Cruise Review

What was our most memorable part of the cruise? 

Both Marg and myself agree that it would be the trip to Marrakesh.  Marg thought it was memorable but not in a pleasant way.  Although she found it interesting she also felt it was dirty, noisy and generally she did not feel safe.  I found it to be so different from anything that I had experienced before that even having a snake wrapped around my neck really didn't bother me.

Marg really enjoyed the camel ride in Lanzorate in the Canary Islands.   She will remember Paloma. She was our camel.

We also lucked out with our dining room assignment.  You couldn't ask for better dining companions than the people we sat with.

So how does Celebrity compare against other cruise lines we have travelled with.  I won't bother comparing them against Royal Caribbean and Holland America, who we've documented our negative reviews on other blogs.  And you can't compare this type of cruise against a river cruise because of the size differential and the number of passengers involved.  So I'll compare it against Princess which I believe is the best cruise line that we've travelled with up until this trip.

Ship's Condition

The Celebrity Constellation is easily a five star resort.  Everywhere you look there are crews cleaning and maintaining the public areas.  For a vessel that is constantly exposed to salt water and  the traffic generated by 2000 passengers, I did not notice any wear and tear.  Both Marg and myself believe it is the same quality as Princess.

.       Stateroom

The stateroom was a normal size for a modern cruise liner.  What I did find was that their use of mirrors made it seem bigger and brighter.  There was plenty of storage space for both of us.  Both Mary and myself rank it equal to Princess.

.       Facilities

The swimming pools and hot tubs were great.  The outdoor lounging areas were spacious and never crowded.  The gym and spa were modern and well equipped.  The library and the computer facilities were functional and we'll appointed.  The shopping concourse was OK, but then I'm not really a shopper.  Based on the pool area and its hot tubs , both us would give the edge to Celebrity.

.       Entertainment

The main theatre is an excellent facility.  During the day there were several guest lecturers with topics that ranged from ancient history to an intimate look into the daily life at the White House.  In the evening the live shows were generally good and some of the acts were outstanding.

During the sea days that were plenty of activities to keep you occupied and entertained.  We spent a lot of time at the trivia challenges but there were other activities such as the casino and wine tasting to name a few.

Marg points out that on our Princess cruise we were the Brunets and the Rockburnes and participated in a different set of activities and enjoyed other types of entertainment.  Therefore it is hard to compare the classic apples to oranges.

I would give the edge again to Celebrity, but Marg calls it a draw.

.       Bars/Lounges

There are two large lounges and several smaller more intimate bars on board the Constellation.   The service could use a little improvement but generally it was fine.  The bands at these lounges were very good.  They ranged from a dance band to a jazz band to a acoustic guitarist to a classical string trio.  We both would give a small advantage to Princess.

Dining

The food as you would expect on a cruise is outstanding.  The main meals in the San Macro restaurant were delicious and the wine selection terrific. The lunch menu in the restaurant was always interesting and tasty.  The food in the buffet was varied and of excellent quality.  We did not try the speciality restaurants.  If the best restaurant we've ever eaten in scores a 10, then Princess would be a 9 and the Celebrity Constellation would be an 8.5, only because Princess had better desserts.  Marg felt that overall she would give a slight advantage to Princess, but she still enjoyed the Celebrity's food.

Staff

As we've noted in the blog, the captain and his fellow officers are head and shoulders above any other ship that we have travelled on.  Captain Tasos was very involved with his passengers and his positive, friendly attitude infected the rest of his crew making it an outstanding experience.

Our dining room staff on our Princess cruise were outstanding and I believe that they can never be topped.  Our dining room staff on the Constellation were personable and efficient but just seemed to lack that little extra personality that we had on the Princess cruise.  Marg also pointed out that our table on Princess had three staff for six people, where as our table of ten had a crew of three on Celebrity.

Our maitre d' on the Constellation attended our table each night to ensure that we had no complaints about the food and the service.  Although he was friendly enough, he didn't strike us as being someone who added anything special to the cruise.  Marg still raves about the maitre d' on the Princess cruise.  Marg says he looked and sounded like Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy and often greeted Marg, Joan and Heather a hug and a kiss when they entered the dining room.

Our stateroom staff were extremely friendly and very thorough.  As the standing joke goes, if you left your room for than 5 minutes, you would come back to find it cleaned.  The other onboard staff were always friendly and smiling.  It just made you feel good and relaxed to be onboard.

We split our vote here.  I would give the advantage to Celebrity and Marg likes Princess better.

Overall we both would recommend either cruise line, but I would give a small edge to Celebrity and Marg would give the advantage to Princess.  Would we do another cross Atlantic cruise.  Yes, in a heartbeat.

