Photo Review: Celebrity Solstice to Alaska 5/27/16

[alainamarie]

I'm just getting back from a 7 day cruise to Alaska on Celebrity Solstice (May 27- June 3) and I wanted to do a full photo review. I enjoy reading photo reviews and find them so helpful when planning my cruise vacation, so I wanted to share my experience.

 

A little background information about me-

I have been on 4 Carnival cruises (2007-2012) and one previous Celebrity cruise for my 30th birthday on Connie (12-13-14). Alaska has always been on my bucket list, but I must admit that this cruise was not solely my idea. My aunt's friend sent out an email to a huge group of people after her TA friend put together a group... I did not end up booking with that group, however, I decided to book with my TA a couple of months later. One of my aunt's friends agreed to be my roommate and she also invited her husband and daughter to tag along. We chose two C3 cabins, #9265, 9267. Slightly aft and on the Panorama deck.

 

When I booked in May 2015, Celebrity was running a promo of a concierge cabin or higher with the ALL IN package. I've had the beverage package promo before, so I knew this was a great bargain. When my friend and her family booked a month or so later, there was no promo. Her base price was also substantially higher. We also decided to get creative with the room assignment. My cabin had the beverage package ALL IN promo and hers did not, so we knew her 16 year old daughter could not be in the same room with me (on paper). So she and I were listed as in one cabin and her daughter and husband were in the other other cabin. Adjoining cabins were no longer available, so we had the cabin steward remove the balcony partition thus allowing us access to each others rooms.

 

I arrived in Seattle on Tuesday May 24 so I could spend time with family. This is my 5th trip to Seattle, so for me, downtown is not a necessity. Here are a few pre-cruise photos... We visited Snoqualmie Falls & this place does not get old! This is my 2nd trip to the Falls and I love it!

 

The falls:

 

 

We also went strawberry picking (my first time) just to enjoy the day out.

 

 

 

 

Ok, ok, ok, now let's get on the ship already!

[alainamarie]

The day we all wait for.... it's cruise day! :p

We left my aunt's house around 10 to head downtown to pick up my friends from their hotel (Maxwell hotel on Roy St). We were at the port (which was slightly challenging) and checking in right at 11.

 

My favorite part of every cruise.... seeing the ship for the first time!

 

 

 

 

It was such chaos at the drop off area, so we all just hopped out of her car and were fussed at for doing so. There was no organization or space for our car to pull over, so we took matters into our own hands. What's the worse that could happen, right?!

It didn't matter because we were there!!!

 

Drop off area

 

This sign shows the different lines to get in. We were concierge, but found all of the lines moved pretty quickly. Our check in for the 4 of us took about 10 minutes.

 

[alainamarie]

I'm hoping I'm the only one who made this mistake, but I misread the rules about wine. :eek: I thought it said 2 bottles of wine per adult, however, it is 2 bottles of wine per stateroom. Needless to say, we made someone happy. Thankfully I only bought 2 Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's, so I only lost $6. The reason we carried wine on was because my friend's husband did not have the beverage package. We also wanted to be able to enjoy a glass of wine on the balcony at our leisure.

 

Here's my TJ's wine ready to go!

 

 

I read about the new perk that Celebrity was promoting for their Concierge Class guests in an attempt to make Concierge more appealing. Of course I caught wind of the concierge embarkation lunch and had to be a part of this. I ensured we were on board in time to enjoy. We headed to the MDR at 12 because we were not hungry once we were on board around 11:20. We sat at the martini bar where a bartender upgraded our beverage packages from classic to premium and grabbed us a glass of pinot noir.

 

 

We were finally getting hungry, so we headed into the MDR.

 

 

Lamb entree -

 

 

Enjoy this photo because I eat way too fast to always capture the uneaten plate! :p

 

Ok, now it's time to get the heck outta Seattle!

[alainamarie]

Let's get outta Seattle!

 

This is my 6th cruise and my 1st time actually watching the ship pull away. I usually have a cocktail in hand out on the top deck, but my group wanted to watch us pull away. I'm glad I was able to watch this process.

 

 

I shot a quick video with my iphone - you can find it here:

 

Here are a couple shots of beautiful Seattle as we pull away...

 

 

 

Goodbye Seattle!

 

 

Next up: a look at some of my favorite places on the ship.

[Bimmer09]

Thanks for getting your review underway. Looking forward to more!

 

Norris

[alainamarie]

I wanted to dedicate a section to the places I/we frequented.

I have two favorite places on Celebrity ships - the Martini Bar and Cafe Al Bacio. Let's start with the less lethal.

 

 

The seating area, only time it was full was on sea days. A little frustrating, but what can you do?

 

 

The pastries.... OH THE PASTRIES!!!

 

I only had chocolate croissants & a blueberry muffin and both were consistently good. The chocolate chip cookies were way better in ocean view cafe.

 

a couple of my favorite drinks:

Iced vanilla latte'

Iglu

 

My all-time favorite is caffe latte' and I did not take a photo of that despite my daily average of 1-2 a day.

[alainamarie]

You have to admit, even if you do not drink, you love this place!

