KasioSails

Thank you so much for the compliment - agree there is a freeing aspect to cruising I love as a mom. I am finalizing my overall thoughts with focus to the differences right now - it should be up within a day - we have previously sailed all manner of royal ships with the kids from Radiance class to the Allure. I will say on Celebrity the CS was a great choice to give the family connection and separation we crave.

Next for us is a 9 night Italian/French Riviera next summer. First time in Europe for the boys and first cruise longer than 7 days for us all.

Those are my final specific topic thoughts - I want to extend the fun once more for an overall thoughts - specifically comparison to Royal. I thank everyone still reading along as this has been great to put all my trip in one place. If there is anything I missed you are curious to let me know.

Odds and Ends A few other topics Retreat The Retreat experience for us was really nice - I don’t think we got all the benefit as we missed some of the events and didn’t go to Michaels that often but the dining, events we attended, focused concierge, butler and it all was great. I think for those traveling - especially with a group or without the high level CC perks it is worth considering. I do wish the events had been better communicated to us but we didn’t always see our slips. Activities Overall the ship seemed to have plenty of fun things going on after about 930 in the morning and they didn’t seem too crowded that you had to arrive way early. I was impressed by the number of officer competition that was really cool to see and something new for us. Some of the activities did not seem well advertised which was a challenge. App This connects well into the App - this was a game changer we loved. It was all new to us but we loved having menus on the ready or the schedule or even maps. We didn’t use the chat feature since we had the WiFi but that’s cool too. My only wish is if it had added in the Retreat activities so everything was in one place. WiFi This was not great - we had the premium package from our room and it was anything but steam speeds. In our room we had no signal basically most of the time. It was okish out on deck or in like the grand foyer. If I had paid extra for it I would have wanted a refund.

Food and Drinks Overall I would rate the food and drink experience as excellent. I am a painfully picky eater with limited choices and always found something yummy or was provided a basic choice without hesitation or comment. I have talked a great deal already about how much we enjoyed Luminae and the pampered dining experience we had. There were a few good items that were a miss for us (ex the burger for me) but not because they were not prepared well but more just not our taste. An example was with the hard work provided to let my OS have a similar dish to the signature chicken entree to try or noticing he was wearing a brace on his arm and needed help with cutting his food. The care was from the moment we walked in. The other place we ate most often was at the OVC the food here was always hot and well prepared with minimal lines (except the carving stations - those lines looked huge). My only issue with the OVC was the variety didn’t seem to change much day to day and it was so hard to get a table. I remember back on Royal staff would help you find a place when it was busy and help reduce instances of 1 passenger sitting at like a table for 4 or even 6. I saw a lot of those set ups while looking. Maybe more 2 person tables that can be split and combined would help. Around the ship the bars provided excellent service and stiff drinks. My son had so much fun trying new mock drinks at every spot. Our absolute favorite place was Cafe al Bacio - we were here every day usually multiple times. The lattes were always delicious and our boys never left without cocoas.

Another Sidecar shout out! I just got off the Solstice and had some lovely ones. I found the best were ordered directly at the bars versus the ones brought to the tables at dinner - the bar ones were the full size with the sugar rim.

Great review - thanks for posting The egg hunt up on deck looks fun and an actual hunt. The Solstices attempt was not great down in a small club - most kids didn’t even get an egg.

That’s all I have for now / I have more topics to cover but these were my thoughts as I flew home this morning. Finally back home and I see Seattle didn’t disappoint with a light rain shower and cool temps. Our next adventure is unfortunately not for another year on the Equinox in Europe - very excited for that trip. If you were onboard I hope I got a chance to connect. 😀

Kids Club The boys both participated in the kids/teen club a bit. It was actually a first for us as they never used it before on last sailings because of being either too young or because we were traveling with grandparents. For my younger son he attended a few mid-day sessions for like an hour each that were themed - craft projects, Dino’s, secret agents, etc. he also loved that there was mindcraft a game we don’t play at home. At night he attended twice so we could attend a show or swim a bit. My YS is very shy and unsure in new situations - we had to kind of push him to try the first session on day 3. But after we picked him up an hour later he was a fan and while he never asked to go if we offered for an hour he was always up for it. The only other hesitation was the party one night that he ended up enjoying after some gentle support from the staff. The staff always seemed excellent with the kids and I saw so many kids excited to go to club. Our older son (13) was a harder sell on the whole teen club thing - first change from the old days was that he could just come and go as he pleased. He interacted with a lot of the teens on board at the sport court the first part of the trip but was never interested in the activities - I think he thought they sounded corny and he’s a shy guy too. Finally on day 6 we pushed him to try it for a bit and he had a great time and spent several more hours there over the last 2 days. He said the activities are more of a if you want to we will sort of thing and it’s just more a social place. Every night they were hanging out until closing at midnight. The group seemed to get along and he met some kids from not too far away so I’m glad he tried it and I will be interested if he is more excited to go on our next trip.