December 10 - Home

We arrived home early this afternoon after staying in Toronto overnight.  It was a long trip home.

The ship asks that everyone vacate their cabin early in the morning so that they can clean and prepare it for the next set of passengers  who will be arriving around noon today.  So we were off the ship around 9:15am and had to wait until 10:30 for our shuttle bus from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale  to the Miami airport.  Our flight from Miami to Toronto was delayed from 3:30pm until 4:00pm because American Airlines had not scheduled a flight crew for this flight and they had to call up a crew from Dallas to fly the plane.  So that meant we didn't get in to our hotel until 8:30pm.

When we disembarked from the Celebrity Constellation, we noticed a Princess cruise ship docked beside us.  It turns out that this is the ship that Ken & Joan Rockburne had taken for their Caribbean cruise and had we left our ship a little earlier in the morning we might have bumped into each other.

Our flight home took us over the Daytona Speedway.  It is monstrous in size.  It must be quite the site when all 170,000 people are in the stands.

It is a real culture shock when you leave the boat.  For two weeks, you are treated like royalty with service that is beyond your wildest expectations. The you come ashore and it seems that everybody is either angry at something or don't care about their jobs.  And of course onboard almost everything is prepaid and when you came back to reality you have to start grabbing for your wallet.

December 8 - Western Atlantic

It is hard to believe but we are in the last day of our cruise.  The seas are calm and the temperature is very warm.  It is a perfect day to relax by the pool.

The captain’s morning briefing was about how much we consumed on this cruise.  The boat travelled over 5,000 nautical miles and used $1,500,000 in fuel, we ate 16,000 eggs and 1,200 lobsters, just to list some of the numbers I remember of the top of my head.  I would love to know what the operating budget for the ship is on an annual basis.

At the trivia challenge this afternoon we did OK and finished 6^th for the whole tournament.

In the afternoon we finally saw another boat.  This is the first sign of humanity that we have seen since the Celebrity Equinox, which was several days ago.  We will be passing the Bahamas sometime this evening and be in Fort Lauderdale at 6:00am tomorrow.

It was sad at supper tonight as we said our goodbyes to our new found friends.  But we’ve exchanged contact information and I’m sure that we’ll keep in touch.  In fact Norm has asked if we wanted to go another cruise with them, but believe it or not we’ve already booked trips for the next two years.

December 7 - Western Atlantic

This is our third 25 hour day in a row.  We keep crossing time zones each night.  Currently we are in the Atlantic time zone.

The ship has slowed down and Captain Tasos says is it because we were approaching the Bermuda Triangle and he wanted to have the Celebrity Equinox pass us and enter the triangle first, just in case something bad would happen.

The adoration of Captain Tasos continues.  Today at the pool there was a volleyball contest between the officers of the bridge, which included the Captain, and the staff of housekeeping.  The crowd was huge and the pool deck was packed.

Marg is feeling a bit better.  All our new friends were relieved when she appeared on deck.

Unfortunately the progressive trivia contest was not held today.  It has become a pleasant habit.

Two ladies have brought their stupid little dogs on board and we're not talking service dogs either. They push them around in little baby carriages and take them into the dining areas and lounges, where we saw one of them allowing their dog to drink out of a martini glass.  Given my allergies to dog hair, I can't imagine how bad it would be if I had their cabin in the next cruise.  Marg has written a complaint to Celebrity complaining how unhygienic this is.

Tonight was the formal captain’s night.  We had our picture taken with Captain Tasos before adjourning to the dining room were had their best meal of the cruise.  I had Oysters Rockefeller, Tomato Bisque , Lobster and Baked Alaska.  Marg had a Blue Cheese Soufflé, Caesar Salad, Lobster and Apple Pie.

December 6 - Western Atlantic

The boat is starting take a slightly more northerly course.  We’re about 2/3 of the way between the Canary Islands and Fort Lauderdale.  The waves are about 3 meters in height but the ride has not been too rough.  Today I saw our first form of civilization, outside of the ship, in three days.  I saw a jet contrail heading towards the southwest.  We are not alone.

Captain Tasos is a becoming a rock star.  He is easily the most accessible and entertaining captain of any cruise ship we’ve been on.  His approach is also reflected in how his staff perform their jobs.

Each day there is a lecture by various speakers on topics as diverse as the daily life in the White House or ancient history.  Usually the theater is about ¼ full but today the Captain held a Q&A session on how the ship is run and the auditorium was packed with 1,000 people to hear his explanations, which he delivered with his usual mix of intelligence and humour.

After the lecture, the staff held their talent show.  As usual with these types of shows it was a mix of good singers and bad comedy.  At the end several members of the bridge came out and danced a Greek folk dance.  About half way through Captain Tasos joined them on stage and brought the house down.  The loyalty of his passengers is amazing to see.

