GenerationX

Quick update from Solstice: Life on Solstice just keeps getting better for Mini Me. She found a cruise duck today! According to the tag, he was found on Carnival Vista last November then brought on Solstice this week. Gen Z wants to keep his travels and cruise line jumping going by hiding him on MSC Seascape during our cruise in July. Guess I better get on designing a tag and hashtag when we get home!

Ah just another afternoon in paradise…when I picked Gen Z up from kids club she asked if we could have room service lunch on the veranda and watch for whales. I’ve never really eaten much from the room service menu outside of breakfast and late night hours. Ronald was on break but another butler brought everything within a half hour and set it all up on the veranda for us. The Caesar salad and pasta primavera were pretty decent once I added a little salt and pepper. After lunch we made a quick trip into port for some souvenirs. When we pulled in port yesterday and I saw 2 other ships in I knew that wasn’t the time to get the best shopping prices. Especially looking for kid items for Gen Z with a Disney ship around. Far better leverage to wait to haggle the second day a couple of hours before last tender back, and pick a shop where I could get multiple things we were looking for to negotiate volume discounts. For other parents following, when shopping in Mexico for kids items I usually try to leave Gen Z with my mom or Jeremy. The vendors often up their prices significantly if you have a kid with you and they know you’re buying for them. They bank on you not wanting to disappoint your kid by walking away empty handed. This trip taking Gen Z along was unavoidable so I briefed her appropriately before we left about how negotiations work in Mexico and reminded her about “poker face”. No acting super excited over anything she saw and liked or begging. When she saw the souvenirs she really really wanted she was just to point and very casually and calmly say the code sentence: “hey mommy would this be good to bring back for Bailey/Johnny?” (Bailey is our chihuahua mix and Johnny Cash is our Labrador Retriever, not that the vendors need to know that.) Then move on to looking at something else disinterestedly while I inquired about and engaged in price negotiations in Spanish. Worked like a charm. We got two hand made stuffed animals (initially quoted a price of $35 each), matching t-shirts (initially quoted at $20 each) and a very nice chrome, engraved key chain shaped like a whale with blue and silver crystals embedded in it (initially quoted at $12) for her travel key chain collection all for $45 total. When we got back to the ship, Gen Z had a voicemail on our phone from her girlfriends asking to meet up at camp at sea for charades at 3pm. Because there are less kids today (with families in port) the 10-12 group is in the the X Club teens. I was a little nervous about that but Gen Z was so excited to hang out in the “teen room” and the counselor assured me the handful of 10-12 year olds would be closely supervised and not actively doing group activities with the older teens. A copy of the activity schedule below for anyone interested. While my little social butterfly does her thing I’m by the pool again. I figured while in Mexico I’d best have a margarita and Robert my server suggested I try one with a brown cane sugar rim instead of salt. When I decided to take him up on the offer I saw him going running off the pool deck. The man went to an entire other bar to get the sugar to make my margarita. While I’m waiting for him to bring round 2, about dinner in Le Petit Chef last night: Because of the overnight in port there was only one seating at 8:30. After her day Gen Z was pretty tired by that point but adamant that she didn’t want to miss this dinner she’d been looking forward to. It was the same dinner/menu that Jeremy and I did on Summit in Bermuda but Gen Z had never done it before. This was also the first time I learned that, in addition to the main show menu and alternate menu, for the less food adventurous kids they can also do kids menu courses of chicken nuggets, Mac n cheese and a Kobe beef burger. I did the straight show menu and Gen Z had the chicken nugget starter but then the poached shrimp from the main menu and bronzino alternate entree. For dessert we both got the strawberry cake from the main menu then our server also brought us the chocolate alternate dessert to try. She didn’t care for the sweet sauce on the poached shrimp (I rather liked it) but other than that cleaned her plate for every course. I didn’t even get to try a bite of that great looking bronzino for review purposes! I never thought Gen Z would take strawberries over chocolate but she ended up liking that dessert much better and I tend to agree. The puff pastry was done properly unlike on Summit and it made all the difference. The short rib main course with wasabi mashed potatoes was just as tender and flavorful as it was on Summit. We were both full and exhausted after eating so we went straight back to the cabin after dinner and were in bed before 10pm. On the walk back Mini Me tried to convince me to eat dinner at LPC for the remainder of the cruise. Sorry kiddo, mom’s digestive system will definitely not tolerate her eating short rib nightly for 4 days straight. I’m going to enjoy my taste of the Mexican riviera for a bit longer then it’ll be time to drag Gen Z back out of kids club for sailaway and to get ready for tonight’s dinner in Tuscan Grille.

