Solstice review - xmas/nye cruise

[tassie cruiser]

Well, we are back from a great xmas/nye cruise onboard Celebrity Solstice. 12 nights. Was a great cruise and will try and include information that helped me before we went from here.

This was our 14th cruise. First cruise on Celebrity. Other lines we have cruised with have been: PO, Princess, Carnival and RCCL. Before we left I was told on many occasions that "once you cruise Celebrity, you will not cruise on other lines" Well, that isn't true as I have already booked another cruise, on Voyager Of The Seas.. RCCL..:) Every single one of our cruises have been awesome, no such thing as a bad cruise..lol.

 

There were 4 of us, myself, husband and 2 x daughters (both over 18) We stayed in Sydney pre cruise at Quay West Suites, was great as we watched Solstice arrive in early on the morning of our cruise. We wandered down about 10am, dropped bags, went for a coffee and then boarded bit before 11-30. We had booked 2 x Concierge room. Boarding was the fastest we had ever experienced, probably 10 min and we were on the ship. To be greeted once onboard with a glass of champagne, juice etc.... We went straight to the Dining room for the Concierge lunch. When entering the dining room, they checked our sea pass to make sure we were Concierge and then took our carry on and put aside. There were people in front of us trying to get in as well, they were Aqua and carried on a treat that they couldn't go in.... "We are Aqua Class, you mean to tell me that the lower class can dine in here but we cant, I am going to get this sorted out, I am horrified" . I could not believe the tone and the way they spoke to the staff... Anyway, we had a great lunch, the menu wasn't huge but what was on there was 5 star, with lovely wine to suit.(3 courses with soups, salads e. lamb cutlets, veg etc...) Was so nice to go somewhere quiet and get great service while waiting for our rooms to be ready.

Our rooms were ready at about 1-30. We were on deck 10 (1079 and 1099)

Room was a nice size, with the most practical best laid out bathroom I have seen on a ship.. I remember reading that a woman designed the bathrooms and you can tell..lol... There was a full length cabinet- flor to ceiling in the corner with heaps of shelves, a full length light above the mirror that turns into a dull night light at night, in the shower was a rest about 3/4 way down perfect for shaving legs, shower screen doors, circular that met in the middle, good size shower and more storage space in the bathroom.

The concierge cabins have a thick dressing gown and I asked our room steward if I could have the thinner waffle ones, he says, they are for just the standard cabins, so it would be a downgrade..lol.. I said I didn't mind as the thick ones are too thick for the South Pacific, so he went and got me straight away and also left the thick ones, which was actually good as sometimes the air con was cool and the thick one was nice. Balcony nice with chairs and comfy foot stools.

The thing that I noticed pretty much straight away was the "class" difference, no other line is like this..... The Suite passengers dine in a different restaurant (Luminer) The Aqua passengers dine in Blue, remaining passengers in the main dining room. Aqua have pursion gulf etc..... felt like I was on the Titanic.... I have never been on a cruise where there were so many whinge bags, complaining and just being plain rude :eek:

The ship is absolutely beautiful, so open and the décor is first class. Little things I noticed were a step up from other lines, like all the public bathrooms, there weren't handles or door knobs to open, just a big white button to electronically open and close.

The Ocean View (Buffet) wow,,,,,, best we had ever seen, was so nice and fresh and the selection was huge, there was a grill station that was my favourite, there was salmon, other different fish, chicken and steaks and you picked out what you wanted and they cooked for you.. The egg station at brekky was awesome, the best eggs benedict and hollandaise.. yummmm

never ever had a problem getting a table, never felt crowded. This is the first ship that we have cruised on that did not have tables and chairs along the wall/windows of the pool deck, only loungers, so you could not eat anywhere on the main deck (well, you could but not on a table and chairs)

The Dining room was wonderful as well, lovely food (wouldn't say it was better than other lines) but always had a lovely meal there.

Silk Harvest.... that's a must.... that was awesome, best meal we had onboard, we went there for our anniversary dinner on the 2nd, only wish we went there before.....was sooooo good... This was $35 p/p....

As the ocean view and dining room was so good we actually didn't bother going to the other specialty restaurants, I don't think a lot of people did as they were always offering specials for the specialty restaurants.

The internet is very expensive but in saying that it was the best and fastest we have ever had on any ship.... The price was $299 unlimited and 50% off a second one. We were select members so received 25% off, so from memory it cost $225 for one and $149 for the second (remember this is US)

The tendering was really well organised, they did a great job with that. It was so nice when coming back on the tenders they were there with ice cold drinks and cold, iced face washers, just little things like this we noticed that were done so nicely and thought out.

The Captain would be the nicest, funniest Captain ever. There was only ever one announcement every day on the ship and it was him, sooo funny.... Always seen around the ship, eating in the buffet etc.... he was a contestant one night in the liar liar show...

We all had the Classic Package and I can honestly say, there was not 1 thing that I could not get that I wanted. It covered all the cocktails, top shelf, wines, coffees, bottled water, smoothies, etc.... the only thing it didn't cover was the martinis in the martini bar, which we don't like anyway, so it was absolutely perfect, my husband said the red wines he had were so nice and the drinks waiter bought him a different bottle of red each night to try and if he liked (which he always did) would just leave the bottle. The list that you see on here, only covers a very minor part of what's included. We had quite a few friends onboard who upgraded to the Premium as soon as they boarded and they wished they hadn't as they did not have anything different to us what so ever.

