Baltic Cruise May 2nd 2009.

To begin at the beginning. We arrived at Harwich in good time to find a queue of vehicles a hundred yards long . Apparently Celebrity had little or nothing to do with the process involved in parking . This was a nightmare, as we waited another 30 minutes to park our car. Having parked , registering and getting on to the Constellation was a relatively simple process and all credit to Celebrity. Departing the ship at the end of the cruise was a smooth and efficient process and "ran like a Swiss watch."

The Constellation is an older ship launched between 2000 and 2002 She has a displacement of 91,000 tons and can carry about 2,000 passengers. Having said that ,I felt that there was little sign of wear. Everything seemed to be relatively new and shiny. If you looked hard enough however,  signs of her age could be found. The dreariest venue on the ship was the "bar at the edge of the world". This was a dire area on the Sunrise deck and was once known as "Reflections". It was divided into smoking and non smoking sides.(who believes that smoke takes sides?) and the whole room reeked of tobacco .I strayed there but once, for some evening entertainment, and never went back. The library on board is small and functional but needs a good over hall together with some love and affection. It might also be worth investing in some stock which reflects on British interests, whilst sailing from UK based ports. There are lots of small areas were one might secret oneself away for that quiet read. The many shops were amongst the best I have seen on recent cruises and were presented in a very pleasant small mall. My wife put her foot down here and stopped me from buying a watch at $1600 ,which I reckoned to be a good saving on the UK price.(she says I can get one on St Thomas, next year!) Read more