SunNFunCruzer

We agree its losing its luster. When we first started cruising, we cruised for itinerary. Then, as we continued to mature, we cruised to relax and see new places, but the brand, vibe and entertainment mattered. Then we started cruising HAL more often, and the entertainment and service took on even greater importance. After our last, and most recent, experiences on HAL and Celebrity, if the itinerary isn't spectacular, we've decided to book resort and land based vacations. The Solstice must be a training ship, because while HAL post-Covid wasn't a true HAL pre-Covid experience, the Celebrity Solstice at times was a true disappointment. We have been called debbie downers with an agenda, but we have no agenda. See for yourself, if you want to be enlightened, look for Solstice reviews from average state room folks, not just Suite Life folks. Everyone knows Suite, and on Solstice, Aqua passengers are treated differently, and I'd guess are assigned the best staff. Of course, if you pay twice or three or four times as much for 6 star service and dedicated rooms, bars and staff, you may have a better experience than the average cruiser. Thank you for posting this question, Gordylad.

It docks in San Pedro. I don't know where you're flying from, but, in case of a flight cancellation, LAX will give you more flight options if you need to re-book.

Yes, me too! Fingers crossed. There were aspects of the cruise I enjoyed, and others I did not. My point was that our lists of pros and cons were similar. To make an analogy: imagine two diners eat a 4 course meal at a Michelin starred restaurant and find a hair in their food. One might pull out the hair, continue on, and enjoy the meal and experience. The other might immediately stop eating, say they were disappointed with the experience and head home early. The experience is the same, both diners had a meal served with a hair, but their reactions and responses differed. It's as if Solstice served us both a meal with a hair. You said "ship happens" and moved on, while I expected more from Celebrity when paying thousands of dollars for a week-long cruise. I hope the rest in your party remain Covid free.

Thank you for this. You have validated many of the pros and cons we mentioned in our post, below: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2883547-i-miss-hals-rotterdam-solstice-is-a-huge-disappointment/ I wonder if you meant the 9/16 and 9/24 cruises, as we were on the Solstice 9/24 to the Mexican Riviera and agree to heat was hard to manage. I was not surprised to read about fluctuating water temperature, but was surprised to hear you ever had cold water. Our cabin almost never had cold or cool water in the shower or sink. Did you catch the electric cellist? Interesting show, and being born in Ukraine, her music video was quite moving. Totally agree about the buffet and food quality. I thought a 6/7 out of 10 was generous. Sorry to hear you are Covid positive and hope you recover soon. There were so many more coughers at the end of the 9/24 cruise. I am not surprised to read that cruisers are testing positive. So far, we've remained Covid negative.

Heard from friends who boarded Solstice yesterday. The 6 foot pool was empty upon boarding. Crew told them the pools were extra warm because the ship had come down from Alaska. Apparently there were a lot of complaints about pool and cabin heat during the last cruise (1st to the MexRiv), so the pool was drained and the water temperature was lowered. Happy to see Celebrity being responsive. Still no confirmation if berries are available. No blueberries or raspberries available to guests on our 9/24 sailing other than single fruits in random drinks or as cake toppers.

Lol! Yes! We were typing at the same time. This is a great solution, and helpful to both parties.

Sorry to hear about your health challenges, I hope technology catches up to your ailment and helps. My understanding is the FCC are transferable. You may want to join a FB group or roll call group and look for someone local to you, then you can transfer your FCC to them and they can trade you something in return. Technically, I don't think you can sell a FCC for cash, but face to face, you can be more creative. I suggest someone local so you can be in the same room when you call Celebrity to apply to FCC to their cruise. There are a lot of scammers online and they are very slick and creative, so I'd make sure you know or have friends or a locality in common with the person on the other side of the transaction. You may even get help from a local brick and mortar travel agency in your hometown. If you have $780 left, I'd expect a trade in the $650-$680 range. Good luck! Hope this helps!

The Solstice has felt very light on the 9/24 sailing, and we were told the 10/1 will have even fewer passengers. Coughing all over the ship has increased dramatically, though. We took a Covid self-test today, and so far remain symptom free and negative. I have some concerns for the staff starting tomorrow when masks become optional. I really hope people start covering their mouths when coughing and sneezing. I wish I could post a video of the thoughtless and careless behavior from guests we've witnessed. The crew seem very new, inexperienced and a bit overwhelmed. I hope you'll post your observations. I'll be following your trip with interest. Enjoy your time on the sea! 🙂

Yes, Exactly as I posted in #54. Are you in a suite? No way to add a privacy curtain in our veranda stateroom, yet you posted a photo of privacy curtains in your stateroom and a suite passenger also confirmed a privacy curtain.

Upon further inspection, there is only 1 track with clips in our veranda state room on the Solstice, so no way to hang a privacy curtain. Our state room shall remain privacy-curtain-less. Seems suite passengers are treated differently, in more ways than one.

Rumor on the Solstice is that crew masks will come off at the start of the next cruise, October 1st. Bartender at outside deck Ocean view Cafe is already maskless. All other Solstice crew, as we've seen, remain masked, for now.

And crew get to keep individual tips on most lines, so guest facing crew make much more money working than in quarantine. And, yes, we tip individuals extra, as do many other cruisers, although I don't want to start a tipping war thread.

In 2019 when Royal was cash flow positive, the corporation had much less debt and interest rates were at historical lows. Now, they are carrying much more debt, debt is much more expensive, and refinancing that debt -- kicking the can down the road -- will be even more expensive, digging the debt hole deeper and deeper. Our current trip on Solstice is our first trip on Celebrity post covid. This is not the typical Celebrity product and we won't be rebooking Celebrity for at least a year or two if not more. The more people who have experiences and attitudes like us post covid, the less likely the line and stock will recover.

