Europe - Eastern Mediterranean Cruise Reviews

We chose this cruise because of the itinerary and the cruise line, having sailed with HAL on an Alaskan cruise.  We were pleased with the ship, the crew, the length of the cruise, and most of the ports of call.  We liked the fact that the ship had very few children on it.  It was mostly retirees, and that suited us well.  We look forward to sailing with Holland America again.

The Rivera cruise ship is very nice and the overall cruise experience was very good. The cuisine in the specialty restaurants was also very good. The dining in the general dining areas was OK but not quite as good as we had on the Regent line for other cruises. The shore excursions were pretty good except for the Oceania Exclusive (OE) tour that we paid a premium for (A Day in Jerusalem) that was disappointing and not worth the extra money. Although the tour group was smaller in size, it didn't provide any advantage over the standard tour in access to sites, provided the same lunch in the same venue with the other standard tours and most of all had the lowest quality guide we encountered in all our tours. We were not satisfied with the poor value of the OE tour and informed the cruise line of our opinion (to no effect).

If you're an experienced cruiser, you will be greatly disappointed. If its your first cruise, you will be unfairly turned off. If you are expecting great food, excellent service, outstanding entertainment.....don't choose European MSC. They are a HUGE disappointment. Food is cold, bland, poorly cooked/served in buffet. Seated meals are VERY slow, as in 45 min one day to get breakfast. Took 20+ min to flag someone/anyone down for drinks and another 20 to actually receive. If you go to bar to get drinks (due to lack of service) you get poor attitudes. Entertainment is very poor...one duo the male played polka music on a elec keyboard while the female played mariachi?? WHAT?

Very disappointed with entertainment on board. During formal nights there was a feelings of hollowness because of the lack of music in centrum and top hat. I recommend band that plays variety of music. Guest services lacks customer service. There are multiple of people in guest services but I was ignored in the line. All I need is to exchange my dollar to euro. They seems dreary about their jobs. The counterbalance on this incompetence is the stateroom cleaner, the staff in king and I, the waiters in Izumi and the manager in chopped grill. What a great disappointment. 

we had a fabulous time.  Beautiful small boat and the staff was amazing.  Big shout out to Maria de Freitas, Guest Services Manager,  Adriana Silva, and our room attendant, Ludwig Wilson Hodgson.

 

 

As we just come back from our 7 Night Greece & Turkey cruise on Celebrity Constellation (sailing on 08/23/2015), I decided to write down an objective review for those readers who would love to start cruising with Celebrity but somehow got confused with all the contradictory reviews published almost everywhere.

I never cruised with Celebrity before and even if this year I already booked 7 cruises I decided to have a go. It was a 7 Night Greece & Turkey cruise on board Celebrity Constellation starting from Venice and visiting Dubrovnik, Kussadasi, Mykonos and Corfu. I took the decision to choose a medium value stateroom just to stay on the safe side in case this cruise liner was not my coup of tea.

My and my partner we were in an Aquaclass Cabin – stateroom 1110, on the 11 deck

Celebrity Constellation Overview

Celebrity Constellation debuted in 2002 as the final ship in Celebrity Cruises' Millennium Class, with 2,034-­passengers and affectionately known as "Connie" by its fans. Spending 7 days on Constellation, at every step, in each venues, I didn’t have the feeling that I am on a cruise ship, one of those massive floating hotels sailing all-over Mediterranean sea; Constellation manage to balance the intimacy offered by smaller ships and the space offered by bigger ships. Passengers have access to nine bars and lounges, French, Italian and bistro alternative restaurants, shopping zone and lot of public areas without the risk of getting agoraphobic.

Is easy to fall in love with the modern and exquisite deco where rich but not opulent fabrics in jewel tones mix elegantly with the abundant use of marble and wood accents throughout public areas. The atmosphere is not like any other cruise ships we’ve been before but one with personality, filled with grand spaces that flow nicely from one to the other

Accommodation

Our option was an Aquaclass cabin to stay on the safe side in the balance value for money-comfort-services – and wasn’t a bad option at all. I have to say that from outside Constellation look very impressive with an incredible number of balconies due to the fact that about 60 percent of its accommodations feature verandas.

