Celebrity Cruise Line
Mercury Cruise Review
Inside Passage

Rich

After cruising all over the world, my wife and I decided to take the short weekend cruise out of our home town of Seattle. I had read about the problems on previous cruises aboard the Mercury (passengers getting sick, the captain getting arrested for showing up intoxicated) but didn't think those issues would be a problem and they weren't.

The problem was the ship was dirty. And I mean dirty. Trash on the decks (old cigarette butts that obviously had been there for some time), chrome and brass that hadn't been polished or even wiped down. We hesitated touching anything on board including the public bathrooms, some of which had no towels or tissue.

More than one plate of food was sent back, some for not being what was ordered and some because it was just unpleasant. The service was worse than any we had ever experienced on any cruise. The deck of the dinning room floor was so unstable that whenever the wait staff walked past your chair, your chair tilted almost causing you to spill your dinner if you were mid-bite.

In a lounge one evening, we were asked 4 times within 5 minutes what we wanted to drink by 4 different staff members. Alcohol was pushed strongly at every opportunity.

Our port of call was changed to Nanaimo BC, hardly a destination of choice. One family hired a limo for a one hour tour of the area but the driver brought them back after 30 minutes because he couldn't find anything else to show them. Most businesses in the town were closed.

Before our 3 day cruise was over, we decided we would never cruise on Celebrity again.

Upon our return, an article in the local paper showed that Celebrity Cruises was being fined for dumping raw sewage into the local waters reinforcing our determination never to cruise on Celebrity again.