Celebrity Constellation Review

[Optifire]

We were on the Constellation 4/19-4/28 and we had a wonderful time.

 

We left our house in Central NJ to go to Cape Liberty in Bayonne at 11:30 am. It only took us about 30 minutes to get there. Traffic at the port was very minimal at this time. You must pull into the stalls first to drop off your luggage. The baggage guy/gal will take your luggage from you and then you get back into your car and go around the building again and come back and then go into the parking lot, through the pay booth and then park. A lot of people were unaware that you drop off your luggage first and they parked the car and toted all their luggage themselves from the parking lot to the terminal building. So remember to drop off luggage first, then park. Cape Liberty's web site stated that the parking was only $12.00 per day, but we were charged $15.00 per day ($135.00 for 9 days) for parking.

If you have a handicapp license or tag, let them know and they will direct you where to park. Also for everyone, they do have a shuttle bus that runs from the parking lot, right back to the entrance of the terminal building at no charge. Going through the terminal was very quick. It really saves you time if you fill out the paperwork on line and have it with you. Also if you receive a dark blue sea pass card and you are over 18 years of age, you may want to question them on it. At the terminal the woman gave my husband a white card and she gave me a blue card. When I questioned it, she said it was something new, which I thought was a good idea at the time, this would be quicker to recognize my card when they are both sitting on the desk in the room. However, when I was on board and started using my card at the stores, the workers would question me as to who's card this was. When I went to play Bingo, I was not allowed to use the card I had to use my husbands card to puchase the tickets. It turned out the blue cards are for anyone under the age of 18. I had to go to Guest Relations and have the card switched out to a white one. How sweet that woman was to think of me as being under 18. :) Once you get signed in, you will be directed through the terminal to have your picture taken and then load you onto a bus which will take you directly to the ship. There were no steps to enter into the ship, you just walk up a small metal plank and you are on. You will be greated with Champagne and an escort will set you in the direction of your room.

We had an inside cabin...2107 and found it to be spacious and plenty of room to hang up all those clothes you bring but never end up wearing. :) I always bring extra hangers with me. Our room was always clean. There was a hair dryer in the bathroom. My hair is very short and thin and drys in minutes, but for those of you that have long or thick hair, I found the hair dryer to work for only 1 minute then it shuts off. It gets very hot very fast and I am sure this was an automatic shut off when it gets hot. When it cools off it will come back on. Perhaps there was just something wrong with this one and in other rooms it is different, but just something to think about when you are packing if you have long hair. We never experienced any smells on the ship anywhere, and we never experienced the brown water that some people in the past have written about.

Everything went very smooth, the shows were great. The dont misses are the Cirque Show, it was excellent. The only thing we wished about that differently would be that it would be longer, we loved it so. Another "don't miss" would be Oceanliners. On all the cruises we have taken we never did the speciality dining. We thought, why pay extra for food when you can have good food in the regular dining area included at no extra charge. Boy were we wrong. We decided to try it as everyone said what a wonderful evening it was. It was excellent. Well worth the $30.00 each. In fact, the same experience of that evening in NJ would run you close to $125.00-150.00 each, so it was quite the bargain. It is not just the food that makes the night so memorable, it is the atmosphere and the pampering that you receive. We had the goat cheese souffle, the ceasar salad and the Steak Diane. They make the ceasar salad in front of you and the steak also right at your table.. We will always try the specialty dining from now on with future cruises. We had the best table partners for regular dining.Thanks Dave and Dawn from Las Vegas and Brian and Kristiana from New Jersey for making dinner time special.

The Cruise Director was a great guy. His name was Derick. This was the first time that we really had a chance to sit down and talk with a cruise director. It seemed that no matter where we were, he was there. Always remembering us and eager to chat away. He had a way of making each guest feel that he truly cared what was going on with them and what could he do to make there day better. I have no idea when the poor guy sleeps. But he was always full of energy and ready to help.

