Delightful 10 night cruise on Constellation

[Algebralovr]

I just returned home from a delightful 10-night cruise on Celebrity Constellation.  This was our first cruise since January 1 and some of the changes made, but our 9th cruise since return to service and 8 of those on Celebrity.  We have literally sailed in all classes of service since the return to service in 2021.

 

It was our first cruise on Constellation, our first cruise on a non-Revolutionized M-Class ship.  We had previously sailed on Summit (Dec 2021) and Millennium (May 2022).  
 

Overall, we found the ship to be in great shape for her age, and had a great cruise.  
We were in a sky suite, but we had friends who were not.  So, yes, we did take advantage of some of the suite perks. 
 

The bad: a lot of the crew is still new to the line. There are hundreds of brand new crew in every ship, on every line.  This was no exception. Additionally, there are many new managers, and many of them are still learning their own jobs.  Instead of quietly getting mad when we saw something that was not quite right, we simply asked for a supervisor and relayed what we had noticed, and what our expectation was.  Yes, there are some cutbacks, and this was evident in a few places, such as the lack of prime rib night in the MDR.  Honestly, though, how many of us really cruise for the prime rib in the MDR?  Seriously?
 

The good:  the ship is clean and in great shape!  On Constellation, Starlink is being installed this week, and should be active for guests not this cruise, but the following one.  Hotel Director Deborah has been with Celebrity for many years, and wants the brand to return to what it was a few years ago.  I have found this to be true of all of the HDs we have interacted with, and there have been many over the last 16 months.  
 

Did they decide to stop serving donuts and scones in the Oceanview at tea time?  Yes, they did, but they still had snacks available there, and they still had the lemon tarts in Cafe Al Bacio in the afternoon and evening.  Michael’s Club aka the retreat lounge had scones and tea sandwiches for those in suites.  I’m wondering if someone decided that they were rarely eaten in the OVC and decided to make them a perk for the retreat?  I’ve read online that scones for tea seem to be on a ship by ship basis.  
 

Breakfast and lunch in the buffet were well done and fully open every day.  Dinner was scaled back.  We still saw plenty of choices for dinner every night in the buffet when we walked through.  To be blunt, there was so much food waste in the buffet at night, I’m not against some scaling back. I believe they need to put in a cook to order protein station every evening during dinner rather than a carving station.  I believe it will have less waste.  
 

Meals in the MDR and Luminae were always good.  We took most of ours in Luminae (more choices that way) but frequently ordered from the MDR menu since they share kitchen space.  There were a number of new items on the menus, and a number of loved items were gone.  Some of that may be due to budget, but some is simply normal menu re-works.  Some may be due to inventory issues.  We spoke with the inventory manager at a reception one evening, and he mentioned struggling to procure some items he normally has on board.  Yet, when I expressed a desire for something, he went out of his way to source it mid-cruise for me.  
 

We had dinner two nights in Tuscan Grille, and we had as good a meal as ever.  The service was good, the food was good and plentiful.  Was it more expensive than in the past?  Yes… but so is everything else.  We had OBC-N to use, so we used it. 

 

One thing I notice, after sailing on Princess in December… Celebrity ships are just more clean than many others.  We saw, as usual, people constantly cleaning.  We saw the public area restrooms constantly being maintained.  The stairwells constantly being cleaned and sanitized. We observed a crew member on his hands and knees wiping down the bases of chairs and the kick plates at the Martini Bar.  We observed crew washing the floors in the OVC whenever they could.  
Tables on Celebrity are sanitized with a squirt bottle and wash rag.  This results in a cleaner table, one that seems more sanitary.  On the recent Princess cruise, whenever a table was wiped down, a pail of water was used, and that “cleaning solution” never seemed clean to start with.  The bases of tables were cleaner, the seats wiped down, and the floors actually vacuumed and moped rather than just swept.

 

I enjoyed my cruise and can’t wait to go on another one!

[mahdnc]

Good to read that you had a great cruise.  Constellation is a nice ship with a good crew. Can you give me an example(s) of when you had to talk to a supervisor because you "saw something that was not quite right"?

[Algebralovr]

The service in Al Bacio was severely lacking the first few days.  We would sit down and it would be quite some time before a bar server made it around the area.  Then, they never checked back again, even 45-60 minutes later.  
 

