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Constellation Baltics Trip Report and Lots of Pictures!

Cindy

By Cindy,
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Cindy

Cindy

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Tuesday, June 3 – Home :(

 

We were up at the crack of dawn, and our Super Shuttle driver was early, which was our experience with all four ground transportation legs we booked with that company. Our fees were 160 Euros for three airport trips and one ride to the port. I thought that was reasonable and they were very professional and reliable.

 

We arrived 3+ hours early to the airport as recommended, and found Schiphol to have a very easy and fast check-in procedure. Right after check-in you go through immigration, but you don’t go through security until you get to the gate. Since everything moved so quickly, we were checked in and looking for something to do for the three hours before our flight. We found a table, and some Starbucks (boy, that was good!) and settled in to entertain ourselves with the childish game of critiquing peoples’ travel outfits (we saw some doozies!). Honestly, we were at the point when you realize vacation’s over, but you’re still at least 15 hours and 6 or 7 time zones from home, and we were all a little grouchy.

 

We said our good-byes to Mom and Jess about 8:30 and headed towards our gate. Schiphol is HUGE, and we were leaving from the same gate we had arrived at on May 19th – about as far away as one can get and still be on airport property! You don’t go through security until you get to your gate, so the procedures are a little different than they are in the US. Since you’re not in a secure area until your actual gate, there’s only one store where you can purchase liquid to take through security. We normally grab water for the plane, but since we were in Business/First going home we didn’t bother to find the regulation water store, and just went straight to the gate.

 

I thought the security was a little too enthusiastic in the breast fondling department :eek: but the guard didn’t look like somebody I wanted to mess with, so I let it go. I did have to produce my luggage claim checks during the interview portion of security, so make sure you don’t misplace them.

 

The flight was thankfully uneventful, but even up front I get antsy at about 6 hours.:o It doesn’t seem to matter if I’m bored, comfortable, miserable, tired…I just get to the point where mentally I’m done with the flight, but inevitably we still have several hours to our destination. Mom and Jess didn’t fare as well, with a cancelled flight from IAD to EWR, but in the end they were less than 2 hours late and their luggage made it too.

 

DSC01978W-2-L.jpg

My "pod" for the ride home.

 

 

We breezed through immigration and customs with our Global Entry cards (best travel money we ever spent!), and were actually HOME (30 minutes from the airport) about an hour after we stepped off the plane.:D It doesn’t get any easier than that! We were exhausted, but a good exhausted – this was an outstanding trip, and all my planning really paid off as almost everything was what we expected or even better. As I surveyed the suitcases littering the family room awaiting my attention I felt a little sad, then I remembered something I heard a long time ago…Don’t cry because it’s over – smile because it happened!:)

 

I'll be back with some final thoughts later today or tomorrow!

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Iamthesea

Iamthesea

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I thought the security was a little too enthusiastic in the breast fondling department :eek: but the guard didn’t look like somebody I wanted to mess with, so I let it go. I did have to produce my luggage claim checks during the interview portion of security, so make sure you don’t misplace them.

 

I didn't get any of that...what did you do wrong? haha :D

 

We arrived at the airport about two hours before our flight after disembarking. The airport was seemingly empty. I guess everyone else stayed on an extra day or two.;)

Edited by Iamthesea
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Cindy

Cindy

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I didn't get any of that...what did you do wrong? haha :D

 

We arrived at the airport about two hours before our flight after disembarking. The airport was seemingly empty. I guess everyone else stayed on an extra day or two.;)

 

I guess the frisker lady liked me!:p:eek::p

 

I was thinking about you when I was watching the news the other day. Aren't you glad you went ahead with your Holy Land trip when you did?

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Iamthesea

Iamthesea

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I guess the frisker lady liked me!

 

I was thinking about you when I was watching the news the other day. Aren't you glad you went ahead with your Holy Land trip when you did?