Thank you! I’ve been considering Edge to Alaska for next year. That Aqua class price is a great value. I’m currently on Solstice and not sure I want to wait for a Retreat appointment with future cruises on this one. I may throw some elbows and get right down there with my credit card after lunch.

Well now you’ve opened a can of worms…I just spent a little poolside time sniffing around Princess’s Alaska cruise prices for this summer (feeling like a creepy dude texting his mistress while sitting right next to his wife) and they look a fair bit more reasonable than Celebrity for the weeks I was interested in but were out of budget on Solstice…dare I try another new cruise line? Dare I broach the subject of adding yet another cruise to my calendar this summer with my office and my husband? Tabling further thought on this one till I’m not 3 mimosas deep!

Thank you! I’m going to order it today. It will be a nice surprise to cheer her up from post-cruise back to reality funk once we get home.

Thank you! Amazon and The Children’s Place have really good selections of Mommy and Me/Family matching outfits. For cocktail and formalwear, I use one of our local bridal and pageant dress shops that can order evening dresses in my size with matching fabrics in junior bridesmaids sizes/styles for Gen Z. The sales associates get very excited when they see us coming. 😂

Buenos Dias from beautiful Cabo San Lucas! This morning we slept in and had Ronald bring us a late breakfast on our veranda as we watched one of the tenders be brought back onto the ship. I noticed last night that Gen Z was running extremely low on a few clean essential laundry items so I gave Ronald the items this morning for rush service (return by tomorrow morning at latest) at a 50% rush charge. It’s going to cost over $50 for what’s maybe a quarter of a load of kids laundry, but we still have over $400 in OBC to spend thanks to the refund for our Catalina excursion fiasco (I know I still owe that story). I have a bag of laundry free as an elite perk but was told the turn around time for that is now 2 days, and I wasn’t going to have Gen Z running around in dirty shorts for that long. I’ll likely put in my free bag this evening to lighten the load on my post-cruise laundry when we get home. I also used my complimentary pressing Elite perk on the first day of cruise to have my less suitcase friendly evening dress for second chic night pressed. To give a sense of timing I gave it to Ronald on the afternoon of embarkation day and got it back late morning on day 3. Gen Z is at a model plane building class at Camp at Sea (apparently there IS something that can pull her away from whale watching) so I’m sipping a mimosa by the pool. While I’m chilling, about the rest of our Cabo day yesterday: We did the Luxury Whale Watching Tour booked through Celebrity. I think the tour can also be booked independently through Cabo Adventures for a lower price, but we got so much OBC with this cruise booking our excursions through Celebrity made more financially sense. We met in the theater and tendered over as a group with the other “speedboat” whale watching tour through the same company. I’d read that both tours book up quickly so I booked right after I booked the cruise in Fall. I heard that both were completely sold out by the first day of the cruise. I went back and forth between the two when deciding which to book and it seems like there are pros and cons to each. For the luxury tour, we were on a very nice two story catamaran with bathrooms, shaded areas and padded couch seating. The speedboat tour boats were essentially small outboard fishing boats with bench seating. Because it was essentially a small yacht we weren’t required to wear life jackets on our boat and were free to get up and move around. The group on the speedboats were seated shoulder to shoulder with life jackets on for the duration. I can’t recall if food or beverage were included in the speedboat, but our tour came with an open bar and after an hour or so of whale viewing the crew passed out bento boxes with a nice assortment of canapés. The fried shrimp was especially good. I think the whales were fans of our snacks too because while we were stopped so the crew could pass out the trays, out of nowhere, a humpback with a head the size of my Jeep Cherokee breached the water no more that 20 meters from our boat and crashed back into the ocean creating a wake that rocked that 2 story, 60 person capacity catamaran so hard that it threw Gen Z across her seat (giggling with delight) and scared the shrimp out of all of the adults! Our captain had to fire up the engine and back up quickly for our safety. I had to make a run to that (very clean) bathroom after that. I think a big pro to the speedboat tour is that the smaller boats are much faster and more maneuverable so when we’d see blowhole or breaching activity, they were able to get over to the whales much quicker than we were and I think they got better views. We still got to see several whales though (in addition to Moby Dick the happy hour canapé crasher). While we were snacking our guide also put a an underwater microphone into the ocean connected to a speaker on the boat and Gen Z was so excited to hear a few whales singing! Our tour also included a professional photographer who took picture of us and the whales and gave us an email address to write to to get the pictures. I sent my email requesting the photos this morning and will be sure to post the good ones when I get them. When we got back to port, we came face to face with the most massive line to get to the tender area I’ve ever seen. It went all the way to the back of the port area. Then I started to realize that I didn’t recognize any of the people in line. And, how can I say this nicely, their behavior seemed a bit more typical of a Cabo spring break crowd than what I’ve experienced so far on Solstice. After looking around a little I figured out that there were 3 separate (but not well marked) entry lines for the tender area for the 3 ships anchored. The massive line was people waiting to get on Norwegian Bliss. There was a tiny notebook paper sized sign next to a separate line entrance for tenders back to Solstice (with no wait whatsoever). When heading back to the ship when multiple ships are in port be sure to pay attention and look for these tiny signs. The port workers weren’t really paying attention to seapass cards or directing traffic to the right tender lines at all. I saw a family that was supposed to be boarding the Bliss almost head down to a tender to the Disney Wonder until they noticed all the families in matching mouse head t-shirts around them. I’m gonna take a dip in the pool and grab one more cocktail then will report on last night’s dinner.

