Celebrity Cruises had to announce on the afternoon before we left home that the ship was no longer sailing from Singapore, but from Dubai. Amazingly we were redirected to Dubai for the first 4 nights instead of Singapore and whilst the hotel was not ideal (Holiday Inn in Festival City Dubai) it was adequate for 4 nights. The transport to and from the airport and Port Rashid on the day we set sail were all in place.

The cruise on Celebrity Constellation was absolutely fantastic. I guess helped with so many people not proceeding with their cruise for reasons mostly associated with the coronavirus. The ship was therefore not busy, anywhere and it seemed to add to the enjoyment and great atmosphere, especially from the staff who seemed to be trying even harder to make sure we had a wonderful cruise experience. Of course it was disappointing not to get to Singapore and we were equally disappointed not to visit Phuket but it was for our safety and well worth making the change.

Four cruise to start the cruise and then the cruise ports of Colombo, Sri Lanka and Cochin, India weren’t great. Or we just picked the wrong tours. However we enjoyed Goa (we went to Panjim) and absolutely loved Mumbai for two days. Muscat was super and then back to Dubai where we enjoyed an afternoon at the Miracle Garden (although 3 hours there was 90 mins too long). Read more