bowlcoach

We sailed on back-to-back cruises on the Costa Romantica in the late 1990's and did not like the cruise line then. It was trying to break into the Ameircan market. We told ourselves never to sail with them again. We have sailed 29 times. Now I see we made the right decision. In this day and age we thought the only things to think about when cruising is 1. A rogue wave 2. terrorism. It's looking real bad for COSTA and CARNIVAL CORP.

Thank you.  We are now posted and up to date again.  Even had the opportunity to now post our river cruise with Viking River Cruises.  This site is looking better and better.

Not sure how to post our sailings to this new database.  Our sailings were on the old site, but missing on the Who's Cruising list.

Anyway, it's November 6th on the Celebrity Summitt and a back-to-back on November 13th on the Summitt.

Great review and photos. Looks like you all had a great time.

That is a good review. It was concise and to the point. I could picture exactly what you were explaining or describing. Thanks for sharing that with us. These are the kinds of things I personally like to see on this site; a sharing of experiences and photos for everyone to see and read.

Great pics. We just returned from a cruise and these pics are making me wish we were there. Have fun everyone.

And 1 more BON VOYAGE to all of you.

I hope you enjoy your cruise and the CONSTELLATION.

We look forward to hearing your reviews when you return.

Let's hope they are not printing them beforehand. It really upsets me that they print the photos and then ask you to toss out what you don't want. Why don't they just make the prices more reasonable? I'd pose and buy some if they weren't so expensive.

By the way: Mercury photos cheapest price STARTED at $14.95. Long gone were the $9.95! And, the one with me and Jerry and the captain really turned out nice. NOT FOR $24.95. Captain wasn't that good looking.

They DO print them, the same as always. All this kiosk system does apparently, is allow you to see them and maybe make a decision before you spend 10 minutes looking for it on the wall. There's still the same amount of waste.

The costs for photography is unreal. When we started cruising in 1980 the cost of the 5x7 was $3.95 and that included a frame!

That was a great review. We, too, lost faith in Royal Caribbean about 3 years ago and have not been back. We look forward to another review after your next cruise.

Here's my 2 cents....do both. If you can work it out go see the family in India and later take the cruise. Do as much as you can while you can. If you HAVE to choose.....you'll make the right choice.

We cruised Costa in 1999 and found it a little different from some of the other cruise lines. Of course, it was just entering the American market then. Most all announcements, including the life boat drill, was done in 5 languages. And don't forget their "toga night" in the dining room. That was a real experience as you can see.

ENJOY YOUR CRUISE!

This is the same review I posted last week in the forum. It is now recorded in the SHIP REVIEWS for future reference. Nothing new here.

A new Cruise Review is now available:

Ship Name: Constellation

Sailing date: 10/2/2009

Author: bowlcoach

View Review

Click here to view the cruise review

I failed to mention in my review of the Celebrity Constellation, our sailing on October 3 included a lifeboat drill with NO LIFE VESTS. We were instructed NOT to bring them to our muster stations. I know that the new Royal Caribbean ships are now providing life vests at the muster stations and not from the staterooms, but this on Celebrity was new to us.

Below is our MUSTERING at 4:15 PM, Ocotber 3, 2009, while preparing to leave Bayonne, New Jersey.

Rationing the lobster? How dare they even try that! Personally I'd rather not have it on ethe menu if thats how they are trying to do things. And I have only one anyway but please this is a cruise, not weight watchers. BTW as someone who is fussy about coffee how is theirs? RCI uses a blend made by Seattle Bests and of course X is partners with them.

That was my first encounter with refusing an additional lobster. I don't know if that is now standard on Celebrity or whether this was a one-time thing because of shortages, etc. As far as the coffee goes, I am picky about my coffee also and theirs is not bad. Can't tell you the brand. I enjoyed it when I could find some.

Below is a photo taken just last week of the new kiosks in the Constellation's photo gallery. Your seapass is scanned into the camera of the ships' photographers when you have your Welcome Aboard photo taken or a portrait during the cruise. This records your name and stateroom number to that photo. Any subsequent photos taken does NOT need your seapass because the photo processing now uses "facial recognition" to identify you. All subsequent photos of you are posted to your name and stateroom. Now you can insert your seapass into the kiosk and view all of your photos. It does not help you find them on the gallery wall, but it will give you an idea of what they look like so you can decide to locate them or not. After a couple of days I had to ask the photographers how it worked, because I knew I hadn't given them my seapass, yet the photos were showing up on the kiosk under my name. New technology - I'm really not sure of the value of this yet. My wife thinks in the future, we'll be able to view our photos in our stateroom on our TV's and order a copy right from there. My, how times change.

