Hi Sue
We did this cruise on the Destiny earlier this year.
We went on 25th Jan and weather was nice and sunny all week although a bit breezy.
Friends of ours went either one or two weeks later and weather was poor, so you never can tell.
We havent been on Celebration but have been on the Spirit 3 times and Celebration is apparently the identical sister ship so I am sure you will enjoy it.
I much prefer the Spirit to the Destiny, prefer the layout, didnt like where the self service restaurant was situated on the Destiny and it wasn't particularly nice eating in there as it was exposed to the elements and quite draughty.
I also prefer not having 1st and 2nd sittings in the formal dining room, just go in when you are ready and they will find you a table. The good/bad side to that is that you are not seated with the same guests all week.
I find the inside cabins quite satisfactory as they are slightly bigger than the Destiny ones I think, but the lower outer cabins on both only have porthole windows.
If you do decide to upgrade I would personally go for an inside cabin on Deck 3/4, 3 is best as you are at reception and restaurant level so no queuing for lifts and not disturbed when docking as may happen when at lowest levels.
Incidentally if you pay for an outside cabin on the lowest deck you may find when you are in port that your porthole is lower than quay level so you cant see much anyway.
I found it useful on the Spirit that the TV in the cabin could show the view from the front of the ship, so at least you knew what the weather was like before venturing out.
There was also a cinema that they dont have on the Destiny.
These are the things we did:
Las Palmas - easy enough to walk around the town and beach area.
La Palma - again easy to walk to from the ship, very quiet as it docks on a Sunday, but lovely little town.
Funchal - a bit of a walk into town, about 20 mins, but manageable although plenty of taxis on quayside.
We went on the cable car, easy to access it from the front at Funchal, very enjoyable, then had a walk around the lovely fruit/flower market in town.
Agadir - Not a pleasant port, wouldnt fancy walking anywhere ourselves but didnt want a full day trip so had an enjoyable Thomson trip to the 11th century village of Taroudant, including a trip through a market, with our guide that lasted about 4 hours, that was good, saw tree climbing goats also.
Other passengers said Agadir was a dump but depends what you want to look at I suppose.
Arrecife - Again we set off walking along the front into town from the port, it was a very boring route that took about 20 mins but taxis were around. We werent bothered about any trips as have already seen Fire Mountain but if you havent been to Lanzarote before it would be a good one to go on.
We again just had a nice walk along the seafront.
To be honest we weren't very adventurous on this whole cruise but we enjoyed the rest and the food.
If I can help you with anything else just ask.

thank you for your reply.

My husband is pleased we would be going to Funchal as we have not been before. Seem to be in port for a while, is there a lot to do there.

Also, are the drinks expensive, thomson want £169 each for AI.

Thanks.

sue

We didnt find the drinks expensive - glass of wine about £2.50 or less, bottle about £9, beer sml £1.30, large £2.30 I think
Didnt have any shorts but virgin cocktails at under £3 were delicious.
Think we also bought a couple of bottles of wine from the duty free shop onboard for in our cabin and they were dead cheap, about £5 (Tale a corkscrew if you intend doing this) By the way, the bottles of wine on the Spirit were on a shelf in the perfume duty free, not the other shop selling spirits, chocolate etc where you would expect it to be
Tea/coffee free anytime from the self service restaurant, also water with crushed ice available free from machine in there but charged for if you use the waiter as they would bring you bottled water. Dont know price of soft drinks.
Free jugs of water on your table in formal dining room at night which was nice.
You are charged for any bottles of water bought for in your cabin.
Wouldnt consider AI package as there are a lot of supplements on top of that anyway for premium drinks and it definitely wasnt worth it for us and we didnt stint on the drinks at night - daytime if you are off ship you wouldnt be drinking there anyway.
Not sure about your question about Funchal? as I say, we did the cable car, there was a nice park to have a walk round and it is a pleasant walk into town from the port area anyway. Cant remember what organised trips went from there.

Hi

Many thanks for your reply.

