This was our 51st cruise, eighth on Constellation (we've sailed once each year since her inaugural year) and 32nd on Celebrity. Since our first Celebrity cruise on Century in 1997, X has been our favorite line and in our opinion, surpasses all the other mainstream/premium cruise lines, especially in the areas of service and food. Notwithstanding, I'll try to be as objective as possible with this review.

We arrived at the pier before noon to find a slow moving, long line out the door but snaked our way to check-in and made it onto the ship in about forty minutes - not too bad, all things considered. Our bags arrived after sail away - so much for Elite priority baggage handling but with so many Elite CC members on X cruises these days, that's to be expected. Once on board, we were anxious to check out the ship and see the recent changes made to it. We thought Celebrity did a nice job of "Solticizing" the ship while still retaining Constellation's traditional ambiance over Solstice's more modern, sleek appearance. Other than changing the ship's color palette, adding some new artwork, recarpeting and reupholstering (no small feat), the only real changes we found were the addition of the Tuscan Grill, Bistro on Five, the new Martini/Crush Bar and Wine Cellars - nice upgrades but nothing to significantly alter the ship's inherent personality.

With very few exceptions, staff and crew were friendly and eager to please without being effusive - exactly the kind of service we hope for and have come to expect from Celebrity. Our cabin attendants were most pleasant and incredibly efficient, as were both our waiter and his assistant. Passengers were mostly from the US and Canada, but there were a large number of Brits, Germans and other nationals on board as well. For the most part passengers were older with very few families with children (as is to be expected on a two week cruise, especially one during which school is in session). Read more