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Celebrity Constellation

Overall OK - Some Pros; Some Cons

Melbourne

Took the 10 day Caribbean cruise leaving Tampa on April 7, 2023.

Pros:  Embarkation port of Tampa - a 1 1/2 hour drive from our home.  Smaller ship, easier to navigate for one of us with mobility issues.  Pleasant staff throughout.  Clean concierge balcony stateroom that seemed updated in some respects (not others), unlike some previous reviews - no torn curtains or shower curtains.  Bathroom seemed new.  Rugs in good condition.  We are senior travelers and liked that this ship attracts and caters to an older clientele.  Very few children; many scooters and rollators.  No water slides, rock climbing walls, etc. - a plus for us.  Good  bands in the Rendezvous Lounge, especially Hey Mama.  Great ice creams at the buffet, tho lines were long at peak hours.

Pro and Con:  Food - some quite good; some really sub-par.  Had a t-bone lamb steak in the main dining room that couldn't be cut, even after staff tried with three different knives (sent back for a different entre); main dining room fish was overdone on more than one occasion.  Other entres were good; none really excellent.  Could usually find something we liked at the breakfast and lunch buffets tho we question an everyday section of "Asian" cuisine that only had Indian curries, no Chinese, Thai, or Japanese foods.  Few people seemed to use this area.  On other days, really huge sections of the buffet were taken up with vegetarian, gluten-free or sugar-free items; again these were used by only a few.  It's a good idea to have these alternatives for those who need them but taking up a huge section deprives the great multitude of regular diners of more choices.

Cons:  Chaotic embarkation with enormous lines of people lined up outside trying to get in - took forever in the Florida heat.  The worst embarkation we've experienced on any cruise on any cruise line.  Bed and sofa in concierge balcony stateroom were old and worn.  Bed had valleys from the weight of former passengers.  Sofa had worn fabric.  Pool really is inaccessible to anyone with mobility issues.  One of us walks with a cane and can't do many steps.  No ramps up to pool for those who can't do steps, are in wheelchairs, or using walkers.  Once up the steps, there's no way to access the shallower pool due to slippery ledges at the entrances under the water meant for people to lie on in shallow water - impossible for the mobility challenged.  There was a pool chair lift that was inoperable during our cruise and, if it were, one questions why it was at the pool that was all a depth over 5.6  - 6.5 feet.  It would dump a handicapped person in over their head. And how would a handicapped person get up the steps to the pool to get to the pool lift chair to begin with?  Poor planning and design there, especially with so many seniors on the cruise with walkers, wheelchairs and scooters - not that the lift was operable anyway.  Paying for Concierge service was a joke.  Couldn't reach them by phone and was instructed to go down to the desk on Deck 3 if we needed anything.  The only thing they did for us was give us a cheap Celebrity tote bag and 4:00 o'clock stacks each day which repeated the same items every other day with perishable foods that should be cold but arrived room temperature.  We finally asked that they not be delivered.  On other cruise lines, concierge has been on our deck.  Guest Services was more responsive than Concierge.  On sea days, lounges were so close together that we couldn't get into and out of them when the pool deck was full .  Casino slot payouts are terrible but, in fairness, that's true of any cruise line we've been on.

This seems like a lot of cons more than pros but we did manage to have a good time.  We do hope Celebrity will address some of the issues above.  The convenience of the port, the size of the ship, the older age group represented on the ship, and the pleasantness of the staff will probably bring us back despite some of the issues we encountered.  Just wish we could get into the pool!  That was a real disappointment.

We just returned from a 10 night southern Caribbean cruise on the Celebrity Constellation out of Tampa. The following is a detailed chronology of the issues we encountered on our cruise.

Day 1:

We understood that there were issues on the previous cruise which caused a delay due to extra sanitation measures.

Once on board none of the staff on board has given us a correct answer. Asked for mature d’ to change dining reservation. Sent us to wrong deck. Beverage stations on deck 10 were partially shut down. Had a choice of water or apple juice or go to another station. Mid ship elevators on deck 10 had over 50 people in line. No exaggeration. Found out I had 90 free internet minutes as an Elite. Who knew? Went to a bar to get our Elite benefit of free Captains Club drinks from 5-7. Oh , that doesn’t start until tomorrow. Really??

6:30pm where’s my luggage. Heading to dining room. Select dining 45 minute wait. Never again on Celebrity. Got out of dinner at 9:30pm. Missed main show. Not happy! Performer on again another night, but different show.

