Celebrity Constellation Cruise Review: The Constellation is Stellar, But Not Quite Out of This World

I recently returned from a 12-night Baltic/Russia cruise on the Celebrity Constellation, which departed from Amsterdam on May 16, 2010. I was quite impressed with the Constellation and I think she is a very, very nice ship. She had just come out of a 15 day or so drydock, during which she was “Solsticized” by adding several new restaurants/dining venues, a Martini Bar, the Cellar Masters wine tasting area, and replacing carpets and furnishings in public areas and staterooms. I wanted to try the new Tuscan Grille restaurant but as my traveling companion has a very sensitive stomach when it comes to garlic, it was not recommended that we dine there. I also don’t drink much so I did not try the Martini Bar or Cellar Masters, although I did bring a bottle of wine onboard in my luggage and my roommate and I split the cost of a stateroom bar setup (Bacardi Rum and Diet Coke).

A note on the stateroom bar setup: they will only deliver six cans of soda to go with an entire bottle of rum (or whatever liquor you choose), so if you don’t like your drinks very strong, you may have to pay for additional mixers. We asked our room steward for some pineapple juice to use as a mixer, and he brought us one small container of it, but after that the bar manager told us we couldn’t have any more. However, later that evening our room steward brought us a huge can of pineapple juice, stating that he got it from a friend in the galley. With the large number of drinks we were able to make from that bottle of rum, the $80.00 we paid was well worth it, but if you ever order a bar setup, keep in mind that if you don’t have a nice room steward you may end up having to buy additional mixers.

The layout of the ship is pretty easy to remember: entertainment is forward (Celebrity Theater, Reflections lounge, etc.) and dining is aft. There is a nice thalasaotherapy pool on deck 10 in a very nice glass-roof enclosed area and use of the pool is free. I have encountered similar pools on other cruise lines and they charge for use of their thalassotherapy pool, so I really applaud Celebrity for offering theirs for free and in such a nice setting. The main pool is on deck 10 midship and while it seemed to be a pretty decent pool, it didn't get much use on this cruise because it was just too darn cold. The library had a really nice selection of books, which you could check out anytime on the honor system, and one thing I really enjoyed about the ship was that there were plenty of cozy places to sit and do your own thing, whether it be snuggle with your mate, enjoy a drink, or simply read and enjoy quiet. In addition to the great layout of the ship, the service was excellent, with crew member we encountered being very friendly and attentive, especially our room steward and our waiter.

Our inside stateroom was a small but larger than I expected for an inside stateroom, and it had ample storage and closet space for the two of us. The bathroom was small but still larger than the one we had with a balcony stateroom on the Celebrity Mercury. The twin bed was comfortable and our steward did a good job of keeping our room tidy. I had never sailed in an inside stateroom before, and, to tell the truth, I was quite concerned about feeling claustrophobic in such a small room, especially when dark. However, I was able to overcome those concerns by bringing a small battery-operated fan and by using an iPhone app that looks and acts like a nightstand clock to provide some light in the room. Another important note about inside staterooms: it's really easy to lose track of what time it is since there's no natural light coming in! It is very easy to oversleep in the morning since you have no idea whether it’s night or day so having a lighted clock that you can easily see is pretty much a necessity.

The Constellation’s food was excellent in the main dining room. Every day offered completely new and different selections, and they ranged from typical American fare to more exotic Moroccan and Indian dishes. The always available dinner selections included a New York Strip steak, which was a very nice steak compared to what has been offered as steak on other cruises. Dishes were always cooked as ordered and were presented very nicely, and portion size was just right. The buffet, unfortunately, left a lot to be desired, save for the make your own pasta and Asian stir-fry stations in the late afternoons/early evenings. Also, because these stations took a lot of time to make food for one person, they should be moved away from the actual buffet line to prevent “traffic jams”. I’m not a big fan of buffets to begin with, but this one was pretty typical uninspired buffet fare that was best visited when you just wanted a snack when other venues were not available.