In the trivia challenge today we finished 3^rd  but we are too far behind the leaders to catch up with only two rounds left.  Maybe next time.

Marg passed on dinner tonight.  She still is feeling ill and didn’t feel up to leaving the room and instead order in room service.

I went to the evening show, which was a London West end musical theatre star named Lindsey Hamilton.  You have to remember that they use the term star very loosely.  She had a good voice but her selection of songs was very predictable.

Sometimes reality has a way of interjecting itself into the present.  At dinner tonight there was a group of passengers sitting next to us, who were dressed up in bizarre / fancy hats and costumes.  They were having a good time.  During dessert we heard a distress call over the ship’s intercom for an emergency in the dining room.  It turned out one of the passengers in that group was having a heart attack.  We have no idea what his condition is but it didn’t look promising.


More photos from Celebrity Constellation

December 5 - Mid Atlantic

Last night at 2am we crossed the midpoint of the Atlantic Ocean.  Bermuda is now the nearest land to us at about 800 nautical miles.  

The staff is a diverse ethnical group.  There are from Turkey, Arabia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia, United Kingdom and the Philippines.  They are all fluent in English and are always cheerful and polite.  It seems that they are always either cleaning the rooms and the hallways or offering to get you a drink or take your empty dishes away.

The ship had a full brunch laid on for us today.  I’ve never seen such a spread.  There were multiple tables full of cereals, fruits, cheeses, eggs, meats, waffles, sushi, caviar, hot luncheon entrees and any type of pastry or dessert you could imagine.  

As entertainment they had an excellent classical guitarist playing during the meal, followed by a string quartet.

During the brunch we met a couple from Florida.  He was a retired Coast Guard officer.  He has been to each continent with the exception of Antarctica.  He told us that he and sons are taking an adventure tour there within the year, where they will see various wildlife and visit some of the research stations.

At the trivia tournament we failed to gain any points.  It was a geography quiz where you had to identify a building and its location in twenty photos.  We scored 33 out of 40, but it was not good enough.

The headline act at the theatre was Jon Courtney. He is a British pianist who’s act is similar to some of the old borsch belt acts, such as Victor Borga and Liberace.  It consists of playing part of song and then telling some jokes in between.  He was “pee your pants” funny.  He interacted with the audience and told jokes and stories that ranged from Suri and Apple IPODs to his relationship with his grandparents. If you ever see him at local comedy club, please take the time to go see him.  You won’t be disappointed.

Late in the afternoon I noticed that the pool staff were securing the deck chairs and that there were dark skies to the north.  As the evening has progressed the seas have been getting progressively worse.  It could be an interesting night.

Marg has come down with the same bug I had earlier in the week.  She spent the afternoon resting and not too far from the toilet.


More photos from Celebrity Constellation - Click here

December 4 - Mid Atlantic

Captain Tasos has set a more southerly course and the seas have been very calm today.  The waves are about 1m to 1.5m in height.  The oceans depth is 4km.  The temperature is very comfortable but there is still a strong breeze.

Marg started the morning with a visit to the spa, where she had a massage and a beauty treatment.  I went to the Spa’s healthy breakfast buffet where I had Apple Cider Oatmeal and a chocolate beet muffin.  It tasted better than it sounds.  I then visited the gym to get back into the weight lifting exercises for my tendonitis.  The gym has most of the equipment that you would find in a regular gym, except it is just a scaled down version.

I’m not sure if it is cruising in general or just this particular cruise, but there seems to be a significant number of older gay couples on board.

In our trivia tournament we finished fourth in the today’s round.  It was questions based on music and movies spanning the period from the 1940’s to today. So we are still in contention for the championship.

Every afternoon "Friends of Bill W" meet.  It turns out that this code for AA.  I'm not sure if this is an universal code or just for this cruise.  I can't imagine how hard it must be for a member of AA to have all this alcohol available.

There were two shows for this evening entertainment.  The first show was called White Magic, which was an illusionist and his partner who was a contortionist.  The magician was good but the contortionist was great.  She would not have been out of place in any starring role at any Vegas show.   For her climax act she balanced her whole body on a thin rod by only using her mouth to grab onto the rod.

After dinner we went a show called the Liar’s Club.  On the panel were the captain, the cruise director named JC and the activity director named Mark.  They were given four obscure words and they had to come up with a definition.  Each of them is a very talented joke/story teller.  It made for a hilarious hour of entertainment as they gave us their definitions and told us their associated stories.

I think that captain must have some groupies in female staff.  At the liars club I saw several females in the audience who were much younger than the average passenger.  I can only conclude that they were part of the staff, whose duties had concluded for the day.


More photos from Celebrity Constellation