OrcaGirl

sometime between 7:30am and 8am for self-disembark … YMMV if the ship docks in its usual spot at the regular pier.

No official masking requirement, plenty of people coughing without any attempt made to cover their months, move away from others, etc. 😷. Honestly, sometimes it felt like we were the only ones who remember that the pandemic is still a thing. The Fox and I wore masks anytime we were in an indoor space that wasn’t our cabin unless we were actively eating/drinking. We’re also both relatively anti-social people, so for the most part we kept to ourselves. I’ve managed to go on four cruises now since the restart without getting COVID yet; the Fox had COVID earlier this year and had no desire to repeat that experience. So we were more cautious than most seemed to be. We both had second thoughts after the vaccination and testing requirements were lifted, but by that point we were emotionally invested (and were both able to get our second boosters just prior to the cruise). And we both were more nervous about the flight down than anything else. I brought a couple of COVID rapid tests with me just in case, but never felt the need to use them. If either of us get sick or test positive, I’ll report back.

Day 8 - disembarkation Woke up early to the melodious sounds of port workers and Solstice crew yelling at each other. Who needs an alarm? We grabbed a final breakfast and final mimosa, said a final selamat pagi and terima kasih to my fav waiter, grabbed our bags and said goodbye to our cabin (7130), and headed to Quasar to wait for our final excursion. Customs and immigration was perfunctory, and we were soon herded onto a shuttle bus to a luggage tent. Except the luggage for most people on the excursion wasn’t there yet, and more non-excursion people kept arriving and it was a bit chaotic. But our luggage showed up on the next cart, and we headed out to our coach bus. Our tour was billed as ‘Beachfront Santa Monica, Malibu & Beverly Hills with Airport Drop-off’. I’m going to sound like such a b%¥€& but this was a very disappointing tour. I don’t think my expectations were especially high, so it was a low bar, but nonetheless a strongly worded “I’m not mad I’m just disappointed” email will be directed to Celebrity Shore Excursions once I’m home. So the positive things: The coach bus was comfortable and in good condition. The driver seemed like a nice and interesting guy. The weather was great and traffic was surprisingly not bad. We enjoyed our time in Santa Monica and got to ride the Ferris wheel which was AWESOME! And then the big negative thing: Our guide made a dumb-but-understandable mistake but then lied about it. Even though the first two rows of passengers heard him tell the driver about his mistake. (Basically, he misread an email from the tour company and as a result, completely skipped going to Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. But then later claimed he intentionally decided to skip Beverly Hills because he thought traffic would be worse and ‘in the past, guests complained if they missed Malibu’.) So yeah, we would have been understanding if he’d fessed up, but the bald-faced lies really irked us. I could b&$@% more about other stuff but won’t. We got dropped off at the airport, I bid a fond farewell to the Fox, and I’m now sitting at LAX, waiting for my husband to arrive so we can head to Disneyland for a couple of days. Feel free to follow along that trip too over on IG stories (erin_braincandy).

Day 7 - Ensenada, afternoon/evening Upon returning to the ship, we wanted to take naps in the cabin, but holy heck there was a very strong smell of varnish on deck 7 forward. Never did find out what it was, but we relocated poolside instead until sailaway. But first, a pit stop to grab my free scoop of gelato. It was delicious. We finally decided to get ready for dinner but got distracted by SO MANY SEALS in the water right by the ship and stayed up on deck for sailaway. Dinner was in the buffet. And then it was time for Broadway Cabaret. Less of a production show, more the singers belting out their favourite Broadway songs. And it did really showcase their voices. The Fox and I are both musical theatre nerds so we enjoyed ourselves immensely, and I was impressed that they included songs from more modern musicals like The Book of Mormon (You and Me But Mostly Me) and Hamilton (The Room Where It Happens). And that the choice from Rent was Take Me or Leave Me. Alas, after the show we had nothing to do but return to our cabin and pack. The Solstice was set to dock at the ‘outer berth’ (Terminal 46) and the disembarkation instructions said no carrying off luggage, so we set out our luggage and retired to bed for the evening.

Yes, we ended up having four different time changes and as a result I never knew what time it was.

