LIVE: Dec 23 2019, Solstice, 12 Night Holiday New Zealand Cruise

[WeBcruisingMN]

Thanks for the nice message, David - I just perused your South America cruise review from the holiday period of 2016-2017....it looked like a wonderful time and got me very excited for our cruise Feb 2 on the Eclipse (some of the same ports, but some different). I will plan to touch base when we return - we leave tomorrow morning @ 7am -- going to Argentina on our own for a week first, hoping to do some incredible hiking in the Patagonia region. All the best to you again, keep in touch! 🙂

sharon baranick (no spaces) at yahoo dot com

[mahdnc]

@WeBcruisingMN,
 have a safe and wonderful trip, Sharon!

 

David

 

[NMTraveller]

I enjoyed reading your reviews.  They brought back great memories from our cruise several years back.  The ports tend to change a little from year to year.

 

Get get to sail Solstice again in two years over in Asia.

[JacknShelby]

On 1/1/2020 at 8:45 PM, mahdnc said:

My son and I played blackjack last night and I also played this evening. 

 

The casino was pretty crowded last night, but that was because it was New Year's Eve. It was not very crowded tonight. 

 

Surprisingly (to me at least) there was a $5 blackjack table. Last year during our Reflection cruise, we didn't see any $5 table during any of the 14 nights of our sailing. 

 

There were also a $50 and $15 table as well as a single deck $10 table (no double down after splits allowed for single deck play). It seemed like the dreaded 6:5 payout for a natural blackjack has become the norm although I haven't confirmed that for the $15 and $50 table. 

 

We had a good group of players at tonight's $5 table although the gentlemen playing next to the third base seat was making some wild decisions that left us gasping (although I think they worked out for him more often than not, so whom am I to say?). 
 

 

The dealers are all very competent, warm and friendly including our dealer tonight, Kiara, who is from Italy. Sylvia is the casino host whom we met during last year’s Reflection cruise. 
 

I don't know when this changed, but during our sailing drinks in the casino are free if you are playing.

 

 

Hi mahdnc

I just came across your review and it was great.  Answered a lot of questions I had for our upcoming cruise.  There are a couple I still have if you don't mind.

I have found out that everything is still in USD on board so I presume the casino slot machines & table games are too.  Can you bring along your own USD cash or do you have to charge it to the seapass and they give you the funds at the casino teller?

My second question is about the daily newsletters. I thought I had read that they don't deliver these to the rooms anymore but you provided some pictures off what looked like them.  Are they still provided in your room each day? Or did you get it from elsewhere?

Thank you,

Carla

[Suzi66]

2 hours ago, JacknShelby said:

 

Hi mahdnc

I just came across your review and it was great.  Answered a lot of questions I had for our upcoming cruise.  There are a couple I still have if you don't mind.

I have found out that everything is still in USD on board so I presume the casino slot machines & table games are too.  Can you bring along your own USD cash or do you have to charge it to the seapass and they give you the funds at the casino teller?

My second question is about the daily newsletters. I thought I had read that they don't deliver these to the rooms anymore but you provided some pictures off what looked like them.  Are they still provided in your room each day? Or did you get it from elsewhere?

Thank you,

Carla

I just disembarked today and I can ensure you that every single night we got the daily newsletter on our bed for the next night.

As for the casino, not that we put much through the machines and we only used slots, we put US cash into these.

[mahdnc]

@JacknShelby,

 

Yes, as Suzanne said, Celebrity Today is faithfully delivered to your stateroom every evening. 

 

Everything on board is in USD. That is always true across the entire Celebrity fleet. 

 

 You can bring your own USD cash to the casino. Getting it through the casino using your SeaPass card incurs a 5% fee. There is an ATM on board as well, but there are fees for using it as well. 

[mahdnc]

14 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

I enjoyed reading your reviews.  They brought back great memories from our cruise several years back.  The ports tend to change a little from year to year.

 

Get get to sail Solstice again in two years over in Asia.