Al Bacio is our favorite place to hang out,  I will sit there, enjoy pot after pot of tea, embroider and listen to an audio book.  
 

I noticed one server would walk past from the bar to the end of the area toward the hall, and purposefully not look toward the seating area near the windows (up the couple of steps).  I finally went to guest relations, asked for them to please send up the Asst bar manager responsible for the area, and then provided some feedback.  Let him know what I had observed, and how out of the norm it was.  I suggested some training was needed, and that he might want to spend some time observing (better, watching the cameras) to know what training to provide.  There was a lot of “hanging out” by the bar servers next to the bar, for example. 
 

Another time, we noticed how some of the staff in the buffet would walk past tables and not ask to clear plates. They were waiting for the guests to leave the tables, not clear as they went.  Again, not the normal behavior we previously experienced.  A few words to a M’D and the next day we saw immediate improvement.  
 

The OVC staff were MUCH heavier on “snack attendants” than previous cruises.  Snack attendants are the very first job, lowest paid, even below Asst waiter.  They are the starting place, and their job is mostly to clear tables and wipe down tables, but they can also go get drinks and anything else a waiter can do.  However, they need to be trained in the expectations, such as, if you see 2-3 empty plates and cups, ask if you can remove them.  
 

Usually, a lot of the training of new snack attendants and Asst waiters is done by “head waiters” who have progressed up the ramp and are training to be a pm Asst M’D.  They are a manager without being quite a manager. I only saw one with that title the entire cruise, rather than the 3-5 I usually see.  

 

[realnice46]

We just returned from a Princess cruise to Mexico out of San Francisco. First cruise on Princess in 50 years. It was nice to cruise from a port where we didn’t have to fly and just a 30 minute drive. It was very nice in general, but I think we will stay with Celebrity. Although food quality is down the overall experience much better, Celebrity ships are just better set up. On Princess seemed like we were constantly walking from one end of ship to other and running into dead ends, Entertainment venues smaller, MDR dining was broken up into 3 separate venues. Public bathrooms very small and not well maintained no indoor pool, so when it was cold you were stuck inside and not really and good lounge areas that looked on to the ocean, such as Celebrity Sky Lounge. We were on Crown Princess and they used the beautiful Piazza for games like bean bag toss, paper airplane making etc. These are just my opinions bur

t thought I would share.

[mahdnc]

On 2/15/2023 at 10:19 AM, Algebralovr said:

The service in Al Bacio was severely lacking the first few days.  We would sit down and it would be quite some time before a bar server made it around the area.  Then, they never checked back again, even 45-60 minutes later.  
 

Al Bacio is our favorite place to hang out,  I will sit there, enjoy pot after pot of tea, embroider and listen to an audio book.  
 

I noticed one server would walk past from the bar to the end of the area toward the hall, and purposefully not look toward the seating area near the windows (up the couple of steps).  I finally went to guest relations, asked for them to please send up the Asst bar manager responsible for the area, and then provided some feedback.  Let him know what I had observed, and how out of the norm it was.  I suggested some training was needed, and that he might want to spend some time observing (better, watching the cameras) to know what training to provide.  There was a lot of “hanging out” by the bar servers next to the bar, for example. 
 

Another time, we noticed how some of the staff in the buffet would walk past tables and not ask to clear plates. They were waiting for the guests to leave the tables, not clear as they went.  Again, not the normal behavior we previously experienced.  A few words to a M’D and the next day we saw immediate improvement.  
 

The OVC staff were MUCH heavier on “snack attendants” than previous cruises.  Snack attendants are the very first job, lowest paid, even below Asst waiter.  They are the starting place, and their job is mostly to clear tables and wipe down tables, but they can also go get drinks and anything else a waiter can do.  However, they need to be trained in the expectations, such as, if you see 2-3 empty plates and cups, ask if you can remove them.  
 

Usually, a lot of the training of new snack attendants and Asst waiters is done by “head waiters” who have progressed up the ramp and are training to be a pm Asst M’D.  They are a manager without being quite a manager. I only saw one with that title the entire cruise, rather than the 3-5 I usually see.  

 

 

Thank you for providing the details to my question.