Day 7 - Ensenada, morning/afternoon It was a misty morning as we approached Ensenada. We had breakfast (the hash brown quality improved as the cruise went on), watched the crew basically parallel park the ship, and then headed off the ship to meet our shore excursion. We had chosen the Food and Tequila Walking Tour. (A couple of weeks ago, we received an email that ‘due to operational reasons’ the tour start time had changed from 10am to 11am, but the app and our excursion tickets still said 10am and that was when it did indeed start.) I’m gonna skip the detailed play by play of the tour, but instead give a summary of personal high points and low points. High points: The shrimp tacos were delicious, as was the horchata. The mango paleta at the end was a perfect icy treat on a hot day. We were able to sample eight different tequilas. The Fox bought an absolutely beautiful hand-painted bottle of tequila. There was a lot of beautiful public art along our route, and who doesn’t love multiple large city name signs. Low points: I didn’t love the number of times the guide mentioned that the food and drinks weren’t included but we were getting them as a bonus. No, we paid for a tour that included samples of food and drinks. Of note, the description said we were going to stop for ceviche tostadas and beer, and we never did. The guide was very nice but sort of lost control of our group, and a lot of time was wasted standing around. At one point, two people wanted to leave and keep exploring independently and it became a whole thing. At this point, I just wanted some quiet time and honestly I mentally checked out. Ensenada was a little too noisy and aggressive for me. Random observation, that I may have already mentioned: The Norwegian Jewel was running a KISS cruise with stops in Cabo and Ensenada. Neither the Fox nor I are fans, but the guests all seemed like a fun group of people.

After our Deal or No Deal shenanigans, we spent some more time chillin’ in our cabin, listening to the waves, and then got ourselves gussied up for the final elegant night. To the MDR. I had the French onion soup (which was delightfully gooey but ultimately too big for me to finish), followed by the lobster. Nom nom! We then headed to the final production show, Amade. This one was great, still a mash-up show of modern songs but with a historical twist. Or, as the Fox commented during the first song, “What in the Alexander Hamilton is this?!?” No plot? No problem! Give me pretty/bendy people dancing around in fun costumes to pop songs. Then we swung back to the ice bar just in time for the officers’ soirée and some martini shenanigans. And also martinis. Finally, we wrapped up our evening with a trip to the casino. We parlayed that $25 in free slot play we won during Deal or No Deal into another $100 or so between us! Not too shabby!

I was *just* saying that I need to have someone pay me to cruise and live-blog it… 🤣

Oh she’s *much* more photogenic than me… But it’s been so fun introducing her to cruising and I’m so very happy that she’s enjoying herself.

Day 6 - at sea, morning/afternoon Okay, wow, this has been a day and it’s not even over. There was another time change last night, so I woke up before the cafe was even open but popped down to get me and the Fox some caffeinated beverages. Beautiful sunrise, but windy enough that the outside lower decks were closed. We had a lazy morning, chilling in our room, doing a bit of remote work, and eventually heading to the captain’s talk on navigation. (My husband’s first real job was hand-drawing marine navigation charts, and then installing some of the first computerized navigation systems on ships, so yeah, he’s old. He also isn’t on CruiseCritic… 🤣) Then it was time for the Fox to try out the S.A.F.E. archery. She previously trained in combat archery, but the ‘safety whiffle’ wasn’t exactly something she was used to. She nailed her first shot and got a big round of applause. But alas missed her second and third shots. We’ll blame the rocking of the boat. Apparently she can claim a prize tomorrow; anyone know what the prizes typically are? We headed back to the casino, where, in an act worthy of last night’s illusionist, I turned $20 into one cent in the blink of an eye. Lunch was really good, but it seems the ship is celebrating Thanksgiving every day? But not complaining, that stuffing was AMAZING! (The butter chicken was good too, but I prefer the Indian food on Norwegian.) And then it was volleyball time. My 6’5” volleyball playing husband will be so jealous he missed out. We watched the last of the qualifying rounds, but really, I was here for officers in uniforms in the pool. I’m a simple girl with simple needs. The officer intros were hilarious and they all seemed like really cool people. But alas we had to ogle and skedaddle, as it was almost time for Deal or No Deal. As a ‘classic’ captain’s club member, I got five cards for the price of four, and we split them between the Fox and myself. And then… **** my name got picked. I have anxiety and hate public speaking, it’s like flames on the side of my face, breathing, breathless, heaving breaths, etc. So yeah, I’m shaking but I head up there, pick my briefcases, don’t embarrass myself too much I don’t think. I’ll spare you the boring details but it came down to two briefcases: $300 and $1,000. The banker offered me $585 to walk away, and apparently the Fox was gesturing at me to take it but I didn’t see her and turned it down. DANG! My briefcase contained the $300. But that’s like $500 Canadian right? 🤣 We headed to the ABBA trivia next, but honestly I was still shaking from Deal or No Deal so we listened but didn’t play. I expected more factual ABBA trivia (which my husband is the expert in, not me) but it was just ‘name that song’ style. When I claimed my prize money at the casino, we found out that we also won $25 in slot play, so we’ll head back tonight to see how much trouble we can get into…