Ok friends, I think my daughter just had the best morning of her life. After breakfast we went to the pool deck with Gen Z’s vacay bestie (whose mom has given the ok for me to post pics of her) and her parents. Within an hour the Cabo sun made it comfortable enough for me to get in the heated pool. Mercy, a very sweet pool server from Kenya brought the girls virgin Miami Vices and a good stiff adult one for me and checked on us regularly. About 11am cruise director Patrick started a poolside dance class that the girls got out of the pool to join which allowed me to take my eyes off Gen Z and look for some whales. It didn’t take long to spot one and I’ve never seen Gen Z ditch a Pitbull song so fast. Gen Z is OBSESSED with whales. In fact, “whale” was her first word. Mention a whale in front of her and prepare for a 20 minute monologue about different species, their migratory patterns, hunting strategies, diets, and on and on and on. She’s wanted to see a whale in the wild her whole short life. Not an easy feat to accomplish when you’re raised 5 hours by plane from the nearest ocean with a whale it. When she saw that humpback breach the water and leap backwards into a wave she literally cried tears of joy. The Disney Princesses could all have shown up on deck right then handing out free live ponies and my kid would not have moved from that rail. She was even more excited when I reminded her that this afternoon we’ll be going out on a catamaran to see them closer up. We grabbed a quick early lunch from the mast grill (because I had a better chance of winning six figures in the casino than I did of convincing Gen Z to turn her back on the ocean and go down to Luminae) then I had a work emergency pop up so we had to head back to the room so I could take care of it before our tour. Gen Z’s sulking ended quickly though because when we got to the room she saw that Ronald had left her a plate of chocolate chip cookies AND there was another whale swimming right off our balcony. I’m finishing up an email while Gen Z hangs out on the balcony with the binoculars plastered to her face. Some day, Gen Z will look at me with a face streaked with tears of teen angst and claim that I don’t really love/care about her. When she does, I will remind her of this trip.

