We were quite excited to book a second cruise on Constellation, since we had fond memories of our Baltic/North Sea cruise of last year. The embarkation process went smoothly, and we were pleased with the ship's new color scheme, as well as with the 'fresher' look of the furnishings in our cabin. We found the staff as friendly and helpful as ever, so we looked forward to the pleasant 15 day cruise.

Although we expected some (occasional) bumps in the road, we were rather disappointed in number and frequency of them. The quality of the mattress was very poor (lumpy and unable to support our backs), so as a result we found sleep difficult to come, and most mornings we ended up with sore backs .

We also found that the quality of food in the main dining room has gone 'downhill' since our last cruise, and that the service was much slower and with lacking in the 'finer' touches (on many occasions no coffee, or creme/sugar were forgotten, or the water glasses were not refilled). We believe it may have been due to cost cutting (having less waiters look after a greater number of tables/patrons). Luckily, we were able to book ourselves into both specialty restaurants a few times and the food and service there were absolutely wonderful. We highly recommend paying a little extra to feel so thoroughly pampered. Read more