Okay, the problem with having too much fun is I forget to take notes on what we did and saw, and that makes writing a recap of the day hard…. 🤪 It was a beautiful morning in Cabo. We grabbed some coffee/tea and sat out on the balcony for a bit. At 8am on the dot literally hundreds of boats started racing past the ship. We later found out that it was a sport fishing regatta. Looked fun. Of the three ships in Cabo, Solstice was anchored closest to El Arco and we got lovely views from the top deck on our way to breakfast. We could even hear the sea lions barking during breakfast. We had booked the ‘Chileno Bay Deluxe Snorkel’ excursion, which met in the theatre. They escorted us to our own tender and then walked us straight to the catamaran. Spoiler: we had a great time, the staff were great, no complaints EXCEPT for the use of the word deluxe in the title. The catamaran was seaworthy and not over-packed, but it was not deluxe. But still super fun and I would still recommend it, just know that you’re not going to be laying out on the front webbing as the waves tickle your feet. I wasn’t feeling 100% confident with the conditions (slightly choppy) so I stayed on board. The Fox thoroughly enjoyed her snorkel experience, and saw many many cool fish. Meanwhile, the drinks were flowing, and the provided snacks (tortillas, salsas and some ham-and-cheese buns that were waaaaaay too delicious) were lovely. And then the music starts. I’ll spare you the video (but it’s on my IG Stories) but when I’m a couple drinks in and some completely-out-of-place country songs from my formative years come on, I’m gonna get a little rowdy. I’m singing along to Alan Jackson songs that I haven’t heard since I left the farm more than 25 years ago. You can take the girl out of the county, etc. I also ended up bonding with a lovely Irish couple over our shared love of Garth Brooks, so that was fun. 🥰 After we returned to the dock, the Fox and I wandered the shops and did a little souvenir shopping. I was still quite tipsy, but she did an excellent job of enabling only the necessary purchases: a new sunhat and a pretty spiny and sparkly wind thingy for my mom. We grabbed a tender back to the ship, and plopped ourselves near the pool until sailaway. Quick dinner in the buffet, and then we finally stopped by the library. The Fox was impressed by the fantasy selection, we were both displeased by some shelve labelling errors. Then to the evening show, illusionist Andrew Lee. TBH I’m not a fan of performers who have a whole long intro video telling me how awesome they are. Just come out and be awesome. The show was okay, but not the best illusionist I’ve seen at sea. After that it was to bed. No more hijinks for us. Random observations: Our tender to shore was operated by the Cabo marina, and one of our fellow passengers got hugely offended that the staff asked for tips. Given what cruising costs vs what these folks make, I’ve got no issue with any tourism-based staff asking for tips. I wish Celebrity put the staff’s country of origin flag on their name tags, not just the country name. My eyesight has gone to 💩 the last few years, but I like knowing whether a ‘terima kasih’ or ‘selamat po’ is the appropriate thank you. I had to squint real hard this morning to offer an ‘asante sana’ to a waiter from Tanzania, but it ended with him giving me several recommendations of lesser-known areas in his country to visit next year.

