Live – Constellation Singapore – Rome 2017

Hi! My name is Jim ad I’ll be reporting live from The Celebrity Constellation, April 2, 2017, B2B Singapore to Rome. This will be our first B2B and we will away for the next six weeks. I have learned so much from members of the CC community that I hope my posts will help others on their vacation planning.

First, a little about us.We live in the middle of SiliconValley about an hour south of San Francisco and have been together for 25years. Iain retired 2 weeks ago and this cruise will be our celebration of Iain’s retirement present.

This will be our 20th cruise and our 5th time on Constellation. It has been 6 years since we were last on Constellation, so very excited to see how well she has been maintained. Our expectation is she may need a bit of TLC, as she is due for dry dock in the middle of May, just after our cruise.

Planning –

We booked this cruise about 2 years ago. Originally we booked a Royal Suite on the Singapore to Abu Dhabi leg and a Celebrity Suite on Abu Dhabi to Rome portion of the trip. The first cruise has always been very popular and suites sold out very quickly. The prices on the first leg almost double from when we first booked while Abu Dhabi to Rome segment has dropped numerous times. I was able to upgrade the second segment to a RS at a lower price than the original CS and then received 2 additional price reductions before final payment. I use the “fishy” site to track price reductionsand have saved thousands.

Itinerary –

Singapore to Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi to Rome

Hi from South San Jose! Can't wait to read your review... it looks like an incredible itinerary!!

Hi from South San Jose! Can't wait to read your review... it looks like an incredible itinerary!!

Howdy neighbor!. Glad you will be following along. We were just down in you neck of the woods last weekend for our Grandson's birthday.

Jim

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We arrived in Singapore on Friday morning at 1:30 AM after a20 hour flight from Singapore. I hadchosen Pan Pacific Serviced Suites on Beach Road for our pre-cruise stay. It is a really nice apartment style hotelwith everything you would need from a full kitchen to a washing machine.

We had a good night’s sleep and started our first day in Singaporewith nice buffet breakfast which is included in the hotel package. We took off by 10:00 to do some sightseeing. I use to spend a lot of time in Singapore onbusiness but never really had much chance to get out and really see thecity.

We spent an exhausting daywalking down to see the Merlion and explore the Garden’s by the Bay. The weather was HOT and humid and reallydrained us. We ended up hiking about 9miles. For the remainder of our visitwe purchased a 2 day Singapore MRT unlimited ticket. Great barging as Singapore MRT is very efficienteasy to navigate.

Not being very hungry we decided to purchase acouple bottles of wine and brought a pizza home for dinner. We forced ourselves to stay up until 10PM tohelp acclimate ourselves to local time.

Saturday started out really nice with muchcooler temperatures. We spent much ofthe day shopping on Orchard Road and then took the MRT to the Cruise Terminalto see Constellation which had arrived early for an overnight in Singaporebefore our cruise begins. By 2:00 stormclouds started building and was followed by torrential rains. We made our way back to our hotel in-betweendownpours and just relaxed for the rest of the day.

Mr. Jim,

Thanks for posting. We would like to do a similar cruise some day, so your experience will help. :)

Have a great trip - we're on her return journey back down to Abu Dhabi in November.

Hello Jiim:

For some reason I thought that you two had done a number of B2Bs! Now that you have done your first you will be hooked -- there is something to that feeling on the last night of that first leg when you see all those suitcases in the hallways and you realize that yours are still in your stateroom.

We spent a week in the Singapore Pan Pacific near Raffles Blvd. last fall after we left the Solstice. Fell in love with Singapore.

We board the Infinity tomorrow for a B2B, but I will be following your adventures closely.

Take care,

Gerry

Mr. Jim,

 

Thanks for posting. We would like to do a similar cruise some day, so your experience will help. :)

Texed-N-Jacquie hope you are able to take a similar trip sometime. I have been looking for unique sailings and was really fascinated with this one.

This is Iain's first trip to the Orient and has really been an eye opener. The fun part for me is that besides Singapore and Rome all the ports will be new for me.

Have a great trip - we're on her return journey back down to Abu Dhabi in November.

That sounds wonderful. I am sure Connie will be nice an pristine after her dry dock. I hope you have a good cruise critic group, our has been very active and we have signed up for far more cc group tours than we have ever done before.

Hello Jiim:

 

For some reason I thought that you two had done a number of B2Bs! Now that you have done your first you will be hooked -- there is something to that feeling on the last night of that first leg when you see all those suitcases in the hallways and you realize that yours are still in your stateroom.

 

We spent a week in the Singapore Pan Pacific near Raffles Blvd. last fall after we left the Solstice. Fell in love with Singapore.

 

We board the Infinity tomorrow for a B2B, but I will be following your adventures closely.

 

Take care,

Gerry

Gerry -

Great hearing from you. Yes this is our first B2B and we are really excited to experience turn around day. We will be taking a CC Group Tour arranged by BCHappyGal (Ann) in Abu Dhabi, so will be getting off Connie quite early. Ann has quite the planner and has arranged at least a half dozen group tours. I'm amazed at how organized she is.

Now that we are both retied I am sure that we will be doing more B2B's. While I have been very excited about this cruise, my excitement has been overshadowed with excitement of our Panama Canal South America Cruise (Fort Lauderdale around the horn to Buenos Aires) in November.

Would love to hear what your favorite B2B or multiple B's was. I recall that you have taken many of them.

