Constellation 1/02/11-1/15/11 San Diego-Fort Lauderdale 13 nights

My husband and I traveled on the Celebrity Constellation from San Diego to Fort Lauderdale. It was our second Celebrity cruise. We have also cruised Carnival, Premier, NCL, Holland America, and most recently Royal Caribbean. I have read and learned so much on CC that I want to share our experience.

Embarkation: This was the only area where improvement is needed. I need to start with the fact that our documents did say that arrival after 2PM was recommended. As all seasoned cruisers know most ships begin boarding between 11:30 and 12. When we arrived at 11AM cruisers from the previous trip were still at the terminal. Wow we had never seen that before. The luggage drop off area was chaos. That is because there was only one porter to collect all the luggage of the arriving passengers. The other porters were still helping the departing passengers. Once we dropped off our luggage we headed to the check in area. Short line, we got our sea pass cards and boarding group number one and off we went. The check in agent said boarding should begin about 11:30. We made our way to a large room with folding chairs and we waited and waited. To summarize boarding for passengers did not begin until 2 PM. Our beef is that no information was given. If they had explained the delay it would have made things better. Communication was lacking here. Read more