spectromen

Thanks! Will do.

Speaking of OBC - oftentimes, travel agents have access to OBC because their agency books blocks in advance. Is there ever an advantage to using a TA with Cunard?

Thanks! I did - earlier today, in fact. Not quite as lenient as other lines, but I understand.

Thank you! The Grills would not be an option for me ($$$) but yes I had taken note of those extra perks. The only remaining answer to find is the cancellation policy and date by which full payment is due - I'll search around the website. Appreciate the help!

I had been waiting for this sale. Having never cruised Cunard, it's on my list. Are the sale prices remarkable? It seems the sale fares are the stripped ones (no drink, wifi etc) and I do not see any lenient cancel policies or extended due dates for final payment. Can anyone enlighten if now is the right time book (in my case, for 2025)?

Thanks!

Any updated pricing for 2024?

Thanks NA! Yep, I was out of town all weekend and you're correct, it docked right there in downtown. Easy peasy embarkation and re-board.

Oh awesome! Have a great time and I would say tell Shawna hi, but I think she was leaving on break 3 weeks after my cruise so you may have a different director.

Sailors Patrick (me) – 52, first cruise ever Roger (my partner) – 42, 2nd cruise (1st was years ago, on Crystal Cruises) Mom – 81, 1st cruise ever Mom’s partner (might as well say husband, even though they’re not married almost 40 years later) – late 60’s, 1st cruise ever 4 other friends/extended family – all in their 60’s who have cruised before Trip Planning This trip was discussed for years before it actually took place. At holidays, Mom would always bring up the fact that she wanted us to take a big trip together as a family. A cruise was one of those options. I hesitated because I was afraid that different age groups would have too many different wants and needs on a trip to make it relaxing and not filled with constant conflict over who wants to do what, so I would always stall. With mom getting into her 80’s, I felt we had better make more of an effort to make sure this happens when we are all still healthy and fit for travel, so I finally agreed to start the planning. Mom and I are both VERY prone to motion sickness; this is probably why neither of us have cruised before. We just assumed we’d be vomiting on a daily basis and spending the rest of the time in bed, medicated and praying for relief. At the same time, we’ve both been out on small boats throughout our lives and managed pretty well. Personally, I have felt my motion sickness getting worse every year for the past 10 years or so. I used to love swinging on swing sets for hours; now 30 seconds on one and I want to puke. I can’t ride in the back seat of cars without feeling nauseous and generally prefer to always be the driver. I have always been the daredevil on theme park rides and loved them all. Now there are serious sectors of the ride offerings that I can’t even touch anymore. It’s very disappointing, and a constant reminder of getting older. That said, we both felt we needed to suck it up and just “try”. So we chose Alaska because of the inside passage option, and knowing that the waters on this route are historically among the more calm ones out there. It didn’t hurt that we’d never been to the Alaska or Canada area, so it would check off those boxes at the same time. We both contacted several travel agents. There were probably 1,000 emails over the course of a couple months getting everything booked. We had 4 parties of 2, so we needed 4 cabins, and of course were trying to book them similarly. That was probably the first mistake. What we should have done is simply book our own, share the info on what we got with the others, and let them do their thing. But my mom doesn’t work that way and needs to orchestrate everything. Not everyone is glued to their email like she is, so there was a lot of time lag and a lot of losing out on certain cabins when they would sell out. This particular date did sell out of verandahs, which is what we all wanted, and towards the end some people had to accept rooms they didn’t want – either wrong floor, wrong price point, or wrong position on the ship. Mom was very insistent that we be toward the center and on a lower level to minimize the rocking. By the time I booked my cabin, I was so fed up at the process that I just took what I was offered, not paying that much attention to where it was, which turned out to be fairly midship on Deck 10. So in retrospect, my best advice is either a) have one person make all the arrangements and give full authority to make all the decisions or b) book your own accommodations and then tell the others what you’ve got and let them follow your lead OR book something else they prefer more. In the end, we used at least 2 different travel agents. Again, mom was of the opinion that if one agent wasn’t responding or finding exactly what she wanted, she’d move on to a different company and start over. In doing this, she lost out on the better deals with the first agent. It’s true; various agencies have different blocks of rooms and different promotions, but in the end, she caused herself a lot of distress that an 81-year old doesn’t need. Roger and I are the ones who lucked out in the deal. I don’t know if it was simply the timing, or my pulling the trigger at the precise moment, but I ended up getting a cabin in Concierge, and with the Classic drink package + wifi + gratuities for roughly the same price as others got for non-concierge and no other extras. I’m still baffled at how that happened – but we definitely won out. I’m not a drinker at all and only do so when celebrating a special event, or in this case, when it’s “free”. I told mom and her husband that I would be happy to get her drinks with my credits since I wasn’t going to take much advantage of them. We both did that for them several times, but they eventually grew tired of having to pretend like it was our drinks at the dinner table and they did end up purchasing a few on their own. Roger enjoys alcohol more than I do and took advantage of the package many more times than I did. This trip will be summary-style on various topics, since I didn’t keep notes as we went, so I am going off memory and pictures. Since this was my first cruise, I’m definitely a novice on this entire new world, but figured other new cruisers might benefit from a first timer’s point of view. Flights We live in the Los Angeles are, so we had to get to Seattle to begin the cruise. We each booked our own fares and didn’t worry about being on the same flight. Part of