AquaClass Stateroom is, apparently, among the most popular choices on all Celebrity ships a kind of a spa-inspired cabins. The Celebrity website introduce the AquaClass stateroom having floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors opening to a private balcony large sitting area private bathroom with Hansgrohe massaging showerhead 100% Egyptian cotton towels complimentary use of bathrobes minibar 32-inch flat-screen TV direct-dial telephone and voicemail thermostat-controlled air-conditioning individual safe hairdryer and 24-hour room service. Pretty accurate but:

most of the Aqua Class staterooms aft on Deck 11, including ours (1110) are beneath the basketball court on Deck 12, and above the Seaside Grill on Resort deck. Quite noisy sometimes Hansgrohe massaging showerhead not an amazing addition as couple of days the water pressure made impossible of using all options of the device. the Egyptian cotton towels looked sometimes a little bit tired like the complimentary bathrobes which for sure need a replacement

I was very impressed with the fact that our room steward (Cruz excellent in all aspects) was changing the fruit basket daily but not very impressed with the odd looking and lack of quality healthy drink placed in our room on a daily base.

Quite happy with the storage space even if the cabin has the size normal for a balcony cabin on other ship. The best feature was with no doubts the balcony: due to an ingenious design the balcony looked bigger than others and have enough space for 2 chairs, 2 small tables and a footrest – perfect for a relaxing afternoon.

Bottom line – AquaClass cabin is a very good investment for the space offered and the amenities,  if you can see beyond the oversold amenities and add-ons going on-board with not so high expectations.

Dinning

As an AquaClass guest you have access to a special restaurant – Blue. Again a little misleading from Celebrity: "clean cuisine”. That can put off some guests, like myself, who just want to enjoy a special and divers culinary experience, thinking that you will get only healthy, low calories, steamed food even in holiday. That’s wrong, very wrong as Blue is quite an amazing option for dinner. Although there's a preconception by many passengers that the menu is full of flavourless vegan-type dishes in small portions, the reality is that the chefs manage to dinners that are palate pleasing and reasonably good for you. Can’t forget the delicious escargots de Bourgogne, the frog legs, chilled soups or dream like stakes. A typical dinner menu would start with appetizers like the amazing braised beef short ribs followed by a soup or salad course (my favourite was the Waldorf salad). Entrees include anything you want from veal and beef, to game hen, prime rib and fish. Superbly presented and served every evening. The entire atmosphere was exactly as described on Celebrity website: Blu - Intimately elegant, yet fresh and modern. The only downside was the slow service: if the restaurant was busy you needed around 2.30-2.45h to complete de dinner even if around your table you have a small army of 2 hosts, 1 waiter, 1 assistant waiter and 1 sommelier. But the quality of the food made the waiting worth it. The modern feel to Blu’s décor transcends to food and presentation and you  forget that you’re on a cruise ship and feel like you’re out at a contemporary restaurant.

Only once we tried the breakfast in Blue – maybe to healthy for us and again a little bit slow. Funny but useless the idea to have a “tableside muesli service”: if you want to stay fit and healthy I think that a short walk to the buffet to create your own muesli will not kill anybody.

Blu features open seating and reservations are not required. Cruisers can dine anytime between 6 PM and 9:30 PM. Quite a good idea that idea to get a pager if your table is not ready and avoid waiting in a line in front of the restaurant. The lines in front of San Marco Restaurant (the main dinning venue) were funny: men in tuxedos and ladies in elegant gowns waiting in a 10-15 people line for 20 minutes reminds me of a Tarkovsky movie.

The buffet is like anywhere else; good ideas to have different stations with different dishes but unfortunately the timings for meal was wrong. On board they have strict timings for different meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks (afternoon or late) which remind me of a summer camp or a Spanish all-inclusive resort. For example if you fancy a snack after 11.00pm you lost the battle: nothing open, nothing available apart of the room service – with an announced waiting time of 30-40 minutes. We tried once, after spending some time in the night club to order something and after 45 minutes, around 2am we needed to cancel the order and jump in bed – maybe that was the healthy option offered by AquaClass stateroom!

And twice we had lunch in the main dinning room – San Marco. Was empty and we expected a quick friendly service but, again, Celebrity needs some work in this area: an army of waiter were walking around – in search for the missing polite smile maybe – and the lunch took 2h again.