Catching up… Day 4, evening After returning from the beach excursion, there were showers and naps and rehydration. We didn’t feel like peopling, so we had dinner in an empty section of the buffet. It was very very good. The Fox was fading so she went back to the cabin, and I checked out the Broken Strings production show. It… wasn’t my favourite. It felt like a mash-up of Once and Choir of Man, a jukebox musical with the loosest of plots. On entertainment quality, I prefer Norwegian’s Broadway shows. I stopped at the casino bar for a G&T to take back to the room, and heard the casino host announce that everyone was getting $5 free slot play. So I stuck around 10 minutes until 8pm and tried my luck on my favourite fish slot game. I went up a few bucks but then lost it all promptly. Upon returning to the cabin, I peer-pressured the Fox into coming down to the casino to use her free $5 since it didn’t roll over to the next day. I encouraged her to pick a game that spoke to her. That turned out to be the Wheel of Fortune game, and a couple of spins later she hit a bonus and walked away with $77! Not bad for her first time playing slots.

Other than the glitch on the first sea day, it’s been adequate… we’ve got the ‘premium’ package. I’m finding that the speed comes and goes. I haven’t been able to use video on Skype or FaceTime, and haven’t tried Teams yet, but audio calls via the above have gone through fine. I’m posting videos to IG but they take a bit longer to post. and the wifi doesn’t work at all on our balcony. im supposed to be doing some remote work and will report back on how that goes *if* I can actually convince myself to do it.

More pictures:

What she said! 👍

Photos from the morning/afternoon:

After last night’s martini shenanigans, I thought I’d sleep like a log but alas I tossed and turned and just had a rough night. I left the Fox behind to rest while I grabbed a chocolate babka and coffee at Cafe al Bacio (from the same bartender from the ice bar last night; she took one look at me and laughed and said it wasn’t her fault 🤣) and then a Mexican eggs Benedict in the buffet. Eventually it was time to find the gangplank and meet our shore excursion. We had selected the Puerto Vallarta Beach Escape with a 9:30am meeting time. It was a ~30 min bus ride to resort, and then another ~20 min sitting in an idling bus at the gate while we waited for… I don’t know what? The resort to agree to let us in? It was weird, and there was waaaaaaay too much coughing from a few other passengers for our anxiety levels. (I think we were the only ones wearing masks.) Finally we were allowed to pull in and disembark. A bit more semi-organized chaos as we all shuffled into the lobby, picked up our welcome cocktail, and waited (too long) for an intro speech by the resort staff that absolutely could have been covered by the bus host and by handing out a little paper map of the resort. There was an optional upcharge to be allow to sit in the club area and dine at its ‘exclusive’ restaurant; if I’d had that information from the beginning I might have gone for it. The beach was lovely, the waves were crashing, and the lounge chairs were a bit hard to find in the shade but we did eventually snag two chairs and a staff dude came by and readjusted our umbrella perfectly. The pina coladas from the pool bar were delightful and the perfect not-too-boozy hair of the dog (or “eating bitey dog hair” as the husband of the Fox messaged her), and open from the time we arrived. The Fox stuck with water because she is far more sensible than me. I had read another review over on the Mexican Riviera forum that said no alcohol was served before 11am, but that wasn’t our experience. We grabbed lunch at the beach bar at the far end of the resort — not the best Mexican resort food I’ve had, not the worst. The taquitos were especially good. But alas no guacamole. After a sort-of nap and half-assed attempt at showering and drying off, it was time to meet our group and head back to the Solstice. Random observations: Other than a few windtorn fabric signs, no sign of the hurricane in the little bit of the area we saw from the bus. It’s a bit weird that the main restaurant that’s included with the excursion serves breakfast until noon, closes for an hour and then reopens for lunch at 1pm… Vendors were present but not aggressive. The Fox bought a lovely beach cover-up and some vanilla. If you’re gonna watch a show on your tablet on the beach (or bus), have the basic courtesy of wearing earphones. I want to listen to the waves, not your show. You don’t get to say that your resort has a Starbucks if it’s a “we proudly serve Starbucks coffee” situation. Let me earn stars or GTFO. (photos aren’t loading for me right now, will try to add them later.)

