Constellation - Abu Dhabi to Civitavecchia LIVE(ish)

[UKPete71]

Wednesday saw us pass through the Suez Canal. We arrived at our holding position late on Tuesday evening and could see many cargo ships nearby. The Captain said the convoy would start the passage through the Canal at around 5am, with us getting to the Med at around 4pm.

 

We were ship number 4 of 30 heading north, with 21 ships travelling south.

 

Visibility was a bit reduced so we couldn’t see any more than a couple of ships in the convoy.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

The Celebrity Today for Wednesday 2nd May.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

The MDR menu for Wednesday evening.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

There were three shows in the theatre on Wednesday evening, the normal 7 & 9 shows followed by a show from the production cast at 11.

 

The 7 & 9 show was British comedian Chas Burnett.

He seemed well received enough. Whilst we hadn’t seen him before it felt like we had seen parts of the act before. He mixed up the jokes with some clever song parodies.

 

The production show was Elyria. I hadn’t noticed it in the daily planner as I wouldn’t be looking for an 11pm show in the theatre and then not realised after one of the music entertains mentioned it after there set during the afternoon. Elyria is billed as being a bit risque hence it’s late show time.

Personally the show wasn’t for me. Trying to shoehorn some smutty jokes in amongst the songs didn’t flow. It all seemed a bit panto sadly.

 

In between the second show from Chas Burnett and Elyria there was some karaoke in the Rendezvous Lounge. It was well supported, as it has been all cruise. The only downside this time is that the timing ran in to the start of Elyria, so quite a few people left whilst some people were singing.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

The Celebrity Today for Thursday 3rd May.

This was the ship’s position at around 1.30pm.

 

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[TeaBag]

UK Pete, thank you for keeping us up to date. Looks like you've had a great time. I loved the pictures of Petra.

[riclop]

Thanks for sharing.

[cruise kitty]

thanks so much for sharing! When you return, I hope you will share the info on the tour guide you used for Petra (this is allowed under the guidelines) & perhaps some thoughts on whether you would book with them again. thanks again.

[UKPete71]

On Thursday evening there was a Captain’s Club event for Select members and above.

 

It was the first time we got to see the Captain. He’s not been the most visible around the ship, which is a contrast to some others we have sailed with.

The MDR menus for Thursday evening.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

After dinner on Thursday we stopped by Rendezvous Lounge to watch a bit of Bandeoke, that’s Karaoke with a live band as support.

And then it was Silent Disco time again, this time in Reflections.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

Friday saw us in Piraeus. We got the port shuttle from our terminal to Terminal A and then walked to the train station to get the metro to the Acropolis. The walk was about 25 minutes. When we got back to Piraeus in the afternoon we got a taxi back to the ship for €7.

A one day travel ticket cost €4.50 each and took about 20 minutes to do the 7 stops to Monastiraki. From there it was a 10 minute walk up hill to get to the Acropolis ticket office.

From the Acropolis you get some amazing views looking out over Athens. You can even see the old Olympic Stadium.

After we left the Acropolis we walked to the Panathenaic Stadium. The entrance fee includes a free audio guide.

From the stadium we walked 10/15 minutes to another metro station to start heading back to the ship. We had to travel two stops before changing at Monastiraki to get to Piraeus. The trains ran every 5 minutes (or less), so we had no issues getting back in good time.

 

We arrived back at the ship at about 4.20pm, with the taxi from the station dropping us off right by the terminal for Constellation. The all aboard time was 5.30pm.

 

Also in port on Friday was Celebrity Reflection. They got to sail away before we did.

We’ll see Reflection again on Monday as it’s at Civitavecchia doing a changeover when we disembark.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

The MDR menus for Friday evening.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

The Celebrity Today for Friday 4th May.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

The 7 & 9 shows in the theatre was The Revolvers. They are a group who do Sixties covers. They were good and got the crowd going.

Later in Reflections the production cast did a Motown Theme show before the Dance Band took over.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

On Saturday we docked in Katakolon, which is just over 30km from Olympia.