Room service is very good with an improved menu in AquaClass stateroom. Annoying is just the policy of calling the room to check if “everything is fine with the room service”; even if at the beginning that impressed me quite a lot, couple of times we got the phone call before the breakfast arrived which destroyed completely the feeling of “personalised and carrying service”.

Public Areas

The heart of Constellation’s public areas is her Grand Foyer, a rectangular, three-deck atrium dominated by a backlit onyx stairway that glows beneath you.

The elegant Reflections venue on Deck 11 serves as an observation lounge for readers and a quiet place for dance and craft classes by day, but it's also the official gathering place for very good clubbing music.

Entertainment venues include the three-deck Celebrity Theatre in the bow; the modern 900-seat theatre is where most of the major entertainment action takes place. The banquet-style seats are comfortable enough for the nearly hour-long programs, and the small tables positioned along the rows of seats are handy. We enjoyed there couple of nights watching the ship’s shows.

We didn’t used the contemporary Rendezvous Lounge, Fortunes Casino as was not a lively atmosphere when we passed through.

Constellation also got a Martini Bar (our favourite space even if sometimes crowded and most of the time understaffed) - a combination of booze and entertainment with the bartenders flipping and juggling bottles of top-­shelf vodka and gin in time with disco music. Finding seats around the main bar during peak time is a challenge, as is getting a bartender's attention. One of our fellow passengers told me that if you plan to be a regular at this bar, a tip the day you come aboard of $20 or more may result in better service throughout your cruise.

The comfortable Café al Bacio and Gelateria for specialty coffees and ice cream was a little bit too crowed for us and the Cellarmasters wine bar, was most of the time empty.

Entertainment

Celebrity has a favourite list of entertainers, musicians and singers from England, which tried hard to be too alternative and less entertaining. The overall quality was far under the similar acts on other cruise liners. If you add the loud and weird background music on-board you will understand why we preferred to spend our evenings in Martini Bar.

Talking about background music: was funny to have breakfast in Blue around 7.45am and being bombarded with loud alternative sounds; was hilarious that that time in the morning one of the songs was related to “sex on the beach”, “push it harder” or “orgasm”. Maybe this is modern luxury – music sex and … scrambled eggs!

Reflections club is a great place…but the DJ manage to kill it; my partner and I love dancing but the disco was club music aimed at 18 year olds (not many of them on the cruise). When we spoke with the DJ with some request he ignored as in a very impolite way and after the second went back to his favourite music: clubbing. Was quite weird that a DJ doesn’t realise the need to change the rhythm when the dance floor is empty for most of the time and quite full for one song or another. Therefore we preferred the parties in Martini Bar.

The shows were a big disappointment. With such a great venue as Celebrity Theatre and the level of quality advertised by Celebrity you expect something much better than on other ships. But we were wrong again. Apart of some acts, guest entertainers, the Celebrity productions remind me of an end of season show of a mediocre acting school.  The costumes, the lights, the sound and the stage production were great but didn’t manage to raise the level of the cast: chubby dancers, singers with a “BGT audition” voices and scripts insulting the IQ of the audience.

One night we decided to watch the Elrya – the most acclaimed and newest Celebrity production, described as a “sensual, seductive and dreamlike” stage performance and rated 18+.A show launched in April and prepared in the new Royal Caribbean Production Studio. “Our (rehearsal) space is even bigger than Cirque du Soleil’s,” Thomson-Foley-a former dancer turned cruise director turned entertainment boss, said. Unfortunately the size doesn’t matter in showbiz. The entire performance remind me of a bad casted pantomime in Blackpole for a stag’s and hen’s parties. What was the need for the vulgarity and the poor quality of the stand-up drag moments? What was the need of killing massive songs with poor voices? Fortunately for all on stage the performance was on a cruise ship and not in a real theatre…the critics will kill the show after the first night. On the Constellation you can re-cover in the Martini Bar.

The Cruise Director and his staff was “Carnival style”: great jokes if you are half-drunk, activities who try hard and unsuccessful to be funny, their entire presence around the ship (even on television) was dull and over the top.  When you search for modern luxury you don’t expect to find officers playing water polo in their uniforms or pub style competition…on a cruise ship yes, you do!

OK, that’s enough for now…quite a long review but the only reason is that I enjoyed cruising with Celebrity and I am sure that they can do better and they have to if they want to be “modern luxury”.

