Bahamas Celebration Cruise 2014
Our embarkation process from West Palm Beach, Florida, was delayed by the late release of the previous passengers by the police! Yes, the whole cruise was detained on their arrival in port at by police investigating the suicide of one of its passengers overnight. Apparently he had been seen to jump overboard and the ship had turned around to search for him, in vain.
Thankfully there were no such dramas on our cruise. We had purchased this cruise as part of a timeshare/holiday club promotion. It involved an overnight on the ship, two nights at the Flamingo Bay Resort and another overnight cruise back to West Palm Beach. During the embarkation process we were offered a chance to sign up for the specialty restaurant or book ahead for the formal dining room. There were also offers of discount wine packages, so we took that one. The partly consumed bottle of wine we had in our baggage was confiscated for return to us at the end of our cruise. Needless to say, it wouldn’t have been worth drinking by that time! We also signed up for an “Around the World” wine tasting, so as soon as we had put our gear in our cabin, we headed off for a very pleasant hour or so of sampling wine from the US, Spain, Argentina, France and Italy – even before the cruise departed. Other cruisers had immediately descended upon the pools and poolside deck where there was live music and a crowd doing line-dancing! People were committed to having fun and not wasting a minute of this weekend.
Cabins on this ship were either inside or ocean view. There were no balconies. We opted for the ocean view as I need to see outside – don’t ask me why, as there was nothing to see except sea! The cabins were much smaller than the ones we had been familiar with, but since you spend most of your awake time in other parts of the ship, it does not matter. The ship was also a lot older and seedier, but perhaps we had been spoiled on the Celebrity line. Although it was a much smaller ship, like other ships there were bars, a theatre, buffet and formal dining.
UPDATE 2021 : Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 crisis, this ship has since been withdrawn from service and sold for scrap.
Related articles
- Man missing from cruise ship off Bahamas (cbsnews.com)
- Coast Guard Searching For Man Overboard From Bahamas Celebration Cruise Ship (miami.cbslocal.com)
- A Weekend To Remember (ireport.cnn.com)
