Thomson Cruises, Celebration

It was Perfect- pretty entertaning,friendly, elegant, classy time- for hubby and I! Simply phenomenal from time of embarkation until we left ship for airport home! Honestly, it was our best holiday ever!! Time just went too quickly as we had so much fun from all the entertainment on board, plenty of relaxation, stimulation from the trips/tours/excursions, dining was superb as the food was so delicous as well as varied plus my coeliac diet was expertly catered for, service throughout ship was efficient as well as friendly! Our cabin was pristine clean as well as spacious , bed comfy, bathroom lovely, plus we had an amazing view from our deluxe cabin on deck 6(203), and they aimed to please- would bend over backwards to keep you happy! Great diversity of ages on board from youth up until eldlerly- every single decade of age- great to see!! We love that our ship was one of the smallest yet most elegant when we docked in port. If you want ostentatious then go for the Costa type ship yet if you want a more elegant smaller ship that still has everything you could possibly beed then go on Thomson's Celebration! If you are disappointed with this ship you must be one of the grumpy muppets from The Muppet Show! We felt like royalty- treated so fabulously well! My favourite show was Africa- loved this whilst hubby's favourite was the Cameron McIntosh show.

Had a sublime holiday on this beautiful ship- maybe mature in age(30 years old) yet it is expertly maintained! We will be back on Thomson's Celebration(different ports visiting this time- not Adriatic Affair,yet Greek Jewels) - booked already!!

This is a review of cruise taken 18th March 2011 on the ship Thomson Celebration for 12 days.

Plus points are:

Ship was immaculate both inside and out. Including cabins

Staff were amazing. So friendly and helpful.

Entertainment was good without being outstanding

Excursions were generally good however quite expensive

Food was good in all restuarants with excellent variety.

Specific Issues we found:

Transfer time from Airport to ship unacceptable at 3 hours plus

Rome excursion held on day of marathon.Major traffic probs in city disrupted all tours

Ship was very noisy when arriving at Port. Some kind of machine kicked in about an hour

from Port at about 5.00am every morning.

Be aware there are 3 time changes on this cruise.

A lot of excursions will only suit fit and able bodied people.

We almost missed the coach to take us to the Airport on Cyprus due to loud speaker mal-

function. So did about 30 other people.

Overall this is an excellent cruise if you want to see a lot of countries in a short space of time.

Bear in mind for two people you will have to allow about £850 for excursions.

Highly recommended.

6 adults 1 5yr old girl, joined ship in Marmaris,have read some not nice reviews about , The Oold ship, the cold food, ordinary, the sanitary conditions. OH my God! but, we have already booked! Well; thank god we did book the cruise, it was Fantastic!1st. the ship was mature and clean, the food was indeed 1st class, and entertainment was fantastic, i must mention one that did stand out, she is called,"Ingrid Course",honestly a name to watch out for. The excursions were really well managed, and ,lets face it we may not go to the red sea again, so don't miss them.thomson explained everything before we booked. So 'Thomson Celebration' cruise ship is the best.

An old ship in need of updating, dirty shower in cabin with dirty surfaces.

Reception staff not interested untill embarassed in front of customers with photographs of the bathroom, transferred to another cabin after 4.5 hours, noisy and occasional smell of engine fumes in second cabin.

Never received an apology and will report the saga with evidence to Head Office.

Food was just ok, entertainment was good.

I've just came back from a Egypt/Holy Land cruse on Thomson Celebration (Oct 2010) and I'd like highly recommend it. Everything was perfectly fine. Very good organization, delicious food. No problems with cabin at all (shower, toilet, noise). I didn't hear about anybody complaining too. Maybe cabin decor a little bit out of fashion but who cares. Everything very clean. Cruse crew very nice, effective and dedicated. Optional tours interesting and well organized, quite expensive though. One (like me) can prefer to organize it by his own, which is a good option too. I can highly recommend either this ship or this way of spending a holiday. Rating - 5/5

On arrival, we were given a letter from the ship saying that the Norovirus was on board. Also our aircon was broken, and no hor water for the first 24 hours. Other cabins were similarly effected.

3 days into the cruise, one of us caught the virus, and we were both we were quarantined for 48 hrs. At this stage the nurse moved us to a room with functioning aircon.

We subsequently spoke to other people that had also had the virus that week.

As a retired person with health problems, I felt it was irresponsible of Thomson to not to for warn us that Norovirus was on the ship prior to leaving home.