So,

Why I liked our Celebrity Constellation cruise?

Superb food, no compromises in quality and presentation Elegant and modern look like ship with all the facility that you expect from a cruise ship but keeping a sense of intimacy and class Very good room steward – Cruz (staterrom 1110) and an all the time polite smiling bartender – Milos (Sunset Bar) Excellent bar concept – Martini Bar Amazing selection of drinks (no mass produced cocktails)

Why I didn’t like our Celebrity Constellation cruise?     

Slow service all around the ship maybe due to the under staff cutting costs policy Not a 5* service overall with a tired attitude and “we’ve done that for the last 6 months” smile A fantastic venue (Reflection Lounge) killed sometimes by a “playing music for myself” DJ Low quality and profile entertainment with a waste of money and energy for a mediocre result

When I looked back I realise now that was not exactly their slogan “LUXURIOUS. MODERN. UNIQUE”. It was a nice cruise, a little bit overpriced, with fellow guests trying to balance their spending and expectation with the only solution of enjoying their vacations.

Of course far much better than Costa or MSC but a long, long way to Regent or Viking! So Celebrity you still have time to act and be where you want and deserve to be. You will have another go soon…

Thank you for a nice week.

The MSC Opera is a lovely cruise liner. The balcony room is very nice, but the shower is really small. The staff on the pool deck was excellent. The entertainment team and singers/bands spoke or sang mainly in Italian. It was sometimes difficult to follow what was going on.  

We embarked from ıstanbul with a family of four. First stop was Dubrovnik where transfers were made with lifeboats and there was a qeue at the port on the way back. "Once a year" the Venice passenger port was closed, and it was the day when we arrived. No info was shared and the ship moored at the Margera Port where the transfers were made to Venice by small boats for 16 EUR per person. On the way back there was another disaster due to Venetian police procedures. Stayed under the sun (39 degrees) and had an x-ray check. It was aound noon time when we arrived to the next stop (Brindisi) and nothing to see. All shops were closed. Katakolon was not much better. 

Ship was very crowded and long queues in the restaurants. Most of the cres were hardly could speak English. I serously do not recommend this destination.

Great cruise, great meals, Better than great employees.

Small Problems;

In Turkey, there are scam artists that give you your change, when buying something, with Turkish money, which looks exactly like Euro's, but worth 1/3 of Euro's.  It would seem that the cruise company would warn their customers of this practice, which seems widespread.

At the very end of the cruise , there was a mistake on a bottle of water that they said we used and we did not. I would advise checking your bills before settling account. They did remove the charge, but if payment was automatic, I would not have noticed.

All in all, I would highly recommend the cruise line.

From the food, service, entertainment, excursions, everything was smooth and great.  It was our 6th cruise overall, and we were very happy, and plan to cruise on Royal Caribbean again.

This was an amazing week, my boyfriend and I loved it! Always entertainment happening, if you want something to do you WILL be able to find something. Look at the locations ahead of time to see what there is to do, prebook tours, it is definitely worth it. We had a balcony room and left the door open most of the time, the sound of the ocean while you sleep is so relaxing!

The staff was incredible, they're all very nice and wanting to talk.

Our Greek Isles/Turkish cruise was incredible.  Everything about it was excellent.  We received outstanding service from Celebrity while onboard and also from Cheap Cruises in putting it together.  The food was great and Aqua Class restaurant Blu was super.  Two days we did shore excursions with Celebrity in Rhodes and in Mykonos and both were worthwhile.  It couldn't have been better.

Before MSC Opera I was on MSC Fantasia which is a bigger (and better) ship. Overall impresion of this cruise is great! Itineraries are great, time spent on shore excellent and everyone are so nice and kind. If this had been my first cruise I would have probably been thrilled, but since this is my third cruise I couldn't help myself but to compare it with previous ones. We were the first passengers since the ship was renovated last year, and one could say that this was a test cruise. There were a lot of oversights: mugs and cups in buffet restaurant were often dirty - every second cup was clean so it became tiresome to check every cup. Juices in the self serving restaurant were available only in the morning not in the evening and hot chocolate wasn't available at all although it was included in the price. Later we found out that staff don't bring out bags of hot chocolate or they rarely do and sometimes they make a hot chocolate in the thermos which is not warm and which has very little cocoa (color was dirty white, not brown!).