The room service menu was decent, offering mostly sandwiches, but the burgers were very tasty and service was relatively prompt. The room service breakfast menu offered mostly cold items but you could select from either plain scrambled eggs (which were often runny) or a plain omelet (which had no taste) and hot sides such as bacon or sausage, and it was always delivered either slightly before or right at our requested time. Room service orders could be ordered by phone or on the interactive TV (or by hanging the breakfast card on your door). You could also order from the main dining room’s menu for dinner, although I did this one night and had to wait over an hour for delivery.

The grill near the pool offered the typical burgers and fries, but unlike the burgers offered at the grill on other ships, these were awesome! The grill also offered chicken sandwiches and the like, as well as those all-important French fries, which were quite good. Another highlight was the ice cream station by the buffet, which was open every afternoon. The selection was always good and included ice cream as well as sorbet, plus candy toppings; and it beat the alternative of paying $3 for a scoop at the gelato bar on deck 5. Overall, the food on the Constellation was really good and I was impressed.

The one real negative about this cruise was the entertainment, or lack thereof. Our cruise director was neither entertaining nor funny, and unfortunately, this was my second time on a Celebrity cruise with a bad cruise director. I have been on many other cruises where the cruise director was a really fun guy: great to be around, funny, and very entertaining in his own right. The right cruise director can really make the entertainment onboard even more special, and I am beginning to wonder if I’ve just been unlucky with my Celebrity cruises, or if this is a problem with Celebrity. The problem with the entertainment, however, extended beyond the bad cruise director on this cruise. The Celebrity singers and dancers were mediocre at best, and unfortunately, they took up several evenings’ entertainment with their production shows. After watching their poor performance during the first night's show, I decided that an evening spent watching one of the limited TV channels in my stateroom would be more entertaining than watching the singers and dancers, so I did not bother attending any of the production shows. Several other nights were performances by singers that I’d never heard of, and, since they had not been introduced during the first nght’s Welcome Aboard Show, nobody else knew who they were either or what to expect. The other nights had some sort of comedy/juggling/acrobatics, but the shows were really nothing worth writing home about, unfortunately.

Daytime entertainment on sea days consisted mainly of trivia, sports-related contests, bingo, and the like. There were also other activities offered as part of Celebrity’s “Life” program, but most of them did not hold much interest for me and most required additional fees. While I certainly appreciate what Celebrity is trying to do here by enriching guests’ experiences onboard, I feel that they could include a lot of these activities without charging additional fees.

I would also like to note that the limited variety and quality of the entertainment onboard could be due to the clientele and the itinerary for this cruise. This was a 12-night cruise to the Baltics in mid-May, so you would expect the average age of passengers onboard to be higher since older people would have not only the disposable income but the time to travel for that long. Also, this was a very port-intensive itinerary with about 5 ports in a row (including overnight in St. Petersburg) without a sea day and the other sea days being at the beginning and the end of the cruise. With this cruise being so port-intensive, many passengers were very tired out at the end of each day, so it is possible that Celebrity felt it didn't need to really beef-up the evening's entertainment as they figured the shows wouldn't be very popular. This could also explain the lack of anything really extraordinary entertainment-wise on sea days as well, because I'm sure many passengers didn't feel like doing much on those days in order to recuperate from being in port!

One other brief point I would like to make about the Constellation is that I really do appreciate Celebrity's attempts to keep their older ships up to date, and the concept of "Solsticizing" is a good one. However, it seemed to me that the bulk of the new venues/improvements added during the dry dock were new ways for passengers to spend more money onboard (the new restaurants carry cover charges, the wine cellar and martini bar offer expensive drinks, etc.). I can't fault Celebrity for wanting to increase their bottom line, but I personally felt like I was constantly being bombarded to spend, Spend, SPEND, and for me that doesn't lead to a very relaxing vacation.

So, all in all, I think the Constellation is a very nice ship: she offers great food, great service, great accommodations and many beautiful, modern, and cozy venues, but the disappointing and uninspired entertainment made this cruise a little less stellar than I had hoped.

