Constellation - My thoughts on our Feb 2, 2023 cruise

[tcmagnum]

 

I know I'm late posting this but getting caught up at work was a nightmare.  Might not take a cruise in the beginning of February next year.  Maybe first week of January and then late March.  Must have taxes documents over to accountant before I go on March cruise.  But I'm not caught up and packing for our last-minute spring break cruise on Carnival.  I know, what am I thinking??  But my sister and I have a suite w/balcony & the other three are in a sunset balcony & then there are 2 more inside cabins down below.  But we all have the drink package - so I should be good.

 

Celebrity Constellation 2-3-2023 to 2-13-2023 sailing out of Tampa.

 

Day 1:

Fog closed the Tampa port which caused us to be delayed boarding for 6.5 hours.  Scheduled to board at 11:00am but didn’t make it on ship until 6:30pm.  I understand weather can’t be controlled but this sucked.  Celebrity did a good job of communicating with 3 of the 4 in our group.  The fourth person never received an email or text about the delays.  In the emails/text messages that Celebrity was sending out they advised passengers to show up to port 6.5 hours AFTER their original scheduled boarding times.  LOL – No one listened to that direction.  It was a cluster at the port.  Passengers were rude and just plain ugly.  Some even berated the workers who were trying to get them on the ship as fast as they could – like it was their fault (some people).  At least we were able to watch our safety videos while waiting in line.

Once on the ship, we went straight to our cabins and dropped off bags and grabbed out key cards.  Then to our safety station (casino for us!!!!) and got that out of the way.  It’s so much easier now!

Then to Tuscan Grille to confirm our 8:00 reservations.

Then to the Pool Bar on level 11 (overlooking the pool).  First (and definitely not last) drink of our cruise.  So good!!

 

Walked around the ship and then to Tuscan Grille for dinner.  OMG!!!  So good!!!  Our rooms were ready pretty quickly, and we went down to freshen up and unpack a little – all bags/suitcases showed up to cabins promptly.  Very friendly cabin attendant.  Requested that we have ice in room each afternoon.

The four of us ordered 7 appetizers, soups/salads, 7 main dishes, and 5 desserts!!!  We also order wine that was included in our classic drink package.  So good.  In fact, we enjoyed it so much, we made reservations for the second to last night for dinner again.  And the second night's dinner was even better than the first night!!

 

The first two days of the cruise were sea days.  Pool.  Drinks.  Pool.  Drinks.  You get the picture.  The solarium pool has a little café they open for breakfast and then lunch (12-2:00).  Little plates of very good food – chicken salad was so good!!  Free.  But I think the smoothies were extra – not sure if in a drink package or not because we weren’t interested and never asked.  Love the solarium pool – bubbies and warm.  The main pools were showing their age more than I expected.  Some spots looked pretty bad, but they were clean.

Chocolate lave cake was served at dinner on the second sea day.  MMM MMM GREAT!!! 

 

Buffet:

We did hit the buffet most evenings to just check out the dessert selections and to be honest we were disappointed.  We are huge chocolate lovers and chocolate was missing.  There was always a huge line for the ice cream – which had scooped ice cream and the soft serve ice cream.  No self-serve soft serve ice cream.

Let’s talk about the buffet and its selections.  Our cruise was heavy on an older segment of cruisers.  Most were 70 and older (we would guess 90% or higher of the cruisers).  There were 10 children (all under 5 or so) and they were very well behaved.  There were maybe 10 or so cruisers who were under 25.  Then maybe 10% of the cruisers were between 25 and 70.  I’m only pointing this out to say that the breakfast buffet had TONS of stations open (most of them open).  Lots of options.  Lunch was the same way – very crowded and most stations were open.  Carving station with a meat options (turkey one day and we saw roast beef several days) and a carving station with fresh grilled vegetables (very popular at lunch time).  Then came dinner – the buffet was mostly vacant.  One night we counted maybe 100 people in the buffet section, and we were playing dominoes, so we were in there for almost four hours.  Most nights they opened maybe 60% of the sections.  And to be honest with the small number of people eating in there at night, I don’t blame them.  There is a tv on the left entrance to buffet that states what the theme is for that night (Indian or American or Mexican etc.…). 