I remember getting an email about a wellness check, but not a wellness check itself. Nor were we ever asked to show our proof of vaccination. We needed to show our Xpress passes (phone was fine) and ID, but check-in seemed way faster than on Norwegian. Our flight was late as was the transfer bus so we missed our selected check-in time by an hour but no one asked or cared. But I’m not sure of what happens if you arrive early.

Okay, a slightly more fulsome recap of last night, but with the caveat that my memories may not be trustworthy. Dinner was in the MDR again. Same table, same waitstaff, no reservation, no wait. The pomegranate mojito was delicious. The asparagus salad with goat cheese and white balsamic dressing was good, and the Fox’s butternut squash soup with caramelized apples had her planning to recreate it upon our return home. The rigatoni was perhaps just a smidge too al dente for my taste, but the sauce and prosciutto and mushrooms were yummy. But the tiramisu was [chef’s kiss emoji]. After dinner we hustled to the theatre, but honestly, it wasn’t worth the blisters. The comedian was old-school, and jokes about how all wives are sex-withholding nags and all husbands are whipped (with a side of “isn’t it so stupid to be ‘woke’”) just aren’t our thing, so we skedaddled out of the theatre and straight to the ice bar. I won’t say that was a mistake, because fun was had and many delicious beverages were consumed, but wow do I regret not pacing myself. We ordered the martini flight to share, and I’m going to assume we were being hilarious and charming because the bartender then made us two medium-sized martinis on the house. (TBH the bar was really quiet and I think she was bored. Or maybe we were being loud and annoying and giving us something new to drink would shut us up for a few minutes to give her some peace.) AND THEN we somehow thought it was a good idea to each order a final full-size martini to end the night. Honestly I’m impressed we made it back to our cabin in one piece. Or two one-pieces? You know what I mean. I’m 95% positive I left a good tip but will be going back with cash money tonight just in case. Moral of the story: martinis are awesome, but maybe we should have stuck with sharing the flight and saved the rest for another night.

I’m a bad judge of temperatures. It was chilly and a little rainy as we left LA, warming up as we headed south. Not sure what to expect as we pull into Puerto Vallarta…

It was $35USD. There was only the one out, but it sounded like it would be easy for them to make more if requested. The staff at the hot glass studio make things as part of the first-day demo and whenever they don’t have bookings to have things to sell.

We pre-booked (for the 5% discount) but there were lots of people signing up once on board.

What’s the TL;DR equivalent of too drunk, can’t type? Last night in a nutshell: Dinner - so good Comedy show - so bad Martini bar - so dangerous More to come once the cabin stops spinning.

Day 3 - at sea, afternoon Spa time! The Fox enjoyed her seaweed something or other wrap and massage, but did comment on the upsell techniques employed by spa staff. My mani-pedi was also delightful, but I guess there was a minor miscommunication because the lady at the desk yesterday said she’d schedule us so that my pedicure would start while the Fox was still in her massage and then we’d have our manicures side-by-side, and that didn’t happen. Not a huge deal, we’re not joined at the hip, but I could see that upsetting others who did want to be together during their appointments. But sparkles! Grabbed treats from Cafe al Bacio and hightailed it up to the Sky Observation Lounge for constellation-themed cocktails and Disney trivia. I consider myself a ‘Disney adult’ (and am in fact headed to Disneyland for a few days right after we disembark) but boy I SUCKED at trivia. 7/15 answers right. Embarrassing. I will be having many martinis tonight to drown my sorrows. With nothing else planned for the day, we headed back to our cabin for naps / downtime until dinner. I need to do some remote work today or tomorrow, in theory, but I don’t wanna… Random observations: Cruise ship spas should have cocktail service. We should be able to check a box when making a spa appointment about whether we want to be chatty or not. Auto-correct shouldn’t be suggesting ‘margarita’ as a replacement for ‘daiquiri’. ***** Apple?!?! I just realized that our cabin doesn’t have any ‘do not disturb’ indicator. Huh.

We haven’t but I’ll try to swing by and ask.