Upon disembarking, we had to be out of our room by 8:30 am, but we did not have to report to our disembarking station until 10:40. So we were allowed to have a nice breakfast at the buffet. We were driving home ourselves so we were pretty much towards the last of getting off as they let those off first that have flights, post cruise arrangements or someone picking them up. In past cruises we were always directed to go to the Theatre at 8:30 am and sit and wait until your color was called. Celebrity really did it nice, allowing us a specific time to go to the area. They said to be there at 10:40. We got there a little early, like 10:15. They called our color and number at 10:35 so they pretty much were right on the time that they said.

The ports were very good also. Labadee was our first stop and it was beautiful. We tendered in. Don't be afraid to explore all the areas of the island that you are allowed in. It seems like a small area, but there are some areas that we missed out on. The outside and inside vendors were sometimes agressive for you to buy. So if you are weak in saying no, dont stop there. There is a building at the very end of the inside and outside vendors that you can shop in without being bothered. There was a very nice man there by the name of Norm at the end of the building that have very nice Wooden carvings and items. We bought most of our items in that building. The barbeque was very good with hamburgers hot dogs chicken and ribs, corn etc....

San Juan was a little dissapointing to me. We did the Old and New San Juan tour with the ship. The only part of the tour I really enjoyed was when we stopped at the fort, San Christobal. However, we were only there for 30 minutes so it was not enough time to really get to the area you wanted to be and take a few pics and then hurry back to the bus. San Juan was just to commercialized for me. I like scenery. I guess we should have taken the Rain Forrest Tour for that.

St. Maarten was great. We booked a tour on line with Joyce Prince. She was great. The must see there is shopping at Rimas. I was so sorry we didnt do all our souvenier shopping there. They were by far the best prices of all the ports. But we didnt know that at the time. I bought hubby a nice collar shirt with dolphins on it. It washed beautful and the price was great. They had beautfiul baseball hats, 3 for $10...prices were great on the bags with matching swim coverups, hair pulls and change purse. St. Maarten is beautiful.

Bermuda is our favorite. We have been there a few times now. We never tire of its beauty. We just stayed in the Dockyard area and did the clock tower mall, the rum cake and the glass blowing. If it is your first time to Bermuda, it is best to do a taxi tour and see it all or at least take the ferry which is close to the ship and go to Hamilton. St. George is my favorite for shopping and history.

Disembarking at Cape Liberty was conjested and confusing. I really would love to see them get a better system there with the luggage as far as embarking and disembarking. You or a porter can bring your luggage to the front of the termindal at the parking stall areas. Then you have someone go to the parking lot to get your car. Now where you standing with your luggage may not be the open spot by the time your car comes around. Someone else may be in there loading their luggage. Now the normal thing to do would be for the driver of your car to go to where there is a open stall and then you take your luggage there. It really is not that far of an area. However, people dont do that. They sit in the traffic and hold it up until that car moves out. However he cant back out because you are sitting there waiting to get in and traffic is moving behind him with people leaving. So it is really an area that needs worked on. Upon disembarking at this stage, the best thing I can advise is, have plenty of patience and go slow. Everyone is in such a hurry at this point and we saw so many "almost fender benders" because of that.

Now dont let anything that I have mentioned start you worrying or fretting. I only mention the disembarking frenzy because I think it works, but it just needs some fine tunning on both parts. Celebritys part and the cruisers, as we must remember to take our time. We have been on the ship for 9 days, and this last half hour process could make or break your cruise with a fender bender or worse. Have a great cruise!

[daju22]

Thanks Optifire for your great review! We will be on the Constellation this summer for the Baltic and TA and we can't wait! Sounds like Port Liberty will be a bit of a hassle when we return. Maybe it will be best to be last off the ship!

 

Wonderful review and sincere thanks for writing it!

[CaroleSP]

It's interesting that you had that difficulty with disembarkation. We were on the first Cape Liberty of the season on the Constellation and disembarkation was remarkable in that it was a breeze. We were shocked! We got to our color in the terminal, gathered the luggage and waited about 5 minutes to catch a porter. From that point on, it was wonderful. The porter wheeled our luggage from the terminal to the parking are, got to the car and then proceeded to load it. That is usually the time when I make myself scarce. You don't want to hang around DH while he is trying to make everything fit!! We would do it again any time. I wasn't crazy about the $180 to park, but it's a lot cheaper than flying.

