My First Celebrity Cruise: An Honest Review of Celebrity Reflection
I’m officially back from my first-ever Celebrity cruise, and after spending seven days onboard Celebrity Reflection, I have thoughts.
A lot of thoughts. 😂
I chose this cruise for a pretty simple reason: so many of my clients and travel group members have sailed with Celebrity. As a travel advisor, I don't want to simply know what a cruise line says it offers. I want to experience it for myself.
Because here's the thing I tell my clients all the time:
Not every cruise line is right for every traveler.
What one person absolutely loves about a cruise can be the exact thing another person doesn't care about. That's why I like sailing different cruise lines whenever I can. It gives me firsthand experience that I can bring back to my clients.
So after seven days on Celebrity Reflection, here's my honest take — the things I loved, the things I really liked, and the things I could have done without.
First Impressions: The Crew Was Fantastic
If there was one thing that stood out to me immediately and continued throughout the entire cruise, it was the crew.
The crew members we interacted with were genuinely friendly and personable. They weren't just giving us the obligatory "hello" as they passed by. They were willing to stop, chat and actually interact with us.
Our dining room servers were especially wonderful.
They learned our names quickly, along with our preferences and little things we liked. And what I really appreciated was that it didn't stop when we left the dining room.
We would run into crew members elsewhere on the ship and they would greet us by name.
Those little interactions make a difference.
I obviously can't speak for every Celebrity employee or every sailing, but our overall experience with the crew was excellent. They were kind, conversational, helpful and seemed genuinely happy to be there.
The people were one of my favorite parts of the cruise.
Let's Talk Food
This one is a little bit of a good-and-bad review.
First, the good news: we ate very well without purchasing specialty dining.
The food in the main dining room was consistently good. I would put most of what we ate around an 8/10.
Our waiter also made the dining experience even better. He quickly learned what we liked and would occasionally bring us additional dishes he thought we might enjoy so we could try them.
That was a really nice touch.
I'm also not normally a huge buffet person, but Celebrity's buffet was convenient and I could always find something I wanted.
So what didn't I love?
The dining variety.
It felt like there were fairly limited options when it came to where you could eat breakfast, lunch and dinner without paying an additional fee.
And after several days, I started wishing there were more choices.
Sometimes I don't want to sit down for a full meal. Sometimes I want a piece of pizza, take it back to my cabin and eat it in my pajamas. 😂
And this is something I struggle with across the cruise industry in general: paying a cruise fare and then discovering that additional dining options come with additional charges.
Personally, I prefer a cruise experience where I can enjoy a wider variety of dining without constantly thinking about what costs extra.
That said, I don't want that to overshadow the main point:
The food wasn't bad. We enjoyed our meals. We simply wanted more variety.
How Big Is Celebrity Reflection?
Celebrity Reflection carries around 3,000 passengers, and after cruising on several different cruise lines, I'm starting to realize something about myself:
I might be becoming a small-ship girl. 😂
That doesn't mean I disliked Reflection's size.
Actually, I thought the ship was a comfortable size. It was large enough that you could find quieter spaces when you wanted them, but it wasn't so enormous that you needed a map and walking shoes just to get from one end to the other.
For me, it was a nice balance.
And our cabin?
I thought our room was plenty spacious for two people.
But the thing that surprised me most was actually the bathroom.
If you've cruised before, you know that a decent-sized cruise ship bathroom feels like winning the lottery. 😂
I thought the bathroom was a really good size and was one of the pleasant surprises of our cabin.
But then there were the outlets.
Oh, the outlets.
There were only two, and they weren't even located in the bathroom.
When two people are getting ready for dinner, that can become a little challenging.
Hair dryer. Curling iron. Phone charger. Watch charger. Whatever else you're bringing along.
Suddenly you're negotiating outlet time.
It's a small thing, but it's definitely something I noticed.
Ship size: I liked it.
Cabin: Plenty of space for two.
Bathroom: Surprisingly good.
Outlets: Celebrity, we need to talk. 😂
The Ports: Cozumel, Grand Cayman & Bimini
Our itinerary took us to:
Cozumel
Grand Cayman
Bimini
And I'm going to be honest.
Cozumel and Grand Cayman didn't leave me thinking I needed to rush back.
