a blackjack tournament and a slot tournament. So all of that pieces that you're used to on other cruise ships, they have here as well.

And with Celebrity, if you are gambling, you are able to get free drinks on the casino floor. It is a limited menu and it's hard to find out what that limited menu is, but today we ordered a piña colada and they brought it. So I don't know what's on the menu, but earlier in the week I ordered a Red Stripe and they said Red Stripe is not allowed on this, but I'll get it for you the Yeah, so it's really hard to say. Yeah, but overall I thought it was great and I got a giant hand pay and that paid for the cruise.

That's right. Well, this, uh, my part of the cruise. This cruise itself was on a casino offer as well and we will probably be sailing Celebrity again.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we, we definitely earned ourselves another cruise with Celebrity and we'll book one later in the year.

I think the big standout on this ship, and I mentioned it earlier, is the ship excursions themselves. Having those different unique pieces such Such as making your own glasses. Like, I'm blown away. This is just one of the coolest things ever.

Blown away, you get that? Like the show Blown Away.

Like the show.

Yeah, no, I agree. I, I was a little leery at first, but I came around and I ended up having such a great time on this cruise ship.

Yeah.

And I would sail on this again, and I definitely recommend it.

Yeah, I would sail this ship, and I would definitely sail with Celebrity again. Absolutely.

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