April 4 Solstice Review

[mnolan770]

I posted this on our roll call board, but thought some might find it useful here. It is just a quick "off the top of my head" review of our cruise last week on Solstice.

 

Here are a few of my thoughts on the cruise. First, as a reminder, my wife and I are 40 and this was our second and third cruise. Others have been with Carnival.

 

Overall: I give it a B. It was a great vacation, but had some areas of improvement to meet the hype of Celebrity.

 

Embarkation: Great. Very smooth. On the boat in under 10 minutes.

 

Room: Verandah on the rear of the ship, 7th floor. Room was on the small side, but it is a cruise ship. The bed was very comfortable but the pillows were worthless. The TV had good programming. That came in handy later in the week when we ended up spending time in the room due to boredom. The cabinets throughout the cabin seemed like something you would find at Walmart. Our closet door would barely close and the handles were practically falling off. The drawers in the bathroom were both broken. The safe was nice and the fridge kept our soft drinks cool...not cold. The room attendants were good.

 

Food: The MDR was on par with chain restaurants on the mainland...i.e. Macaroni Grill and Outback Steakhouse. The salad dressings offered by the back waiter were never what was on the menu and often didn't go well with the salad. For example, there was a salad with Gorgonzola on it but they didn't offer the Celebrity Dressing or another cream based dressing. Even Ranch would have worked better than Thousand Island. When I asked for Celebrity, I was told no. That's probably more info than you needed on salad dressings, but it serves as a good example of the full dining experience.

 

Breakfast and lunch in the MDR were good, although service was slow.

 

Speciality Restaurants: We only ate at Murano and it was outstanding. The food was over the top. The service was impeccable. I was very impressed.

 

Buffet: Standard "Golden Corral" buffet fare. The layout was not well thought out. I found myself often walking in circles looking for things. I also noticed others doing the same thing.

 

Bars: Disappointed that all of the bars seemed to be just extensions of the main walkways. The exception to this was the Wine Cellar which was awesome. And the bar on the front of the ship, 14th floor. Aqualounge maybe. Not sure. It was nice but very underutilized.

 

Activities: We loved the Glass show. After a few days, we figured out how to get chairs in the sun. The Cirque style show was very well done. That's about it for activities. We were very bored near the end of the week.

 

Excursions: Had great excursions in St Kitts and St Maarten. St Kitts, we booked Rose and Jim's. Rose was our guide. She loves the island and did a great job of letting us see most of it. A lunch break would have been nice. You should try to book this couple if you want a great and affordable tour of St. Kitts. In St Maarten, we booked Captain Alan's Snorkeling Tour. It was great. The water was a bit rough that day, so we had to skip one snorkel spot. But he made up for it and took us to another spot that wasn't that great, but it did allow him to drop us back right at the boat. Ate a late lunch at a restaurant on the main drag by the beach near the ship. Second best meal of the cruise after Muranos. Chicken wings. And they were awesome.

 

Disembarkation: This was as smooth as the embarkation. I can't imagine a smoother exit plan than this one.

[tortugas]

Thanks for your review! Question::: what was your observation on how people were dressed? We don't do formal night, in fact, we usually skip MDR altogether as we prefer to just graze around and be casual. Only have one Celebrity cruise to compare, and just wondering how much more "dressed up" it will be than Royal Caribbean.

 

Glad you liked Murano! What did you have?? That's on our list.

[TennesseeTeachers]

Tortugas,

 

Dont skip the main dinning room. On Smart casual night I wore Kakhis and a nice button up shirt or golf shirt, same as i wear on Royal, Formal night wore a suit. Wife wore the same things she wears on Royal.

 

This was a Caribbean cruise so it is more laid back, compared to our Alaska Celebrity cruise.

 

Darrell Duncan

[LindaandJeff]

There will always be someone dressed fancier than you and someone dressed more casual than you. :D So, relax and follow the guidelines to the best of your ability. Also, on our last formal night they told people to change after dinner for the theme party.

[SeaBlu]

I am glad to hear that you enjoyed Murano, we have always loved the Specialty Restaurants of Celebrity. We have not sailed Solstice as yet, but will be in June. We will also be dining in Blu, which we are a little apprehensive about. We are also looking forward to trying Crush and the Martini Bar. On their "M" class ships the Martini Bar had the 'hole in the floor' and we always loved sitting in the Martini Bar and listening to the 'live' music.