[Optifire]

Hi Carole:

 

Wow it was great that you were able to have the porter take it right to your car. They did that for us in the Port of Baltimore and it was great. We went out of Bayonne last November also and the porter told us the same thing this time that they did then, that he was now permitted to go past those poles at the parking loading/unloading stalls. He said he was only allowed to bring the luggage to that staging area and we would have to go get the car and come to the luggage.

Has anyone else that used Bayonne been able to get the porter to take the luggage to your car in the parking area? Perhaps they just told us that so they could get back inside quicker to help another passenger in order to boost their tip intake.

[Andy]

Thanks for the nice review Optifire !

[RodPat]

I was with Carole on Constellation this march. We did disembark at different times but also the porter took our luggage right to our car. We were able to park very near the terminal perhaps 4 cars past the building. We arrived to park at 11 am and that is why we were able to park near the terminal. We have never had such an easy time getting off a ship. Sorry you found the porter who wanted to make a killing on tips so had to rush back to get more luggage. This was by far the best trip on Celebrity we have ever had. The crew was so friendly and everyone treated us royally from the Captain down to our cabin attendant. Pat

[Optifire]

Your welcome Andy...it was easy to write a nice review when we had such a great cruise.

 

RodPat: Upon our arrival, there were not many cars in the parking lot. We had a handicapp tag also but still they were parking everyone at the end of the parking lot, very much away from the building. We were really glad when they had a shuttle there to take us to the terminal building, as it would have been a hike from where they directed us to park. It seems that when you and Carole went they had a better system in place then they do now. If porters were told to take the luggage directly to the cars, then they would not have that "debarking traffic frenzy" with everyone backing out into a line of traffic. It just goes to show, that sometimes change is not always for the good. And also, who knows, as I mentioned, it may have been just the porter that we got. I guess the best way to settle this for those that will be disembarking from Bayonne, is to find someone from the cruise line that is in charge before you find your porter and ask them if the porters are allowed to take your luggage to the car or is it true that they are limited to the staging area.

No matter what cruise you go on, there will always be Little glitches such as this where improvements can be made. Going out of Bayonne, even with the glitches is still such a convenience and I agree with you RodPat, that Celebrity's crew is fantastic, no matter where we went. We were told by one of the crew that Celebrity expects "excellent" marks across the board on their surveys that are handed in from the passengers. Even if they get "good" marks, that is not acceptable. Well, I can honestly say, that every crew member that we ran across, no matter who they were, or what role they played on the ship, they truly earned their "excellent" mark as they did everything perfectly. We were so impressed with it all, that we could not wait until we got off the ship to book another cruise. While on board, we booked Alaska for June 07 on the Summit. This was another first for us, booking on board. I was hesitant about booking it on board as I usually do weeks of homework about the cruise before eventually booking it myself directly with the cruise line. But it was just so easy to go in and sit with the Cruise Sales Manager and discuss everything. She had been on the Summit for a few years in Alaska so she knew everything about the ship as well as the land tours. What she told us in a period of a few hours, would have taken me weeks to discover on my own. And we ended up learning many tips that I would never have found on my own.

The bottom line, Cape Liberty may have a few glitches, but Celebrity sure knows how to pamper you with the glamour.

[Rachelsmemom]

We were on that cruise and it was WONDERFUL. I agree with the congestion during the disembark and all the traffic hassles. They should have a couple of people directing traffic. However, it is much better than Philly!

[wallygator]

We were on the Constellation 4/19-4/28 and we had a wonderful time.

