Let me begin by saying that these are my own personal observations. Every person comes aboard with different expectations of a cruise. On any cruise one person can have a totally horrible experience and another can have the time of their life. But I know I benefit from a wide range of opinions when I'm trying to pick a cruise so I feel it can't hurt to report my experience for others to compare. I have previously cruised on Royal Caribbean and Princess so that is what I am comparing things to. As Celebrity's slogan is "exceeding expectations", I was anticipating a pretty high quality experience. So that said, here's my take on the Galaxy...

Overall, this was a pleasant, relaxing cruise. But Celebrity did not exceed my expectations. I was surprised at how standard most things were, instead of above average as they claim. Lets start with the food, since they claim to have the best cuisine. It was good, but not great. Examples: runny scrambled eggs, soggy French toast, fatty veal, dry tenderloin. The breakfast buffet had essentially the same choices every single day. Usually there was one different selection. The buffet itself was presented very simply. One thing I noticed right away was how they were obviously trying to improve the buffet experience by having trays lined with linens, a server who hands you a tray and utensils, and waiters to carry your tray to your table. But what I found myself thinking was "This doesn't really do anything for me. I'd rather have better food choices and carry my tray myself!". The lunch buffet seemed to always have very heavy dinner foods. Only once was I able to get a sandwich, and they also had a salad bar (ill) The dining room. Again, so-so. We had the late seating, which was supposed to be at 8:30pm.

	Article continues below

Several nights they opened late. We would see people from the early seating still coming out at 8:15pm! They would open the doors for our seating usually about 5 to 10 minutes late. If you had lunch at 1:00, you're pretty hungry by 8:30pm, you want to eat! We were at a table for 4 with one other couple. I was a little disappointed with our table. I realize we all can't have window seats, but we were way over on the far side, along the emergency exit wall, near the front. What I stared at for 7 days was a blank white wall with a red exit sign above the door. The dining room was supposed to be very elegant and beautiful, I wouldn't know. I had my back to the whole thing. (Actually, I did get up one night and took a little stroll. It was very pretty. A lovely staircase led down to the lower level. The ceilings could've been a little taller, though. ) Now, the service. Definitely nothing spectacular. Our waitbuffet. We were seated at a long table with 9 others. They took our order quickly, but then people who arrived after us got their food first. I was pleasantly surprised when they remembered the 2 glasses of juice I'd ordered. The meal? Well, I've had better eggs benedict at IHOP. The dinner food was also so-so. One of their salads was simply a chunk of iceberg lettuce with a few tomato slices on the side. My tenderloin was a little overcooked and pretty dry. One night, my veal was terribly fatty. The next time I had veal it was a little better. Positives: the Celebrity dressing gets an A+, yummy! (It has 20+ top-secret ingredients, so I'm told...) Some good sauces, and tasty desserts. The first midnight buffet we ate since we boarded pretty late. Pretty mediocre. Very greasy fried chicken, so-so ribs, good rice. We never had any of the other midnight buffets. Another thing I wanted to mention - they had one "Grand Buffet". It was beautiful. Tons of intricately carved food sculptures, lots of ice sculpture.

Okay, on to other service. Right off the bat, the service we received was definitely not on the same level as Princess. One thing in particular annoyed us. We arranged our own air, but purchased Celebrity's transfers. The baggage tags specifically stated that if we purchased our own air, not to put the tags on our luggage. Our travel agent had told us that we needed to claim our own luggage, and then meet the representatives down in the baggage claim. Fine, we have no problem with that. So when we arrive at the airport, there are representatives there to meet us at the gate. They are asking everyone if they put the tags on their bags. We tell them we didn't, as instructed. We tell them that we were told to go to baggage claim first. They have no idea what we're talking about. Eventually another representative comes along who does seem to know whats going on. She tells us where to go to get down to the baggage claim, and that they'll be someone down there. Well, there isn't anyone down there, not right awayen in the packet with the others so that's why we had missed it. Then we get to our stateroom and our keys are not there as indicated. Also, our stateroom steward is nowhere to be found. On all of our other cruises, the steward has always been there to introduce himself and offer any assistance. We found another steward and told him that we didn't get our keys. He told us to go down to Guest Relations and ask them to get us new ones. Now I'm not saying it was a horrible inconvenience or it upset us, but the standard service is that your keys are waiting for you in the room. In my opinion, above-average service would've been if that steward had gone and gotten our keys and brought them to us, not just told us to go get them ourselves. In regards to our cabin steward, he did his job. But didn't "exceed expectations". Throughout the entire cruise, I never once met him. Each day the bed would be made, but he never really cleaned the bathroom very well and never did any tidying up.

Now, entertainment. The shows were okay. I would agree with what I have read in other reviews - it was as if the performers weren't quite up to the level that the costumes and sets were. There were glitzy costumes and lots of music, but the dancers weren't in synch and some couldn't keep up. The acrobats took 3 tries to complete one of their stunts, and they didn't close the curtains to change over some of the sets. The singers in the lounges were all very pleasant. When they didn't have production shows in the theatre, the entertainers were better. They had a violinist one night who was excellent. They also had a juggler/comedian/magician. Although kind of a hodge-podge of jokes, stunts, and tricks, it was still somewhat entertaining. The theatre itself was very beautiful and well designed with good views and comfortable seats. Ok, a few comments about everything else. One of the reasons we picked Celebrity was all the activities they claimed to have on board. The volleyball and basketballhad to swipe your card when you came on board. With the Galaxy, you had to present your card, as well as a photo-id to a crewmember when you came back on. Just by showing your card, they still have no idea if everyone's back or not. And it was a little slower and less efficient than how it was on Princess. (No one ever had their picture-id ready.) With the scanning on Princess, it moved very quickly and the computer could tell them instantly if it had counted everyone or not. And for security, the computer would take a picture of your face at the same time that you scanned your card. So it was a really fast, efficient system. As far as other amenities/activities on Galaxy - pathetic library. Maybe a total of 50 books, many empty shelves. A very nice computer room - with no computers!! Just empty desks. A nice video-arcade for the kids, first time I've seen that. And finishing on a positive note, things I really liked -- TONS of deck space. I could always find a quiet place to go.