 

One of the reasons that we love Celebrity so much is because we cruise to relax. We already know exactly what we want to do on the ship and do NOT want announcement on the loud speakers constantly blasting out about "bingo", "pool activities", etc. We wish to read, walk around and explore the ship, relax, read, etc. Some people want "to be entertained", and want LOTS of activities to choose from, rather than think of a way to entertain themselves. For one thing we camped for all of the years we raised our child and when camping you entertaining yourself. Cruising is like LUXURY camping to us. My DH has a VERY stressful job and we he cruises he wants 100% quiet, relaxation, table for 2 dining and does not even talk to a lot of people. We both LOVE the formal evenings, he always wears his tux, and likes dressing up and I do too. He ofter has 'black tie affairs' related to his job, but they are not "fun", aboard ship they are fun. We both enjoy the evenings, and do look forward to them, especially on longer cruises as a higher % of the passengers 'really' dress formal. Our chief complaint about cruising is that we never get enough "sea days".

Each to his own, that is why each Cruise Line is different and many of the ships within the Cruise Lines are different.

Perhaps, Celebrity was not a good fit for the two of you. We think that we were really lucky that our first cruise was on Celebrity and thus had a perfect first cruise. We have since sailed additional cruises on Celebrity as well as sailed on Carnival and Princess. We enjoyed our other cruises but NOTHING as much as Celebrity.

 

I hope that whichever Line(s) you sail in the future you find the "perfect" Line for you.

[dersar]

mnolan - thanks for the quick review. Very interesting. My husband and I are booked on the 5/2 Solstice sailing and are very excited. Glad to hear you loved Murano - we've got it booked on Friday. Any dishes in particular you would recommend? Also glad to hear you liked the Wine Cellar. I'm a wine fan, and most reviewers say the the Celler is a waste of space and usually empty. What did you like about it?

 

You mention in the review that you learned a trick to to get chairs in the sun. Would love to hear about that. Hubby and I love to lay in the sun on sea days.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated - thanks!

[Sanlin]

Thoughts from a long time HAL cruiser on our first Celebrity Cruise, overall, it was a good cruise. The ship was lovely and did like the music carrying up through the atrium elevator landings. We had 3 generations all doing different things during the day - GS loved the kids club and there were days we only saw him at breakfast and going to bed. No complaints from either of us on that aspect. DD enjoyed the gym and I relaxed in the solarium enjoying the peaceful setting.

 

Was not impressed with the food at dinner - or perhaps I made poor choices. Murano was awesome and left me wishing I had a doggie bag since the portions were so large.

 

Solstice the Show was great. The Singers and Dancers were good and GS was madly in love with the violinist. Made the mistake of sitting near the front for the comedy magician and suffered through the whole thing. Opening night show...well could have been better.

 

Our cabin stewardess, Jennifer, was always around and responded to any and all requests immediately. Wrote in what we wanted for breakfast and got it even though we were not cc. Our bathroom drawer also fell apart and we left it under the counter for repairs.

[tortugas]

What was the theme??? Just curious!

[sailor2010]

Thanks for the great review. Did you do any onboard activites?

[jkm151]

Enjoyed your review. We are going on the Solstice 11/21/10. Looking forward to it. Have heard some great things abouth this ship. Happy Cruising.

[Snoofer]

What sort of menu items were available in the MDR?

[CHEZMARYLOU]

I am glad to hear that you enjoyed Murano, we have always loved the Specialty Restaurants of Celebrity. We have not sailed Solstice as yet, but will be in June. We will also be dining in Blu, which we are a little apprehensive about. We are also looking forward to trying Crush and the Martini Bar. On their "M" class ships the Martini Bar had the 'hole in the floor' and we always loved sitting in the Martini Bar and listening to the 'live' music.

 

One of the reasons that we love Celebrity so much is because we cruise to relax. We already know exactly what we want to do on the ship and do NOT want announcement on the loud speakers constantly blasting out about "bingo", "pool activities", etc. We wish to read, walk around and explore the ship, relax, read, etc. Some people want "to be entertained", and want LOTS of activities to choose from, rather than think of a way to entertain themselves. For one thing we camped for all of the years we raised our child and when camping you entertaining yourself. Cruising is like LUXURY camping to us. My DH has a VERY stressful job and we he cruises he wants 100% quiet, relaxation, table for 2 dining and does not even talk to a lot of people. We both LOVE the formal evenings, he always wears his tux, and likes dressing up and I do too. He ofter has 'black tie affairs' related to his job, but they are not "fun", aboard ship they are fun. We both enjoy the evenings, and do look forward to them, especially on longer cruises as a higher % of the passengers 'really' dress formal. Our chief complaint about cruising is that we never get enough "sea days".

Each to his own, that is why each Cruise Line is different and many of the ships within the Cruise Lines are different.

Perhaps, Celebrity was not a good fit for the two of you. We think that we were really lucky that our first cruise was on Celebrity and thus had a perfect first cruise. We have since sailed additional cruises on Celebrity as well as sailed on Carnival and Princess. We enjoyed our other cruises but NOTHING as much as Celebrity.