Ah…now THIS is more like it. THIS is the weather I spent all that money to cruise in. As you can see this morning the clouds have opened and the temp has jumped into the low 70’s. I was awakened this morning by the sound of paper crumbling. It was my child wide awake and eating pillow chocolates at 7am. I was very confused by the volume of them that we got at turndown last night. Then Gen Z informed me that right before we left the cabin for dinner, she left our stateroom attendant “a note on the bed with just a small request” (which he left on the nightstand after fulfilling). This kid is something else. In other news from last night, Gen Z and I made a quick stop by the officers party in Michael’s Club. It was pretty packed and getting warm in there so we just had a quick chat with Mar the Retreat manager and our guest services manager and hotel director then went to Al Bacio to listen to live guitar in the foyer. Once Luminae opened we headed to dinner which was not crowded at all right at 6pm. We did a combo of ordering off of both the Luminae and MDR menus. Gen Z had her shrimp cocktail to start and then some broiled salmon and French fries. I had a Caesar salad and the lamb chops from the MDR and then we split the potato mezzaluna pasta from the Luminae menu. No disappointments! Service was very quick and since Gen Z wanted to skip dessert in favor of more lemon tarts from the Al Bacio dessert case, we were able to make the 7pm show in the theater. About Cheaza’s Whitney Houston tribute show…The first couple of songs I thought I wasn’t going to be very impressed by her singing but then her voice really warmed up and by the closing number (of course I Will Always Love You), Gen Z and I were thoroughly entertained. I remember a while back Celebrity had another Whitney cover performer, I think her name was Ashley Amber? Who I think did a bit better show. That said, I think it’s important to acknowledge that Ms. Cheaza’s voice is precisely 8,000,000% better than mine, so who am I to be critiquing her when my dogs start howling when I sing in the shower. After the show Gen Z begged for more camp at sea time for a robot obstacle course competition so I took her up and then I headed to MY camp at sea…the martini bar. While I was sitting and sipping, I had an epiphany. Brace for martini-fueled brilliance folks. Me thinks I’ve stumbled upon a better revenue generation idea for Celebrity than charging for extra lobster… What if, hear me out on this, what if, the technology for the emergency phone that camp at sea gives me could also be leveraged for profit. Specifically, what I’m thinking of is a martini concierge service. For an extra $500 per passenger plus 20% gratuity charge of course, and for a much higher price if you don’t already have the beverage package (I’m not accountant [90 Day fans check in] someone else do the math) upon embarkation you get issued one of these bat phones and at any time and from any location on the ship, you can call and order a martini off of the martini bar menu for immediate delivery, perhaps with some accompanying caviar and/or premium canapé menu. Regardless of the martini bar’s hours. Maybe the bartender who shows up with your order even arrives with the drink still in the shaker and does a little flare juggling/shaking before pouring in the glass for your VIP entertainment. By the pool after lunch and want a tropictini? Signed, sealed, delivered. Enjoying sea day lunch in Luminae or sitting at a slot machine at the casino and thinking “man I could go for a French 75 martini right now”? Done. Martini bar Doordash at sea. Take that Virgin Voyages. Y’all think you so cool, but do you have martinis on demand? You’re welcome, Ms. Luftoff-Perlow. Ok, sorry I digress. Anyway, today is a half sea day as we are scheduled to arrive in Cabo at noon. At the show last night they announced that because we’re docked in Cabo through tomorrow, tenders to port will run through the night, but between midnight and 6am they will only run one tender per hour. I think Gen Z and I will hit the pool after breakfast for some sun (finally) and to watch sail into Cabo. Then this afternoon we have a whale watching excursion planned. Tonight is the dinner Gen Z’s most been looking forward to: Le Petit Chef. Wish us luck on spotting some humpbacks today!

The first question I had for our stateroom attendant was whether we had to look after that plant and I was very relieved that the answer was no. I’m great in our garden but when it comes to house plants I have a toxic thumb!

Doing my best to inspire the next generation of full formal dressers for evening chic night… I even let her wear her first pair of proper kitten heels. 😍