 

We left our house in Central NJ to go to Cape Liberty in Bayonne at 11:30 am. It only took us about 30 minutes to get there. Traffic at the port was very minimal at this time. You must pull into the stalls first to drop off your luggage. The baggage guy/gal will take your luggage from you and then you get back into your car and go around the building again and come back and then go into the parking lot, through the pay booth and then park. A lot of people were unaware that you drop off your luggage first and they parked the car and toted all their luggage themselves from the parking lot to the terminal building. So remember to drop off luggage first, then park. Cape Liberty's web site stated that the parking was only $12.00 per day, but we were charged $15.00 per day ($135.00 for 9 days) for parking.

If you have a handicapp license or tag, let them know and they will direct you where to park. Also for everyone, they do have a shuttle bus that runs from the parking lot, right back to the entrance of the terminal building at no charge. Going through the terminal was very quick. It really saves you time if you fill out the paperwork on line and have it with you. Also if you receive a dark blue sea pass card and you are over 18 years of age, you may want to question them on it. At the terminal the woman gave my husband a white card and she gave me a blue card. When I questioned it, she said it was something new, which I thought was a good idea at the time, this would be quicker to recognize my card when they are both sitting on the desk in the room. However, when I was on board and started using my card at the stores, the workers would question me as to who's card this was. When I went to play Bingo, I was not allowed to use the card I had to use my husbands card to puchase the tickets. It turned out the blue cards are for anyone under the age of 18. I had to go to Guest Relations and have the card switched out to a white one. How sweet that woman was to think of me as being under 18. :) Once you get signed in, you will be directed through the terminal to have your picture taken and then load you onto a bus which will take you directly to the ship. There were no steps to enter into the ship, you just walk up a small metal plank and you are on. You will be greated with Champagne and an escort will set you in the direction of your room.

We had an inside cabin...2107 and found it to be spacious and plenty of room to hang up all those clothes you bring but never end up wearing. :) I always bring extra hangers with me. Our room was always clean. There was a hair dryer in the bathroom. My hair is very short and thin and drys in minutes, but for those of you that have long or thick hair, I found the hair dryer to work for only 1 minute then it shuts off. It gets very hot very fast and I am sure this was an automatic shut off when it gets hot. When it cools off it will come back on. Perhaps there was just something wrong with this one and in other rooms it is different, but just something to think about when you are packing if you have long hair. We never experienced any smells on the ship anywhere, and we never experienced the brown water that some people in the past have written about.

Everything went very smooth, the shows were great. The dont misses are the Cirque Show, it was excellent. The only thing we wished about that differently would be that it would be longer, we loved it so. Another "don't miss" would be Oceanliners. On all the cruises we have taken we never did the speciality dining. We thought, why pay extra for food when you can have good food in the regular dining area included at no extra charge. Boy were we wrong. We decided to try it as everyone said what a wonderful evening it was. It was excellent. Well worth the $30.00 each. In fact, the same experience of that evening in NJ would run you close to $125.00-150.00 each, so it was quite the bargain. It is not just the food that makes the night so memorable, it is the atmosphere and the pampering that you receive. We had the goat cheese souffle, the ceasar salad and the Steak Diane. They make the ceasar salad in front of you and the steak also right at your table.. We will always try the specialty dining from now on with future cruises. We had the best table partners for regular dining.Thanks Dave and Dawn from Las Vegas and Brian and Kristiana from New Jersey for making dinner time special.

The Cruise Director was a great guy. His name was Derick. This was the first time that we really had a chance to sit down and talk with a cruise director. It seemed that no matter where we were, he was there. Always remembering us and eager to chat away. He had a way of making each guest feel that he truly cared what was going on with them and what could he do to make there day better. I have no idea when the poor guy sleeps. But he was always full of energy and ready to help.

Upon disembarking, we had to be out of our room by 8:30 am, but we did not have to report to our disembarking station until 10:40. So we were allowed to have a nice breakfast at the buffet. We were driving home ourselves so we were pretty much towards the last of getting off as they let those off first that have flights, post cruise arrangements or someone picking them up. In past cruises we were always directed to go to the Theatre at 8:30 am and sit and wait until your color was called. Celebrity really did it nice, allowing us a specific time to go to the area. They said to be there at 10:40. We got there a little early, like 10:15. They called our color and number at 10:35 so they pretty much were right on the time that they said.

