Celebrity Constellation

Celebrity Constellation as seen sailing past the Spaarnwoude nature area, a wide green space located between Amsterdam and IJmuiden at the Northsea Canal. The date is the 3rd of may 2009.

Celebrity Constellation was built at the Chantiers de L'atlantique wharf at Saint-Nazaire, France and she is a part of the Millenium-class. When she floated out at the 31st of october of 2001, she was still named Constellation and she was the fourth and last member of the class. Her earlier sisters were Millennium, Infinity and Summit. Constellation was slightly bigger then her earlier sisters, making her the largest ship within the Celebrity fleet when she was introduced, measured at 90.280 tons. The ship is 294 meters long,. 32 meters wide and her draft is 8 meters. Aboard, there is room for some 2450 passengers maximum (based on two passengers per cabin the number given is 2038) and 999 crew on her 13 decks. Like her sisters, she is fitted with a COGAS power plant of gas turbines and a steam turbine for electrical systems and she is driven by Rolls-Royce/Alstrom designed Mermaid pods. The story about those can be found at the page of Millennium.

Constellation was christened at the 12nd of may 2002 and after that, she took up station for her first season of northern-European cruises. She was not an exception to the propulsionproblems that her sisters had suffered and her maiden cruise in may 2002 had to be cancelled because her pods had sprung a leak. Her first cruise started in Barcelona on the 12th of may 2002, just after her naming, and she sailed that summer in the Mediterranean Sea before moving to the Caribbean in the winter that followed. Normally, she sails northern Europe between may and august. In spring and fall she sails the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and in winter she is found in the Caribbean. She have been sailing this scedule since her introduction untill the summer of 2014.

Below, the ship is seen just after leaving the north lock at IJmuiden in 2005. She is shown under her original name. 

In 2007, the ship was renamed in the new naming style of Celebrity Cruises, when the company name was added as a prefix to the ships names. I think it is sad that cruisecompanies think it is needed to do so, because it doesn't make the names of the ships prettier in my opinion. But she was renamed Celebrity Constellation and her exteriour was also repainted and the Celebrity logo on the hull modernized. 

A special ceremony was held in Amsterdam when Celebrity Constellation departed the city at the 6th of september 2014. Since the summer of 2006, Amsterdam had been her summer homeport and from the 2015 season onwards, the ship will be replaced here by Celebrity Silhouette. Celebrity Constellation has called in Amsterdam 63 times and some 290.000 guests and crew have sailed her from the Dutch capital. The symbolic 'reverse Plaque and Key' ceremony was attended by Charles Hendrix, the vice consul general of the US in The Netherlands and the chairman of Amsterdam Cruise Port, Hans Gerson. When the ship departed, a choir bade her farewell and hundreds of blue and white balloons were released.