Quick Update from Solstice: Thus far the casino on Solstice has not been my friend, but hey, if gambling were a solid way to get rich quick, every casino would be full 24/7. After an unsuccessful hunt for a generous slot machine I picked up Gen Z from kids club and we went to lunch at Luminae. The parsnip soup and veggie pancit were both very good. Gen Z ordered the grilled salmon with fries on the side and cleaned her plate. I felt like I needed some protein along with my pancit so I asked for a small piece of the grilled salmon on top. I guess “small” is a relative term for the kitchen. Gen Z was kind enough to finish the rest when I got full. After lunch we went back to the room for a little down time and reading then one of Gen Z’s new friends came over for a Lego play date while her parents are getting a couple’s massage at the spa. Somehow the girls were actually hungry again, so our butler Ronald brought a fruit bowl and kid friendly snacks. He also brought a glass of wine, shrimp and charcuterie for this supervising mama (blessings be upon Ronald, his tip envelope groweth). Also sharing some info that was in our room on Captain’s Club events (Gen Z’s classic status is reflected on her sea pass card and we received info for both her status and my Elite) and hours and events in the Retreat lounge. Soon we’ll start getting dressed for our first evening chic night, senior officer’s party in the retreat lounge, dinner in Luminae and the Whitney Houston tribute show.

So glad you’re enjoying the report. I don't know, I think the prices they’re charging in some of the shops come pretty darn close to piracy! 😆

I’m soon going to have a bone to pick with these Camp at Sea folks. I booked this cruise so I could spend some quality time with my kid. Apparently my kid is only interested in spending quality time at Camp at Sea! During breakfast our phone rang and once again it wasn’t for me. Apparently this morning they’re learning about whales and sea lions at Camp at Sea then having a ping pong tournament. How could I compete? So here I sit again just me and my green tea (and also an almond croissant…don’t judge me. Jeffry my server from yesterday saw me sit down and had one in front of me before I could say “good morning”). Another somewhat creepy moment from Solstice: As I was getting dressed this morning, Gen Z shouted from the living room “Mama! I think Santa came and gave us new furniture while we were sleeping!!!!” I figured she’d had too much hot chocolate at breakfast but when I looked where she was pointing outside sure enough…at some point between sunset yesterday and this morning, someone came and changed out all the furniture on our veranda. I mean I guess the table was starting to look pretty beat up, but the ninja-style swap out with no notice was a little weird. Sharing pics of the before and after below. Also sharing some other pics of our Celebrity Suite. Overall we’re happy with the room and how much space we have. It has the pros and cons of pre-Revolution S class. I really missed these Bvlgari toiletries, they’re so much nicer than the Bigelow stuff to me. On the flip side, there’s no outlets in the bedroom and it seems to be a wifi dead zone. Fortunately I packed my power bank so still have a means to charge my phone bedside. Well, I guess I’ll finish my tea now and figure out how to amuse myself till lunch. Maybe I’ll find myself a mimosa and go in search of a loose slot machine. There’s a vintage Louis Vuitton in the shops that costs about 3 nights in a very nice hotel in Rome (and thus I can only afford via a generous blessing from the Blue Chip gods). Veranda Furniture Sunday Afternoon Veranda Furniture Monday Morning