Back in room. Got luggage. TV has only ship channels. Guest services not answering. Had to go to GS desk. 3 staff members, no guests. Answer your phone!!! No glasses and no ice in room, being delivered at 11:15PM.

Day 2:

9:15am Awoken by loud chipping and scraping noise sounds like right outside our window. Called GS said no maintenance on sea days sending maintenance supervisor to check. After 2nd call it stopped at 9:50am. 10: 20am. Noise started up again. Apparently they were on a break. Maintenance supervisor came to room at 10:25am. Noise stopped again at 10:30am. Noise moved to other side of ship by our traveling companions’ room. Really?

Hair in hamburger poolside. No extra charge.

At the bar for our free drinks. Success. Asked if we could get them as well in dining room. Not!!!

Guest services called to follow up on noise issue possible room change. No further issue at this time. Asked to have 2 wine glasses and cover for ice bucket sent to room. She said she would contact our stateroom attendant and have that done. Not!! Several hours later SA had no knowledge of request. He got us the glasses, but the ice bucket cover is MIA.

Days 3 – 6:

Things are getting better. No issues! We received 2 FCC certificates in our room. Not sure why. Loyalty? Noise issue?

Day 7:

St Maarten excursion to Grand Bay Beach via water taxi. Met on pier near gangway. I have had 2 knee replacements and have limited mobility. Very long walk to water taxi. Tour operator said she would “TRY “ to get golf cart for us and another couple with limited mobility. We were told to walk ahead with the group about 50 paces to “check in “. Cart came by taking guests back to ship and we were told to “walk back the 50 paces to the cart to make it EASIER FOR THE DRIVER “. Are you kidding me. We complied and the cart stopped where we were just came from after we were on it.

Reported to Guest Services. They couldn’t care less!! Told me that was the tour operator. I told them that I booked thru Celebrity not the tour operator. Told them to credit cost of the excursion and walked away. Credit was applied to folio. Thank you!

Day 8:

Went to Cafe el Bacio to get some late night snacks at 11:30pm following late show in Celebrity theatre. Closed!!! Snacks were gone. Open until midnight, but cookies and pastries only to 11:00pm. Where is that little gem in the app or the daily paper??? Are you kidding me (again)???

Day 9:

Finally lobster in the dining room. Only one! Second one is $16 plus gratuity. This was the SMALLEST lobster tail I have ever seen!!! Once out of shell it would fit in a ramekin. 5 bites and it was gone!!! Celebrity should be embarrassed to serve this AND to charge for the second one!

Summary:

My wife and I are season cruisers, beginning in 1980. Over 65 cruises. Captains Club Elite on Celebrity, Diamond Plus on RCCL, and Platinum on Carnival. We have cruised with NCL and Holland American as well as other cruise lines. Our previous Celebrity cruises have been excellent, but we have not cruised with Celebrity since 2007. We found Celebrity to be “A cut above”. Superior food, service…the whole nine yards. I am at a loss to explain the issues we encountered on this cruise. Since COVID, we have cruised with RCCL once and Carnival 6 times. Twice on the Mardi Gras. Carnival’s app is far superior to Celebrity’s, especially for anytime/mytime dining. Request your table on the app and you are given the approximate wait time and notified when your table is ready. No standing in line!!!

On a positive note, the entertainment on the ship was OUTSTANDING!! Production shows and headliners (Except Marty Thomas, whose voice has left him) were excellent. The Motown experience in Reflections was a major highlight.

Based upon the issues encountered on this cruise, we would be hard pressed to sail again with Celebrity even with the FCC. Certainly not our first or second choice.

Oh, by the way, I contacted COVID on the last night of the cruise. Tested positive after arriving home. Thank you very much!!!!!!!!!

Celebrity Cruise Issues

Enjoyable Caribbean cruise with a terrific and happy crew

We chose this cruise because of it's overnight stop in Cartagena Columbia, it was one place we had not been to.

The stops were, Leaving Tampa, FL,  Key West, FL,  Cartagena Columbia/Overnight, Colon, Panama, Limon, Costa Rica, and Cozumel. We were the only vessel in Key West, so we were at Mallory square. The busiest port was Cozumel, their were 3 vessels at our dock near Margaritaville, and another two further down at the dock near town.

The ship overall was in good condition, you could tell they had done some refurbishment in the common areas, but the rooms needed some refresh.  Everything worked in our cabin and our cabin steward was always on top of any requests we may have made.  We had two turndown services, I know they are saying they are cutting back to once a day, but we did not see this.