 

We walked off the ship and paid €10 each for a return bus trip with a local sightseeing company. The journey to Olympia took between 35-40 minutes. We then had just over two hours at Olympia to look around the archaeological site and museum before catching the same bus back to the port.

When we arrived back in Katakolon we stopped at a local restaurant looking out over the dock to the ship for a drink and a bite to eat.

 

Katakolon has a nice array of restaurants and shops. Having now been to Olympia if we returned on another cruise we’d be quite happy walking off the ship and staying in the port.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

To put our costs for getting in to Athens from Piraeus and to Olympia from Katakolon in to perspective the ship we’re offering ‘on you own’ excursions (basically transport only to each place) for $59 USD per person each day. We spent less than $23 USD total per person across both days in transport costs, giving us a total saving over just over $190 USD [emoji54]

 

 

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[UKPete71]

The Celebrity Today for Saturday 5th May.

The MDR menus for Saturday evening.

The late entertainment saw an ABBA-singalong in Reflections. And it was very popular!

 

 

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[UKPete71]

So Sunday was our last full day on board. [emoji22]

 

This was the ship position at about 9.30am on Sunday.

Captain Vittorio did a talk in the theatre about the ship’s navigation late morning.

As he finished he advised everyone that we were just about to pass Stromboli, which is an island containing an active volcano.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

The Celebrity Today for Sunday 6th May.

 

 

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[UKPete71]

The MDR menu for Sunday evening.

The evening shows in the theatre were a show from the production cast, Soundtrack.

As it’s the final night we had once last walk outside on deck 11 as my DW wanted to grab a snack at Oceanview Cafe after watching the dance band in Reflections.

 

 

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[cachouonacruise]

Thank you very much UK Pete for taking the time to post beautiful pictures of the Constellation, of its menus and of the ports. I found your review very informative. Well done and thank-you so much!

 

 

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[UKPete71]

And so another cruise has come to an end.

I managed to grab one last coffee from Cafe al Bacio before we left the ship earlier. After meeting the rest of the party we were sharing a shuttle with to FCO we walked down to deck 1 from 3 as the lifts were very busy.

 

Bag collection was easy and we had a short wait for our shuttle to arrive. There were some people already on it who had just got off Reflection.

 

And that was it.

 

We got to FCO in just under an hour. Check-in with Vueling was quick and we passed through security and passport control without any delays. So now we are sat passing some time by having a coffee as we wait for our flight.

[Christine Frances]

Thank you so much for the time you took to pass on all this valuable information to those of us interested or actually on this itinerary. Would you happen to know the name of the tour company you used in Petra? Safe travels home!

 

 

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[TLCOhio]

The walk back is tiring! It’s up hill on uneven ground. We didn’t rush and it took just under an hour from the Treasury. The heat doesn’t help either. You can pay to use a horse and cart if you want. I think it said it was 20JD one way. There are also horses available from As Siq to the entrance but I don’t know what they cost. We left Petra at around 3.15pm. In hindsight we could have been given another 30 minutes there as we got back to the ship with plenty of time to spare later on. After Petra we headed to Wadi Rum where we did a desert tour. We left Wadi Rum just after 7pm and were back on the ship by 8pm. The all aboard time was 9.30pm.

 

Appreciate your detailed postings, comments, pictures and follow-ups. Very helpful and interesting!! We are getting ready for our Nov. 16-Dec. 5, 2018, sailing from Athens to Dubai. This 20-day cruise with Oceania will include our first visits to the Holy Lands, Egypt, Middle East, etc.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

Enjoyed a 14-day, Jan. 20-Feb. 3, 2014, Sydney to Auckland adventure, getting a big sampling for the wonders of "down under” before and after this cruise. Go to:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1974139

for more info and many pictures of these amazing sights in this great part of the world. Now at 201,009 views for this posting.

[KikisDad]

Thank you for putting in the time to write this review