 

Thank you.  And yes, she will be moving over to Asia.  In fact while we were on board, I booked a Hong Kong to Singapore 14 night cruise on Solstice (Dec 2021).

[JacknShelby]

Thanks @Suzi66 & @mahdnc the info is much appreaciated!

[ntara]

Hi David,

 

I’ve read through this thread with great interest as we will be on the Solstice on Feb 17th from Auckland to Melbourne.  Thoroughly enjoyed your review and pics!

You mentioned early in your review that you did an overnight tour from Milford to Dunedin on a previous cruise.  We are considering doing this tour, however it will be in reverse.  Will we see much of Milford sound if we do the tour?  I realize we will miss the other sounds, but would like to see Queenstown.  Any thoughts you may have would be great.  Thank you!

[Suzi66]

31 minutes ago, ntara said:

Hi David,

 

I’ve read through this thread with great interest as we will be on the Solstice on Feb 17th from Auckland to Melbourne.  Thoroughly enjoyed your review and pics!

You mentioned early in your review that you did an overnight tour from Milford to Dunedin on a previous cruise.  We are considering doing this tour, however it will be in reverse.  Will we see much of Milford sound if we do the tour?  I realize we will miss the other sounds, but would like to see Queenstown.  Any thoughts you may have would be great.  Thank you!

You will see the whole of the Milford Sound as you get on at the land end of Milford Sound and then cruise out as it is the last day in NZ.  What you do miss is the other Sounds.  However Milford is by far the prettiest and you will get to see that if you do the overland tour.
The other 4 sounds (they only name 2, but you go in one and out another) sometimes have dolphins and seals but in 4 times going through I have not yet seen the dolphins and have seen the seals once.

[mahdnc]

10 hours ago, ntara said:

Hi David,

 

I’ve read through this thread with great interest as we will be on the Solstice on Feb 17th from Auckland to Melbourne.  Thoroughly enjoyed your review and pics!

You mentioned early in your review that you did an overnight tour from Milford to Dunedin on a previous cruise.  We are considering doing this tour, however it will be in reverse.  Will we see much of Milford sound if we do the tour?  I realize we will miss the other sounds, but would like to see Queenstown.  Any thoughts you may have would be great.  Thank you!

 

Unlike @Suzi66, I've only done Milford Sound this one time. 

 

We did not do the overland tour. What I posted was that someone, @waweidman, on our roll call made a last minute decision while on board our cruise to do it. Hopefully he will post an answer. 

 

Having said that, I did see their shuttle boat come out to meet our ship and in doing so they certainly got to see Milford Sound. And if they resisted the temptation to go straight to their cabin and stay there after boarding, they got to view the rest of Milford Sound as Solstice sailed away. However Solstice goes into Milford Sound slowly and deliberately while she exits relatively quickly although it is narrated by the on board naturalist on the way in and on the way out. 

 

The only opinions I have read about whether to do the tour or not are from people who have only taken the tour or only not taken it. I have not knowingly read an opinion from someone who has done a couple cruises each way where they could compare the experiences. 

 

And so, what I've seen on Cruise Critic is that the people who took the tour were happy that they did. And the people who didn't take the tour were happy that they didn't. I fall in the latter group. waweidman and his wife appear to be in the former group. 

 

A couple of other pieces of information:

 

As Suzanne said, the other two sounds (Dusky and Doubtful) are pretty but they astoundingly pale in comparison to Milford. That surprised me. They are also a lot less comfortable to view out in deck because of the wind that Milford does not have since it is like an enclosed bay. 

 

The tour does give you an opportunity to take a uniquely impressive picture of Solstice in Milford Sound with tall cliffs and mountains towering in the background.  Certainly not I nor anyone else that sailed on Solstice into Milford got that kind of photo. 

 

It appeared that the overland tour had about 30 passengers which means that a very small percentage of passengers on our sailing forked over the money to do this tour. According to waweidman, they still had tour spaces available for sale dotting the cruise itself. 

