Day 2 … continued.
Friday is Formal Day on board Celebrity Century and it’s fun to dress up – and shame on those slackers who don’t make the effort. Not that there’s many of them. Kim and I are invited to meet the Captain’s Club Host, Chandru Advani, at the Rendezvous Bar on Deck 6 at 8.30pm for a drink before the Captain’s Table Dinner. Chandru has an extraordinary ability to remember people’s names and faces from first glance and he is the consummate pre-dinner host. I asked him if he could give any tips but he just said he had a photographic memory – one night he hosted 450 people and remembered every single person’s face and name. Amazing. The dinner was excellent, hosted by our Hotel Director, Jan Willem Kuipers. None of us knew quite why we had been invited to this event, but one guest, Annie, has made an extraordinary 57 cruises since 1994, and most of them have been aboard Celebrity Century, so she is a celebrity in her own right. The food and service were excellent; the Grand Dining Room is a lovely Art Deco-themed space – and guess what, Australian cruisers, this friendly, character-filled ship will operating Down Under for the 2011/12 season. I’d advise booking soon –she may be the oldest ship in the Celebrity fleet but she has a lot of character and (have I mentioned this already?) food and service are second to none.
