For our 20th Wedding Anniversary, Chris and I embarked on what would be our longest cruise yet, a 12-night cruise around Japan on Celebrity’s Millennium. Not only would this be our longest cruise, but it would be our first cruise outside of North America. To top it off, it was only our second cruise with Celebrity and would be on their oldest and one of their smallest ships. So, there was a lot of firsts and a lot to unpack when thinking about my review for this cruise.
The Celebrity Millennium first set sail in 2000 and was the first new ship built after Royal Caribbean and Celebrity merged to become sister companies. The ship, which was refurbished in 2019, is just under 91,000 GT and has a capacity of 2,138 passengers with a little under a thousand crew. As a comparison, Celebrity’s newest ship, the Celebrity Xcel, is 141,000 GT with a capacity of just under 4,000 passengers and 1,416 crew. The biggest ship in the world, the Legend of the Seas, is 248,000 GT and holds 5,610 passengers and 2,350 crew. So, when compared to the largest ship, the Celebrity Millennium is definitely on the smaller side.
Currently, the Celebrity Millennium is exclusively sailing in East Asia. There are a variety of itineraries ranging in length from 9 to 15 nights with embarkation ports that include Singapore, Benoa in Bali, Seoul, Tokyo, Yokohama and Hong Kong. It would make sense to me that Celebrity figures most passengers are fine with the cruises being on the longer side as that means there is more to see, maximizing their vacation to an area that they likely won’t visit again soon. And, while you will find similar itineraries with Princess Cruise Line, most other mainstream and similarly priced cruise lines do not put their focus year-round on East Asia. We actually didn’t see any other ships while at each of our ports. As frequent travelers of Royal Caribbean, cruising around Japan on Celebrity was the obvious choice.
Similarly to our experiences on Royal Caribbean’s older ships, Radiance and Serenade of the Seas, we found that due to the itineraries being the big draw, that it was okay for the ships to not have the same bells and whistles that you will find on the newer, fancier, bigger ships. What we did find on the Millennium was well taken care of and utilized in a way that made it work. The pools were nice and never super crowded and the bar service was always excellent. There was a bar/lounge that was used for a variety of really fun activities. We went to lots of trivia, game shows, cocktail hours and even arts and crafts there. One afternoon, we watched the movie Anaconda at a dedicated outdoor theater while eating lunch in these comfy loungers. It seems that all of the passengers found the activities that they enjoyed and there was plenty of space on the ship for everyone to enjoy what they wanted.
The real stand out to us was the crew. The activities staff was incredible. They were all very personable and seemed to enjoy their jobs even it was conducting trivia for just 4 people. The bar staff and the servers were some of the best that we had ever experienced while at sea. Because we were in the concierge staterooms, we interacted quite a bit with the concierge staff, who worked hard to ensure everything was going as smoothly as possible for us. Everyone worked really hard to provide a good cruise for the passengers and for each other.
When critiquing the ship itself (which may be true of most Celebrity ships), there seemed to be a lack of specialty dining restaurants available to us. If we were in the aqua suites, we would have had access to BLU, which is a restaurant with a focus on “clean cuisine”. Side note: my in-laws ate there once and thought it was more like food for rabbits (not for them, lol). The fancy suites also could eat all 3 meals at the restaurant, Luminae. We did not have, however, access to either of those restaurants. There were three specialty restaurants available to us (Le Petit Chef, The Tuscan Grille and Sushi on 5) and we ate at all three of them. For a 5-night cruise or even a 7-night cruise, this might be sufficient, but for a 12-night cruise, this seemed a little lacking. Perhaps to combat this, the main dining room would offer off-menu entrees, which were always excellent, and their service was, once again, top notch.
The entertainment was what you would expect on one of the older, smaller ships. Their production shows were very cheesy but did provide us with a great escape for an evening. We did get to do a behind the scenes with some of the entertainment staff and discovered that they were very proud to be performing on the Millennium. The only thing that they noted was that because their ship stays mainly in East Asia that requests for necessities for their shows could take many months instead of the usual weeks. This fact made them really good at making it work and reliant on talented crew that could make necessary repairs. We saw some, not all, of the headliners and they were all very talented and seasoned performers. The entertainment was not what you would find on the Icon of the Seas, but it was great for our cruise where the itinerary itself is the main attraction.
To me, the ship did not feel old and it was not especially outdated. What the ship did lack was made up for by the excellent crew and programming that they provided. The idea of traveling around an area and trying to see the highlights on our own was very overwhelming. So, this cruise was a great way to see a lot of Japan in a way that was comfortable and familiar to us. We have no complaints about the ship that we chose and, if we choose to cruise in East Asia again, would happily book another cruise with Celebrity.
If you are looking to cruise this area of the world, I would love to help you plan what I know will be as life changing for you as it was for us.