 

I hope that whichever Line(s) you sail in the future you find the "perfect" Line for you.

 

Although the "S" class ships do not have the "hole in the floor" you can still hear the music while at the Martini Bar. We have not dined in Blu but may try to get a table on our B2B cruise in November.

 

We share your feelings about cruising and stressful jobs, and find that Celebrity is an excellent fit for us also. Perhaps one day we'll share a martini before going off to our tables for 2. :D

 

Mary Lou

[chris&holly]

Thanks for your review! Question::: what was your observation on how people were dressed? We don't do formal night, in fact, we usually skip MDR altogether as we prefer to just graze around and be casual. Only have one Celebrity cruise to compare, and just wondering how much more "dressed up" it will be than Royal Caribbean.

 

Glad you liked Murano! What did you have?? That's on our list.

 

 

My wife and I were on this cruise as well. It was our first with celebrity. We definitely went to just get away and relax and that is what we did. I was very disappointed to see a large number of kids on the ship. Not because I hate kids but there is not enough for kids to do on a celebrity ship compared to a Royal ship. Of course it seemed like the parents wanted to go on a celebrity cruise and just take the kids along. They were a little out of control for what I expected on a celebrity ship. Especially a large table of parents and then next to them a large table full of there kids in Murano, which I am paying for the ambience and special evening. The worst part was the adult table was the worst behaved table.

 

However the cruise was great, when you go to Murano you have to get the Goat Cheese Souffle, it was great.

[Lois R]

I posted this on our roll call board, but thought some might find it useful here. It is just a quick "off the top of my head" review of our cruise last week on Solstice.

 

Here are a few of my thoughts on the cruise. First, as a reminder, my wife and I are 40 and this was our second and third cruise. Others have been with Carnival.

 

Overall: I give it a B. It was a great vacation, but had some areas of improvement to meet the hype of Celebrity.

 

Embarkation: Great. Very smooth. On the boat in under 10 minutes.

 

Room: Verandah on the rear of the ship, 7th floor. Room was on the small side, but it is a cruise ship. The bed was very comfortable but the pillows were worthless. The TV had good programming. That came in handy later in the week when we ended up spending time in the room due to boredom. The cabinets throughout the cabin seemed like something you would find at Walmart. Our closet door would barely close and the handles were practically falling off. The drawers in the bathroom were both broken. The safe was nice and the fridge kept our soft drinks cool...not cold. The room attendants were good.

 

Food: The MDR was on par with chain restaurants on the mainland...i.e. Macaroni Grill and Outback Steakhouse. The salad dressings offered by the back waiter were never what was on the menu and often didn't go well with the salad. For example, there was a salad with Gorgonzola on it but they didn't offer the Celebrity Dressing or another cream based dressing. Even Ranch would have worked better than Thousand Island. When I asked for Celebrity, I was told no. That's probably more info than you needed on salad dressings, but it serves as a good example of the full dining experience.

 

Breakfast and lunch in the MDR were good, although service was slow.

 

Speciality Restaurants: We only ate at Murano and it was outstanding. The food was over the top. The service was impeccable. I was very impressed.

 

Buffet: Standard "Golden Corral" buffet fare. The layout was not well thought out. I found myself often walking in circles looking for things. I also noticed others doing the same thing.

 

Bars: Disappointed that all of the bars seemed to be just extensions of the main walkways. The exception to this was the Wine Cellar which was awesome. And the bar on the front of the ship, 14th floor. Aqualounge maybe. Not sure. It was nice but very underutilized.

 

Activities: We loved the Glass show. After a few days, we figured out how to get chairs in the sun. The Cirque style show was very well done. That's about it for activities. We were very bored near the end of the week.

 

Excursions: Had great excursions in St Kitts and St Maarten. St Kitts, we booked Rose and Jim's. Rose was our guide. She loves the island and did a great job of letting us see most of it. A lunch break would have been nice. You should try to book this couple if you want a great and affordable tour of St. Kitts. In St Maarten, we booked Captain Alan's Snorkeling Tour. It was great. The water was a bit rough that day, so we had to skip one snorkel spot. But he made up for it and took us to another spot that wasn't that great, but it did allow him to drop us back right at the boat. Ate a late lunch at a restaurant on the main drag by the beach near the ship. Second best meal of the cruise after Muranos. Chicken wings. And they were awesome.

 

Disembarkation: This was as smooth as the embarkation. I can't imagine a smoother exit plan than this one.

 

Hi,:) thanks for the review. Sorry you felt the buffet was in the

Golden Corral range.:eek:....wow. Where I live, there is no comparison.

(Ship is much better). And the station set up? I thought it

was good....the set up on the other class ships are the lines. I think

the stations work much better.

 

Sounds like you had good time though:)

[Texed]

olan, San, and C&H,

Thanks for posting. :)