 

Oh darn...the frisker was a lady! :D

 

Yes, we are so glad we did that HL trip when we did, as well as seeing Russia in May. ;)

 

Also, in mid July, we took our yearly trip to the beach... a week after that hurricane went up the east coast. Those at our beach spot had terrible weather the week before. And last week, we narrowly missed a tornado in our area. It hit just a few miles away. We could see it going up the interstate. :eek:

 

Now, I am holding out for that luck to continue at least another month.:rolleyes: I have been babysitting my grandson this week. He has Hand, Foot and Mouth, and is covered in a rash, sores, etc. I have had every bodily fluid thrown at me that a 1.5 year old can expel from his body. It will be a miracle if I don't get that disease. Not that my body is pretty anyway, but I will not look too lovely on that cruise if my body is covered with a healing rash. :eek:

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Cindy

Cindy

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Did you forget? :D

 

No, I'm working on it!:o That pesky little thing called my part-time job (a.k.a. travel Money!:D) got in the way this week! I mentioned to Jim this morning that I really need to finish up. He :rolleyes: and said, "You're still not done with that thing?":p

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Cindy

Cindy

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The Good

We really, really liked the ship and Celebrity. We were actually surprised by how much we enjoyed the cruise, the ship, and the staff. I had probably spent too much time reading negative comments and complaints on Cruise Critic and on the Celebrity Facebook page, and I had really started to get apprehensive about the trip. Combine that with the fact we weren't entirely happy with the way the Millennium cancellation was handled/communicated, and I thought we might have made a big mistake. Thankfully, I couldn't have been more wrong!

 

We found almost everything to our liking, and thought the Constellation's staff and crew were the best we've sailed with. I don’t know that I’ve ever encountered such a consistently happy, friendly, helpful staff, and that includes our very first cruise where we were in awe and loved EVERYTHING! I credit the captain for setting the positive tone that made the cruise special. Interestingly, I’ve read some comments from other recent Constellation reviews where people had very different opinions, which just goes to show that every cruise and cruiser is different, and what floats my boat may not work for you! One reviewer indicated that she thought Captain Tasos was neglecting his “captain” duties because he was so enamored with the social aspect of his job, and mentioned the Concordia.:eek: I didn’t get that sense at all, but if you don’t like a captain who is very visible around the ship, interacts easily with passengers, and has a wicked sense of humor, then you probably won’t like Captain Tasos.

 

Breakfast and dinner in BLU were very good, and we’ve already chosen an AQ cabin for our next Celebrity cruise. To us, BLU was a huge plus, and even though we’re not spa people we thought the extra expense for AQ was well worth it. I enjoyed the smaller, more intimate setting, and we thought almost everything we had was well-prepared and nicely presented. We sat in the same section with the same wait staff every night, so in that respect BLU was like eating in the dining room. Breakfast was fantastic – much faster than the dining room, and since we make a game out of avoiding the buffet, we really liked breakfast in there as well.

 

Because we’re Diamond on Royal Caribbean, we were able to enjoy Elite benefits on our cruise. We had the beverage package and loved the Martini Bar so we never used our drink vouchers, and we also didn’t ever get around to attending the Elite Breakfast, but I did use the laundry coupons and the internet coupons. I thought those were a huge benefit!

 

Lots of people love the Diamond and/or Concierge Lounge on RCI (for the happy hour), but it’s really not that big a deal to us. We like the lounge for the camaraderie and the nice, relaxing setting, but we usually end up taking our own drinks in with us because I don’t like the limited drink menu and I definitely don’t care for the house wine!:p So which benefits are better? That’s hard to say because they’re so different. We probably got more value out of the Celebrity benefits, but I did miss having a dedicated lounge and concierge. I like Royal Caribbean’s balcony discount better than Celebrity’s category upgrade, primarily because within the categories I book, there really isn’t a place to go!

 

 

The Bad

One bad wasn’t really bad, just an annoyance, and it concerned the Premium Beverage Package. Celebrity really needs to look at the availability of wine by the glass on the Premium Beverage Package. Prices had gone up substantially when the ships reached Europe at the beginning of May, and we were quite disappointed to find that there were only one or two selections of each varietal, and some varietals had no selections at all that worked within the beverage package. This became even more of a problem in the second half of the cruise when the ship ran out of one of the two Cabernet Sauvignon selections that could be chosen on the Premium Package without paying an upcharge. Our sommelier in BLU (Eren) was excellent and made recommendations to suit our palates, but we were somewhat disappointed in the lack of choices.

 

We ended up paying quite a few upcharges, but I do think if they’re going to continue to push the beverage packages they need to make sure there’s a reasonable selection. Friends who have taken several Celebrity cruises and just returned a couple weeks ago said the selection was noticeably smaller than past cruises, and they were also disappointed in the wine availability and variety on the package.

