Thoughts on returning to the Connie after 12 years away

[Nitemare]

One thing I left out that I should have mentioned, we LOVED "Bistro on 5". Had a great lunch there on a Sea Day and were surprised how empty it was. $10 service charge per head, but great service, carefully prepared and presented food, and truly delicious.

 

And yes, DWhit, there was some sarcasm in my DWTS comment. The dancers were all better than Geraldo (and Flutie), but not as good as many of the recent winners and runner up celebrities. And we definitely remember much higher quality dancing on our prior journey on the ship, we even got to know a couple of the dancers from going on excursions with them.

[FishOn55]

My husband and I just returned from our 5-night sailing on the Constellation yesterday. This was our first sailing on an M class ship having previously sailed on the Solstice and the Eclipse.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip. Our experience in the main dining room was quite good. We had an excellent server, Armony from Costa Rica. All of the food consumed by ourselves and tablemates was cooked to order. With the exception of the "Top Chef" menu, everyone at our table of 6 was able to find something of interest each night. The maitre'd (along with the executive pastry chef one night) stopped to speak with our our table each night. The wine sommelier also came by our table each night to take our orders. I especially liked the escargot and cheesecake with different sauces available on the every night menu.

 

For the most part the entertainment each night was quite good. The Celebrity singers and dancers were talented. There were 2 production spectaculars, iHollywood (we walked out of that one-couldn't quite figure it out!) and Celebrate the World. Celebrate had a new cast that had just come onboard the week we sailed and did a great job for their first time on the ship. The individual entertainers ranged from OK (Comedian-Rich Aronovich) to spectacular (Singer-Jayne Curry and Hypnotist-Christopher Caress). There was also a couple who did an amazing self-balancing act.

 

I would hate to see Ocean Liners close. Although we did not eat dinner there (due to the $90 upcharge for both of us), it is a beautiful restaurant reminiscent of the grand ocean liners of the past. It includes wonderful old pictures, fireplace and place settings from those liners.

 

Although there were two groups on-board as well as countless spring breakers, everyone was very respectful of the other passengers and no incidents occurred.

 

I understand Connie will be sailing transatlantic early next month and then in Europe for the summer. It then will sail to Asia. Should it come back to Florida, I would not hesitate to sail on her again if the price is right.

[RickT]

I also just returned from a 5 day sailing and have to say my experience was quite different.

 

For MDR we had no issues (other than an incorrect table assignment which the Maitre'd corrected). Our servers were excellent and made great recommendations (including avoiding many of the dishes from Top Chef). Yes, we were never brought a pepper mill but given there was one on each table we were not too put out by doing it ourselves. As with all menu items there were some better than others but none were dudes (IMHO). We did dine at Tuscan Grill one night and the food/service was a few notches better but when you pay $45 a person you'd expect that :D

 

As far as the rest of the cruise, we found the pool band (Ocean 5) to be excellent as well as the guitarist (Sean Roach). The onboard DJ (pool side or atrium) played good tunes at a nice volume.

 

Service was excellent at all the bars with my only complaint being that they were out of many wines (Premium package) and didn't always have a suitable replacement.

 

As FishOn55 mentioned we had a NY Jets group and a bunch of Spring Breakers but they were never an issue and never got in the way.

 

The only complaint I had was the ever present "Chair Hogs".

Edited March 26, 2016 by RickT