Good morning from our first sea day! Gen Z is still sleeping off her evening so I’m writing to you from curled up under a blanket in our living room on this cool grey morning. A tip for those sailing this itinerary in the coming weeks, be sure to check weather forecasts for each of your ports and pack accordingly. We have had wild swings from cold, grey and rainy (Catalina yesterday and at sea this morning) to sunny and warm (LA and our predicted weather for Cabo). I felt like I was packing for an Alaska cruise and a Caribbean cruise at the same time. The reason my child is still a tuft of curly hair peeping from between the covers is our evening exploits. We started the night with an early dinner in Luminae with a family we met on the first day when their 10 year old daughter came up to Gen Z in Michael’s Club and complemented her stuffed frog. The girls have been almost inseparable ever since, including going on the same excursion in Catalina (I know, I’m behind on reporting that, I’ll catch up I promise). Gen Z had the shrimp cocktail to start (one of the MDR classic appetizers that are always available in Luminae) and then had a burger and fries from the kids menu (pic below). I started with the turkey escarole soup and then had one of my favorite Luminae dishes, the veal cannelloni. Gen Z and I also split the cod basques. I didn’t have to push Gen Z at all to finish her food. For me, the turkey soup was a great warm up after the chilly wet day, but I slightly regretted not getting the short rib instead. That cannelloni was excellent again. Our server told us that the culinary team made the cannelloni pasta for it fresh that morning. The sauce that came with the cod was delicious, but my cod filet was not well prepped. I ran into several small bones as I was eating. Fortunately Gen Z’s piece was fine. We had the same serving team we’ve had for our other Luminae meals of Budi as our waiter and Merivic as our assistant waiter and they’ve given such great service and are wonderful with kids. After dinner we let the girls go to kids club for an hour to burn off some energy playing hula hoop games while the parents all went to have a martini (Yogi made mine special). Then we went back to pick up the kids and all went to the Broken Strings production show together. Sorry I didn’t get the best pics of the show as we wanted to sit in the balcony near the back since I hadn’t seen this show before and wanted to be able to make a quick retreat if the sound/lights were too much for Gen Z. We ended up being fine though. In what I’ve come to understand is typical Celebrity production show fashion, the plot was somewhere between ambiguous and nonexistent (other than I think it was somehow about celebrating some guy name Ethan who might be cheating on his girlfriend’s birthday, IDK). Anyway, the choreography and music were good. There were lots of songs Gen Z and her friend recognized and were dancing along in their seats to. At the end of the show some of the performers were at the exits to the theater and Gen Z got a kick out of being able to tell them personally how much she liked the show and get a photo with them. After the show, we headed out to the silent disco party in the packed grand foyer until the 11pm kids curfew. Gen Z and her friend never left the dance floor. Well, actually they did for about 10 minutes to go get a scoop of gelato to cool off. On our way to bed, we noticed one of the few signs that poor Solstice is more than ready for her refurb. With the rainy weather, it looks like part of the sky light is leaking into the library. When we got back to the room, we put out a hang tag for room service breakfast (which once again has the much more limited options than were on the menu for previous cruises), which our butler Ronald has actually just arrived and set up for us. I’m going to slam a cup of this coffee then wake mini me for her breakfast. More to come from Solstice!

Ok everyone, I am having a complete 1899 moment (great Netflix show BTW). I could SWEAR that yesterday afternoon I posted my write up on first night Murano dinner. I even specifically remember uploading the photos and pressing “Submit Reply” and seeing it appear in the chain. For some reason this morning it isn’t showing in my post feed though. Reposting below just in case and I sincerely apologize if everyone else has seen it and this is a duplicate post… About last night: After our belated sail away, Gen Z and I dressed and headed to dinner at Murano. For starters, Gen Z had the pork belly and I had the lobster bisque and mushroom risotto. I’ve had mixed results with the pork belly at Murano, but last night’s left me in envy of my child (who grudgingly gave me a bite for review purposes). The skin was perfect crisp and the meat beneath tender and juicy. The lobster bisque was also a redemption from the overly sherry heavy one on Silhouette. Sadly the risotto was a little under cooked, but that was the only fail of the night. For dinner we split a mommy-daughter surf and turf of the chateaubrian for two and the Murano lobster and both were excellent as always. For dessert Gen Z had some vanilla gelato and I had gran marnier soufflé. Because of the alcohol I didn’t want to let Gen Z order it so I just let her try one small bite of mine. It set off a several minute rant from her on the injustices of something so tasty being only for grown ups. After dinner, Gen Z headed to the kids club for a dance party with a new cruise friend and I decided to treat myself to a little mama time at the martini bar with my favorite, the French 75 martini. Another nice camp at sea perk: due to Cami’s special needs and allergies, when I drop her off the camp gives me a “bat phone” that works anywhere on the ship so that I can be called in case of emergency. It’s great for extra peace of mind. I think I’ve finally dried and thawed out from our day in Catalina (long story, I’ll explain later) and am relaxing in the living room while Gen Z takes a bubble bath. In a little while we’ll dress and then are meeting one of her little Retreat girlfriends and her parents to go to the production show then have dinner in Luminae together.