There was never a moment that you were without a chair. We opted not to sit at the bar, we typically sat at a small table and were always met with quick and prompt service.

 

 

 

A couple of videos... gotta love the shows these guys put on!

 

 

 

[alainamarie]

Thanks for getting your review underway. Looking forward to more!

 

Norris

 

Thanks for reading! Back to work tomorrow, so the review will certainly slow down! :(

[Clarea]

Enjoying the review so far.:)

[alainamarie]

Molecular Bar was an interesting experience, only made it here once on the last sea day. Bartender was pretty full of himself, but entertaining. I'm not quite sure why people complain about this bar with bad service, perhaps because there are only 1-2 bartenders for this bar. We must have hit the time exactly right because there was no wait. Bartender wasn't too talkative, which is fine. He did try to entertain us with his tricks and it was fun to watch him make these interesting creations. Drinks were incredible!

 

 

 

Our smokin' drinks!

 

[alainamarie]

Enjoying the review so far.:)

 

Thank you so much for reading!

-Alaina

[alainamarie]

We enjoyed the card room that was located on our deck (9), but I didn't take a photo of the area. I did take a few shots of another favorite spot - the library. We LOVED this quiet space.

 

 

 

 

[alainamarie]

We did go for a windy walk on the jogging track one morning. If you can handle the wind, then you'll enjoy this. It's short, so 8 laps = 1 mile.

 

 

Another area I did not frequent, the lawn...

 

 

[alainamarie]

If you get the opportunity to be on board with Brent Nixon, he is a MUST SEE/HEAR. He is very animated.... that's putting it modestly, but the passion and enthusiasm this man possess is remarkable. I only made it to his Alaska presentation and not the whale presentation. He also narrated the entry into Tracy Arm Fjord despite that we could not enter. He read from his journals and shared a lot of information on glaciers and the impact of the environment on this area.

 

[SheriffJoe]

Alainamarie, great start to your review....did you try the Aspen coffee in the coffee shop? FANTASTIC!...I had my last one as we stood in the self debarkation line Friday morning at 7 am! :eek:

[alainamarie]

I only went to the first two shows and the only show that was slightly memorable was Broken Strings. Very entertaining with great modern music. I wish I could have made it to Rock City, but someone made a poor decision to have this show at 9pm while we were DOCKED in Juneau. We did not even get back on board from our excursion until 9:15 and we were exhausted. I meant to talk to Ben the Cruise Director, but I never ran into him which is odd. I did not really see him walking around the ship much, but perhaps it was just my timing.

 

Here are some photos of the theater area.

 

 

 

 

 

[alainamarie]

Alainamarie, great start to your review....did you try the Aspen coffee in the coffee shop? FANTASTIC!...I had my last one as we stood in the self debarkation line Friday morning at 7 am! :eek:

 

Hey honey!! I actually did NOT try it, I forgot until I ran into someone in line at Al Bacio from our roll call. Gary reminded me to try one, but my latte was hard to turn down!!! Thanks for reading! How were your B2B cruises in comparison to one another?

Take care!

Alaina

[alainamarie]

I have no complaints about the food. I ate every night at the MDR and we had the most FANTASTIC wait staff. Man these guys and gals work hard!!!! The hostess in the select dining area, Diana, was awesome and ensured we got the same table and same waiter every night! This was extra special since we were select and there was no seating guarantee. Ocean view buffet was always good and varied slightly each day. We enjoyed sushi around 6 as a pre-dinner snack. The cookies and ice cream in the buffet area was always awesome and the cookies were way better than cafe al bacio!

 

The best wait staff -

 

 

My typical sushi plate at ocean view -

 

 

Surf and turf on the last "evening chic" night

 

[alainamarie]

We enjoyed our canapes daily as well as the few mornings we ordered room service. I'm embarrassed to admit, we really did not eat the fruit left in the room daily. Our cabin attendant offered to switch to bananas and grapes and we gratefully accepted. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to eat those either. I thought those were nice touches to have available each afternoon/evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahh, the mimosas. We kept our champagne from embarkation day and ordered orange juice with room service. Oh yeah, I'm going to miss this!

[Don't spammy]

Thank you for your review. Sorry we missed meeting you. We loved the Brent Nixon lectures, saw all but one. Every shore excursion we tried was very well done. Very happy to see that you enjoyed your voyage.

Spammy

[alainamarie]

Thank you for your review. Sorry we missed meeting you. We loved the Brent Nixon lectures' date=' saw all but one. Every shore excursion we tried was very well done. Very happy to see that you enjoyed your voyage.

Spammy[/quote']

 

Hey Spammy!

I hope Celebrity treasures Brent as much as the passengers! We enjoyed our excursions as well, I will be getting to those next! Thanks for reading & I'm so happy you enjoyed your trip!

Alaina

[Pliny the Elder]

Thanks for posting! It is helping to pass the time as we wait for our June 24 trip!

[sleepless]

Thank you for your review. I will be boarding the Solstice for Alaska, July 8. I am sure to love the cruise.

[Keith1010]

Enjoying your photo review.

 

Keith

[Muushka]

Thank you OP, looking forward to more!