Itinerary and Shore Excursions We admittedly did not pick the sailing for the itinerary. It was the planned one for the week my boys were off school and it sounded cool. But the stops were all very lovely. The dolphin sightings throughout were very cool I think Mazatlan would be tougher to navigate just walking but I could be wrong. We were happy to have plans in each port that were very different from each other. My favorite single activity was the boat ride to the edge of the peninsula - it was very beautiful. One aspect I really liked was how small all the groups seemed to be - just like 30 maybe 40ish people per. Sometimes we were a larger overall group but could function like a smaller one. It let things move more snappy and always on time. I also felt the ship was more organized releasing the groups with one exception on the 3rd port day when our group was by accident missed but it was a small disruption and things all worked out. Embarking/Disembarking I can only speak as a Retreat guest and maybe some of the improvements are Covid based but the process to get on and off the ship was some of the smoothest I have ever had - no complaints or issues.

Stateroom We stayed in a CS midship on deck 10. This was a great location with staterooms above and below. The layout was fairly spacious including the balcony with storage throughout, decent sized bathroom and a separate bedroom for privacy. The bed was very comfy and the boys said the sofa bed wasn’t bad either. The included Retreat robes to use were super soft and nice. Some aspects of the room I didn’t like - the white furniture on the balcony feel cheap and isn’t that comfortable, the haircare products provided have changed from what I saw in other reviews and the new ones have sulfates that strip the color from your hair and even though I knew this I didn’t care for not seeing the water from the bedroom. My last issue with the room was more to the cleaning timing - our attendant would not clean our room until like at least 1pm - but then we got turn down during dinner. This meant we had almost no time to use much of our room as the bed was taking up the living room - other nitpick -I was asked the first sea day if I needed the coffee table back as I was walking down the hall to something - thinking he meant right then I said it was fine in the entry area near the desk - this was interpreted as to never return it to the room middle and during the week it was often in the way - I never saw him again until Day 7 to ask for anything different since he came so late in the day. So nothing crushing - but I just felt annoyed when I would come to my room at like 12:30 and it was still mostly a bed that was hard to walk past and only left one spot on the couch to sit.

Wrap Up Reviews Thank you everyone who read along my trip. I wanted to finish properly with reviews of the different ship/cruise aspects. These are on no particular order. Some may be repeats of things said during the journey but other parts will be new from focused reflections. I want to make clear we had an amazing time so any criticism is small and more for info. Ship The Ship is stunning overall - the wear of the ship from aging is minimal and not impactful. The size is really nice and does not feel overwhelming or confusing to navigate. Our stateroom was midship by the library and it was quiet in our room and very easy to get to. I like how the elevators did not open directly to the state room but had a buffer and there nearly always seemed to be enough elevators. The only time the ship felt awkward was going from the lawn club to the kids club as it required going up and down and we always seemed to be on the wrong side. Also the sport court was a bit of a pain to get to and being in the front was crazy windy. In terms of feel though the ship was nicely decorated with fun glass pieces scattered everywhere on the ship - after our classes these stood out more to us

I wouldn’t say there were issues / but it was all a bit chaotic - there’s not really enough space for everyone and their stuff. I didn’t think it was super clearly laid out. And I it likely felt more challenging then it was because it was juxtaposed to the super smooth process to get outside.

Day 8 Encore The fun doesn’t stop just because we’ve left the ship (though the endless treats do) - we grabbed an Uber at the port which was chaotic. A piece of advice - especially for those in the retreat - the process through customs is crazy fast so you can order car service just about as you walk out of Michaels. After waiting a bit a driver came and we headed to the Embassy Suites at LAX for the night. We like taking an extra day after a cruise to enjoy the time without rushing and give a slower cool down of fun. This turned out especially important today as my YS was quite saddened to leave the ship and the wind down helped him talk through it and smile. Our activity today was a visit to the La Brea Tar Pits. This is a great museum because it’s really interesting to see but not super big. The boys were so tired from the week they didn’t last super long - just a few hours and headed back to the hotel. For those who like hotel closer to the airport than the pier this is a fine choice. After a bit of Lebanese for dinner and some pool time it was an early bedtime - our flight back home is super early.

We didn’t have Eddy but agree 100% Abdul was astounding and gave some the best service we ever had.