February 2017 - 14 Night Vietnam & Philippines (Singapore Roundtrip) Cruise on Celebrity Constellation
Second time on Constellation
skincanon
Purser
Joined 07/2016
2
Cruises1
Review44
Helpful VotesPast cruises
July 2016 - 7 Night Bermuda (Cape Liberty Roundtrip) Cruise on Celebrity Summit
Celebrity Constellation
Sail date: February 05, 2017
This is our second sailing on the Constellation, in comparison, this sailing the crew appeared less experienced and it was a new itinerary for most of the crew.
Our favorite part of this cruise was the Entertainment and Bar Staff/Sommeliers by far. All of the shows provided top-notch entertainment, the singers were excellent, as well as the small venue entertainment (soloists, duos, bands, DJ) were also excellent. The Bar Staff/Sommeliers were very friendly, of course the drink package helped!
The ship needs to go through a serious dry-dock maintenance, as many areas showed rust and wear including sagging floors in our shower and the Ocean View Café.
Itinerary-wise, they could overnight in Hong Kong since there is so much to see and do and not enough time to see 25% of it. They could skip Manila all together. Unfortunately due to extreme winds at the tender port of Boracay, we had to skip that port and Kota Kinabalu is still a destination port "in-progress", so maybe wait a few more years before stopping there.
The Shore excursions department really needs to expand their information available to cruisers regardless of whether or not they are on a tour or not. We did 2 "self guided" tours with the ships transfers, but the maps of the locations were awful and there really wasn't any additional information to help out those not on an organized, escorted tour.
"Traffic Management"
Tour disembarkation - Celebrity still has yet to figure out the best way to distribute the tour bus number stickers to passengers. This time they had the line wrap through the photo gallery and around, whilst passengers were arriving in the middle of the line via elevators and stairs.
Philippine Health Inspection - this was ridiculous, people merging and converging into the line from 5 different access points. All to walk through and hand a piece of paper to the Philippine immigration officers. No one really say the point of this exercise.
Passport Pick up - DEBACLE, worst location on the entire ship for mass pick up of passports for 2034 passengers, in the Art Gallery!!!
The Art Auction was generally routine, as expected, but the advertised auction for no work over $750 immediately started with many works that were over $3000, all under the guise of "requested art". This cleared out the room of about 30% within the first 15 minutes of the auction. During the normal auctions, they were auctioning the high cost art that didn't seem to resonant with anyone, but they kept putting those pieces on the auction block. Piece of advise for the auctioneer "Read your audience".
Cruise tips
The Hop On and Off bus ticket provides you with a "front of line" jump pass at the Victoria Peak funicular, HOWEVER, it does not afford you the same privilege on the return down the hill! Took us 50 minutes to get down, mostly standing in the long queue.
Either make your own arrangements ahead of time or take the ships' excursion if planning on seeing the Mari Mari Cultural Village, as they have a limited number of entrance tickets available each day, and they were NOT available for us on an independent tour hiring a taxi driver.
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This is our second sailing on the Constellation, in comparison, this sailing the crew appeared less experienced and it was a new itinerary for most of the crew.
Our favorite part of this cruise was the Entertainment and Bar Staff/Sommeliers by far. All of the shows provided top-notch entertainment, the singers were excellent, as well as the small venue entertainment (soloists, duos, bands, DJ) were also excellent. The Bar Staff/Sommeliers were very friendly, of course the drink package helped!
The ship needs to go through a serious dry-dock maintenance, as many areas showed rust and wear including sagging floors in our shower and the Ocean View Café.
Itinerary-wise, they could overnight in Hong Kong since there is so much to see and do and not enough time to see 25% of it. They could skip Manila all together. Unfortunately due to extreme winds at the tender port of Boracay, we had to skip that port and Kota Kinabalu is still a destination port "in-progress", so maybe wait a few more years before stopping there.
The Shore excursions department really needs to expand their information available to cruisers regardless of whether or not they are on a tour or not. We did 2 "self guided" tours with the ships transfers, but the maps of the locations were awful and there really wasn't any additional information to help out those not on an organized, escorted tour.
"Traffic Management"
Tour disembarkation - Celebrity still has yet to figure out the best way to distribute the tour bus number stickers to passengers. This time they had the line wrap through the photo gallery and around, whilst passengers were arriving in the middle of the line via elevators and stairs.
Philippine Health Inspection - this was ridiculous, people merging and converging into the line from 5 different access points. All to walk through and hand a piece of paper to the Philippine immigration officers. No one really say the point of this exercise.
Passport Pick up - DEBACLE, worst location on the entire ship for mass pick up of passports for 2034 passengers, in the Art Gallery!!!
The Art Auction was generally routine, as expected, but the advertised auction for no work over $750 immediately started with many works that were over $3000, all under the guise of "requested art". This cleared out the room of about 30% within the first 15 minutes of the auction. During the normal auctions, they were auctioning the high cost art that didn't seem to resonant with anyone, but they kept putting those pieces on the auction block. Piece of advise for the auctioneer "Read your audience".