If you really want to go down a rabbit hole, there is an entire submechanophobia Reddit sub where people post photos from their dives and explorations. Change the post sorting settings to top rated of all time and prepare for nightmares. 😆

No, I’ve never felt threatened on a Celebrity ship and I do think their security teams take guest safety very seriously. I think that’s a big part of the reason cruising is my preferred method of solo travel and travel with Gen Z sans Jeremy. That said, I think I’m also just very cautious by nature and am always mindful that no place is immune from bad people or bad things happening (perhaps also a result of my profession, people often end up hiring me when the thing they didn’t expect to go wrong goes wrong) so I still try to pack my “street smarts” when I go on vacation. Oh that reminds me, for anyone else following who is interested and wasn’t aware, the cruise lines with ships sailing to/from the US are required to report to the FBI on serious criminal incidents that are reported onboard and the US Department of Transportation has a website where they publish a report quarterly on the number of reported incidents of different types on each cruise line. Celebrity pretty consistently reports ZERO criminal incidents in all categories and has some of the lowest numbers of reported incidents overall historically. Even for the cruise lines with higher numbers (e.g. 3-4 reported assaults in the quarter) it’s important to note that that’s a handful of incidents over the course of tens of thousands of passengers or more who sailed in that quarter, so cruising generally is statistically fairly safe.

Current Situation on Solstice… Al Bacio Server: Ma’am Charla are you sure you wouldn’t like any pastry? Me: No, thank you so much. I just had breakfast not too long ago. Server: Ok, ma’am. [Moves on to table across from me]. Good morning madam, would you like any pastry or coffee? Lady at Table: Yes I’d like an americano and do you have any almond croissants this morning? Server: Yes ma’am the almond croissants just came out. They are still warm. Me: Um, did someone just say “warm almond croissants???” SOMEBODY PLEASE COME SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!!!!

Good morning from Catalina Island! Gen Z and I spent breakfast this morning watching some sea lions play in the wake of the tenders going back and forth from the ship. Only our server Budi placing a mountain of French toast with whipped cream in front of her could pull her nose out of the window. Our excursion today isn’t till the afternoon so I was hoping we could start working our vacation puzzle after breakfast, but Gen Z only had eyes for the kids club. So alas here I sit in Al Bacio having some green tea and trying to finish my Agatha Christie novel that is now on its third cruise. Pretty soon they’re going to give this copy of Death on the Nile a captain’s club number. Before I get too deep into Egypt though, a report on the rest of our day yesterday. When we got onboard we headed to our stateroom to drop off our carry on bags and grab our seapass cards then went to check in at our muster station. Tip for the parents following: make sure that they have muster station wristbands for your little ones either in your stateroom or at the muster station when you check in. I had to go proactively ask for one for Gen Z. These wristbands are worn at all times and tell the crew where to take your child in the event your child isn’t with you when (heaven forbid) the abandon ship signal sounds or the captain orders passengers to muster stations. A little scary that it was missed given how many children and inexperienced cruisers we have onboard. The guest count I’ve heard for our cruise is 2200-2300, a drastic jump according to the crew from sailings just a few weeks ago. Spring break’s doing I presume. The kids club staff said they think we have about 150 children onboard. Speaking of kids club, sharing some info below on hours and after hours childcare rates. If you’re sailing with kids under 3, they can’t be dropped off, but the club does have an area with lots of toys for them where you can bring them to play during certain hours. For my fellow special needs and allergy parents following, I spoke with the youth program manager and she assured me that in addition to thorough background checks and a requirement of prior nanny/childcare experience, all kids club staff receive extensive training in working with children on the autism spectrum and/or with sensory conditions. They also have training from the medical staff on how to administer Epipens. One of the things I’ve become hyper aware of due to my solo travels is security cameras. When on a new class of ship or resort, I make a point of walking around to see where cameras are located so that I can plot my path around accordingly. One thing I like about Celebrity is that there are security cameras pretty much EVERYWHERE except the public bathrooms and inside the cabins. The kids club entrances and exits as well as the club interior are also well covered. After a stop by the club open house to fill out registration paperwork we headed to our first lunch at Luminae. Gen Z tried the Luminae burger for the first time and now she’s nagging me to make our burgers from ground filet mignon at home (guess it’s time to educate her on beef prices and how grocery budgets work). I had the always yummy pea soup and Cobb salad. I was a little sad that the salad came with regular bacon and not the big thick lardons I’ve gotten in the past, but it was still very good. We had an earlier dinner planned at Murano so we decided to skip dessert. Speaking of Murano, I’m going to knock out a chapter with Monsieur Poirot then a report on dinner and our first evening onboard.