The ports were very good also. Labadee was our first stop and it was beautiful. We tendered in. Don't be afraid to explore all the areas of the island that you are allowed in. It seems like a small area, but there are some areas that we missed out on. The outside and inside vendors were sometimes agressive for you to buy. So if you are weak in saying no, dont stop there. There is a building at the very end of the inside and outside vendors that you can shop in without being bothered. There was a very nice man there by the name of Norm at the end of the building that have very nice Wooden carvings and items. We bought most of our items in that building. The barbeque was very good with hamburgers hot dogs chicken and ribs, corn etc....

San Juan was a little dissapointing to me. We did the Old and New San Juan tour with the ship. The only part of the tour I really enjoyed was when we stopped at the fort, San Christobal. However, we were only there for 30 minutes so it was not enough time to really get to the area you wanted to be and take a few pics and then hurry back to the bus. San Juan was just to commercialized for me. I like scenery. I guess we should have taken the Rain Forrest Tour for that.

St. Maarten was great. We booked a tour on line with Joyce Prince. She was great. The must see there is shopping at Rimas. I was so sorry we didnt do all our souvenier shopping there. They were by far the best prices of all the ports. But we didnt know that at the time. I bought hubby a nice collar shirt with dolphins on it. It washed beautful and the price was great. They had beautfiul baseball hats, 3 for $10...prices were great on the bags with matching swim coverups, hair pulls and change purse. St. Maarten is beautiful.

Bermuda is our favorite. We have been there a few times now. We never tire of its beauty. We just stayed in the Dockyard area and did the clock tower mall, the rum cake and the glass blowing. If it is your first time to Bermuda, it is best to do a taxi tour and see it all or at least take the ferry which is close to the ship and go to Hamilton. St. George is my favorite for shopping and history.

Disembarking at Cape Liberty was conjested and confusing. I really would love to see them get a better system there with the luggage as far as embarking and disembarking. You or a porter can bring your luggage to the front of the termindal at the parking stall areas. Then you have someone go to the parking lot to get your car. Now where you standing with your luggage may not be the open spot by the time your car comes around. Someone else may be in there loading their luggage. Now the normal thing to do would be for the driver of your car to go to where there is a open stall and then you take your luggage there. It really is not that far of an area. However, people dont do that. They sit in the traffic and hold it up until that car moves out. However he cant back out because you are sitting there waiting to get in and traffic is moving behind him with people leaving. So it is really an area that needs worked on. Upon disembarking at this stage, the best thing I can advise is, have plenty of patience and go slow. Everyone is in such a hurry at this point and we saw so many "almost fender benders" because of that.

Now dont let anything that I have mentioned start you worrying or fretting. I only mention the disembarking frenzy because I think it works, but it just needs some fine tunning on both parts. Celebritys part and the cruisers, as we must remember to take our time. We have been on the ship for 9 days, and this last half hour process could make or break your cruise with a fender bender or worse. Have a great cruise!

 

Please use larger fonts on your review. Us old folks don't see as well as we use to

[templed]

Thanks for the review...

 

The disembarkation was a breeze for us... We live real close, so the only real glitch we had was waiting for our neighbor to come get us. Outside of my own stupidity when I left a bag in the building... whoops. I had to make another trip back and retrieve it from the dock agent... (good thing I only live 10 minutes from the port)

 

The traffic situation there was a breeze for us... Take that from where it's coming from though... I'm a New Yorker, live in Staten Island, and work in the city... so... I'm use to bedlam... lol

[davidb01]

Sally, great review. Thanks for the kind words about dinner. We had a blast closing down the dining room each night with you and your husband.

 

For us disembarkation was totally a breeze. We were fortunate enough to be among the first group of passengers off. We found our bags right where they told us we would and a porter took us to a shuttle bus that was going to the airport. 14 dollars a piece and they got us and our luggage to the airport without any problems.