Celebrity Cruises - Mercury Review

The Mercury is part of the Celebrity cruise Line. I have sailed on her three times, two times this year with the last time in the end of October. All areas are rated 1-5 stars

Cabins *****

As with most cruise lines, the Mercury offers many cabin choices from inside to suites. In October, we had a balcony on the 11th floor, which was nice as it was enclosed on the sides so we were able to sit out there while being protected by the wind.

When we were there ilast, we stayed in room 8004. This is a great room with a lot of extra room. It is in the very front of the ship with a large picture window, giving us the same view the Captain had while driving the ship. It was a perfect room for going up to Alaska since it would have been too cold to sit on a balcony but it was great to view the Ports as we came into them. Being in the front of the ship, it has a bit of extra movement that might be a problem if you are prone to seasickness or hit really rough waters. Fortunately, we had smooth sailing and I would book this room again in a heartbeat.

Dining ****

The Mercury has good and bad features when it comes to dinning. The bad is that they have traditional dinning (same time, same table nightly) which is never a hit with me. It wouldn't be a problem if there were other choices such as specialty restaurants and the buffet. They do have an alternative dinning, which was a sit down dinner with a limited menu served by a staff of training waiters. You could also get pizza and/or pre-made pasta choices.

Now the good, which fortunately outweighs the bad. The Celebrity line allows you to order room service from the full dinning menu. I really like this option, especially when we got back to the ship late. We were able to order a great meal and enjoy it in our room without having to dress for dinner. Again, having the larger room or balcony was nice when multiple trays were brought in! The food is very good and there is always a vegetarian option, including garden burgers on the grill by the pool. There is also a nightly sushi bar which we all really enjoyed.

Entertainment **

The Mercury has a nice two story theater where their shows were held. The entertainment was typical cruise stuff with their dance/singing group putting on 2/3 of the shows. They had a great comedian but we skipped the Tenor, the other singer and all of the production shows.

They had the regular assortment of lounges, music venues with a couple of dance floors as well as a disco. The Casino was small with slots ranging from a penny to five dollars along with a few table games. One nice bonus was that they had smoking and non-smoking sides. The Internet was available at 75 cents per MINUTE, the highest cost I have seen!

Toddlers **** School Age *** Teens **

The Mercury has 4 age groups for their kids clubs which they refer to as X-club youth programs: Ship Mates 3-6 / Cadets 7-9 / Ensigns  10-12 / Admirals 13-17

All children must be fully potty trained to be dropped off. They do have a toddler time group for kids under three with parent participation. They seem to do a better job with the younger kids - they have a great ball pit but there was a decent selection of activities for all ages. My youngest one went a few times but complained there weren't many kids to play with.

Adults ***

The Mercury had activities going on throughout the day. They do have a bit of a schedule problem as on all three cruises, there were many times the movies were shown between meals (making it impossible for either seating to attend both) and most activities early in the morning, with basically nothing after 4 or so. They had a lot of one game bingo games, a couple of art auctions, a sports deck and pools.

The last cruise we had only one sea day so we didn't do many of the activities. We did use the gym and T-pool (fee) daily and tried to catch a few of the bands at night. We spent most of the sea day on the balcony so it was a very relaxing cruise.

Crew ****

We sailed on the Mercury four months apart and the crew was 90% different! The fun photography group were wonderful on the May cruise (gave us 10 free photos) but the ones on the October/November cruise acted over worked and bored. The cruise director was much better this time and one of the few (on any ship) that didn't continually act like they had just downed 10 red bulls!

Celebrity cruises give you the option of having your gratuities taken directly out of your shipboard account or to pay on your own with little envelopes on the last night.

Overall ****

The Mercury has some things I really enjoy. I love being able to have anything from their dinning room menu sent up to our cabin. I like the large outside rooms up in the front that can be had for the regular price. I like the sushi bar, the ice cream bar and the fact that the food is very good. I don't like the pre-set dinning schedule and am not fond of their entertainment choices other than the comedians. That being said, the Mercury is a good choice for a relaxing cruise with great food but not if you are looking for an activity filled cruise with multiple dinning options. I would sail on the Mercury again in a heartbeat.