After taking a number of cruises with Royal Caribbean International, we decided to try another line where we might enjoy even more luxurious treatment. We decided to take a 16-day transatlantic cruise aboard Celebrity’s ship Constellation. This highly rated ship lived up to its reputation.

As we stepped aboard the Celebrity Constellation, we were delighted when a lady wearing classy white gloves appeared with a silver tray filled with glasses of chilled Champaign, mimosa and orange juice. In contrast, Royal Caribbean provides coffee, tea and cookies at a table on the pier which is nice but much less classier than Celebrity’s approach.

Then as we sipped our mimosa, a staff member stepped forward and graciously offered to escort us to our cabin. After we arrived he then offered to stay and help us unpack. We dismissed him as we expected our luggage to take an hour or two to appear. How wrong we were!

 

Fifteen minutes after we settled into our cabin, there was a gentle knock on the door and there were our bags! How did they get them up from the pier to our cabin so quickly? We were astounded!

The Celebrity cabin which was a private veranda cabin on deck nine was, by our standards, extremely small. The bathroom was almost double the size of the much more cramped Royal Caribbean version. But when you expand the bathroom, you do so at the expense of the cabin itself. This left us living in a rather cramped cabin. (We had to slide along the wall to get around the bed.)

Cabin attendants on Royal Caribbean and other lines are always at least good. We’ve never run into a disagreeable attendant. They are usually very efficient and usually wear a pleasant smile. But our cabin attendant on the Constellation (Tina) took her craft to the next level. She was efficient, thorough, smiling and had an attitude toward her clients that I can only describe as gracious.

She was always smiling and bubbly and ever-eager to help us enjoy our cruise experience. The dinner room staff was also efficient and warmly friendly. The food was yet another factor that exceeded our expectation. Though it was a bit too fancy for some folk’s tastes, I found it very enjoyable.

The selection of dishes was wider and more varied than with RC (and other lines). When they offered desserts, they took our orders and returned with them along with a half dozen other desserts (the ones we didn’t order) for us all to sample. It was a veritable orgy of calories!

One silly thing we noticed about the Celebrity Constellation. There are mirrors everywhere! Our cabin was plastered with them – even in the bathroom! Some of the elevators have three mirrors for walls and even have angled mirrors in the corners! I got sick of looking at myself in this hall of mirrors!

We're used to Royal Caribbean that makes their announcements in only English so the Celebrity public address announcements which are made in three or four different languages (English, Spanish, French, German and occasionally Italian) were a bit long and irritating.

Unfortunately our Celebrity cruise experience turned sour midway across the Atlantic. On a Royal Caribbean ship the passenger list is usually made up of mostly Americans with a few foreigners thrown in to make things interesting. On the Constellation the passengers were mostly of foreign origin with a generous group of Portuguese.

From the very first day aboard we noticed people hacking away with deep chesty coughs. On several occasions we avoided climbing into elevators with obviously ill passengers in an effort to remain healthy.

Our efforts were in vain. By day seven we were both sick as dogs with a nasty upper respiratory infection I called "walking pneumonia". From day nine on we had to have our meals brought in by room service as we were no longer able to make it to the restaurants.

In my opinion approximately one quarter to one third of the passengers eventually came down with this insidious bug. When we reported to the onboard medical clinic we were offered our choice of oral antibiotics or the same drug administered by IV infusions.

The doctor’s fee came to $200 and the oral antibiotic cost an additional $20. Those who chose the more effective IV infusions were charged a whopping $1,050 for three treatments! We met one lady who had had three sets of these IV treatments. Her husband was complaining about the cost (and the apparent lack of effectiveness).

The day before our arrival we were still extremely ill. Fortunately the antibiotics kicked in that last day and we were barely able to make the trek home. After our return it was a full six weeks before we were both fully recovered.

I called Celebrity and asked for the name and mailing address of their customer relations manager. I wrote the lady a letter to let her know how poor our experience had been. I received no response.