 

Main dining room:

For the most part, we were hugely disappointed most times we ate in there.  The second night of the cruise wasn’t too bad.  I ordered off the kids’ menu – spaghetti bolognaise and filet mignon.  Very good.  Food came in a timely manner.  No big issues.  The third night of the cruise – Ugh.  I again ordered off the kids’ menu because it was so good the night before.  And so did my sister.  It took over 1.5 hours to get our food.  They kept saying it was because we ordered off the kids’ menu – ****.  If we had been actual kids, our parents would have had to leave.  No kid is going to wait quietly/patiently.  Then the steaks came out so raw – they almost walked off the table.  Every time the waiter came over, he made a joke about ‘ordering off the kids menu means a wait’.  ****.  You forgot to put the order in.  Hell, I could have walked down to the buffet and to the pasta bar and got my bolognaise myself faster.  Heck the night before was no issue, and the food was great.

 

Example of the Crew doing everything they can do to make you happy:

One funny thing:  We were talking to SRI the lady who dishes out the desserts at the buffet.  I asked if we could request to get the chocolate lave cake again on the night, we had reservations at Tuscan Grille (second to last night).  She took our room numbers down and said she would request it, but there was no guarantee.  I figured NOPE.  Then a few days passed, and we decided to move our reservation to the third to last night but forgot about the request for chocolate lave cake.  We went to the main dining room on the second to last night.  Horrible service (but I blame the cruise line – our waiter had too many tables).  The food was horrible – risotto was dry and not even cooked (raw).  Lettuce was brown in the salads.  Didn’t get butter until after the entrees.  The desserts didn’t interest us so we decided to just leave after we finished our entrees and go to buffet for ice cream.  When we got to the buffet SRI asked us if we liked our chocolate lava cakes.  WHAT??!!  Apparently, the chief did get the request and had the cakes waiting for us in the main dining room (they saw we had changed our reservation).  The cakes were going to be delivered when we ordered our desserts.  They delivered the chocolate lava cakes to us in the buffet.  The head of the main dining room came to the buffet to ask why we had left so fast.  We tried to nicely explain it away, but he kept pushing so we finally said our waiter was overwhelmed and the food was bad, so we figured leave and get ice cream.  We specifically told him it wasn’t our waiter’s fault that he was overwhelmed – we blamed the cruise line and the heads of the dining room (they were standing there doing nothing to help their workers).  And I say all this after over 15 years of waiting on tables, so I get it.

Another example:

On the second to last day (a sea day) the ship offered behind the scenes galley tour for free.  Several in our group was interested but were in a heated game of dominoes and missed it.  One of the ladies went to the buffet area and talked with one the managers.  They ended up taking our group on a special/private tour.  Did they have to?  Nope, it was our fault we missed it.  But pretty amazing they gave us the tour.

Excursions:

Our excursion at the first port Puerto Plata was cancelled.  So, we stayed in the port area.  Man made pool/beach.  Lovely.  So pretty and clean.  The lazy river wasn’t open yet, but it is now, and we’ve heard it’s great.

Second port of St. Thomas was a sail to snorkel excursion.  This one was very good.  Not too many people of the catamaran.  Fun sail over and back.  Rum Punch was very good.

On St. Kitts – We did the Mini Speed Boat and Snorkel Adventure.  BEST EXCURSION!!!  Each mini speed boat held two people and you took turning driving to and from the snorkel spot.  The snorkel spot was a very calm area with a shipwreck.  Lite snack of fruit/water and then we got back in our boats.  Will do this one again!!!

On St. Marteen – We were just going to walk around but since our first excursion was cancelled, we had OBC to spend.  So, we rushed and booked another sail/snorkel trip.  Shouldn’t have.  This one was way too crowded.  Snorkel was ok.  A dry mini sandwich was offered.  At least the bottled water was cold.

