Celebrity Constellation Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Nice ship, a lot of activities, great food specially in Ocean Liners. Great room. Best massage on canyon spa. Love the exersice program: zumba and pilates.

First - casino is non-smoking as is most of the ship! This was our second Celebrity cruise. We would have never booked with them again had we not had an excellent experience the first time. Due to the check-in debacle caused by port staff, many guests were unhappy before they even boarded the ship. That may have set the tone for many guests. Once we were onboard, we proceeded to have a GOOD TIME, as you always should. You're on vacation! One thing that was most disappointing was to hear was the number of guests complaining about things, that the onions for their omelet weren't cooked enough or they didn't have the particular type of wine they wanted, etc. Get over it! They don't have the beer I prefer either, but there were plenty of other options. My biggest complaint would be that there is no dedicated "line" for food, meaning you can be waiting patiently and people just cut in from all over where the food is actually located. I found this to be the case no matter what area of the buffet I was at. People, be respectful of others. You see the line, go to the end of it. Second complaint is a cruise ship regular one. Saving pool chairs and never showing up to sit in them. That will never go away. All of the staff on the ship were very friendly and accommodating. The food at the buffet wasn't always at the correct temperature and they easily ran out of items at the carving station. The salad bar area had many excellent options for toppings. One evening in the dining room, my husband's prime rib arrived cold but that was an isolated incident. Dining room food was very good. Try the beef cheeks! During the muster drill, there was no control over the guests, everyone was talking loudly and you were unable to hear the instructions. Overall, we had a very good time. How can you not when you're out on the beautiful ocean!

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.

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.

Getting from the Marco Polo airport to the ship was a breeze on the people mover. The embarkation went smooth and fast. The staff was delightful, professional and very friendly. The captain very approachable and   informative. The food was good, the waiters always looking to offer wonderful service. The weather, the ship and the itinerary made this cruise most memorable. We look forward to our next Celebrity vacation.

The itinerary for this cruise was out of this world! The excursions were also fabulous.

We went sea kayaking in both Dubrovnik and Montenegro. Dubrovnik and Malta were both terrific for the ancient city experience. (Also great for Game of Thrones fans).

It was our first time in Venice, and we loved every minute of it. We loved that the cruise spent the first two days in Venice, and also two days in Dubrovnik. Montenegro and Malta were a little rushed.

My husband wants me to add that Celebrity needs to get better coffee (Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts?). :) But this is our only complaint....

 

I enjoyed the 12 Night Turkey and Europe Cruise very much. Fortunately, this year was the ANZAC Centennial Celebration in Turkey,  and a special ceremony was conducted at the ship. It was very interesting and informative. All the ports of call were full of interesting sites and the Excursions were absolutely fantastic. I recommend this wonderful cruise.

In my personal opinion, the best reason to book Celebrity Cruises can be summed up in two words. First word: Jayne. Second word: Curry. Jayne Curry is a phenomenal entertainer with a clear, powerful, pitch perfect alto voice, a warm stage presence and is a true Funny Gurl (read her highly entertaining blog for the reason for the unusual spelling). Ms. Curry can take a lyric and wring as much emotion from it as could Judy Garland. She appears to be a totally grounded, down-to-earth entertainer with enough droll wit and humor to fill an auditorium. And her speaking voice is gorgeous; very resonant, relaxed, sincere. If her agents are not marketing her for voice overs they should send out demo reels immediately. I have just written Celebrity to suggest they make her their spokesperson. Also, Celebrity should provide this treasure with ground transportation (taxis) and not ask her to pay for it out of her own pocket.

We were travelling with a group of seven: my husband and myself, our two grown daughters, one son-in-law and two grandchildren. Every Celebrity crew member could not have been friendlier and more professional. Several even remembered my Granddaughter’s name and would bring her cookies. You could tell each employee had been exquisitely trained.

The rooms were clean and used storage space most efficiently. The food was consistently excellent. The pool is quite small. I’m not sure this particular ship would be best for older teens unless Jayne Curry was performing and then they would just have to grin and bear it if they were travelling with me.

The entertainers in addition to the incredible Jayne were all good but there was one glaring exception: the children’s show on the final night of the cruise was abominable. I’m not referring to the performers. They were on a par with theme park talent. It was the writing that wilted all comprehension. Our group felt that the writers of this disjointed show must have spent three days straight downing martinis in the martini bar. We could hear them claim “we’re so drunk let’s just grab a song here and a song there, throw them all into a story that defies reason, add glittery scenery and no one will notice!” We noticed and are forthwith issuing a plea to Celebrity – rewrite that ghastly show!

My husband and I loved this 5 day cruise with Celebrity. We booked the 1-2-3 package and after arrival on the ship, upgraded our beverage package. It was a bargain! We were able to enjoy the finest wines at dinner time.  The staff was fantastic and knowledgeable.  I would recommend this cruise to anyone.  Our veranda suite was wonderful and we enjoyed the views.  We are considering booking a Celebrity cruise in Europe since we had such a wonderful experience on this cruise.

Cruise was good and the staff as a whole was very good.  Food was ok and not what we expected. Excursions were not thru the cruise line, which we didn't realize until just before we sailed and we had to find the excursions off the ship which were somewhat troubling.   Disembarking the ship was not done very well. 

This was my Wife's first cruise and my 3rd. We arrived at Port Everglades at 12:15 and was on the ship in 20 minutes. Bar staff was very friendly and attentive to our needs. Our room was very clean and our steward was there to greet us. First night in MDR, bread was stale and hard, waiter did not replace with fresh, aside from this rest of our meals were good. Buffet was presented very well with ample choices except the Coffee was like mud. I am Italian but the brand they had was terrible. Next was the towels in our room. Could of used them to sand wood. The bed was extremely confortable. Entertainment was just enough and the cruise director did a great job. The Casino was tight but I am sure it's because of the size of this ship. We had Concierge Class and were guaranteed early off the ship, we were dead last. In summary, we loved Celebrity and will be cruising ourselves into our retirement years. Thank you Constellation for making my Wife's trip a success. 

Ship was not as clean as I expected. Our room was dirty upon arrival. The bar tops were sticky in some of  the lounges.  It was hard to understand most of the crew nor did they understand us - English.  Location of some of the common areas were hard to get to. Had to walk past state rooms to get from one end to the other. Weird set up.    Not the best cruise that I have been on.

The variety of activities, food options, great staff, made the entire cruise a wonderful experience.

This ship has a great solarium. The water was so warm. I loved the pool with the jets in it. The food was good. Entertainment was good. But mostly I remember the solarium. I would cruise this ship again. i like that my Diamond Plus status from Royal Caribbean carries over some of the perks to celebrity.Not all but some. 

We has a great experience aboard the Constellation. Everything was very organized and clean. The food was very good too. The Captain and his officers were very friendly and went out of there way to make us feel welcome.

Had a nice trip

The room upgrade was a pleasant surprise, having booked late with only an ocean view guarantee. The Ships' crew worked very hard, although they seemed to be a little under-staffed. The food was great. Can't wait to sail again.

This was our first cruise.  The staff was extremely accommodating, ship was well maintained, food was fantastic!  We would highly recommend Aqua Class - nice spa experience, Blu Restaurant consistently high quality food & service, private and peaceful.  Our cruise consultant, Julie Collins, was very patient and proficiently answered our questions prior to departure which only enhanced our experience.

David & Debra

The ship was very clean. The staff was fantastic.

We stayed in 1136 Balkony room it is beautiful