BIG BROTHER?

OK. We all love cruising. We post serious and important information. We discuss topics of interest and analyze the cruise lines and their policies. We share details. And sometimes, we have FUN.........

Click on the following to see some "cruising fun"

The lighter side of cruising

Enjoy your trip and cruise. I would love to hear about it when you return.

BON VOYAGE

We have been on MANY cruises where ladies are traveling together and as singles. It makes no difference. Even with the majority being "couples", you won't even notice. Everyone has a great time. Enjoy your trip and have fun.

We sailed October 3-16, 2009.

Here is a cruise for all you nature and landscape lovers; unlike the beaches of the Caribbean and the exotic sites of the Far East. However, if you were on this cruise with us, it was about as unpleasant as you could want.

We sailed aboard Celebrity Cruise Line's Constellation on what was to be a colorful trip up the coast of New England, down the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City, to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Little did we know that the weather would be a big factor in 11 of the 13 days of this cruise. Temperatures were 10-18 degrees BELOW average, the sun was out in only 1 port of call and a portion of another, and the wind and rain would blow and howl forcing us to buy winter coats halfway through our cruise. Even walking on deck while on the ship was impossible after day 3 of the cruise. Again, wind, rain and temperatures restricted any monnlight walks after dinner.

Let's look at the itinerary:

• Bayonne, New Jersey
• Boston, Mass
• Portland, Maine
• Bar Harbor, Maine
• Halifax, Nova Scotia
• Quebec City, Canada
• Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

BOSTON - our first stop. We had sunshine and fair temperatures. We really enjoyed the sites but thought our harbor tour was not very good. Did get to see the USS Constitution (OLD IRONSIDES) from the harbor. We captures a few good photos of some of the attractions and learned to speak without using any R's in the words. That should come in handy. The fall colors were about 75%-85% according to our local guide, but we didn't see much from the downtown area.

PORTLAND - this port-of-call had potential fro us, but the weather started to turn and it took away from the enjoyment we expected. Kennebunkport is a great area to visit. A tourist mecca, yes, but a beautiful place. (Probably more so in the warmth and with less wind). I had my first encounter with a lobster roll and loved every bite. Oh, how I wished lobsters were plentiful in Kansas. We did get to see some color in the foliage in this area, but again, it wasn't the best.

BAR HARBOR - the absolute worst weather of the entire cruise was here. Everyone we knew really touted Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. We'll have to take their word for it. Pouring rain, wind and fog that was so thick it was hard to find your bus before walking into it. We had our first lobster lunch in this port. That took our mind off the weather, at least for an hour anyway. We did end up spending some money here; to buy winter coats. We thought we were prepared for this cruise, evidently not. And, naturally, this was our only port where tendering to and from the Constellation was required. COLD & MISERABLE. They say the colors of fall were great. I have no idea.

HALIFAX - a break in the really bad weather, but overcast and a couple of showers with a bunch of wind. Another non-enjoyable stop, except, of course, for the lobster lunch #2. With one lobster lunch under my belt, I am now an expert at extracting the meat from those beautiful red shellfish. We went by small boat in the harbor to a lobster trap and listened intently for nearly 20 minutes learning about lobsters. Of couse the wind and wind chill kept that excursion from being enjoyable. My first thought here was, "what am I going to post for the Cruise Crazies to read to make the review a valueable tool for cruisers in the future?". Of course, the answer to that is....the weather is unpredictable and you'll never know what you are going to get.

QUEBEC CITY - a 2 day stop at this very pretty Canadian City. First day was, you guessed it, rainy and cold, while the 2nd day produced some sun after an early morning threat of snow. It warmed up to about 44 degrees and made that 2nd day tolerable. A beautiful city in my estimation, and certainly picturesque when preparing to dock. Old Town is a great place for the tourists. Shopping, eating, etc. all available in Old Town. We walked fom the pier to their farmers market of all places, and it was a huge building filled with fresh produce and seafood. Wow! An excursion to "see" the pretty foliage along with a stop at Montmorency Falls and a trip to a sugar shack was very enjoyable, albeit cold.

