mahdnc

Here is the smoking policy that was issued during our Apr 20 Summit sailing. It is largely unchanged from the past:

Thank you! I read your other post about your cruise and it sounds like you had a pretty nice time.

Which specific sailing? I could not find a 13 nighter leaving Amsterdam in Jun.

We drove up to Madison, Wisconsin to escape the bright city lights of Chicago where we live. The aurora was quite visible on Friday night--it basically covered the whole sky including overhead. There was nothing to see on Saturday night despite clear skies. We drove home today but I will take a peek tonight to see if there is anything out there. Here are some photos that I took on Friday night and very early Saturday morning. They were all taken with a 16 mm wide angle lens with a full frame DSLR camera. These were taken from the same spot on the south shore of Lake Mendota. The constellation Leo was shining through the aurora in each of he photos (the stars are more conspicuous when you click/tap on them to see a larger photo). This photo was taken from the parking lot and it is looking at the sky opposite from where the above photos were taken. If you tap/click on the photo, the Big Dipper is easily seen above the trees: These two photos were taken from looking straight up. The view was surreal. I can only imagine how awesome the view must have been from Alaska!

Very nice!

I am sorry for your ordeal but I am glad you finally made it home. I do wish for you a speedy recovery. Your stories regarding wheelchair navigation was very eye opening to me. I haven't looked at the world that way before.

We went to Madison, Wisconsin last night to see the aurora. We live on the south side of Chicago so the city lights are bright in the northern sky. If you drive north of Chicago, you have the city lights of Milwaukee in the northern sky. So off to Madison we went. Got there at midnight and watched/photographed the spectacle until 3 am. While dim with muted colors to the naked eye (compared to photographs), the aurora was everywhere in the sky including directly overhead. It was constantly changing shapes and colors. It was wild. This odd shot is taken of the aurora directly overhead (hence no foreground objects--just stars).

Yes, that would be it! Nice. We will be sailing with the DaKahuna to Hawaii. Please trot on over to our roll call and announce yourselves!

We sailed in stateroom 8166 on this sailing and also on our prior Summit sailing back in 2010. In fact we have been in 8166 on Constellation, and Infinity (twice) for a total of 5 times. It's been our home away from home. The veranda is huge. It is 14 foot wide and its longest dimension is 14.7 feet for a total of 327 square feet--larger than the interior space of most cabins. Back in 2010 (first photo), the balcony floor was made of some type of synthetic rubber. The surface was slightly gritty (not smooth) to prevent slipping on it. Today (next photo) the balcony floor is made of some type of wood (or faux wood) planking. It looks much much nicer today than it did back in 2010. The deck furniture is also nicer today. Notice the white horizonal structural support bar in the upper right corner of the 2024 photo below that isn't present in the above 2010 picture. That bar is used to help support the overhead cover for the adjacent balcony. Our balcony had ample overhead coverage which came in handy during the Panama Canal crossing because of the rain. There is also plenty of space for those that want direct sunlight. The balcony has an overhead light that can be used at night. It is not visible in either photo.

Pool Deck today: and in 2010.

We just got back from our Panama Canal cruise. We took two "Small Group" shore excursions through Celebrity. In both cases, we signed up for the activity/destination and not so much because it was a small group. The first small group tour was in Costa Rica. I would say we had about 20 people or so. The second one was a sail and snorkel shore excursion. We had about 13-15 passengers in attendance.

We have been onboard Solstice 3 times--twice in a balcony cabin (not suite nor AquaClass nor Concierge Class) and most recently (Jan 2024) in an AquaClass cabin. The two balcony cabins had a shower head that mounted on the wall with no ability to adjust the height. I think that is what you will find for your Deck 3 Oceanview and Inside cabins. My wife uses a CPAP machine. The outlets are all mounted by the desk on the wall opposite from the bed. This means the extension cord will run along the floor to your nightstand. This is a pretty standard arrangement for all staterooms on Solstice except perhaps for the suites.

Here are photos of the Grand Foyer today: and in Aug 2010: If you tap/click on the photos, it will be easier to see them. What do you think of the difference between now and back then?

I would have to say that the current casino interior decoration (top photo) is better than when I saw it back in Aug 2010 (bottom photo):

That’s a shame although the original port time wasn’t that great to begin with. Sorry it worked out like that.

Bob, our next cruise is the Apr 2025 Transpacific sailing on Solstice (Sydney to Honolulu). How about you? Oh, and how is your wife's recovery coming along? David

I incorrectly captioned the first photo in the prior post as being taken from the 29th floor. Our room was on the 28th floor (Room 2810). Sorry for the confusion.

I’m sorry about your accident!

Nice! It seems like you often luck out with air fare!

Hi, Ruth! I didn't quite follow the 2nd half of your post (the part I quoted in this post). In the 2-4-2 instance, would you purchase the two outboard seats? And you would upgrade both coach seats to two coach-plus seats? Yes? And what plane these days have 2-4-2? It sounds kinda like the old 767 planes, but every time I have flown long haul on United it's either 787 or 777 which have 3 outboard seats in each row. David

Is "anti-social" not one of the reasons listed?

how does one go about buying an extra seat (e.g. middle seat) to keep it empty?

No, sorry--I never asked him about the origin or derivation of his name.

Marcia and I got off the ship healthy and remain that way. I am sorry to hear about your norovirus. Maybe we would have all gotten infected if there was a slot pull!

Here is our stateroom attendant, Gede (pronounced like “good day”). He is from Indonesia and fairly experienced. He last worked aboard Millennium. Gede was pretty efficient and generally we were pleased with his efforts. It took a couple of days early in our cruise for him to understand our schedule so that he could get our cabins made up while we were out. Also our cabin was missing a few things at the beginning of the sailing like the room service breakfast cards and laundry form that we had to chase him down to get for us. On the other hand, when we pointed out a few things with our cabin that needed repair, he saw to it that it was addressed by maintenance fairly quickly. Gede was responsible for the aft cabins (including ours and @julieawill) and a few cabins on the port side of the ship. Because our aft cabin door was on the starboard side hallway, we didn’t see him that much as we went about our day. We did run into Oana from Romania quite a lot as she had 17 cabins on the starboard side of the ship including @Bob29321. She seemed to be always out there cleaning. We would say hi to her at least 5-6 times a day as we were going or returning from our cabin. We asked her why she seemed to be always working. She explained that in addition to performing the daily tasks that go into servicing a cabin, she likes to devote extra time to performing a deep clean in a portion of the cabin (she would rotate the portion of the cabin that needed to be deep cleaned). She said that is how her mother raised her. Pretty impressive. It is always amazing to me how cheerful these stateroom attendants were every minute of every day. Telling us with a smile to have a nice day and then turning around to clean a bathroom.