Dec 9 Constellation "Private Function" (2 Threads Merged)

[TwoHearts22]

We waited in line to board the ship.

A long line from a big bus went ahead of us in the waiting "snake" line.

 

We boarded and went to Bistro on 5 for lunch.

Full.

 

We had a dessert at the coffee shop.

 

We went to Michael's for a drink. Saw a "Private Function" sign.

 

Then to Solarium and another "Private Function" sign. The crew was setting it up.

 

Okay, then to the open pool deck where there were many smokers.

Forget that.

 

Then to the Promenade. Again many smokers.

 

Parked our luggage about 2pm in the clean, well-organized cabin.

No bathrobe or ice bucket for duration of cruise.

No change of bed.

 

Two nights we awoke with drain odors and covered the drains and the base of the door.

One morning while shaving, the stink rose from the sink.

 

Days two through five the top front lounge was closed for "Private functions".

 

Michael's remained closed for the whole cruise for "Private Functions".

 

The Theatre was closed one day for "Private Functions".

 

The Solarium pool was drained and covered one day. The smoke from outdoor pool came in one side. We never saw the café open during the cruise.

 

Another day the Solarium pool was full of people just standing around like I'd imagine on a Carnival cruise ship. The elevators were full and the happy crowd would ask us to come on in. No thank you.

 

One full side of the front half of the buffet was daily perfumed by garlic.

 

The open area at the back of the buffet was crowded and had many smokers.

 

The lunch buffet in the dining room on the last sea day was laden with the same daily assortment of foods offered in the buffet. It was nothing but a free for all for the second day of main dining room lunch. The only other day lunch was offered was day two.

 

What was happening with the smoke, the "Private Function" signs and the standing room only crowd in the Solarium pool.

 

Why were the elevators broken at the $15 a day parking garage on the day we walked off the ship.

 

Did we book the wrong cruise. I don't know. The crowd appeared to have a good time. We took our evening cocktails in the lounge between the foyer and dining room but the sound system was loud, the drummer okay, but the first half of our cocktail hour was a loud trivia quiz.

 

Select dining in the main dining room offered good food but it was very loud. Service was good.

 

Do the officers really play volleyball in their clothes, we thought that was a Carnival type activity.

 

The ports were good. The ship was clean.

 

Why were the rooms so often off limits to us.

 

The holiday decorations in the foyer were beautiful.

Edited December 22, 2013 by TwoHearts22

[jackdiamond]

Apparently, there was a significant charter. We have never encountered this problem, but if there was a way to ascertain a charter status, then one might consider another cruise.

[TommyD3]

Celebrity was having a marketing conference with over 300 guests including the CEO and head of the Captains Club. Many meetings which necessitated closing off many public areas. This happens rarely.

[AE_Collector]

Gee, we got off of the Connie on December 9 and would like to talk to someone from the Captains Club about how they handled the change over t othe new CC program. Missed him by that much!

 

I did hear soeone on board mention something about Head office having a group of people on the next (Dec 9) cruise.

 

Terry

[TravelerThom]

Celebrity was having a marketing conference with over 300 guests including the CEO and head of the Captains Club. Many meetings which necessitated closing off many public areas. This happens rarely.

An interesting marketing concept - have the shore side employees take over the ship with maximum disruption of paying passengers:mad:

[shoreham01]

An interesting marketing concept - have the shore side employees take over the ship with maximum disruption of paying passengers:mad:

 

Completely agree, we would have been furious. We had a large Brazilian group on our last cruise and that was bad enough. Certain areas of the ship were 'private function'.

[cluso]

We were on that sailing and were not impressed with all the Private Function signs for the Celebrity marketing group. Sometimes it was just a small group, but they closed down the whole Reflections lounge for them. At sail-aways and sunset, except for Day 1, it was closed. They also met at the Martini Bar (at scheduled times) and overran that--people could not get drinks.

 

You would think that group would be more considerate of the passengers. I did make comments about that on the questionnaire.

 

We did smell "sewer" smells while walking through the halls on deck eight a few times.

 

Overall, we had an enjoyable cruise.