Food for breakfast was the same every day; muesli was already prepared on the milk-it looked disgusting to me and I would prefer to prepare it by myself in yogurt. I drink a lot of tea (which was available all day) but I could find honey only in the morning and lemon was even harder to find. The food was often greasy (even fish!) and dinner in the restaurant was taking too long, every single day (from 9pm till 11pm!). Although maître d'hôtel came to us one evening asking us how is everything, are we satisfied and promised us faster service, nothing has actually changed.

The midnight buffet was very poor: mostly vegetarian sandwiches and desserts from previous days.

Air Conditioner made being inside the ship very uncomfortable because it was very cold in bars and lobbies. Inside temperature was around 20 C, which is low considering outside temperature is much higher. I regret not bringing more long sleeve blouses, jackets etc.

I had situation by the pool when pool attendant told me I can't eat fruits by the pool (which is OK, because it was said on the warning board that it is forbidden). But I was disappointed he didn't say anything to other people eating around or even worse: children diving and jumping in the pool that is not in children area (it is clearly stated that it is forbidden to dive and jump in the pool and to run around the pool) ! When I asked him about that his answer was that they are children. I don't care if they are children or not, but because of that children I couldn't swim, or sit by the pool because they splashed water a lot and got me and my expensive camera wet even on the sunbed. Not to mention that children were diving and jumping in the whirlpools! So I didn't use those either. Deck No.11 has 2 pools deep 1.8m and one big part of the deck for children (that is new). But 30% children were in children area, and the rest of them around other 2 pools. It was very noisy on 11th deck. The best part to rest is the back of the ship.

Most people have spoken english perfectly, but it happened that woman on reception (from Kyrgyzstan) didn't speak it very well (or almost at all) and we couldn't understand each other which was very frustrating. Except that situation (and situation on the deck by the pool) all stuff was very polite, friendly, helpful... I'm not complaining on staff, I am disappointed with the ship and a lot of oversights which now I can't remember all.

I don't regret going on this cruise, I just think that MSC can offer a much better experience then this.

My wife and I had a great time.  The service was excellent and the pace onboard the ship was very relaxing.   We really enjoyed the fun atmosphere, the wonderful food, and how incredibly organized everything was.

The dinning room service was tremendous.  The wait staff were very polite, efficient, and friendly.   They really made dining an enjoyable experience.

We were so impressed we began planning our next cruise before we were finished with this one.

just returned from a 7 night greek islands cruise on the norwegian jade and although there was a positive points the negative ones outway the good and would stop me booking NCL again. Firstly the pool had a 4ft11 sign on one end of the pool and a 5ft 9 sign on the other end but my husband who is 6ft 2 warned me as he had got in first that he could only just touch the bottom and even then the water covered his mouth and nose and that was in all ends of the pool i couldnt touch the bottom at all as im only 5ft 5 and it was the same even in the kids pool . I contacted NCL and they said they dont encourage non swimmers to go in the pool which i find quite strange as ive never been to a pool where all the people had to be constantly swimming ? I can swim but would like to be able to put my feet down at some point . I also purchased 2 watch gift sets priced at $85 dollars each only to find when i got home they didnt work when we opened the backs of the watches we found they had cheap insides and dummy buttons on the side so the little dials on the front of the watches was fake we again contacted NCL only to be told that it wasnt anything to do with them as they just sell them and we would have to contact the makers of the watch which was not helpful as i thought NCL would take more care of their passengers and not sell cheap fakes you expect maybe to have that problem if you buy from some street vendor but you should be able to trust the quality onboard  so BUYERS BEWARE !!. The running track which was on the best deck to see the views was not really big enough to have runners and also people walking at the same time maybe off season but not when it has full capicity of 3000 people .Its a shame because i couldnt fault some of their staff onboard as our room was very clean and the food was great . The entertainment was really good but what should of been the adult party night was full of children running about even though they announced that no under 18s were allowed. I love children but also like some grown up times too and the kids had there own party lounge . I have been on other cruise lines such as princess cruises and never had these problems.