I never heard an official announcement but the rumor onboard is that there was some mechanical issue that required a diver to be brought in to do an inspection under the ship and confirm was resolved. If that’s true, that diver has some serious huevos rancheros. You couldn’t pay me enough to convince me to dive around/under the hull of this massive ship. It sounds like a submechanaphobia fever dream.

Happy to help! Also I am very jealous that you’re doing that itinerary with your family. It’s on my travel bucket list. I think you’ll all have a wonderful time and see some stunning sights. Bon voyage!

It seems that the first responding poster may not have fully read your post (which was clearly explaining why ships that have those amenities are not a fit for your family) and just saw “kids and water slides” and immediately jumped to the “Celebrity doesn’t have those things!” comment (that was also completely unresponsive to your question). Or perhaps English isn’t their native language. To try and offer some assistance, my experience is a little dated but my 9 year old and I sailed on Millennium last March on a sailing that only had 7 total kids on it and kids club was still open (and my daughter loved it so much that she was sad when I’d come to pick her up). There was only one child that I saw in the youngest group (the 3-5 year olds that your kids would be in) but it looked like they had staff and toys for her available at all the times that camp was open.

Good afternoon from Solstice! I’m sipping a glass of bubbly on the veranda while Mini Me unpacks her carry on bag, a report on embarkation. Our ride from the hotel to the port took about 20 minutes. We left the hotel at 10:30 and were having our bags unloaded at pier 93 a little before 11. By 11:15 we were well on our way exploring the ship! A few notes for suite cruisers. There ARE Retreat priority entrances, security lines and a Retreat embarkation lounge, you just have to be a little vocal about it. Every single port employee we encountered was in automode and when I started veering Gen Z and I towards the Retreat signage would try to direct us to general boarding areas until I was very vocal that we were Retreat class. Don’t be afraid to be politely assertive. When people would say to us “Oh no, ma’am, this way please!” I’d respond with “Is that where we go for Retreat suites?” and then would get the “Oh, no, go right ahead that way.” When we were getting our xpress passes scanned at the Retreat area there was a couple next to us who were in a royal suite (who thus should have had the full VIP greeting and escort up from the front door) and the woman checking them in was so apologetic and confused saying “someone should have met you downstairs and you should be with the Retreat host already”. My guess is the people at the entrance directed them away from the Retreat entrance (where we met someone who was checking names from a list of upper suites for just that purpose) to the general boarding line and they didn’t push back. When we got through security there was a Retreat lounge area (which again someone tried to direct us away from). We only stopped in briefly as general boarding had already begun and when we walked in we were greeted almost immediately by the Retreat manager Anastasiia who remembered us from Gen Z’s first cruise on Millennium and escorted us past the line and directly onto the ship. I’d completely forgotten what non-revolutionized S-class ships look like. Compared to her E-class and rev’ed up sisters, Solstice is starting to look slightly dated (the OG Michael’s Club feels a little like being on vacay at my ex-inlaws’ country club). But she’s squeaky clean and impeccably well kept. Gen Z was blown away by how much bigger she is than Millennium. I forgot to have her put bike shorts under her dress and had to rush to stop her from doing cartwheels and round offs on the lawn club. I also completely forgot how much nicer the old cabanas were than the revolutionized egg jails. Maybe I should’ve booked on for us for a sea day after all. Thanks to spring break there are many more kids on this cruise than Gen Z’s last one (where I think there were 4 total), including in the Retreat. In fact, the reason Gen Z has taken so long to unpack a carryon sized bag is that in the time it’s taken me to write this post I’ve had to get up and answer the stateroom phone twice. Both times it was 9-10 year old girls that Gen Z met in the Retreat lounge (and held court near the grand piano with over virgin strawberry daiquiris) calling to speak to her about her plans for sail away and kids club later and also their favorite Pokémon and LOL Surprise dolls. I told her from now on SHE can answer the phone when it rings. Now I know how my mom felt during my teen years. 🤦🏾‍♀️ I’ll likely go MIA to have some fun with mini me till later this evening after our first night dinner in Murano (when according to what I overheard from the veranda, the fruit of my womb plans to ditch me for a girls’ foosball meet up at Camp @ Sea). When I’m back, a report on our Celebrity Suite and first few hours onboard. Cheers from the very happy Gens on Solstice!