This was our first "thomson" cruise, and having been with P&O and Holland America it was taken with some apprehension. We could not fault it, having booked early we had the advantage of an all inclusive deal, value for money it could not be beaten. The range of drinks was exceptional, the food in the Meridian restaurant was above average by a long shot and even in the Lido self service restaurant it was very very very good. Entertainment on board was of a high standard, particularly in the evening. The crew were the happiest one could imagine. The ship is showing her age, but given that the crew coped admirably with the few faults we found. Would we go again? Yes Yes Yes!

My 2 sisters and I took our 80 year old mother on a weeks cruise around the greek islands. We all had a wonderful time . we sent postcards from the Celebration ship and on our return were suprised to hear no one had received them. 3 months later they have all turned up at there addresses .so just be warned if you think about sending postcards from the ship they may not reach there detination for some time. I think ours went around the world and back. apart from that a good time was had by all and Thomson Cruises well recomended. Kathy and family

I went in april 07 and it was fantastic! Plenty to do, as much as you can eat, the cabins were comfortable and the staff were great. The toilets were clean every time i went in and the pool was too. People onboard were friendly, too. The mocktails were very nice! The shows were so good we watched them at the later showing as well! The excursions were amazing - i've had so many great expieriences and memories. I'd love to go again!

Just back from a week aboard the Thomson Celebration and what can I say, awful! We paid £147.00 to choose our deck and cabin (408) and upon returning at 23.45 on our first night we were met with a loud motor noise from the ceiling and a banging on the the outside. I phoned the reception who said the motor noise would stop as soon as we left port, which it did, but they had no idea what the banging was but they would send someone down. Guy came down, had no idea what it was, and he went back to reception. Phone rang, it was reception, said "You want to upgrade" "No we want a room where we can sleep" "We can upgrade you but it will cost in between £70 and £100 each or we can move you to a lower deck inside cabin...but you will not get a refund....or could you sleep if we gave you some earplugs ! ! !"

Well, three solutions but all in Thomsons favour, what happened to the customer is always right. We opted for a temporary room, thank heavens it was temporary, and said we would sort it out in the morning, it was now one twenty in the morning.

Following morning we waited our turn at reception, loads of people complaining, and still could not get a straight forward answer to how much an upgrade would cost. Asked for a key to check out the upgrade room and after saying yes we would have it as long as it was no more that £140....surprise surprise we were charged £140. No mention of refund for the 408 cabin but we were told that the noise is due to the stabilisers which they use when the sea is a bit rough, they had numerous complaints the week before about the noise. However, they had never had complaints before..........what NEVER ! !

Anyway we moved to the DELUXE cabin, queen size bed, bath, his and hers dressing gowns, bigger TV (even though some of the channels sounded as though Sylvester the cat was reporting, ssuffering ssuthatassssshhh, did not know there was so many ssss's in the English langauge. But before you get too excited, being on the promenade deck does mean you have to put up with smokers talking, laughing and coughing their lungs up most of the night. The ding ding of the lift makes you feel like an extra in the Pinball Wizard and the walls are so thin you don't really need your volume on if you want to watch the same programme as next door, least it did away with the hissing. There again the conversations, not shouting, from both sides was so enthralling, not really, you did not need the TV.

Go down to the show and listen to the group of girls heckling the comedian and nothing being done, "I can't do anything about it" was one reply. Great......Try to sleep as the ship makes its way from one city to another, the bed moving so violently you think there is someone else in the room who is trying to flip you out of the bed. There were fun times though, watching the old people making there way from room to room as though they had been drinking all day, walking like Thunderbird puppets. Swaying from side to side, people leaving more drinks in the bar than they were drinking, great fun.

Good points: the Fillipino crew are outstanding, the entertainment people were great.

Bad points: all the above plus the girl at reception who was more interested in charging me than solving my problem. The fact that a couple in cabin 680 who had the same problems as we did, but put up with it, were given a refund of £98.00

I don't know why either............perhaps I looked rich and they could see my wife had not slept the night before and looked as though she was going to vomit all over the reception carpet?

Went on the Rome trip, £75.00 each, and barely heard a thing through the radio thing you had to wear. Seen the Pope, well I think it was him as he sped past at 50 mph or somewhere around that that speed. Went to the Coliseum, Trevi Fountain and al the other sights, great seen pictures, Trevi Fountain. Total waste of money. Worst holiday I have ever had and never again..........thanks for nothing Thomson Celebration, wish I had stayed at home, total waste of £1500.00