That doesn't mean they're bad destinations. They just didn't make my personal list of places where I thought, "I absolutely have to come back here."
But then we got to Bimini.
And Bimini was a completely different story.
We purchased tickets to the World Resorts Beach Club for our day there, and I absolutely loved it.
There were two pools, beautiful beach access and a gorgeous setting right on the water.
And my favorite part?
You could sit in the pool and feel the ocean breeze.
That is my kind of cruise port day.
I'm not always looking for an itinerary where I have to get off the ship, rush around, see 47 things and get back before all aboard.
Sometimes I just want a beautiful beach, a pool, something cold to drink and a few hours to relax.
Bimini was a huge win for me.
And this is one of the reasons I think firsthand travel experience is so valuable.
Sometimes a destination looks amazing on paper and doesn't do much for you in person.
And sometimes a destination surprises you.
Bimini definitely surprised me.
The Spa: One Splurge I Loved
We purchased a $199 spa pass, which gave us access to the thermal area.
That included things like heated loungers, sauna, steam room and a cold room.
And honestly?
I thought it was worth it.
We spent about an hour or two there each day, and especially on busy sea days, it was nice having a quieter place to escape to.
Sometimes you don't need another activity.
You just need somewhere peaceful.
That little bit of quiet became one of my favorite additions to the cruise.
The Entertainment: This Wasn't My Favorite
And now we get to the part where Celebrity really missed the mark for me.
The entertainment was probably my biggest disappointment.
We actually left several shows because we were bored.
There was one show in particular that I was really looking forward to — a magician.
And then I realized it was basically the same type of act we had already seen on another cruise line.
Different performer. Similar basic act.
And honestly...
Why does it take an hour to perform four tricks? 😂
It just wasn't for me.
There was one entertainment option that we really did enjoy: the main band onboard.
They performed most evenings around 8:00 and played great music. We enjoyed stopping to listen to them.
But overall, entertainment was an area where I would have liked to see more variety and more options that held my attention.
The One Thing That Really Got on My Nerves
Okay.
We've reached it.
The thing that probably annoyed me the most during the cruise:
The constant upgrade offers.
Upgrade the spa.
Upgrade the drink package.
Upgrade the dining.
It felt like there was always another opportunity to spend more money.
And here's where I am on that:
I'm perfectly fine being told once that an upgrade is available.
Maybe I didn't know about it.
Maybe it's something that would genuinely improve my vacation.
Tell me about it.
But then let it go.
When the selling starts to feel constant, it changes the overall experience for me.
Instead of thinking, "Look at all these great options," I started thinking:
"What are they going to try to sell me next?"
And that's not really the feeling I want while I'm on vacation.
Again, this is a personal preference, and I'm sharing my experience — not saying every Celebrity guest will feel the same way.
So...Would I Sail Celebrity Again?
After seven days on Celebrity Reflection, here's where I landed.
There were definitely things I loved.
The crew was fantastic.
The food was very good.
The ship was a comfortable size.
Our cabin had plenty of space for two.
The bathroom was surprisingly good.
The spa was a great splurge.
And Bimini was a huge win for me.
There were also things I could have done without.
The limited dining variety.
The entertainment.
The lack of convenient outlets.
And the constant upgrade offers.
But here's the biggest takeaway I want you to have from my Celebrity experience:
This is exactly why I sail different cruise lines.
I don't want to recommend a cruise line to you simply because it's popular, because it's familiar, or because I can book it.
I want to know what it's actually like.
Because your perfect cruise isn't necessarily going to be the same as mine.
Some travelers are going to read this and think, "Celebrity sounds exactly like what I'm looking for."
Others are going to read it and think, "Yeah...I'm not sure that's for me."
And that's okay.
My job as a travel advisor isn't to put everyone on the same cruise line.
It's to learn what you want from your vacation and help you find the cruise line, ship and itinerary that fits your travel style.
That's why firsthand experience matters so much to me.
I've now officially sailed Celebrity Reflection.
And I can take everything I learned from that experience and use it when I'm helping my clients decide whether Celebrity is the right fit for them.
Have you sailed Celebrity before?
I'd love to hear about your experience. What did you love? What didn't you love? And was your experience similar to mine?
Comments