 

If you should book the tour, keep checking the pricing because it will change. For our sailing the pricing was normally $720 per person but was on sale half a dozen times at 25% off which dropped it down to a more reasonable $539. I think by the time we sailed, the on board price was listed at $750 pp. On the other hand I have read on Cruise Critic that the price was far higher for another sailing (exceeding $1000 pp). 

Edited January 26, 2020 by mahdnc

[waweidman]

Hi, you will see all of Milford Sound, including the sights down through the rainforest to the water at the beginning of the sound where we met up with the ship.  Then you are on board the ship as you exit the sound to see what you missed.  Our tour group was small and it was more like a private tour, but our guide said the next sailing had 3 buses booked so far, so it is a very popular tour.  Our sailing was during the holidays so we were already paying a premium for the cruise and airfare, so that may have contributed to the amount of people willing to shell out more $'s for this excursion.  My wife and I really wanted to see Queenstown and we didn’t know if and when we’d be back to New Zealand, so we booked it last minute after I was drinking margaritas all day (this may have been the push I needed to spend the $’s).  It is a long bus tour for a day and a half but there are many stops along the way to eat, see old gold towns, museums, visit a winery, see the birth place of bungee jumping, Queenstown overnight, sheep herding/shearing, rain forest, tunnel through the mountains, and unbelievable scenery.  Our tour guide was really good and we were very lucky on this trip to have the perfect weather we had.  Definitely the highlight of our trip.

[waweidman]

Here are some pics from along the way.

 

[mahdnc]

@waweidman, very nice photos

[Suzi66]

@waweidman absolutely gorgeous.  

[valantine80]

On 1/26/2020 at 2:12 PM, ntara said:

Hi David,

 

I’ve read through this thread with great interest as we will be on the Solstice on Feb 17th from Auckland to Melbourne.  Thoroughly enjoyed your review and pics!

You mentioned early in your review that you did an overnight tour from Milford to Dunedin on a previous cruise.  We are considering doing this tour, however it will be in reverse.  Will we see much of Milford sound if we do the tour?  I realize we will miss the other sounds, but would like to see Queenstown.  Any thoughts you may have would be great.  Thank you!

The only problem with doing Dunedin to Milford Sound overland is that it is not uncommon for the ships to miss Milford Sound because of weather conditions. I am not sure where this would leave you as the next stop is Australia.

If you were to miss the trip in the reverse order, Milford Sound to Dunedin, it would not be so bad as you would just stay on the ship.

May be a question to ask Celebrity what the options are if weather prevents the ship getting into Milford Sound.

[mahdnc]

@valantine80, that is a great point.   I had not thought of that!

[youwash]

On 12/29/2019 at 12:26 AM, mahdnc said:

Tuscan Grille tonight. The photo (blue from the tinted windows) doesn't do the sweeping vista view any justice. 

 

Our son has been given the responsibility for ordering tonight. 

Our first night aboard we had dinner in Tuscan Grill and recognized the waiter from your picture!  It's Allan, the best waiter ever, on Celebrity!  We ended up buying a dining package and asked for his section for another 5 nights!  He was leaving soon for his two months off. 

[mahdnc]

15 hours ago, youwash said:

Our first night aboard we had dinner in Tuscan Grill and recognized the waiter from your picture!  It's Allan, the best waiter ever, on Celebrity!  We ended up buying a dining package and asked for his section for another 5 nights!  He was leaving soon for his two months off. 

Yes, he was excellent.  We had been seated on an earlier night at a different table and had a different waiter who was also excellent.  

[cruisequeen4ever]

I enjoy reading about your annual Christmas cruises and am so glad you’ve been able to continue the tradition despite your kids being grown up and working! Hope you get to do your next adventure together in 2021! 

[mahdnc]

19 hours ago, cruisequeen4ever said:

I enjoy reading about your annual Christmas cruises and am so glad you’ve been able to continue the tradition despite your kids being grown up and working! Hope you get to do your next adventure together in 2021! 

 

Thank you.  I hope to post a photo review of this trip as well--once things settle down at my work.  However with cruising now suspended, it's been a little harder to get motivated to write it!

 

And yes, I hope that we will be able to do our family Christmas cruise again.