Entertainment would have to be my little negative... But I did know before I left that Celebrity is different to other lines, so it wasn't a big surprise.... There were a couple of good shows in the theatre (which by the way is awesome) the way it is tiered and just a great theatre, best theatre on any cruise ship, I would say,

Unlike RCCL or Carnival where they would have bands on top deck, great shows in the theatre,night after night musicians in bars, etc..... this didn't really happen. You would walk thru to the specialty restaurants and there would be someone playing a violin, cello, etc..... and in the theatre at night one of the shows was a concert pianist or a concert violinist etc....

During the day, there wasn't really much going on, unless you are interested in the seminars, art auctions etc....,

Our daughters met up with a few other younger people so they had company, Qasar was a bit hit and miss for them, so they spent a lot of time in the casino..lol (.not a lot of night life for younger/younger minded people.) ...and unlike other lines where you can get money out of your card in the machine, this doesn't happen. If you don't have US cash (this is all that the casino accepts) you have to go to casino desk and draw out which incurs a 5% fee. and their rate onboard was 64 c....... So for $100 Aus you would get $64 US then they charge you 5% as well...

We had room service quite a few times for breakfast, that was great, good menu and if in Concierge it is an extended menu. You can also order thru your tv if you don't want to put out your form the night before.

The tv menu was great, could check account etc.... could do anything thru the tv. There was a huge range of movies (free) as well plus some that you could purchase, but the range of free was great.

We hired a pod/alcove one day (NYE) that was good but as they are new, I don't think the staff really knew much about them and we got different answers all the time about what we could get and what we couldn't. We were told we could order from the Dining room menu when we booked it. We booked it for NYE so it was from 9am until 1am (after midnight) and friends of ours booked one for new years day, so they could come in ours and we could go in theirs (as you can have 6 pax in there) so we were there new years eve (as it was a port day) we didn't get there until about 6, there isn't a butler as such, just a drinks waiter that wanders past every now and then, we went to order dinner (as it was nye and lobster was on the menu yummmm) then was told that NO, cant order from the dining room, can only order from the room service menu or go to the buffet and bring back, we said we were told we could order from the dining room, they went off and checked and came back and said, NO, defiantly not from the dining room. :-( so we just went to the buffet and got something and bought it back, nearly getting blown away on the way back, so no lobster for me.. and I was so looking forward to it. All the parties and activities were on the pool deck, so we ended up leaving our pod and going there, so really, it was a waste for us. The next day we were talking to our Concierge lady (Aldina) she was the nicest, lady ever, anyway we were just chatting to her (as we had booked a bridge tour thru her), and we told her about the alcove drama and she says" oh, that's not right, you can defiantly order from the dining room, they should know that", she called up to confirm and yes, sure enough, the dining room menu is part of the alcove booking.... grrrrrrr

She worked her magic and got our alcove reduced in price and we also received a litre bottle of grey goose vodka..:)

So overall, as usual we had a great cruise, would defiantly book and cruise again with Celebrity if the price/itiniery/dates were right, can imagine a mid year cruise would be even quieter (as guessing this xmas/nye would have had more younger people than usual) but as for saying I am hooked on Celebrity, no, I wouldn't say that.

I have probably missed out heaps and I apologise.... If you have any queries, would be happy to answer where I can.

Fiona

[easyboy]

Glad you had a great cruise. Thanks for the feedback.

 

 

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[tassie cruiser]

Glad you had a great cruise. Thanks for the feedback.

 

 

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No probs, any cruise is a great cruise. :)

[juda]

Great review, thanks :) We will be on her in March :)

[cruise47]

Thanks for sharing your Christmas review.

[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.

[queenofcruise]

What a lovely review 😀

 

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[magpies66]

Glad to see you enjoyed the rest of your cruise [emoji2]

I have one question if you don't mind...

There has been a lot of talk on these forums about Celebrity changing the time to leave staterooms on the last day from 8am to 7am. Can you please tell me what the checkout time was on your cruise?

 

 

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[tassie cruiser]

Glad to see you enjoyed the rest of your cruise [emoji2]

I have one question if you don't mind...

There has been a lot of talk on these forums about Celebrity changing the time to leave staterooms on the last day from 8am to 7am. Can you please tell me what the checkout time was on your cruise?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

We were asked (in the daily letter thingy) if we could be out of cabins at 8am. We left our bags in there, saw room steward and told him we were all packed and going for brekky so if he wanted to come in, we were good, and went up for brekky at about 8-15, got back to cabin at about 9.00 , did a double check that we hadn't forgotten anything and left. Room steward still wasn't anywhere near our cabin.

So, no, 7am was never mentioned at all.

Edited January 17, 2017 by tassie cruiser

[magpies66]

We were asked (in the daily letter thingy) if we could be out of cabins at 8am. We left our bags in there, saw room steward and told him we were all packed and going for brekky so if he wanted to come in, we were good, and went up for brekky at about 8-15, got back to cabin at about 9.00 , did a double check that we hadn't forgotten anything and left. Room steward still wasn't anywhere near our cabin.

So, no, 7am was never mentioned at all.

 

 

Good to hear.

Thanks again for a great review [emoji2]

 

 

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