I've had the same experience. All staff masked up. In fact, when I approached to ask a question, A mask that was loosely on a face, was corrected and tightened. No sign of this new policy on Solstice yet thankfully.

"Huh" is right. This seems to be the tale of 2 cruises aboard Solstice. We do have a track and little plastic clips, but we didn't even think to ask for a curtain. See my earlier post about being low maintenance. Hopefully whoever gets our cabin next reads CC and knows to ask for a curtain. A little more good news: As we head to Ensenada, where the air temps are a reported 78 degrees, the ocean air temperature has dropped making both the balcony and cabin cooler. I wonder if, as mentioned earlier, the ship just couldn't keep up with the sweltering outside air temperatures. Looking forward to some cool relief for the next few days!

Does this mean that the mandatory quarantine of infected and positive cruisers is also over? How can you have one, without the other? Where did you learn this?

The post above brings up another negative about Solstice. On prior cruises, my balcony stateroom has had a thin white privacy curtain ~as well as~ a thick blackout curtain. On Solstice the privacy curtain is missing, so its full open direct sun (and zero privacy) in the already hot cabin, or it's a dark and closed off experience. I'd love to see a list of items that ~ I ~ posted about, about the Solstice, that would be considered "nitpicking".

There are numerous small yachts carrying 16 passengers, which, I believe, is the limit that a single naturalist can bring in to the Galapagos on a single naturalist license. There are yachts that pick up on Baltra and others San Cristobal. You can book spots through brokers or direct through yacht operators. Many yachts reserve spots on flights from Quito and elsewhere in Ecuador and help passengers book because they also resupply their vessels via flight cargo on these flights. Celebrity carries higher passenger counts, higher costs, and to my understanding less personalized service. You can certainly fly out of Baltra or San Cristobal back to Ecuador and on to Peru. If you are active and skilled enough to get yourself to a ship that sails in the Galapagos, you should be able to coordinate a more tailored Yacht experience + a trip to Machu Picchu. Good luck and hope this helps!

Lol. That would help no one but the cruise line and the travel agents and others who benefit from bookings. I'd been on Celebrity pre-Covid and the Celebrity Solstice, at least, is Not the same Celebrity product. There seem currently to be 2 posters on the Solstice -- I've been on the ship once, the other has been on the ship 8 times. We have differences of opinion and experience. It seems that on Saturday, a few more posters will board. I'll be curious to learn if they have the same experience we're having, or if they are less high maintenance. Although I'm fairly confident that if you put a dozen couples in a line at the end of a typical cruise and ask the crew to put us in order of most to least "demanding", we'd be on the lower end of that spectrum -- from the crew's perspective. When I give a corporation thousands of dollars, and my time, for an advertised product or service, I expect that product or service. Other than the hiccups at Lincoln Center Live, HAL delivered. Celebrity has not.

Thank you for this. We are enjoying the cruise, but there are disappointing aspects. We've asked fellow cruisers questions that only people onboard can answer, so this is our way to pay that back. I'm sorry if my observations are so disturbing to some; maybe they will provide incentive for Celebrity to make changes to improve the deficiencies. For example, there is no reason for all the pools to have ~85-90 degree water in an area where the real feel temps are over 100 degrees and there is an internal solarium pool and a second shallow outdoor pool. That's the perfect opportunity to keep one or two pools cool, and one heated, or two heated and one cool. And the air conditioning is struggling And the cold water shower tap in our cabin often runs warm to lukewarm not cold, cool or refreshing, so how would y'all recommend someone on the Solstice get some relief from the heat?! That's not a high maintenance request.

Oh.... And both internet and TV signal seem back to normal now.

Count yourself lucky. Although I doubt you had uninterrupted service.... Why would Celebrity warn that service would be spotty? and why on earth would we lie? We started the cruise complimenting the internet's speed and stability. In any case, we have photos of both our internet and tv without signal for hours. And Celebrity knows the volume of data via upload and download at any given day and time and Celebrity can clearly investigate and determine when their system(s) was (were) offline and for how long.

I forgot to add in post 106, every in room TV news channel is either frozen or saying "no signal" as we're docked in Cabo, so cellular data is the only reliable way to communicate.

An update about the internet on Solstice in the MexRiv.... It is unreliable and often fails to work. Today we're in Cabo with family in Ian's path and in addition to premium internet being slow and unreliable, every news channel is either frozen or showing "no signal". I have to use my cellular data plan to communicate with work and family. And, as I said, we have the premium package. Internet in PV was almost nonexistent -- hours long periods with no connectivity or constant drops. There was a note 2 days ago in Celebrity Today to expect internet outages and a statement that prices were adjusted, but we received no credit and internet was expensive.

Solstice update: the internet has been terrible. Even Premium. Impossible to work yesterday in Puerto Vallarta, had to use mobile data. Even now, early morning, it took over an hour of attempts to get stable enough just to post this and load CNN. Also, at the ramp threshold last evening at the back of deck 14 (Ocean view cafe) we heard a commotion and saw a man in his 70's almost face plant as he tripped coming outside. Then we saw a younger woman stumble at the same place. I stand by my assessment that this ship probably has a higher accident rate. Oh, and as the sea's swells increase, the ship's creaks are LOUD. Positives: the bartenders @ the Martini Bar are putting on quite a show. Very talented. There are large wooden deck chairs on the outdoor deck below the lifeboats, I believe deck 5. It does not fully wrap around the ship, but newer ships are just adding a few stationary benches, so having movable deck chairs lower down and outdoors is nice (although its HOT). Negative: It has been very HOT and difficult to enjoy the outdoors. They really need to fix the hot pool water problem, at times even the cold water in the shower is warm. It's been hard to catch a break from the heat. Our thoughts are with those in Ian's path.