Celebrity Millennium

Construction and Description

Millennium was built at Chantiers de l'Atlantique in St. Nazaire, France. When launched in 2000, she was the world's first ship to use a turbo-electric COGAS power plant. Combined gas and steam (COGAS) is the name given to marine compound powerplants comprising gas and steam turbines, the latter being driven by steam generated using the heat from the exhaust of the gas turbines. In this way, some of the otherwise lost energy can be reclaimed and the specific fuel consumption of the plant can be decreased.

Millennium has a restaurant that contains wooden panels originally used in the RMS Olympic (sister ship to the ill-fated RMS Titanic and HMHS Britannic), removed and preserved when that ship was sold for scrap in 1935.

Sources of food include a two level main dining room, called "Metropolitan", and a buffet that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner on deck 10.

Issues and dry dock

Millennium was docked in Athens, Greece, on September 11, 2001, and went into high-security lock-down upon receipt of news regarding the September 11 attacks in the USA. A Celebrity Cruises-sponsored marketing event onboard was in progress but it was curtailed and everyone except passengers and crew were removed from the ship. All other passenger activities except food service were cancelled. The following day, while at sea, a small private plane began to circle the ship, causing panic among several passengers on deck. The plane eventually flew away.

In May 2011, a female passenger in her sixties was declared missing when she failed to disembark at a port call in San Diego. Security cameras on the ship showed that she deliberately jumped off the ship in the waters between Cabo San Lucas and San Diego.

After the ship's voyage from Miami to Roatan, Honduras, to Cozumel, Mexico, and back to Miami (April 16–21, 2012), the ship went to dry-dock in the Bahamas for 3-weeks to be renovated.

Depending on the season, the ship visits the following destinations: Alaska from Vancouver and Seward during the summer season, Hawaii and South Pacific Ocean in fall and Southeast Asia from Singapore and Hong Kong during the winter season.

On August 9, 2013, an engine problem occurred aboard the ship, causing a delayed arrival in Seward. After arriving, the Millennium then had to stay in port until August 13, 2013. This caused a drastic change to its following itinerary, originally planned to call at the Alaskan ports of Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan. That cruise was shortened and the ship then proceed southbound to Vancouver without any ports of call. Passengers sailing on that voyage were provided a big variety of compensations as well as options; either to stay aboard the ship during its repairs at Seward, or to opt for a full refund. During the Sunday while the ship was undergoing repairs, Seward had two ships docked in port in total, the other ship being Holland America Line's Zaandam.

On August 18, 2013, after leaving Ketchikan on its northward voyage, another engine problem occurred forcing the ship to return to Ketchikan that evening. The U.S. Coast Guard required the engine problem to be repaired before the ship could set sail again with passengers. After several days of attempting repairs, the remainder of the voyage was canceled and Celebrity arranged for all passengers to be flown to Seattle, Vancouver or Anchorage. Customers were compensated similarly to those on the previous weeks cruise. The next 5 cruises on the schedule were also canceled as the ship sailed to their Bahamas dry-dock for major repairs to the Rolls-Royce Mermaid propulsion pod. This faulty propulsion issue cost about 13 million dollars in ticket revenues.