[cruiseteachers]

We were on that sailing and were not impressed with all the Private Function signs for the Celebrity marketing group. Sometimes it was just a small group, but they closed down the whole Reflections lounge for them. At sail-aways and sunset, except for Day 1, it was closed. They also met at the Martini Bar (at scheduled times) and overran that--people could not get drinks.

 

You would think that group would be more considerate of the passengers. I did make comments about that on the questionnaire.

 

We did smell "sewer" smells while walking through the halls on deck eight a few times.

 

Overall, we had an enjoyable cruise.

 

Over a year ago, we began planning a family reunion and chose to have it on December 9th aboard Celebrity Constellation because I have traveled Celebrity for fourteen years and always found their customer service to be excellent. We were a small group of 22 passengers. Before boarding, we were sent a list of our group reservations for the Beta and Gamma conference rooms. However, upon boarding, we were informed that none of the conference rooms were available for us. Instead, they had reserved Michael's Club for us for 1 hour most days, and a few times for an hour and a half. The bar was still open, and passengers wandered in for drinks, so we had no private time for our group. The room was too dark for the video sessions we had planned and the noise from the bar invaded the voice over on the videos making them nearly unusable. With no outside lighting and the dark room, our family photos are mostly noisy, pixilated, and odd colors. On the next to the last day of the cruise, we found out that our promised space had been filled with the CEO and a corporate group. We were never informed, and we did not get to experience the best that I know Celebrity can deliver. To those passengers who were inconvenienced by our short times in Michael's Club, I offer my apologies for something that was beyond our control. I have written a letter to Michael Bailey CEO/President to outline our experience, and my TA is filing a report as well. My main issue is that if anyone on the staff had been up front with us about the lack of space for my group, we would have planned differently. Instead, our expectations were not met.

[USVI-4-me]

An interesting marketing concept - have the shore side employees take over the ship with maximum disruption of paying passengers:mad:

 

Celebrity needs another conference to determine if they have the ability to entertain conference groups without major disruption of services and public areas for other passengers.

 

Constellation appeared to fail during the December 9 cruise.

 

It could have been a large group of upscale auto dealers and the result might be the same.

 

Considering Bayley was on the cruise it's an amazing slight to the independent passengers such as the original poster.

 

Do you think the Elite, Elite Plus or Zenith passengers were affected?

Did they have a private session with the CEO and his team?

 

The last minute price for Florida residents who could get away on short notice was tempting.

I'm still recovering from rotator cuff surgery so passed. Thank goodness.

 

-Marisa

Edited December 22, 2013 by USVI-4-me

[TravelerThom]

Celebrity needs another conference to determine if they have the ability to entertain conference groups without major disruption of services and public areas for other passengers...

Are you suggesting another disruptive company conference on-board a ship?:eek:

[cluso]

 

Do you think the Elite, Elite Plus or Zenith passengers were affected?

Did they have a private session with the CEO and his team?

 

 

Elites got drink vouchers on this trip--probably due to no venues available from 5-7, not the number on Elites onboard. We were not informed the CEO or Captain's Club honcho were onboard.

[stevesing121]

This worries me for my jan 18th sailing on Reflection with the large Paula Deen group!!

[highbridger]

How do you find out if there will be a large GROUP onboard? OP's story is very upsetting.

[cluso]

Elites got drink vouchers on this trip--probably due to no venues available from 5-7, not the number on Elites onboard. We were not informed the CEO or Captain's Club honcho were onboard.

 

:eek: Sorry, my grammar was out to lunch. Elites "received" drink vouchers... due to "lack of" venues....

 

BTW--it was the first time we used a drink package, so we threw away the vouchers. We were traveling with friends who also had the package. I did wonder if we would have received better drink service with the vouchers. For future reference, does anyone have any thoughts about that?

[WALKER1313]

Very hard to get a definite answer but, you can call cap club, sometimes someone will give you a heads up. You can track trade magazines for their cruise schedules. Price will sometimes give you a hint. Some travel agents will have an idea. Been on a couple Celebrity cruises with groups over 1,000 guests, they end up "owning" the ship for the entire cruise.

[JLSPOOL]

:eek: Sorry, my grammar was out to lunch. Elites "received" drink vouchers... due to "lack of" venues....

