LONG Solstice Review - E. Carib 2/26 (Lots of Photos)

[CactusGirly]

Fair Warning: This will be long. I like reviews that are full of color commentary & lots of photos, and tell a bit about the reviewer so that I can see if our views would line up. If that is not your style I have bold/underlined each section header so you can skip ahead to what may interest you.

 

A little about us: DH and I are in our early 40's and have 3 young children. We are both in exec level positions at tech companies, and have travelled extensively. We both love good food, and enjoy most any cuisine - whether it's fine dining or a well made burger & fries.

 

Our previous cruising experience: Before we were married, DH had done a transatlantic on a recently-made-infamous cruise line and I was a cruise virgin. A couple of years ago we took the kids (and 3 sets of grandparents) on a Disney cruise. It was fabulous, and I was hooked.

 

Why Celebrity: To celebrate our anniversary this year, we decided to do an "adults only" cruise. It was my job to research cruiselines and itineraries. We were looking for upscale experience, good food, nice suites, and outstanding service. I had a colleague who had returned from a honeymoon cruise on the Solstice a year earlier and raved about it, so it was down to Celebrity or HAL. We chose Celebrity based on reviews and dates available for the itinerary we were looking for. We booked Sky Suite #1665, Deck 11 Aft.

 

Saving some dough: (Mr. Cactus's favorite part) We booked through our favorite TA to get a nice OBC, as well as a rebate, and purchased stock to qualify for an additional OBC. We used our AMEX to pay via the Link, Like, Love promotion for an additional rebate. We also purchased our premium drink package during the sale to save 10%.

 

Travel Day! We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday night, and had dinner at the highly rated (via Yelp!) Gilbert's 17th Street Grill. Just ok for us, one of our burgers was raw in the middle, even after being sent back. Stayed at the Hyatt Regency Pier 66, which was a very nice property and convenient to the cruise terminals.

 

Embarkation & First Impressions: We arrived at the terminal at 10:15 and the first person who made a great impression on us was a very friendly baggage handler who took our luggage and directed us to the terminal. My only experience being DCL, (who has a great terminal), I was a little taken aback by the Celebrity terminal building. It looks like a small airplane hangar. We found our way inside and into the suite line - not that anyone was in any of the lines at this point. We got our Sea Passes & were directed upstairs to wait in the suite area. There was a slight delay to boarding due to an inspection by the FDA (according to the chef on the Galley Tour we took later in the cruise). But soon they called the suites to board... yipee!

 

We were greeted by a large dollop of hand sanitizer, and then immediately handed a slippery glass of Proseco. :) It was too early for lunch, so we decided to explore the ship...

 

One of our favorite stops was the Martini Bar!

 

 

 

"Where Shall I Start?"

 

More to come...

[CactusGirly]

Next we visited the Specialty Restaurants...

 

Tuscan Grille

 

Blu

 

Silk Harvest

 

and Murano.

 

We checked out the disco, Quasar,

 

and the MDR, Grand Epernay.

 

More to come...

[CactusGirly]

Pretty soon we were getting hungry and decided it was time to procure some chow. After checking out the Aqua Spa Cafe in the Solarium

we headed for the Ocean View Cafe to see what it was like... I wish I would have taken a photo! :eek: It was a sea of people, and more crazy than either of us wanted to deal with at the start of our "relaxing" vacation. We headed to Bistro on 5 instead. The wait was a little long, but the food was pretty good, and we didn't have to deal with crowds or chaos.

 

I had the Beef Panini

 

While we were eating we got the announcement that staterooms were ready - yay! So as soon as we were done, we headed up to deck 11 to see ours.

 

More to come...

[CactusGirly]

Sky Suite #1665 was even more fabulous in person than in the photos we had seen online.

 

We loved all the room! It was so nice not to be cramped up and have a spacious sitting area away from the bed.

 

 

 

And the balcony was our favorite part...

 

 

More to come...

[CactusGirly]

The storage was far more than we could possibly use. 8 large drawers, & 2 wardrobes.

 

 

The bathroom was nicely laid out and also had so much storage, I did not even need my hanging toiletry kit (no where to hang it anyway).

 

 

More to come...

[CactusGirly]

We heard a chime in our cabin and waited to hear the announcement that followed, then another chime... still no announcement. Then the door opened. Apparently we had a doorbell! Our butler, Caetano, introduced himself and explained his services and asked if there was anything he could do for us. He also brought in our luggage, which was waiting out in the hall. After we unpacked, we easily stored our suitcases under the bed.