Dining, first day was very busy, everyone still getting their bearings, by the second day everything was flowing well. I did notice that the servings were smaller than usual, but that was not an issue, the food was still great. Our service was good at any venue we went to.  I do prefer the Cafe El Bacio, so we actually spent a lot of time  drinking my specialty coffee.  For those with the classic beverage package this works out great.

We did have about 80 people come down with the noro virus, it started about 3 days in, they cordoned off the self serve water/coffee/juice station  and served people at the buffet.  We rarely ate at the buffet, had pizza and burgers when we were hungry, but everything looked delicious.  Overall we had a great time, the personnel took great care in making sure all areas were cleaned at all times. The group of people we met who we ate dinner with, just like us did not come down with the virus, please make sure and clean/wash your hands specially before eating anything, you never know what you may have touched that could have been tainted.

11 NT ULTIMATE CARIBBEAN & THE AMERICAS

The title of this review should say it all!!!! 11 Day Cruise from Tampa to the America's on March 6th-17th/2023. On Celebrity Constellation.....................not great for sure!

Go to the CDC site for the American government and you will see that Celebrity Sister's ship that docked on March 18th/2023 also, had GI issues and Covid. Most people probably did not report to the staff that they were ill.

It was a little over a week into the cruise that Celebrity starting putting staff on to serve you in the buffet after numerous passengers were getting sick. It was a circus before they put this procedure in place.

As far as the ship outdatedness, that was not to hard to handle but, the pink mold in the shower stalls in the cabins were.

Entertainment was good, that is the only bonus we could see.

Food, yes you needed a chain saw to cut through the so called steak in the main dining room. Not a lot choices either, staff tried to do their best though.

There is a you tube video on Celebrity cutting back as of January 2023 in their night time buffet so, passengers would go to the main dining room for food wastage purposes.

We talked to lots of passengers who paid about $45-$50 USA each for a bit better meal at Celebrities upsell restaurants..............gee, you really should not have to pay for a better meal when you already paid for a decent cruise, one would think????? Some were disappointed in them.

Yes, Celebrity nickel and dime you to death for their alcohol .......ie ..........if one person in the cabin does not drink you still have to buy 2 packages $52 USA a day plus 20% tip each guest or premium $79 USA day plus 20% TIP is a bit much.

Excursions also, over priced...............Celebrity makes a extra profit on that also..................we did take 2 excursions Panama Canal and city was the most interesting for sure.

Staff were new but, tried their very best.

We know Covid hit the industry hard and all companies are trying to make up for it. Which is somewhat understandable.............but, please be careful Celebrity, lot's of competitor's out there looking for our business................

Also, we have been on many other cruise lines before. Not our first rodeo..............so will there be another sail with Celebrity? NO

Low Quality Food and GI illness with Covid March 2023 on the Constellation Celebrity

At her launch in 2002 Celebrity Constellation held 1,900 passengers. We left Tampa on March 6th with 2172 passengers.  As you can imagine that means space is at a premium in elevators, poolside, in restaurants and just about everything else.  To make things even a bit worse it is woefully undermanned. 

On our first night out Main Dining had major backups in the kitchen.  No longer do we have two waiters for about five tables, now we have one and a bread girl who is listed as the second waiter on the table top sign. She served so many tables that most of the time you were partway through your main course before the bread arrived.  Any guest who ate in the main dining room was not about to get to the show at the other end of the ship in time to see it. 

This lack of people carried through the whole crew.  Our room was partially made up at 1:00 P.M. when we arrived at the start of the cruise..  We left our things and went for lunch. A small sign said that the room would be ready at 1:30.  The room was never finished so we just put things in place and carried on. On two other occasions on the eleven day cruise our schedule did not match the stewards to the  room was never made up. We just asked the steward for fresh towels and did it ourselves. 

Before the cruise I bought a bit over four hundred dollars in shore excursions.  Since I had $450 in credit on my shipboard account I assumed it would be deducted from that.  No, they charged my credit card immediately and when I got on the ship I had my credit intact.  Once on board a charge was made from my shipboard account to my credit card just about every day. I have never had this happen before and I find it worrisome. 

But then there were bright spots too.  Celebrity is very prompt and on time.  We like this! The shore excursions are well organized and just what they are supposed to be. Food quality is good although they need many more recipes concerning what to do with it. 

The weather was perfect and seas were calm for the entire trip.  Drink charges were reasonable but absolutely everything has a 20 percent surcharge for propinquities. 