 

BTW--it was the first time we used a drink package, so we threw away the vouchers. We were traveling with friends who also had the package. I did wonder if we would have received better drink service with the vouchers. For future reference, does anyone have any thoughts about that?

 

 

A groan re the drink vouchers for the elite team in our cabin.

 

After going back and forth on another thread about the Celebrity experience being a ferry service with a lot of a la cartes, we decided to bit the bullet again and take the Constellation as a tack on to another vacation in South Florida.

We wanted to visit Key West again and a day in Cozumel isn't bad.

 

Back to the 3 drink vouchers for each of us for the 5 night cruise of 12/9. The $5 wine available from 4 to 6 was better wine than the voucher wine. The first night we got one after waiting 20 minutes for service in the Reflection Lounge. I protested that the few minutes passed the cut off time was not relevant due to the long wait.

 

The voucher martinis are miniatures. It was better to buy our own drinks. The martini bar ran a $5 drink special each day from 4 to 5pm. After the 4 to 6, or 4 to 5 drink specials for $5 a martini, we wondered if the price went beyond the $8 maximum on the 123-Go classic drink package. Celebrity offers many a twist, another example is the laundry promo on a 5 night cruise when you send your bag in before mid-cruise. Understandable but a loyalty promo with a twist, a voucher with twists, a 123 Go pkg w/twists.

 

We didn't get the 1-2-3 Go promotion maybe because we booked last minute for a very low price.

In addition, we didn't get very good bar service whether a $5 early promotion, or Elite voucher, or just paying in full. The problem was a shortage of bar servers. On other cruises there have been many.

 

A quick visit to Guest Relations got us the answer that we could split up to find our respective drink choice in different places or go to the Ocean View or a pool bar for our drinks. We learned later that drinks other than martinis are provided by servers at the martini bar. Still Elite drink vouchers were not valid at the Martini Bar.

 

In MHO, we got what we paid for on the cruise. We did visit Cozumel and Key West. Paid no extra at lounges other than Rendevous, and Tuscan Grille was fully booked for the full cruise with long banquet style seating.

 

jls

Edited December 22, 2013 by JLSPOOL

[c-legs]

:mad:What I find disturbing in all this is Celebrity's personnel ,including

upper management , created such annoyances for their own paying guests, more specifically the impression I got that smoking was rempant.

A pretty dismal comportment by folks you would expect to know better....and obviously thought '' Hey, this is our ship ,to heck with ''those passengers....''.

Excessive sound control, fencing off litterally all public venues, etc....all for ~~ 300 people ????.....Capacity in Connie is over 2000 !!!!

 

Reminds me of other equally shameful comportments by travel trade folks who treat a courtesy invite on a shortie cruise with sometimes equal lack of minimum decorum....Being one of them, I've often felt the embarassement...

 

Mr.Bailey, I suggest you have a bit of ''re-training'' to do in public relations behaviour for some of your upper ''suits'' ( and, dare I say, yourself....as the ''buck stops at the top'',normally...).

 

I certainly hope there are no plans for such ''conferences'' on board 12Sept Solstice, 24August Celebrity, and the B2B Century next March Singapore-Rome...as we fully intend to enjoy a proper and solid Celebrity experience.

Cheers

[JLSPOOL]

:mad:What I find disturbing in all this is Celebrity's personnel ,including

upper management , created such annoyances for their own paying guests, more specifically the impression I got that smoking was rempant.

A pretty dismal comportment by folks you would expect to know better....and obviously thought '' Hey, this is our ship ,to heck with ''those passengers....''.

Excessive sound control, fencing off litterally all public venues, etc....all for ~~ 300 people ????.....Capacity in Connie is over 2000 !!!!

 

Reminds me of other equally shameful comportments by travel trade folks who treat a courtesy invite on a shortie cruise with sometimes equal lack of minimum decorum....Being one of them, I've often felt the embarassement...

 

Mr.Bailey, I suggest you have a bit of ''re-training'' to do in public relations behaviour for some of your upper ''suits'' ( and, dare I say, yourself....as the ''buck stops at the top'',normally...).