 

The other bad was the entire photography department, and it was more than an annoyance, it was bad! I already described the problems I had getting my pre-paid pictures – the right hand didn’t know what the left was doing, and NO two people had the same answer. I couldn’t believe how inefficient they were in the photo gallery.

 

My other issue was the photographers themselves…I thought the quality of the shots was poor. Almost all our gangway shots are overexposed, interior shots are crooked, or blurry, or everyone’s eyes are closed, etc. It seemed like the photographers couldn’t click the shutter fast enough, and they didn’t care at all about the product. Thanks to Lightroom and Photoshop, I’ve been able to rescue quite a few, but wouldn’t you think a professional photographer would be able to adjust their settings so they’re not overexposing every shot?:rolleyes:

 

 

The TINY (Literally!) Little Bit of Ugly

We had an unusual (and certainly unexpected!) problem with HUGE swarms of bugs (mosquitoes) on our balcony rendering it unusable for much of the cruise, even though we had nice weather. We were told by staff that the mosquitoes were present because we were in the Baltic and they were seeking warmth.:confused:

 

Although we formally reported the problem several (I believe 4) times and the staff was always responsive, the problem never completely went away. We had to have the balcony sprayed almost every evening from Germany on, which left a lingering unpleasant odor of bug spray in our cabin. The guest services officers and housekeeping were quite concerned, and called/sent wine, however what we really wanted was the bugs (and dead bugs) to be completely gone.:(

 

The staff seemed genuinely surprised and puzzled, and I’ve certainly never heard of anything like this, but it was pretty disgusting, and my niece got some bad bites before she realized what was happening. Jim had a theory that somehow the bugs had found a place to breed on the ship, and they were attracted to the aft because of the food exhaust and heat back there. Needless to say, the staff vehemently denied the possibility of an infestation on the ship, but since we had the problem in Germany and Finland, then again later in the cruise, they had to come from somewhere. The fact that they were out there on sea days as well as in port makes me wonder about the source.

 

I’m not usually one to complain, but we did make several trips to guest services over this issue. I’m not sure what else the on-board staff could have done, but I believe this is a serious problem. It appeared to be limited to the five highly popular AQ cabins over the Sunset Bar, and if I have any real negative about the trip, it’s that the key feature of the cabin I chose and paid for was unusable for much of the trip, not because of weather but because of bugs.

 

 

It Was Mostly Good!

Despite the bugs, the wine, and the bad photographers, we’d take the same cruise in the same cabin again. In fact, we are waitlisted for it on the Infinity since all 5 of those cabins are already booked for our Panama Canal cruise in two years! We thought Celebrity overall was a good “match” for our tastes, and if there was a Celebrity ship based closer to home it would probably be our first choice of cruise line. Celebrity has lots of the things we consider important, like good food and service, decent entertainment, and interesting itineraries, and we don’t care that they don’t have belly-flop contests, lots of kids, or Shrek!:D Since Royal Caribbean sails from Galveston, only an hour from home, RCI will continue to be our “go to” cruise line for easy Caribbean trips, but we’ll now look first to Celebrity when we want to go someplace that requires us to fly!

Edited by Cindy
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TeaBag

TeaBag

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Do I have a suggestion for you..............Ship's photographer.;)

 

"My other issue was the photographers themselves…I thought the quality of the shots was poor. Almost all our gangway shots are overexposed, interior shots are crooked, or blurry, or everyone’s eyes are closed, etc. It seemed like the photographers couldn’t click the shutter fast enough, and they didn’t care at all about the product"

 

You can cruise for free and make people happy with their photos at the same time!

 

We're glad you liked Celebrity well enough to book another sailing. Hopefully your preferred cabin will come free.

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Cindy

Cindy

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Do I have a suggestion for you..............Ship's photographer.;)

 

"My other issue was the photographers themselves…I thought the quality of the shots was poor. Almost all our gangway shots are overexposed, interior shots are crooked, or blurry, or everyone’s eyes are closed, etc. It seemed like the photographers couldn’t click the shutter fast enough, and they didn’t care at all about the product"

 

You can cruise for free and make people happy with their photos at the same time!

 

We're glad you liked Celebrity well enough to book another sailing. Hopefully your preferred cabin will come free.

 

Thanks! While I love taking pictures, I'm not so sure I would enjoy a cruise without my husband or my balcony!:D

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england1

england1

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Cindy,thanks so much for your outstanding cruise review and pictures. I also want to thank you for posting on our roll call (June2nd) on your experience of getting off the ship in St. Petersburg. I know it helped most of us. I am so glad we both had such a great Baltic experience.