What Time is Dinner Again? Oh, Yeah, When We're Actually Hungry!

With the recent announcements by Royal Caribbean and Celebrity regarding their new flexible dining programs aboard their ships, I thought it would be a good time to comment on this major change in the industry.

Evening dining on cruise ships used to be all about schedules. You'd tpyically have two seatings for dinner each night, early or late, and you'd select your preferred seating time when you booked. Each night you'd sit at the same table with the same companions, and the evening entertainment would be scheduled around those dining times. There would be an early show for the late-seating diners, and a late show for the early-seating diners.

I have had both good and bad experiences with the traditional dining. One great experience was on the Carnival Jubilee way back in 1990. Our loud family of 5, who enjoyed laughing and having fun, was seated with another couple whom we did not know, but they enjoyed laughing along with us. Each night of the cruise we joked around with our waiter and busboy, who seemed to really enjoy our jokes, and it really was a lot of fun. Dinner was more than just dinner; it was an event. Our tablemates really got into our silly spirit and it really was a memorable experience for all. The opposite, however, was true the following year when my husband and went on our honeymoon on a Royal Caribbean ship. We were seated at a table with 2 other couples, and it was a disaster. One couple never spoke to us, even to greet us or say goodnight when they left the table; the other couple spoke but had about zero personality. We tried conversing with them but there were so many awkward silences that we eventually gave up. For some reason which I cannot recall, we were unable to change our seating assignment, so we began eating in the buffet instead.

Overall, the best part about traditional dining is forming a relationship with the waitstaff. On a recent Celebrity cruise, our waiter and busboy enjoyed making little animals from our napkins, and it seemed like every night they had something different with which to entertain us. On my husband's and my anniversary cruise last year on the Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas, we had a wonderful waiter who really helped make our cruise special. And on our most recent cruise on the Carnival Valor, our waitstaff really pleased our kids by knowing their likes and dislikes right away. The smile on my son's face as our waiter poured his ketchup on his nightly chicken nuggets dinner was priceless, as was my daughter's delight at being brought a shrimp cocktail without even asking. Those are the kind of experiences that really make cruising a wonderful vacation.

Unfortunately, you oftentimes forfeit that relationship when you have flexible dining. Since you eat at a different table each night and at different times, it is hard to get the same waiter and busboy more than once, unless you remember their names and specifically ask for them. Sometimes your request can be accommodated and sometimes it can't, so the whole experience becomes less personal and more like going to a typical restaurant.

Yet the flexibility of being able to eat when you are hungry and with whom you would like certainly has its merits, and I think it is great that almost all of the American contemporary cruise lines are now offering their own versions of flexible dining to give us more of a choice when we cruise. There are slight differences and distinctions between the cruise lines' programs, so I am briefly outlining them here.

I think it is important to begin with NCL, because their Freestyle Dining is probably what started the movement. NCL's program is very flexible, allowing you to eat wherever you want and whenever you want. Reservations can be made onboard the ship or you can walk up to a restaurant and be seated, but depending on the time you arrive, you may encounter a wait. NCL actually will charge a fee if you fail to cancel a reservation, but I think this is a good way to deter passengers from making reservations at every restaurant on the ship and preventing others from dining there when they'd like. Overall, I really like NCL's Freestyle cruising experience, and I think the Freestyle dining works well, but I have found some of their waitstaff to be very impersonal.

Princess has offered its Anytime Dining for quite a while now, and I think it works quite well also. One of the main dining rooms is used for traditional seatings, and the other is used for Anytime Dining. You can make reservations once you get onboard, or you can just show up, and sometimes, depending on what time it is, you may encounter a wait. I have taken a number of Princess cruises and never had to wait more than 15 minutes to be seated, so that turned out good, but on my last Princess cruise I encountered waitstaff that was impersonal and seemed rushed. Perhaps the waitstaff needed to be better trained or we caught them at a bad moment. Overall, the program works well in my opinion.

