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Review Celebrity Solstice Sept. 13-23. Very Long

luvtravel88

By luvtravel88,
in Celebrity Cruises

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luvtravel88

luvtravel88

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Glad you had a good cruise.

 

Here's a tip for your next cruise--you can have your cabin attendant bring you more hangers. No need to bring your own.

 

Thanks for adding this tip, but I prefer to take our own extra hangers because the hangers on the ship are so large. I take cheap hangers that you get from the dry cleaner. Since they are so much smaller than the ones on the ship, you can get a lot more clothes in the closet. And, I just leave them in the closet at the end of the cruise.

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GarrenS

GarrenS

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Thanks for writing such a good review! I enjoyed reading it - I grew up in Seattle and now live in Portland, so it was interesting to read a "tourist" POV about Seattle, as I've never stayed downtown since we still have family in the area! I enjoyed the pictures as well.

 

We were actually scheduled to go on this cruise as well, but had to cancel due to work conflicts.:mad: I thought it was originally scheduled to dock at Astoria, OR as well- was I confused or did something change after I cancelled??

 

Thanks

Garren

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constantcruiser

constantcruiser

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We were also on this cruise and are very grateful for your excellent pictures, because we (and by that I mean DH!) lost our camera somewhere off the ship the second day in San Francisco! We replaced the camera at the next port, but all of our "under the bridge" and Alcatraz pictures are lost.

 

I agree with almost everything in your review. I absolutely loved the itinerary (in fact, in my opinion it was second only to the Panama Canal) UNTIL we got to Ensenada! We were on bus #34, which was scheduled to depart at 7:20 am. Our driver first got lost in Ensenada and actually drove the wrong way on a one-way street for over a mile, and then had to back up the whole way. Once at the border, we noticed that many buses with higher numbers (which meant they departed Ensenada after we did) were in line ahead of us. As we waited in line to go through Customs, he jumped out of the bus every few minutes to smoke a cigarette.

 

We finally reached San Diego about 6 hours after leaving Ensenada....and you guessed it, he got lost again! He did not speak English, so he couldn't understand passengers who were trying to give directions. When he eventually pulled into the airport, he took us to arrivals instead of departures. At that point it was nearly 3:00 pm, many passengers had missed their flights, and we were so glad to get off the bus that everyone just grabbed carts and dragged their luggage to the departure gates themselves.

 

In the end it's easy to see why Celebrity is spending the money to modify Solstice to sail in and out of Vancouver. I'm confident that very few people who have begun or ended a cruise in Ensenada would ever sail that itinerary again.

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luvtravel88

luvtravel88

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We were also on this cruise and are very grateful for your excellent pictures, because we (and by that I mean DH!) lost our camera somewhere off the ship the second day in San Francisco! We replaced the camera at the next port, but all of our "under the bridge" and Alcatraz pictures are lost.

 

I agree with almost everything in your review. I absolutely loved the itinerary (in fact, in my opinion it was second only to the Panama Canal) UNTIL we got to Ensenada! We were on bus #34, which was scheduled to depart at 7:20 am. Our driver first got lost in Ensenada and actually drove the wrong way on a one-way street for over a mile, and then had to back up the whole way. Once at the border, we noticed that many buses with higher numbers (which meant they departed Ensenada after we did) were in line ahead of us. As we waited in line to go through Customs, he jumped out of the bus every few minutes to smoke a cigarette.

 

We finally reached San Diego about 6 hours after leaving Ensenada....and you guessed it, he got lost again! He did not speak English, so he couldn't understand passengers who were trying to give directions. When he eventually pulled into the airport, he took us to arrivals instead of departures. At that point it was nearly 3:00 pm, many passengers had missed their flights, and we were so glad to get off the bus that everyone just grabbed carts and dragged their luggage to the departure gates themselves.

 

In the end it's easy to see why Celebrity is spending the money to modify Solstice to sail in and out of Vancouver. I'm confident that very few people who have begun or ended a cruise in Ensenada would ever sail that itinerary again.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your camera getting lost. What a horrible thing to have happen while on vacation! I have a lot more pictures of San Francisco if you'd like me to send them to you. I'll just need an email address.

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luvtravel88

luvtravel88

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The way that the disembarkation process worked was that we filled out a card mid week of our flight arrangements as well as a preferred departure time. You could choose anytime between 6am and 8:30am. Since we are staying in San Diego a couple of extra days, we chose 8:00. I didn’t want to be one of the last ones out in case there was a problem with our bus. I knew other buses would be coming our way. A few days later, we received a letter and luggage tags explaining what was going to happen. The luggage tags were also your bus number and your luggage went on your bus with you. We were tag 50. The highest luggage tag I saw was 67.

 

 

The Program for Disembarkation

 

 

DSC09789_zpsd1ef402f.jpg

 

 

 

 

DSC09790_zps8d63e83d.jpg

 

 

The next picture is what we saw outside our balcony the morning of debarkation. I counted 55 buses and about 10 had already left!

 

 

DSC09791_zpsf03a8a5e.jpg

 

Sorry about the problem with the pictures. I guess I went over my allowed amount of space.

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Hawkeye1946

Hawkeye1946

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Thanks for posting. This was our first X cruise in 17 years....it will NOT be our last!

We are Captain's Club members; however, we didn't get invited to the Welcome Aboard coffee. We stumbled upon it, showed our cards and were welcomed in. Also, no invite to Captain's cocktail party. Had I known there was one, I would've inquired as to why no invite.

Lastly, you CAN hear announcements in your cabin...just tune into the navigational channel on the TV.

We had a wonderful cruise,,except of course for the "Ensenada Experience":eek:

Sue

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luvtravel88

luvtravel88

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Thanks for posting. This was our first X cruise in 17 years....it will NOT be our last!

We are Captain's Club members; however, we didn't get invited to the Welcome Aboard coffee. We stumbled upon it, showed our cards and were welcomed in. Also, no invite to Captain's cocktail party. Had I known there was one, I would've inquired as to why no invite.

Lastly, you CAN hear announcements in your cabin...just tune into the navigational channel on the TV.

We had a wonderful cruise,,except of course for the "Ensenada Experience":eek:

Sue

 

 

 

This is the first I've heard of a Welcome Aboard Coffee for Captain's Club Members. Where and when was that?

Kim

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koolforkatz

koolforkatz

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Oops! I actually should've said "the Capitan's Celebration" on Day 2.

Anyway, the rest of the post is fine....until proven otherwise:rolleyes:

Sue

P.S. Hi, "Kook"

 

Hi Sue - hope you had a good trip home. It was nice meeting the both of you.

 

"Kook" ;)

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

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