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Waihekean

Waihekean

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Another big thank you, really enjoyed your review.

This cruise is on my bucket list to do with my mother.

So, will use your review to start some of my new research.

 

On a aside. Have just done a Med cruise with MSC and there were a LOT of things I missed about Celebrity. Especially in the day time. i.e. decent cabin service (took 3 days to get double bed converted to singles), clean shower, bath towels and bath robe, friendly staff and professional service, a decent functioning buffet, full port days, just to be able to get a cup of capuccino and take it up to your cabin etc. etc.

To be fair MSC basic drink package (which includes alcohol) was fabulous, so were their shows and their entertainment group.

But for me Celebrity has still the best product for the price charged. Just hoping that their prices will come down a bit for the Baltic cruises.

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Cindy

Cindy

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Another big thank you, really enjoyed your review.

This cruise is on my bucket list to do with my mother.

So, will use your review to start some of my new research.

 

 

I'm so fortunate that my mother is still able to enjoy travelling and take a trip like this with us. We were a little worried because some of the days were so long, but she did great! By the end of the trip she was tired, but so were we!:eek:

 

I think we would probably have met more people and done a bit more had it been just the two of us, but I wouldn't trade the cruise with my mom for anything! :) Having her bring my niece as her cabin mate was the icing on the cake!

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cormike1

cormike1

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Thanks so much for that wonderful review Cindy. We did the Baltic cruise a few years ago after we had to cancel a planned Egyptian trip when all hell broke lose over there. We loved it and looking at your fabulous pictures brought back so many memories. We did our first Celebrity cruise this past March for a 28-day South American cruise and loved Celebrity and would definitely cruise with them again. We are trying Holland America next Feb. for the first time. By the way, I would love to see you do a SA cruise as I am sure your photography would be spectacular!!!! Thanks again for the great review.

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Cindy

Cindy

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Thanks everybody! I tried something a little different with this review than I've done in the past. I lost some picture reviews that I thought were "safe" when Webshots shut down:(, and now they can still be read, but all the pictures look like this:

 

X

 

I have this in Word, and I converted it with the pictures to a PDF, so now I have it forever!:) I'm still not sure what to do with it, but maybe it's time to start the personal cruise/travel/photography website I've been talking about for 3 years!:rolleyes:

 

 

Thanks so much for that wonderful review Cindy. We did the Baltic cruise a few years ago after we had to cancel a planned Egyptian trip when all hell broke lose over there. We loved it and looking at your fabulous pictures brought back so many memories. We did our first Celebrity cruise this past March for a 28-day South American cruise and loved Celebrity and would definitely cruise with them again. We are trying Holland America next Feb. for the first time. By the way, I would love to see you do a SA cruise as I am sure your photography would be spectacular!!!! Thanks again for the great review.

 

We loved our first HAL cruises, but the second was very blah. I would go on HAL again for some of their fantastic itineraries, but I think Celebrity is more our style. SA is on the bucket list...maybe it will be #1 out of the gate when my husband retires.:D

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fatbaldbloke

fatbaldbloke

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Hi Cindy

 

We have also noticed a lack of choice of wines on the premium package. We only started cruising 18 months ago & the choice was a lot better then than it is now. We only drink white wines & at the start we had a choice of 4 or 5 but it's now down to one average New Zealand Sauvignon. We also found that even though our card said we had the premium package we found ourselves having to ask at the various bars for the wine we wanted by name as the bar staff would just give us the cheaper brand. There appears wine wise very little difference between the packages that Celebrity are giving away & the premium drinks package.

 

Phil

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herbanrenewal

herbanrenewal

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"On the way, we stopped to admire these underwater statues, and heard the Danish folktale of Agnete and the Merman. Agnete, a human, went to the bottom of the sea to make a life with the Merman. They had many children, and were happy for a long time until Agnete heard the chiming of a church bell and asked the merman if she could go to church on land. He agreed on the condition that she didn’t unbind her hair in the churchyard, didn’t sit with her mother in the church and didn’t kneel in the church. Agnete (of course) did all of those things and never returned to her family under the sea. The underwater sculptures are of Agnete’s family looking up and reaching out to land because they miss her. "

 

Cindy,

I've not seen this mentioned in any of the other reports or tour descriptions that I have read. Can you tell me any more about where you saw this?

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