Overview: Constellation is a gorgeous ship. Finally she is painted in traditional Celebrity colors and she looks great! The weather was beautiful, islands were nice, everyone gained a few pounds, and we all left with great memories!!

Group: We were traveling with a group of 13, 9 family and 4 friends...in our group were two minors, 17 and 14, the rest ranged from the thirty somethings and my Dad.

Embarkation: We arrived at the pier (Pan American) in SJ at about 11 a.m. We were told that we'd be able to board the ship around noon so we wanted to be among the first to board. When we got to the pier, there was a line of people already...the porters started taking luggage at noon and then we were corralled into the waiting area, which consisted of rows of chairs. The shore staff said embarkation would be delayed a while because there were some disembarkation issues from the departing guests due to a large group from South America. So we had to wait....and wait....and wait. Celebrity had water and fruit punch available for refreshments while we waited. Around 1 p.m., we noticed that the waiting room was full and guests were lined up outside. There was mass confusion from the shore staff as they were not given the go ahead to let passengers check in yet...people were getting restless. We heard one of the shore staff say they were going to let the people outside check in first to get them out of the heat, and that caused an uproar from all of the passengers waiting in the inside for 2 hours...finally the shore staff in charge said no, that the inside people would go first...by now, everyone was out of their seats rushing toward the 4 foot wide entrance to the check in area....people were pushing and shoving like crazy. It was an accident waiting to happen...everyone was so rude... Finally, after managing to get through the crowd, we got in line to check in. Check in went fast, and we were given our boarding cards in a really nice folder that has the ship map folding out from it. Through security and up the escalator to the photo opportunity. We took a group embarkation shot and were on our way to board. As we walked onto the ship, we were greeted by waiters with comp champagne and white gloved porters to escort us to our cabins. A fine touch that I'm glad to see Celebrity still does!!! My wife and I went to Guest Relations right away to make them aware of the situation in the embarkation lounge so they could better protect the rest of the passengers through check in...it was scary! Read more