 

I certainly hope there are no plans for such ''conferences'' on board 12Sept Solstice, 24August Celebrity, and the B2B Century next March Singapore-Rome...as we fully intend to enjoy a proper and solid Celebrity experience.

Cheers

 

One side of promenade was designated smoking but smokers and large blue ashtrays appeared on the no smoking side of the promenade.

 

One side of the open pool area was for smokers but the smoke drifted and went into the Solarium when the automatic doors opened. Note the Solarium was either under set up for a private party, having a private party, or overwhelmed by large groups standing in the pool, or drained and covered, leaving us little reason to prepare ourselves for a pleasant afternoon there.

 

The open deck behind the buffet was a smoking area and smelled of it. That smoke had strong competition with the garlic that overwhelmed the buffet area.

 

Deck two forward between elevators and stairwell was usually filled with smoke smell and drifted back to the cabin area but not every day. We considered the promenade deck smoke was coming through and going downward, but doesn't smoke go up.

 

We did not visit the top open deck therefore can not report.

 

There was much more smoke on this cruise than we've ever experienced on Celebrity, only Costa or HAL could beat it for us.

 

jls

Edited December 23, 2013 by JLSPOOL

[TwoHearts22]

My thanks to the people who read my review.

[stormynow]

Was on the 12/9 cruise and drank in Michaels Club everynite. Didn't notice anything different from my last Connie cruise in Feb. We didn't go around the ship looking for smoke or closed venues. Had a great time.

[USVI-4-me]

Did any cruisers meet Bayley during the 12/9 cruise?

What did he discuss?

 

Was he introduced at the Captain's Club Welcome Aboard?

 

Any information is appreciated.

 

-Marisa

[TommyD3]

Did any cruisers meet Bayley during the 12/9 cruise?

What did he discuss?

 

Was he introduced at the Captain's Club Welcome Aboard?

 

Any information is appreciated.

 

-Marisa

 

One day they had a future cruise offering session where he was introduced to the audience and one could talk to him afterwards.

 

Tom

[JLSPOOL]

Was on the 12/9 cruise and drank in Michaels Club everynite. Didn't notice anything different from my last Connie cruise in Feb. We didn't go around the ship looking for smoke or closed venues. Had a great time.

 

 

Just wondering what time you drank in Michaels "everynite".

Do you get a premium drink package? How could you not notice a difference on the 12/9 cruise. I like your technique and wonder how you didn't notice the smoke or the many "Private" signs. Where did you spend your time?

 

You obviously have tips to share for the cruisers on the upcoming "Paula Deen" cruise.

 

jls

[phoenix_dream]

Some of the issues mentioned by the OP might just have been luck of the draw (the excessive # of smokers, the crowded Solarium pool area) - I have on occasion encountered this on other cruises. That said, the closing of so many public areas for such length of time is just unacceptable plain and simple. I would NOT have been happy. I don't care what groups are onboard, or how many groups, or how many people in those groups. It is just not fair to your other passengers to consistently block off public venues. When you book a cruise part of what you are paying for is the use of such public spaces. To block off so many for so long is not right. I am hearing of these types of things more and more on these boards (albeit not overwhelmingly so) and I just think it is wrong - period. A small party for an hour or two? Fine. But no public area should be off limits for significant lengths of time IMHO. And in this case the fact that it was Celebrity itself causing this inconsideration is just wrong!

[stormynow]

Just wondering what time you drank in Michaels "everynite".

Do you get a premium drink package? How could you not notice a difference on the 12/9 cruise. I like your technique and wonder how you didn't notice the smoke or the many "Private" signs. Where did you spend your time?

 

You obviously have tips to share for the cruisers on the upcoming "Paula Deen" cruise.

 

jls

Martini bar for few drinks b/4 dinner (select time) then to Michaels after dinner. Never a private function then, had to purchase the premium drink pkg a/c got a last minute low rate. The martini bar very noisey and busy. Service slow but was also on last cruise. Did notice a few Private sighs, but never anyplace we wanted to attend. Come to think about it, more smokers. But not real bothersome and never smoked in 75 yrs so do notice. Met Mr Bayley on the pool deck and he acted just like a quest. Going back Jan 20th. Really nothing to say about the Paula Deen cruise.