Holland America's As You Wish Dining works similarly to Princess's program. This program was introduced about 2 years ago and has been implemented fleetwide for about a year. As You Wish dining operates much like Princess's program does, with one dining room designated for traditional dining, and the other for flexible dining. Reservations can be made once onboard the ship.

Carnival now offers its Your Choice Dining on some of its ships and it should be implemented fleetwide in mid-2010. When booking, guests now choose which dining option they want, be it Early Seating, Late Seating, or Your Choice, and the dining selection is then confirmed. With Your Choice Dining, guests can make reservations once onboard and will be seated at 15-minute intervals. Too bad this program wasn't available when I sailed on the Valor last July because I would have liked to experience it. I assume that the program will operate similarly to Princess and Holland America, with one dining room for traditional and the other for Your Choice.

Royal Caribbean offers My Time Dining, which allows guests to make daily reservations once onboard. The difference with My Time Dining is that guests must enroll in the program in advance of their cruise, and they must pre-pay their gratuities to participate. I do not really understand why Royal Caribbean requires guests to pre-pay their gratuities, since the line charges gratuities to guests' onboard accounts anyway, but perhaps they do so to ensure that the waitstaff get what they are entitled to.

Royal Caribbean also offers a unique program called My Family Time Dining, which offers an expedited 40-minute dinner experience during the first seating in the main dining room for kids, ages 3-11, enrolled in the Adventure Ocean youth program. Once seated, kids will enjoy expedited service and be immediately served. Forty-five minutes into the seating, a youth counselor will escort kids from the main dining room entrance back to the Adventure Ocean spaces for continued evening activities, allowing parents to enjoy the rest of their dinner quietly while the children play elsewhere. This isn't flexible, in that it is only for early seating guests, but it sounds like a great program and apparently there is no charge to participate.

At the end of August, Celebrity announced its Celebrity Select dining program, which offers a feature that the other flexible dining programs do not offer: the ability to make dining reservations before you even board the ship! Guests can book reservations online up to 4 days before boarding, so they can really plan ahead! Like Royal Caribbean, Celebrity requires guests to enroll in the program in advance and requires pre-paid gratuities. The program became available on the September 26 sailing of the Equinox, and will be introduced on other ships according to a schedule on the cruise line's website. The online system for reservations is supposed to become operational for most sailings on October 15, and guests will always have at least 30 days before sailing to begin making their reservations.

With Celebrity's program starting up, we now have almost every contemporary and upscale American-market cruise line offering some form of flexible dining. Carnival, Royal Caribbean, NCL, Celebrity, Princess, and Holland America all offer a program, and I think this really shows how the industry is open to change. The only player in these American-market cruise line categories that does not offer a flexible dining program is Disney, although the fixed dining program they offer isn't exactly "traditional". Disney's program truly is unique, but I choose not to elaborate because the program is really beyond the scope of this blog entry. Nevertheless, this shift towards freedom to dine at guest's schedules instead of the cruise lines', shows how the cruise lines are constantly evolving to meet our needs and desires. This is yet another reason why cruising is about the best vacation experience around.

CruiseOne is Celebrity's National Account Partner of the Year!

Celebrity Cruises announced today that it has named World Travel Holdings (WTH) its 2008 “National Account Partner of the Year.” WTH owns and operates several cruise brands, including Fort Lauderdale-based CruiseOne and Cruises Inc. CruiseOne is a leading U.S. franchise operation of more than 550 Franchise Owners specializing in cruise travel, and I am one of them! Our sister company, Cruises Inc., is the original host agency with nearly 500 independent contractors selling cruise vacations. With these brands, WTH is the nation’s leading retailer of cruise travel, and we love doing what we do!

“Throughout 2008, Celebrity Cruises showed that they are willing to make a continued investment in the travel agent community,” said Brad Tolkin, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of World Travel Holdings, and all-around good guy. “Celebrity was the first to implement a no rebate policy and was among the first to eliminate fuel surcharges. They are clearly committed to helping travel agents succeed. This level of respect does not go unnoticed by our agents and as we proudly accept this honor, we pledge to continue doing our part in 2009.” You go, Brad!