 

We headed to Blu, our muster station for the safety drill, and then up to the Sunset Bar for sail away and to meet our CC Roll Call group.

 

Goodbye Ft. Lauderdale!

 

Giving the drink package a good warm-up at the Sunset Bar during sail away.

 

And the perfect way to celebrate leaving Florida behind us, on our own balcony. We returned to our room to find that Caetano had brought us our requested shrimp cocktail. This is the good life.

 

More to come...

[CactusGirly]

We changed for dinner & then headed to the theater to see the "sampler" show that would feature some of the entertainers onboard for the week.

 

 

We were very impressed by the vocal talent onboard the ship. Especially an acapella group called the Neptunes, they were just outstanding!

 

The MDR menu didn't look great to us that night, so we made reservations for Silk Harvest after the show. We had a sushi sampler, BBQ Korean ribs, shrimp & scallop Shu Mai, and the Duck in coconut curry sauce. The ribs and duck were outstanding. The sashimi was very good, the sushi tasted a little stale.

 

After that we called it a night. It was early still, but we NEVER get a chance to go to bed whenever we want. The funny thing was, our butler asked me the next morning if I was feeling better. He assumed I was ill since we turned in so early. :)

 

More to come...

[CactusGirly]

Day 2 - At Sea & Anniversary Dinner at Tuscan Grille: Woke up at 7:45 & got our tennies on to walk some laps. Went up to the "lap track" that is above the pool deck. It was so windy we had to lean forward a bit when walking on one side of the ship. It was a little commical. It's not a big track, you would have to circle it many times to get a decent workout in. We did a few laps & then decided to get breakfast. DH wanted to try the Oceanview Cafe again, I was a little scared. Surprisingly it was not a madhouse. DH wanted to try the eggs benedict of many flavors. I got standard breakfast fare. We were able to get a table near a window. Food was decent, coffee was terrible. After breakfast we went to Cafe Al Bacio for real coffee. The Caramel Macchiato became my favorite.

 

We had a CC Party at 10:15 in Cellar Masters - which is a lovely space. We met a few more characters from our Roll Call there and had some juice & pastries (second breakfast). Then it was time for the Galley Tour. I was thinking this would be a small-medium size group of people, casually walking through the ship's galley with a chef, getting some informal chat about how things work. NOOOOOO. We went to the MDR, were handed another dollop of sanitizer and slippery glass of Proseco, and walked inside to see that it was FULL of people. We had to sit at the very back of the dining room. There was a power point preso showing, and a group of chefs on the stage. The head of Food & Beverage introduced each one and they did a Q&A while each group went off with one chef to tour a specific galley. Each group had about 20 people in it, and we were group number 42! No kidding. It was interesting though. My favorite part was when they explained how they make their own water via reverse osmosis on the ship out of sea water... and a woman in the audience asked if she should drink it due to her shellfish allergy. Love it! The galley was immaculate - it looks like no food is prepared in there. They said the surprise FDA inspection was passed with flying colors.

 

We were celebrating our anniversary that night and dining at the Tuscan Grille. We had been anticipating this greatly, especially due to the many positive reviews here on CC.

[blade8]

Great review thus far. I'm enjoying your wonderful pics as well!;)

 

Thanks,

Michael

[CactusGirly]

Tuscan was hit and miss for us. We had some dishes that were good, and others that were not. Our servers were great, and we had a lovely table to watch the sunset over the wake.

 

Of all the specialty restaurants, Tuscan ended up being our least favorite of the cruise, but it was a lovely evening nonetheless.

 

Day 3 Puerto Rico & Segway Tour:

The next day we woke up to breakfast set up on our balcony by Caetano - this is how I would like to start every day of my life. :D

 

We had some time to speak with Caetano this morning and get to know a little about him, his job and his family. It was very interesting and I am glad we had this opportunity.

 

For lunch this day we ate in the MDR. It was "just ok" for us. The gellato after made up for it!

 

For a "pulling into port" drink we chose an iced tea from Cafe al Bacio, delicious! It was so nice to stand on our balcony and see Puerto Rico come into view.

 

We had to be in the theater at 2:15 for our excursion. They gave each person a sticker with a number on it, and then called the group numbers in order to exit the ship. It seemed like a good system.

 

More to come...

[CactusGirly]

We chose the Fortification Segway Tour through Celebrity. Great choice! There was only a small group who did this tour, and I have no idea why. It was a hot day, and we passed so many people huffing and puffing up all the hills on the crowded walking tours, while we had practically a private tour (only one other couple) and such ease in getting around that we were able to see so much more this way.