Jim

Embarkation Day – April 2

Finally embarkation day has arrived. Awoke to a beautiful day with mildtemperatures. Check-out time was 12:00noon so we took off early to have some breakfast and return our MRT card toreceive a refund of S $10 per card. Anyone planning on spending 1-3 days in Singapore will find the Visitor’sPass a really good choice for your transport needs.

Back to the room and packed up our bags. We packed lighter this cruise as we will bespending two weeks in Europe at the end of the cruise. Not packing formal wear, we were able to cutdown to one large suitcase and a large garment bag.

We opted to use Uber to the port. The car arrived within 2 minutes and had usto the port in 10 minutes for approx. $10.00. We ran into a really unusual situation while dropping off our bags. The porter refused to accept our overstuffedgarment bag, saying that unless you luggage has wheels they would not accept itcurbside. We ended up having to lug it along with ourcarryon through the check-in process and to the ship. Traveling in a suite we were zipped throughthe check-in process and whisked to Michael’s Club. Megan, the MC Hostess was really surprised tohear about the luggage issue as she had never heard of that before. Rooms were ready by about 1:00.

First impressions of Constellation –

It has been 6 years since we last sailed Constellation. As we pulled up to the cruise terminal wego out first glance at her. After sailingS-Class ships for the past couple years she really looked her age and thedifference in size was apparent. Onceon board, we notice the toll that 16 years at sea . In retrospect we looked over at the CostaRomantica and Constellation looked like a spring chicken.

The staff in all of the areas of the ship have been engagingalways met with a smile and greeting. The crew were busy touching up the paint and varnishing the wood. We you look around you will notice extensivepainted over rust but all in all is not will not affect the enjoyment of thiscruise.

Muster drill was held at 5:30 PM and we set sail with littlefanfare at 7:00.

Getting unlimited specialty dining I originally had reservedOcean Liner for the first night. Notbeing really hungry we ended up cancellation our reservation and went toLuminea for dinner. The first night inall eating venues is usually chaotic on the first night and as expect Lumineawas no exception. This was the Luinea MaitreDe’s first night. He was moved fromOcean Liner and was greeted with almost all the Suite Guests arriving at thesame time with no advance notification. He did a good job in the situation and jumped in to help serving andclearing dishes.

We finished off our evening with drinks in Michael’s Club.

Monday, April 3, 2017

We had our first time change last night so I was up muchearlier that I would have liked. Awoketo stormy skies with lots of thunder and lightning. Outside temperatures are about 80 degreesand humid. The good news is the seasare so calm you wouldn’t know we were even on a ship.

I headed to the gym around 7:00 Am and was lucky to find oneremaining elliptical open. A good workoutreally helped to get me going. Iain’s alate sleeper so breakfast will not be until 9-9:30 (the latest choice on the doorhanger breakfast menu).

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Upcoming Dry Dock –

It appears there is a lot of work happening on Constellationprior to Dry Dock. While out doing mylaps around the ship today I notice about a dozen workers with WaveguideCommunications. Looked up on theinternet and they are listed as IT Fiber Optics, Cabling, Wireless Systems andIP Infrastructure Solutions provider. The existing TV System and telephone systemappear to have never been updated. Allthe ships I have been on over the last 5 years have been updated to an Apple BasedSystem. Not sure it is because thesystem is being worked on but the TV system is very laggy and often take 5-10seconds after you change a channel before anything appears on the screen.

There are also workers on-board that have some Dry DockCompany uniforms on. They appear to beworking on installation of a Air Scrubber System. The area forward of the Basketball court isclosed off and a sign saying pardon our work as we install a an Air ScrubberSystem.

Perfect sunset to Kick off our first "Chic" night.

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Thanks for posting the live report :). Can't wait to read your section on India and Arabia as we're sailing on Connie over Christmas to these destinations ;). She will have also been in dry dock by then :cool:.

Following along :) Thanks for the reporting and pictures! Looking forward to the rest.

Looking forward to seeing all about the ship, we will be on her 10/31 for a 12 nighter from Athens to Rome. It will be a great preview of the cruise. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Hi, looking forward to your blog!, we were doing an Indian/Singapore cruise a couple of years ago it was really interesting. We will be joining you on the Suez Canal leg of your back to back! We did our 1st b2b in January and enjoyed it so much we've booked another in October on Connie from Rome to the holy land, 24 days in total. Think it might be the way forward now we are retired! Enjoy your cruise, Dianne& Paul

Hi

're the spotlight will they all be on-board on 26th May or will it change by then.looking to reading about your trip

Many thanks terry

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Looking forward to hearing about what is going on whilst you are sailing as we board in Abu Dhabi.

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enjoying your posts thanks

Very much looking forward to following along here. We'll be doing the same itinerary in 2 years' time! If you get an opportunity can you please find out what changes will be made to the restaurants (or other public areas) during the refit - there is currently some speculation on these boards. :)

Following your review with interest. Have noted that the Staff Captain and the GRM have both changed (we remember both these officers very fondly) and the OL maitre'D has moved to Luminae - we really liked him whenever we dined at OL. Who is your butler? After two weeks onboard the Constellation, it has become almost like a friend to us. Although DH's first words to me on the gangway were "looks old".

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Looking forward to your live review Jim. We will be doing part of this itinerary in 2019. We booked while in the Caribbean on the Equinox, last month along with a New England/ Canada cruise on the Summit next summer.

(Sailing the Caribbean makes you do things like that:D)

Have a fabulous trip – we just departed the Connie on Sunday, prior to your arrival. The staff was great & happy!

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Looking forward to hearing about what is going on whilst you are sailing as we board in Abu Dhabi.

 

 

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Hampshire Rose I see you're in Farnham I'm in locksheath

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