The last three days of the cruise we had an outbreak of Norovirus on the ship. To the crews credit they were able to instantly pivot to the protocols that were used during the covid lockdown.  

On the whole we had a good time and will probably cruise again with Celebrity.

A good cruise but

Chose this ship due to an older crowd. Appreciated not having hardly any children running around. Have only been on Norwegian breakaway 4 years ago and there buffet was amazing. I am sure that Covid and the current economy had something to do with our experience on the constellation and will have to say the food was horrible Had heard this from many passengers that I spoke with The specialty restaurants were also, no good On the other hand, we had no problems with our nice room, all of the staff and the shows were very good. There was one case that I heard of Covid where a woman was locked in her room for the last 2 1/2 days of the trip. They did not quarantine her husband, so go figure as he was always out and about.

The ship is old and has not been fully refurbished. It was still a decent experience minus the food, which is a big part of why I would go on a cruise.

Food

We chose this cruise because it departs from Tampa.  The day of embarkation was hectic; fog closed the port for 8 hours, so we could not board until 6 PM.  Once onboard, the ship left as quickly as possible and we were underway by 8:15 or so. We lost no port time due to late embarkation.  The ship, though old, is clean and comfortable.  Food upstairs by the pool is delicious, as is the food in the main dining room.  We enjoyed the magical dinner in Le Petit Chef immensely. The crew is terrific and eager to please; the shows in the theater were terrific.  However, the WiFi is really a problem; mine kept shutting down (necessitating restarting) for the first 6 or 7 days of our 10 day trip.  Also, the upselling in the main dining room on the first several nights was uncomfortable; we've never experienced that before. We noticed rust on balconies and railings, which you don't see on newer ships.

An old, but very nice and comfortable, ship

First, Cruise Critic does not have an explanation of what the rating bubbles mean.  I am assuming that 3 means good.

We enjoyed the cruise and would go on another Constellation cruise assuming the quality does not drop lower (the food quality on this cruise was lower than the food quality on summer cruise on Summit), and the price were reasonable.

The service was great everywhere on the ship with the exception of the shore excursions desk.  I don't know if they were incompetent or if they weren't given good information.  My experience is that some of Celebrity's descriptions of the excursions were inaccurate.

The food was good, not great.  We ate dinners in the Main Dining Room, service was outstanding throughout.  They really cut down on the dinners in the buffet so did not consider that an option. The result was that the MDR was generally crowded at dinner time.

The buffet at breakfast and lunch tended to be crowded, however at breakfast and lunch there were a nice variety of selections, and the food was good.

We really liked the production shows.  There were a reasonable number of activities onboard, and we really enjoyed the Beyond the Podium talks about pirates.

The ship itself was nice and a nice size. The ship was easy to get around.

The one thing we did not like was the time in ports.  The choice of ports was fine however the timing was not great.  For example, the first port was San Juan, which we have been to before and like, however they got into port at 3 PM which is too late to really enjoy.  I would prefer fewer ports and not be so rushed in each port.

Good, Not Great Cruise

We have sailed on multiple ships but never Celebrity.  We had heard such good things about their ships and service that we were excited to choose it to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary.  This was a very big mistake.  The ship is very old and has not been updated.  There were holes on the decks where it had rusted through.  The lifeboats had not been tested since 2019, as noted on the side of each vessel.  Handling of the food and cleaning up the areas, in both the dining room and buffet was very poor, where both clean and dirty dishes were put together.  The quality and taste of the food was poor, and service was very slow.  When we did not use the silverware on our table it was scoped up and placed on other tables, without checking to see if it was clean and untouched.  Menus were never wiped off and were noticeably dirty and worn.  There were very few hand sanitizer machines around the ship and those that were, were often empty.  Staff handled both clean and dirty items at the same time without washing hands. The excursions and entertainment on the ship were very below average than anything else we have experienced on other ships.  When we expressed our concerns to management, we were told that 50% of the staff were new to working on a ship and they were trying to train them now.  Many of the staff seemed unaware of the passengers and would walk in front of them, ignore them and just plain appear not to care.  Cleaning in the public areas of the ship seemed non-existence.  To say we were disappointed on our first time sailing with Celebrity is an understatement.  I did receive a call from customer service of Celebrity with and apology and an offer of $750 per person for our next trip on their ships.  I found that an insult.  How do you make up for the loss of such an important day in our lives.  We may cruise again but it certainly will not be with Celebrity.

Worst cruise ever!

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