- 2022 Italy, Greece and Turkey: Venice, Italy Pre-Cruise Stay
- 2022 Italy, Greece and Turkey: Ravenna, Italy
- 2022 Italy, Greece and Turkey: Katakolon (Olympia), Greece
- 2022 Italy, Greece and Turkey: Ephesus (Kusadasi), Turkey
- 2022 Italy, Greece and Turkey: Mykonos, Greece
- 2022 Italy, Greece and Turkey: Thessaloniki, Greece
- 2022 Italy, Greece and Turkey: Piraeus (Athens), Greece
- 2022 Italy, Greece and Turkey: Zakynthos, Greece
- 2022 Italy, Greece and Turkey: Celebrity Constellation Dining Review
- 2022 Italy, Greece and Turkey: Celebrity Constellation Ship Review
This is going to be the strangest cruise ship dining review that I have ever written, because this was the first time I have ever not eaten nearly every evening meal in main dining room. We came to this cruise after a 7 night cruise to Norway with a large group. I thought it would afford me a chance to relax and decompress after a full week hosting and managing a group.
However, it ended up that I had a myriad of loose ends and follow-up admin that I needed to resolve with the cruise companies in Florida and on the West coast of the US. This is really where the time zone worked against me. I really couldn’t start making phone calls until 3:00 pm in Greece. Then, if I had to reach my West Coast clients, I couldn’t start calling until 6:00 pm. If I had to do a follow up call with a cruise line, that meant a call after speaking with my West Coast clients, it might not be 7:30 or 8:00 pm before I wound things up. It was so stressful to try to do things that might have pre-pandemic taken a 5 or 10 minute phone call, now took 1 to 3 hours on the phone. With staffing shortages and new hires, it just takes forever to reach the person who knows how and is empowered to get things done. This process was compounded by the fact that I was using slow internet for my email. The point of all this was that I felt too exhausted after a day of touring and a day of phone calls to really enjoy the formal dining in the main dining room.
What worked for us on this cruise was to dine alfresco out on the sunset bar or near a picture window in the Oceanview Cafe. This was our 4th Celebrity cruise in less than 6 months, so it worked well for us on this cruise, this itinerary, to forgo the main dining room most nights. I never thought I would say that, as I love the main dining room experience so much, but there is always a first.
Quite frankly I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Ocean View Café food for over a week. Each day they would have a different international theme, (British the day I took the pictures) along with a variety of other international favorites including Asian, Indian, and Italian. They had Greek food and Italian as the main theme on a couple of night too. There was never a crowd here, so it was a very relaxing way to enjoy dinner.
We did do one night in specialty dining at the Tuscan Grill, which is always a favorite for us and one night in the main dining room when they had the beef wellington and lobster tail, another favorite of mine!
Suzanne Klasen is the Owner / Travel Advisor of CruiseOne Suzanne Klasen. We have combined our love of cruising with computer skills to bring you a very informative and entertaining site that follows my cruising travels and thoughts. I hope that you will let me help plan your next vacation.