CHARLOTTETOWN - this stop on Prince Edward Island completed our 6 stops for this cruise. A quaint little town with a lot of charm and the home of "Ann of Green Gables". My last of 3 lobster lunches was here. We traveled out of the city to Prince Edward Island Preserve Co. and had our lobster lunch. What a wonderful place! Besides the fall colors starting to appear, the crispness in the air told us winter was closer than we thought and soon the ice breakers would be working on the waterways. They have a nice large cruise terminal complete with photo opportunities with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

SUMMARY - As I stated earlier, I cannot really judge this cruise as a fall foliage cruise, because we were able to see so little because of the weather, but I can say that this area of the world has things to offer. For those of you who can't get enough lobster, or for that matter, lobster at all, this would be a MUST DO. Besides doing your homework on the average weather for the area, prepare for Mother Nature changing it for you. Prepare for the worst during the late fall season in New England and Canada. Maybe being from the Midwest made us a little naive about the weather, even though we did our research. See as many of the local sites as you can and enjoy them; you'll never know if you'll be returning to the area.

Recommendation is 50/50

Thanks for the review Mike.

Can you tell me what you ate in Ocean Liners........We are going there with the Crazies and I'm interested in what I should choose!

I had the surf and turf, while my wife had the lobster thermidor. Pictured below....

I know I should be posting this review under the Ship Review section, but I tried that and it doesn't show up. So here it is.

CELEBRITY CONSTELLATION - Canada/New England - October 3-16, 2009

For those of you that may be Celebrity Cruise Line lovers like we are, you may be a little disappointed with this review. Having sailed on 9 different cruise lines and making comparisons of our likes and dislikes, knowing passengers are all different in what they want and expect, we thought Celebrity would maintain its high marks from us. However, we encountered several things that were not typical Celebrity.

AIRPORT & EMBARKATION

When we arrived in Neward, N.J. we expected to be met by Celebrity's airport personnel as has always happened with EVERY cruise line. We didn't meet up with the representative for 10-15 minutes and her assistant could barely speak English. Did I mention we were in New Jersey? After a 1 hour wait in the airport for transportation, we finally boarded the bus for the "new" cruise terminal at Port Liberty, Cape Bayonne. We had been their before and it was just as a big disappointment as it was the first time. What a waste of money by Royal Caribbean to make that old warehouse into a cruise terminal. We spent another 50 minutes in line checking-in. What ever happened to lines for the Captains club members? I grade all of this a C+.

THE SHIP IN GENERAL & STATEROOMS

Once onboard, we began our tradition of walking the ship. This was a piece of cake for us as he had sailed on her sister ship, the Infinity. After 15 minutes, we were reacquainted with the ship layout and ready to watch the activity on the dock (after a quick lunch, og course). The CONSTELLATION is a very clean ship, inside and out, considering her age. By the way, she is going into drydock in April, 2010 for refurbishing and upgrading. There is some worn carpet, some pieced-in carpet, worn fabric on chairs in the lounges, and general wear and tear issues. The staterooms (keep in mind we book inside categories so we can't respond to balcony issues) are spacious for a cruise ship (lol) and the bathroom was very clean with little discoloration in the tile grout or missing caulking around the shower. Probably more storage space than we've had on some ships. She is also showing her wear on the jogging track above pool deck. The surface is coming off or completely gone and needs to be redone. I will grade the ship with a B-. Considering her age, that's not bad at all.

RESTAURANTS & FOOD

Let's start with the Seaside Cafe(the buffet on deck 10). As buffets go, the Seaside Cafe is not bad. The layout is adequate, the food was hot and/or cold, depending on which one it should be, and the service behind the buffet and in the seating area just average. I had a bit of a problem finding regular coffee in the mornings, because the brewer was either broken or brewing another pot. Plenty of containers of De-caf however. If it were me, on this particular cruise I would have had fewer pots of De-caf and more regular. Oh well, not bad.

Now let's move to the main dining room, the San Marco Restaurant on decks 4 and 5. As with most cruise line dining rooms, it is cramped and very congested. Not a complaint, just an observation. Naturally the staff is top-notch. I did encounter some bad food in this dining room. I never complain about food, but I received (twice) a bad cut of beef that I could not cut with the steak knife. My waiter immediately took care of getting me something else, but on the way out of the dining room I mentioned it to the asst. Maitre d'. I hope he does something about that. We were also told on our "farewell dinner" night that we could only have 1 lobster tail. I have NEVER encountered that before either. Another passenger at our table complained to the asst. Maitre d' and before we knew it, everyone at our table had 2 lobster tails. One big plus for Celebrity's restaurant is that they have 3-4 items of appetizers, soups, entrees, and deserts that are offered EVERY NIGHT. So if something on the nightly menudoesn't appeal to you, you always have more to choose from. And they're not just basic chicken breast or baked potato either. Shrimp cocktail - every night; escargots - every night; steak - every night; creme brulee (?) - every night; apple pie a-la-mode - every night. As you can see, a good move on their part. (Yes, I did have escargots every night).