Fellow cruisers:

At ages 46 to 53, we were some of the younger cruisers on this cruise.  But we had a ball!!  Always had people talking to us and inviting us to join the fun.  Never had a more friendly/welcoming group of cruisers on a cruise before!!

Activities:

Many bars to visit and many drinks to sample.  Deal or No Deal was fun to watch/participate in.  Shows - Good.  Casino - Fun and the crew were so friendly.  Slot tournaments - fun.  Movies on top deck big screen.  Reading in so many places!!  Silent disco - If you don't know what this is, Do It!!!  So much fun.  Dancing.  Relaxing by the pool.  There were always people sitting around pool area that were looking for a card game or dominoes game or back gammon game.  Listening to the live music in the different bars.  Trivia.

Stateroom:

We were in cabins 7901 and 7903.  Inside rooms with 2 sisters/cousins in each room.  These rooms were GREAT.  Small?  Yes, aren’t they all unless you upgrade to suites.  But the location!!  We were right next to the middle elevators but in a side hallway.  Didn’t have a lot of people walking past our cabins.  Didn’t hear any noise from the elevators.  Easy up to food/pool or down to food/casino/excursions areas.  We would book these rooms again!!

Internet:

We had the basic internet included for our cruise.  And it did everything I needed it to do.  I was able to stay in touch with the world.  I was able to send my hubby the daily/morning location picture, so he knew where we were each day.  I have T-Mobile and it is great.  Free text and internet while in ports.  And phone calls were only .20 cents a minute - Which was nice to be able to talk to my parents each day for hardly any cost.  My cousin did upgrade to premium internet as she was in the process of buying a new house and selling her house in the first 4 days of our cruise.  

Retreat/Suites:

We were lucky enough to get invited up to see a Sky Suite by some friends we made on ship.  We really liked the bigger cabin.  And of course, the balcony.  Then I got to see the retreat lounge/Michaels for retreat members.  Yup – Really liked that.

We are now planning a cruise on the Apex in a Magic Carpet Sky Suite.  We want to try it out and see if it’s something we can’t live without or just something for once/awhile.  We are moving over to the Apex for Retreat/Suite because it has a separate Retreat deck area. 

But:

The Connie will always be my favorite ship.  The Connie took me to Europe for the first time.  Love her crew.  Really like how I already know the ship when I step onboard (like coming home).  Like her size – not too big, but not too small.

[mahdnc]

Thanks for posting your review. I'm glad you had a great time, but sorry about your tax thingee. 

[Debbra1024]

Great review.
We were on the cruise with you and fall into the smaller demographic you discussed.

The crew was amazing.  
The buffet was very good most days for lunch. Really enjoyed the small plates at the Spa Cafe (smoothies are covered by the premium drink package- very hit or miss this cruise. Only place where I wouldn’t rate the crew as excellent). The main dining room food was mostly good to very good- no complaints. 
We had ocean view rooms with the expanded porthole on deck 3. Great rooms and would recommend.
St kitts was our favorite port- rented a jeep and explored the island. We did this in 3 ports and found it a relaxing way to customize our time. 

I will admit I was very concerned pre-cruise with all the negativity on this forum, but was pleasantly surprised. Of course, a positive attitude always helps. Enjoyed it enough to book a Panama Canal cruise on Beyond for January. 

[Born2go]

Thank you for this review. I was one of the port workers that boarding day and I can attest that some people were rather…distressed.😗

Your experience was similar to mine on the January 14th sailing of the Infinity. Dining also varied from very good to excellent to uneatable. Felt a bit like a roller coaster. 
Did the Tuscan Grill have white tablecloths? They used placemats on the Infinity that I thought took away from the elegance of the evening.

[PMT51]

On 4/6/2023 at 6:39 PM, Born2go said:

...

Did the Tuscan Grill have white tablecloths? They used placemats on the Infinity that I thought took away from the elegance of the evening.

Agree with you. Fine dining should have tablecloths. We did 2 speciality restaurants on the Edge, placemats there as well.