The recognition of WTH as Celebrity Cruises’ 2008 “National Account Partner of the Year” follows a year of shared milestones for the industry leaders.

In September, CruiseOne and Cruises Inc. held the companies’ annual National Conference aboard the Celebrity Mercury, and I was there. Dondra Ritzenthaler, Senior Vice President of Sales for Celebrity and Azamara Cruises, served as the event’s keynote speaker, and her speech was, to use her words, "super fantastic!" Her speech was quite motivational and I will remember it for years to come. Also during the conference, Celebrity was named “Premium Cruise Line Partner of the Year.” That award was voted on by nearly 1,100 CruiseOne Franchise Owners and Cruises Inc. Independent Agents, although I didn't get to vote. I don't know why.

In November, WTH, CruiseOne and Cruises Inc. exclusively chartered the Celebrity Solstice for a special two-night sailing. The companies’ Franchise Owners and Independent Agents had exclusive access to this unique sailing and built widespread national consumer demand for the ship’s anticipated debut. I wanted to go on that sailing but wasn't able to, unfortunately; however, I heard it was s huge success.

"We are thrilled to recognize World Travel Holdings as our National Account Partner of the Year," said Dondra Ritzenthaler, Senior Vice President of Sales, Celebrity Cruises. "Day in and day out, the WTH team demonstrates nothing but professionalism and a desire to succeed, and it is a pleasure to partner with such a terrific group of people. We look forward to a long and continued partnership with WTH."

A good majority of the cruises I sold last year were on Celebrity, and I am proud to be a part of WTH's success in being named National Account Partner of the Year. Here's to being Celebrity's National Account Partner for 2009!

Kiss Those Annoying Fuel Surcharges Goodbye!

After Carnival Corporation announced last week that it was eliminating fuel surcharges for all of its cruises departing after December 17, 2008, the other major lines have quickly followed suit. Royal Caribbean International, parent company for Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, and Azamara; and NCL, parent company of Norwegian Cruise Line and Norwegian America, quickly announced they were also repealing fuel surcharges but the starting dates vary. I wasn't surprised that RCI and NCL followed suit so quickly, and I certainly think it's about time that these announcements were made, considering how the price of oil has changed in the recent months. To make it even better, Prestige Cruise Holdings, parent company of Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, announced today that they are joining the party and will be eliminating fuel surcharges for all voyages departing in 2009.

All the cruise lines have, of course, reserved the right to reinstate the fuel surcharges if the price of crude oil reaches a certain level. For more information on what that target price is, check each cruise line's website.

For passengers who have already paid for their cruise in full, the fuel surcharges will be refunded by shipboard credit. Those passengers who have not yet paid in full will have their outstanding balances adjusted.

Keep in mind, though, that cruise lines vary in how they will allow you to spend your onboard credit; some may not allow you to use that shipboard credit to pay for your gratuities, or to cover any spa charges. You also probably won't be able to exchange that onboard credit for cash in the ship's casino, either, so plan on running up quite a bar tab to use up your fuel surcharge onboard credit! If you've paid in full and are expecting an onboard credit and you want to know how you can use it, check with your travel agent or cruise line before you set sail.

Any way you look at it, this is great news and let's hope that we never see fuel surcharges added to cruise fares again!

The Solstice is Coming, the Solstice is Coming!

Celebrity Cruise Line's newest and largest ship, the Solstice, left the shipyard in Germany the other day and is now undergoing several sea trials in preparation for her maiden voyage in November.

The Solstice has a very unique feature never seen before on any cruise ship: a large area called the "Lawn Club" which has about a half acre of real, growing grass! How's that for unique? The ship also boasts its new Aqua Class staterooms with extra spa-related amenities, which can really add to the relaxation factor!