Ocean Liners, the specialty restaurant, is the best specialty restaurant we have ever eaten in. We have dined in many over the years on different cruise lines, and, on Celebrity's Infinity, and this one was by far the best. Our first day at sea, the specialty restaurant presented a 45 minute demonstration of the dished and foods that they serve. It was a great way to preview what they had to offer and what the ingredients were. The service was superb and a great way for us to celebrate our 40th anniversary. A note of interest - the Constellation's Ocean Liners Restaurant is going to be the training facility for the chef's from the fleets specialty restaurants beginning later this fall. A tribute to this restaurant. Please, when you sail on the Constellation, book at least one night in Ocean Liners. The grade for restaurants and food is A-.

ENTERTAINMENT

The shows in the evening on this particular cruise included a lot of music. We prefer comedians, magicians, etc. with less singing and piano playing, so we only attended a few shows. Even the comedy act we went to was not that good, but we did hear from other passengers that the musical entertainment was pretty good. I really can't grade the entertainment, so let's give them the benefit of an A.

LOUNGES & BARS

Great service in the lounges. We have been on ships where you have to keep waving your arms in the air to get service. Not here. Quick service and a friendly staff made it fun. Ask for Randy in the Rendez Vous lounge. Most of the bands in the lounges were good. If they're still onboard in November, don't miss Sipra (a pretty good band from the Phillipines). A great place to hang-out if you're onboard during the day is the Cova Cafe on deck 5 Atrium. Coffees, liqueur coffees, teas, cocktails, wine, pastries, tapas, cookies, etc, etc all served beginning at 10:00 AM (at least on our cruise). My grade here is a solid A+.

CAPTAINS CLUB

As you may know, Celebrity is redesigning it Captains Club for previous passengers. When we arrived onboard and entered our stateroom, we were greeted with a flyer telling us of the time and place for the Captains Club party and a sheet with discount coupons and specials for club members. We never received an invitation to the event. No one else did either. I went to the Captains Club Manager and asked about it. It is an environmental issue accoring to him. They are saving on paper. So much for making your previous guests feel special. I'll give the NEW Captains Club just a B since I didn't get an invitation.

EMPORIUM,GYM,SPA,CASINO

Most of these areas are typical and nothing special, except maybe the staff in the Spa. They are great. The Spa offered an hour-long Couples Massage Demonstration which we did. It was fantastic for the price of $59.95. We shopped a little in the Emporium, bypassed the gym, and dropped money in the casino. We did get off the ship with our shirts however. Grade here is the standard A.

DISEMBARKATION

It was an orderly process. Most cruise lines have this down to a science and Celebrity is no excepption UNTIL you try to find the airport bus at that cruise terminal in Port Liberty. I'm sure it's better in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, San Diego and everywhere else, but it was terrible in Bayonne. We will never sail out of that facility ever again. Too many problems and too much shuttling for us. We have other choices. And, yes, you guessed correctly. The grade here is a C-.

OVERALL COMENTS & ANALYSIS

You may encounter a few disappointments on this ship, but overall she is a great ship with a good staff. We still rank Celebrity as our top cruise line, but we are seeing many things that could bring Celebrity to just another run-of-the-mill cruise line, herding people on and off their ships. We hope that doesn't happen, and that they are able to keep their "magic" with us and other passengers. And now for my overall grade of the Celebrity CONSTELLATION, its facilities and its staff..........A-.

Bon Voyage to everyone who sails on the Constellation

I captured your ship on my camera while you were in Halifax.

The weather was certainly not ideal but I sure love the lobster.

Thanks for the review. Mine will be posted soon.

We're back and I have posted a variety of photos of our Celebrity Constellation cruise to Canada and New England. A full ship review will be forthcoming along with a review of the cruise itself.

Canada & New England Photo Album

Here is a copy of my laptop's wallpaper......

The CELEBRITY EQUINOX in all it's beauty.