A little history first... I am early 40s and have been on 9 cruises to date of which 3 are westbound transatlantic crossings (including the one I am writing about). Typical cruise vacations are usually 3-4 weeks in length that include vacation time on land either pre or post cruise (or both).

I read plenty of cruise reviews that have no details or explanations (not helpful) or reviews that focus on too many subjective complaints (also not helpful). I will comment on facts and actual events that occurred during my cruise.

This 16 day westbound transatlantic on Constellation was to embark on 05-November-2014. Due to severe weather conditions at the port in Civitavecchia, passengers were notified on the evening of 04-November through a number of different methods (e-mail, telephone, text message) that the ship would remain in Naples, Italy to disembark passenger on the prior cruise and to embark passengers for the upcoming cruise. I started to receive notifications on my mobile phone around 5:00 PM (Rome time). I was able to communicate all of these changes to other passengers I was cruising with in my pre-arranged shuttle as well as post on the Cruise Critic board for the larger audience that would be affected. This was the first time for me to have this kind of event happen and it was a bit of a shock at first, but nothing that didn't work out in the end. I was fortunate to have already been in Italy for several days pre-cruise, so this last minute change was a hurdle that could be easily overcome. I made a quick call to the shuttle service I used (Rome Cabs) and they updated my final destination from the port to the FCO airport where Celebrity had motorcoaches waiting for us to take us to Naples to board the cruise ship. This worked out relatively smoothly given the vast number of people that were impacted by this change. Read more