By the way, there is still space available on the CruiseOne charter of the Solstice as she sails from Ft. Lauderdale for 2 nights on November 21, 2008. Be sure to contact me right away if you're interested in being one of the lucky bunch of people who will be the first to sail on this grand ship!

Celebrity Cruises Discontinues Australia/New Zealand Cruises for 2009-2010

Apparently, Celebrity feels that its customers would prefer to sail from the Eastern Seaboard instead of visiting the Land Down Under, so the cruise line is discontinuing its voyages to beautiful and exotic Australia and New Zealand. The Millenium will finish her Alaska run completing cruises that were originally scheduled to be on the Mercury; then she will head down to San Juan, where she will sail to the Southern Caribbean for 10 and 11-night cruises. The Mercury will head to the Eastern Caribbean from Baltimore from November 2009 to February 2010, then she will sail to the Eastern and Western Caribbean from Charleston through April of that year.

Personally, I think this has both positive and negative impacts. A positive is that with the additional sailings to the Caribbean from the east coast and San Juan, clients have more choices for longer sailings to that area, as many cruises to the Caribbean are for 7 days only. With the economy the way it is, it seems that many people would prefer to sail out of ports close to home to avoid spending big bucks on airfare so this should work out well. However, the negative is that there will be fewer opportunities for clients to sail to Australia and New Zealand, especially for those clients that sail on upscale cruise lines like Celebrity. It's really a shame, but hopefully things will turn around and Celebrity will re-deploy some of its ships to that beautiful part of the world soon.

WHEATON, ILLINOIS-BASED CRUISE SPECIALIST ATTENDS ANNUAL CRUISEONE NATIONAL CONFERENCE

SHEILA McPHERSON JOINS MAJOR TRAVEL INDUSTRY PLAYERS, INCLUDING NUMEROUS CRUISE LINE REPRESENTATIVES, ABOARD CELEBRITY MERCURY

Wheaton, IL – Sheila McPherson, a cruise specialist based in Wheaton, Illinois, joined top travel industry executives on an 8-night sail from Vancouver to Alaska as part of the 13th annual CruiseOne National Conference. Celebrity Cruises hosted Sheila McPherson and more than 300 other travel agents aboard the Celebrity Mercury for this unforgettable experience.

The Celebrity Mercury sailed September 14, 2008 to Ketchikan, Alaska; Juneau, Alaska; Hubbard Glacier; Sitka, Alaska; Victoria, British Columbia and Seattle, Washington. The conference, themed “Xperts in Cruising,” offered extensive training opportunities to Sheila and other attendees. The trip also included a check presentation and $6,000 donation to the Alaska Raptor Center in Sitka, Alaska, courtesy of CruiseOne and Celebrity Cruises. Executives from all major cruise lines, as well as destination convention and visitor bureaus and tour operators, attended this highly regarded event. Additionally, Sheila attended extensive training sessions, becoming expert in Alaska travel, luxury cruising, group cruising and more.

“I always look forward to attending the CruiseOne conference because of the knowledge I gain, industry players I meet, and chances I have to build value for my clients,” said Sheila. “Cruising is one of the most popular ways to vacation. Each year, the CruiseOne conference unveils new trends, innovations and opportunities for me to keep travelers ahead of the curve with deals, incentives and service they won’t find anywhere else.”

For more information about a cruise vacation visit http://www.serenitycruising.com/%20and and sign up for the weekly eNewsletter or call Sheila McPherson, your Independent CruiseOne Cruise Specialist, at ( 630 ) 868-6719 or toll free
( 877 ) 823-8597.

About CruiseOne:With more than 500 locations coast to coast, CruiseOne prides itself on providing attention to detail and expert advice to every customer. Each independently owned and operated business combines the latest technology with old-fashioned, personalized customer service. The automated best fare search program enables cruise specialists to identify excellent values on all major cruise lines. CruiseOne offers innovative and exclusive programs including Honeymoon Cruise Registry, Company and Member Cruises and much more. CruiseOne is part of World Travel Holdings, the world’s largest cruise retailer.