If I have any more questions, I hope you don't mind if I get back to you.

Thanks.

Sue

We have just returned home from aboard the Celebration from a Christmas Cruise. The weather was hot and sunny each and every day!
We had an inside family cabin which suited our needs by far.

we were considering the caribbean on the destiny but i don't think i can persuade hubby to go.
have just noticed this cruise on the thomson website - we wanted 14 nights cruise really. do you think it would be a waste to do two identical cruises back to back?
never been to the canaries or morroco so would like to go.
looking at the thomson excursions i think we could keep ourselves occupied what do you think?

Suzanna,
We did one week in Jul 2008 on the Destiny around the Med. (Fantastic).
Friends of ours did 2 weeks around the Med back to back. They had a brilliant time. Two of everything.
2 Sailaway parties
2 Captains Night etc.
They said it was a good feeling when the passengers were all leaving at the end of the first week knowing that they had another week to relax. They more or less had the whole ship to themselves that whole day in Palma, until the new passengers arrived over the course of the day. Then it was like a new holiday because all the new passengers were sooo excited about being on board.
They didnt have to do a second life boat drill so they laid around the pool while the others sweated with their life jackets on. hehe
I have booked a 2 week back to back around the Med on the Destiny for 30th JUL 09. Soooooo Looking forward to it.

Regards
Colin Northern Ireland

we did two cruises back to back in may last year but if we did colourful coasts it would be the same cruise twice over if you see what i mean.

We have done b2b cruises, but would not consider it with identical cruises. Very much a personal call though!

we've just booked this and i was just wondering as the day at sea is day 5 is this when they do the emergency drill? surely it's a bit late in the week?

also when does the sailaway party and captains dinner take place? as i notice people can pick up the cruise from madeira, gran canaria and tenerife.

thanks in advance.

just found this which some might find useful......

http://www.thomson.co.uk/editable-images/cruise/colourfulCoasts.pdf

We picked up this cruise from tenerife. Our drill was the following morning at 9.30.

what will the weather be like do you think march/april?

Suzanne wrote:

what will the weather be like do you think march/april?

Potentially good, but certainly not guaranteed. When we went a couple of years ago it was the back end Feb. and the weather was mixed. The day we returned to Santa Cruz in Tenerife, our flight was evening so we had most of the day still on-board, managing even to squeeze in an early dinner before our coach to the airport was called. We had anticipated this as a "sun" day on deck, but instead watched huge waves crashing over the sea wall and spraying the new arrivals!

Superfrac how was the cruise?

Suzanne wrote:

we've just booked this and i was just wondering as the day at sea is day 5 is this when they do the emergency drill? surely it's a bit late in the week?

also when does the sailaway party and captains dinner take place? as i notice people can pick up the cruise from madeira, gran canaria and tenerife.

thanks in advance.

Same here, going on the 6th March and am just wondering how this will work. I had the option of choosing the 6th, 7th or 9th to start the cruise so I am not sure when the "sail away" party will be or the safety drill. I always enjoy the sail away party so hope there will be one.

See previous reply:

sunseeker1 wrote:

We picked up this cruise from tenerife. Our drill was the following morning at 9.30.

We started at Gran Canaria and our drill was the next morning. Each joining day's group has their own drill, so there are three on three different days.

The formal night with captain's cocktail party was on the Sunday after La Palma, which you leave mid-afternoon.

Can't remember about the sailaway parties. Think they were late as the ship sails late from most ports. We didn't attend any.

Have checked my daily newsletters from our cruise. There seem to be two sailaway parties. One from Tenerife and one from Madeira, both starting at 22.45. Hope this helps!

Thanks for the tips folks, we wondered how all the stops and sail aways worked on a cruise that changed passengers so many times in a seven day trip.

Yeah I know its been awhile but we're back on the Cruise circuit again

We're going to be doing the CC trip at the end of March, anyone know whos the Cruise Director currently on Celeb ? and anyone else doing it ?

Cheers