Celebrity Constellation Review
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My wife, myself and daughter booked the March 7 cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Key West and Cozumel. We have sailed frequently with Royal Carib/Celebrity and are all members of the Captains Club so we were expecting Celebrity's normal upscale adult cruise. Instead, what we got was the cruise from Hell, spring break in Cancun removed to the Constellation, anarchy on the high seas. It was a complete disaster. On a ship that held 2000 passengers, Constellation, without warning to its regular, loyal cruising clients, booked passage for another 1000 screaming, out of control college maniacs who basically took over the ship. You could not get to the bars or the swimming pools which were wall to wall drunken students from 10 am in the morning until 7 at night. The ship was vandalized, at least one student put in the brig for the duration, a couple removed from the ship in Key West, and some detained for running naked through the halls on a family ship! At one point, they even took over one of the bars and began dispensing alcohol to their underage friends. The crew made a perfunctory early effort to control things but eventually gave up and seemed to join the party!
As a result, 1000 loyal repeat clients were basically held hostage for six days to the Vandals and Visigoths running wild. And as an added result of the bacchanalia, the sanitation of the ship went to hell. The pools were completely drained at least once. Despite this, my daughter came down with a viral illness that, after two doctors and a specialist, was traced most probably to the unsanitary pool condition onboard the ship, She spent two days of her 21st birthday vacation in complete misery. After returning, I joined her in this condition, though not as seriously.
I blame Celebrity for this, not the kids. Kids will be kids, especially on spring break. But they did not belong on Celebrity. Or, if it was Celebrity's choice to book Cancun on the High Seas, it should have been clear that this is what the nature of the cruise would be. Booking those kids on an upscale family ship normally populated by sane adults and children with no advance warning amounted to nothing less than a betrayal of Celebrity's loyal clients and we will not soon forget it. It will be a long time before we return if, in fact, we do not sue Celebrity for gross negligence, breach of contract, misrepresentation, willful endangerment, and failure to maintain required sanitary conditions.
Cabin Review
Ocean View 8
Excellent choice. We normally choose a balcony stateroom or concierge class, but they were not available for this cruise. Doing some research, I discovered this cabin was in the very front of the ship just literally behind the bridge. It was also @40% bigger than the normal balcony stateroom or concierge class cabin, so we decided to try it. We did not miss the balcony at all and loved the extra room and the intense quiet. Can't say how the front would fare in high seas, but we had no motion problem at all. Highly recommend it. (Plus my wife joked that if we say the Captain come flying out the door of the bridge yelling we would be the first to know and could just follow him!)