Chicago Sun-Times: Zenith misses loftiest heights

The Zenith is a seagoing sophisticate. Yet a weeklong cruise left me feeling that I had been at an unfulfilling cocktail party. Plenty to enjoy, but also disappointments.

The upscale tangibles are in place and much of what happens aboard the ship is well-done:

Lounge and lobby walls bear prints by David Hockney, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein--even a giant photo of one of William Wegman's Weimaraners.

Stairwells are faced in floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Unusual, even sparse, flower arrangements and planters of caladiums and miniature palms are freshened by the onboard florist.

Celebrity Cruises created on each of its eight ships a room for cigar smokers. On the Zenith, Michael's Club proffers top-shelf liquors, numerous ports and cognacs and, of course, 18 types of stogies.

Visitors sink back into padded chairs upholstered in different shades of deep red, or they plop down on two off-white leather couches that flank a mock fire, flickering continuously in its mock fireplace.

One deck down, the intimate Martini Bar seats just 26, on fabrics in a windowpane plaid of butterscotch and blue. Those colors complement the backlit wall of stained glass behind the bar. The menu offers caviar and a seemingly endless variety of martinis made with nine kinds of vodka, six gins and two rums.

For the designer-caffeine crowd, the Cova Cafe has 13 coffees and teas, plus six liquor-laced coffee drinks. The menu here also has a choice of caviars, to partner with champagnes. The room is named for a Milan confectioner, so there are various sweets on the menu, and two display cases are filled with gift boxes of Cova chocolates.

Where Cova is all blond wood, wicker chairs and large-square lattice for a back wall, the 216-seat Rainbow Room lounge is nightclub dark. Beneath a low, copper-colored metal ceiling, banquettes are covered in a nubby patchwork of earth tones.

Brass-accented Art Deco railings define three levels of seating that face the bandstand and dance floor. The room is rectangular yet seems to be fashioned without a hard angle, only softly sweeping curves.

Yet the feeling onboard the 91/2-year-old Zenith is that less is not necessarily more.

The vessel was refurbished in 1999, when some competitors were introducing ships that could carry nearly three times Zenith's 1,354 passengers. In line with its restrained decor, this ship has no glitzy, multideck atrium sporting changing colors of neon tubing and glass-walled elevators. There is no grand staircase--or pair of them- -leading to and from a lobby featuring a piano bar/cocktail area or waterfall sculpture.

The smallish stage in the Celebrity Show Room does not revolve or have elevated platforms. With just one balcony level, this theater cannot match the three-deck-high seating areas becoming common at sea.

The daily agenda of organized activities is minimal; reflecting that, there is a blessed lack of public-address announcements piped into the cabins.

There are 146 gambling machines in the Zenith casino, just six tables for blackjack and poker, one roulette wheel, one craps table. Actually, what's more noteworthy is what is outside:

Two huge leather couches sit along the casino's glass wall, amid planters of ferns and palms. The couches face large windows on the sea and eight cases displaying replicas of ancient Greek art.

But there can also be too little of a good thing, as is the case with the corridors on either side of the popular Rendez-Vous lounge. This passageway is the only way to reach the front doors of the ship's dining room.

These walkways are just adequate for the heavy flow to and from the dining room during the two seatings at both lunch and dinner. When artwork, to be auctioned later, is displayed on easels placed in the paths, bottlenecks are frequent and irritating.

Similarly, while there is plenty of open space on five decks for tanning, reading, walking and dozing, the two swimming pools are backyard small and smaller.

For sun worshippers, there are about 300 thickly padded chaises, hundreds more without padded covers, and eight two-person cabana chairs with foot rests, which are, in a word, cute.

Again differentiating it from the larger, newer cruise ships, Zenith lacks the increasingly popular Internet cafe. But it does have a well-used card room with 11 tables. From the looks of it, mah- jongg is back in vogue.

Mah-jongg aboard a "sophisticated" ship? Everything old is new again.

Specifically

For more information, visit www.celebritycruises.com.