 

 

 

 

Whew... time to go back to the ship!

 

When we returned to the ship we saw the illusionist/magician Adam Trent. We normally aren't big on that type of entertainment, but he was really outstanding.

 

More to come...

[CactusGirly]

After the show we had dinner at Murano. We were taking advantage of the 20% off special, and the fact that we did not love the MDR menu again that night. It is a lovely space. We had a nice table in a corner where we could see all the action in the room.

 

All our starters were delicious, lobster bisque, scallop wellington, goat cheese souffle.

Then we moved on to entrees. DH had the lobster prepared tableside. I had the Dover Sole, fileted tableside. Our poor server... my fish did NOT want to be fileted. He was wrestling with it like it was some sort of MMA match, but in tuxedos and scales.

Finally the Maitre de came over and did it for him, also with much muscle needed. By the time I got the fish on my plate it was mangled and did not taste good. They offered me something else, but I did not want to make my DH wait any longer, and I was pretty full at that point anyway.

 

We did do the cheese course, which was outstanding.

 

We had martinis that night, and saw the late night comedian, Troy Thurdgil, who had us both laughing out loud throughout the show.

 

More to come...

[librarylady19]

fantastic pictures....keep them coming!!!

[Dunmore2]

Loving your review and all the details. Thanks for sharing.

[Maryscooking]

Thanks for doing this style of review! I know it takes more work to get the pics up with the review, but it is so fun to see and re-live your cruise with you.

[CactusGirly]

blade8, librarylady, Dunmore2 & Maryscooking - thanks for kind words! Will post more tomorrow! :)

[bighairtexan]

Great pictures. Making me rethink the Dover Sole for my upcoming cruise! LOL

[p2lockhart]

I board Sunday and have an S1 too so I am really loving your review and looking forward to each installment.

p2

[L11]

Wonderful review! Can't wait to read the rest.

 

Linda

[ORDMan]

For a guy who will be on this ship in 18 days this is really getting my attention!

[Karen@Steve]

Hanging on every word! Thanks so much.

[Mgrmitch]

We are also leaving in 18 days!!! We have reservations at Tuscan as well. What part of the meal was not up to par?. We are in Aqua and will only do one specialty dinner. Should we upgrade to Murano?

[CactusGirly]

p2lockhart - you will LOVE your suite!

 

Day 4 - St. Maarten: Due to an emergency on a HAL ship, we were able to dock in St. Maarten vs. tender, which we were thankful for (not for the emergency though - hope that turned out ok). We were looking forward to our first relaxing day at a beautiful Caribbean beach... well, we did get the beautiful Caribbean beach part. :)

 

We chose the St. Martin Beach Rendezvous excursion, which includes transportation, reserved chairs, and lunch at Orient Beach. I would not recommend it.

 

We got off the ship to get in line for the excursion and realized that we had picked a popular one - there were quite a few folks qued up.

 

Soon we got on a nice, air-conditioned bus and headed for the French side of the island, and Orient Beach. We had a tour guide with us who narrated the entire 30 minute(?) trip. It would have been ok, had she not yelled into the PA the entire time. My eardrums were about to burst by the end.

 

When we got to Orient, we saw the beautiful white sand / aqua blue water that we had been hoping for, and then we walked out onto the beach. It was pretty much wall to wall people. Our "reserved" chairs were at the back of the beach, 3 or 4 deep in from the water. We couldn't see the ocean without looking around a sea of flesh.

 

I should mention that there is topless bathing allowed at this beach. Now, we are not prudes and were well aware of this going in, but perhaps had not braced ourselves for the possibility of seeing some of our fellow Celebrity passengers, (many in their "not so elastic years"), in all their glory right there in front of us. :eek: Ah well. We went for a walk on the beach and were able to take in the beauty without some of the distraction.

 

The lunch offered was a choice of ribs, chicken, or fish. We had the chicken, and fellow passengers around us all agreed that none of the dishes were very good. At least we had nice surroundings while we ate. :)

 

Then it was a little more beach time and back on the bus to the ship.

 

More to come...

[Tina0922]

CactusGirly, I too am boarding on Sunday with p2. Your review is great and I want to be on the ship right now. Can't wait and trying to get through these last few work days is killing me! :) Looking forward to reading more.

 

Tina

[Cruiser Susie]

Great review so far... love all the pictures. Thanks for sharing with us!