We were disappointed in the overall service (lack there of) on the ship as well as the quality of food and beverages.  We had to flag down waiters to get drinks and we also experienced very slow and not-so-friendly service in the specialty restaurants.  The onboard entertainment at the pool was poor!!  It should be a party atmosphere but the live music was not conducive to such.  The ports of call were AMAZING - especially Croatia and Turkey.  I would recommend this itinerary but not this ship. 

I love NCL and have always been devoted to strictly cruising their ships and no others for my cruise needs.  However, this trip has made me rethink that plan and consider other cruise lines in the future.  This is not a reflection of any issues with Norwegian overall, but rather the experience of this particular cruise, including the people and the activities offered on the ship.  I do not have kids, but traveled with my mother and younger sister.  During this cruise, all of us were at our wit's end with the kids on board because so many of them were so badly behaved.  This was likely due to the fact they were tired and/or bored, given the destination of the cruise.  It appeared that many parents were interested in the destinations, but their children were not factored into the decision, leaving us and other cruise goers at the mercy of their children.  This, of course, is out of NCL's hands.  However, this could have been counteracted by offering more adult activities or providing more restrictions regarding children for activities.  For example, the evening events at the Spinnaker Lounge, such as with DJ Freddie should have been limited to adults.  For shows in the Stardust Theater, rather than just the farewell show, children should not have been allowed in the first few rows.  On one night, a family with a small child was seated in the first row and the small child was often in the way during the show and had to be told by staff to be seated.

I would have like to have seen the cruise director's staff more involved in the night events in the Spinnaker Lounge, since often people were too shy to get out on the dance floor or did not like the music.  DJ Freddie did not vary his music and often failed to notice when his poor music choices resulted in many people leaving the dance floor.  If the cruise director's staff could have pointed DJ Freddie toward better music and engaged the people in the lounge more, the experience would have been greatly improved. Since this was essentially the only night activity, we were at the mercy of DJ Freddie if we wanted to attend anything at night.

I would have liked there to have been slightly better options available in the afternoon for food.  On our days at sea, we slept in and many places would be closed in the afternoon when we went to get lunch.  We avoided the buffets to diminish the chance of getting sick, leaving almost no other options.  Blue Lagoon and Moderno had mostly terrible food and few food choices.  Even something as simple as chicken fingers were not very good.  Room service was also an option, but with the $7.95 fee each time room service was ordered, it did not make sense to order room service.  I wish there had been better food options available to not make you feel penalized for wanting to sleep in.  At a minimum, more food options should have been available on the days we were at sea, when people are most likely to sleep in.

A new offering, or at least something offered since my last cruise several years ago is a tour of the ship from the inside.  It gives you a chance to see the inner workings of the ship. I was curious how it all comes together and interested in taking this tour.  However, NCL overcharges for this tour. It charged people $79.95 per person for this tour! A tour that has no overhead at all since whomever is doing the tour is already paid by the cruise line and no additional costs are incurred to show people around.  While this is unlikely to be specific to the Jade, it just also tainted the experience.

Overall, I loved the ports and liked the cruise generally, but there was definitely room for improvement in several areas.

Had a great time, everything was outstanding, the food, the service, entertainment, music, bars, pool, quality, excursions. We really enjoyed the cruise and would recommend thsi cruise.

I am currently onboard the Celebrity Equinox in route to Istanbul and I am blown away at the pathetic treatment I have received from the staff onboard. We are traveling with a group between the ages of 25 to 35 and have been treated like criminals. I gladly purchased the beverage package, but every single time I have ordered a drink the staff makes me feel like I am a burden to them. You cannot order an alcoholic beverage and a water at the same time, you must get one drink at one bar, then go to another bar to get your water. Maybe its time for Celebrity to realize that their next generation of customers are currently UNDER 40 and we will never return.

I experienced this cruise with my husband and grown children. We thoroughly enjoyed the entire time on board the Rhapsody of the Seas and were impressed with the always helpful and pleasant staff. Our stateroom was kept in top shape and most needs were readily attended to when we were about the ship. The only negative that we experienced was the lack of sufficient lounge chairs on the two "at sea" days. Our favorite part was visiting the numerous ports of call in Greece and Turkey. This kept us very busy as 7 of the 11 days we were docked or tendered at one of those ports. We arrived back home and felt we needed another vacation to recuperate!  All in all, this is a fantastic way to visit multiple locations while traveling with a group of 6.