our party was coming from central California, so they had a slightly shorter flight. Roger lives not too far from LAX and we got rides both directions from his dad, which was a huge help that saved me from having to pay any airport parking or Lyft rides. I am a big fan of public transportation (when it works) and if I was alone, I would’ve taken a train from my home and then an LAX bus from downtown LA – but for those not used to the system they feel it’s a hassle, so I wouldn’t have been able to convince anyone else to go that route. We used JetBlue going and United coming back; both went very well. LAX and SEA are both crazy busy airports, and a nightmare for me. I would have much preferred to leave from a smaller airport nearby but there were no direct flights to SEA and even with the connections, they cost more – so, LAX it was. Passports Since this cruise began and ended in the US, I found language that stated that a passport wouldn’t be necessary, but that that is always subject to change and there are no guarantees. Roger’s passport was not current, so I kept pushing him to go get one. In the end, he did apply and it came a couple of weeks before the cruise – whew. But he was prepared with a birth certificate as a backup. In the end, I’m not sure the passport was even needed. There was only one time when it had to be shown, upon first entering the cruise terminal and getting checked in. I wonder if, at that point, they would have accepted the BC instead. All other times, it was just our SeaPass to get on and off the ship, but no passports. Pre-Cruise We purposely flew in the night before the cruise just in case there were any flight delays. I booked a room at the Fairfield Inn SeaTac using a free night voucher I had earned with Marriott. I purposely chose a hotel that came with free breakfast. Mom was able to use some points to book here and get a reduced price. The others (who have more cash to spare) stayed in downtown Seattle the night before, which made for a very pleasant and short commute to the terminal the next day. We arrived in good time and took the free airport shuttle to the hotel. The rooms here are nice and modern, if not small. This hotel had no pool or jacuzzi, which was a bummer and always something I prefer in hotels. We found a local restaurant and walked to it. This was probably around ¼ mile each way, but it involved some incline, and mom was not happy. She has some issues with walking (bad feet and very painful lower back problems) so it was a major trek for her, but she did it, and did it both ways. The meal was excellent (Sharps Roadhouse, near the airport) so we definitely started the trip off with a great meal. The next morning’s breakfast was typical low-end Marriott with an egg dish, some sort of meat and fruit/yogurt/cereal and not much more. It was completely adequate and all we really needed. Side note – there are tons of options for hotels near the Seattle airport. I happened to take notice of the Doubletree on the same street as the Fairfield Inn (International Blvd) and it looked much nicer than most Doubletrees. You could tell it was originally built as something else, probably in the 70s. It’s really nice with a tower with balconies and also low rise motor hotel sections all connected. If you’re in the area and are OK with the price, I’d recommend staying there. If anybody knows what it was originally called, I’d love to hear. To get to the port, I’d done some research on the different options. Obviously, the easiest way is to simply take an Uber and get dropped off. Well, that cost was in the $80-100 range, which I found ridiculous. I learned about Link, the local light rail line, and how it connected the airport to downtown. I was able to get buy-in from everyone to go this route instead. Originally I thought we’d have to shuttle back to the airport and get on Link there, but it turns out there was a closer Link station that was walkable from the hotel. Win-win! So, the next morning, I walked to it while the others asked the hotel shuttle driver if he’d take them, which he did. I bought us all one-way tickets and we were on our way. It was a pleasant ride, even though we took up a bunch of seats with our luggage. We got off at Westlake, which puts you right in downtown underneath the flagship Nordstrom. Everyone was confused and not really understanding what we needed to do next, which was to get an Uber from there to the terminal, which was only another 4 miles away. W also had a little bit of spare time and wondered if we should try to “see” anything and went back and forth on that. Mom had been in Seattle working during the ’62 Worlds Fair and hadn’t been back since. It was neat to think she had roamed these streets, and lived here for several weeks, before I was born! Mom was also in pain and wanted to find a pharmacy to get a spray foam to use on her legs, so we did that, and luckily they had it in stock. She had also forgotten her phone charger in the hotel room, but we were able to piece together some substitutes and lend her something to use for the rest of the cruise to avoid her having to buy something new. There was a lot of bickering between all of us, but ultimately, we got a large Lyft XL (a Toyota Sienna) that was able to accommodate all 4 of us AND our luggage. I had been so worried about that, but everything fit perfectly. Cost was a little over $30, which I was happy to pay. At the terminal, of course thousands of people were arriving at the same time, and it took our driver a long, slow crawl to get to our drop off point, but the process was pretty smooth. It was so foreign to me that everybody leaves their luggage outside and trusts a porter to get it to your room for you. I feel like anyone could just walk up and steal suitcases and drive off. But apparently this is the way it’s always done, so we did it, too. What I didn’t realize is that we could’ve also had our carry ons transported for us, but I hadn’t ordered enough of the Celebrity luggage tags to do that, so we did carry our smaller pieces directly on to the ship. Almost no one else was doing that, so I felt pretty stupid. Check in was easy and fast – it’s very choreographed, and each station has a unique purpose. We walked past the photo opportunity and posed. Muster drill was literally nothing – we simply reported to our station, which was at the entrance to the main theater, and two performers from the show were there to greet us. All they had to say was, “Yes – this is where you will come if there are any emergencies”. LOL – I’d always assumed muster was an actual drill where everyone gathered near the lifeboats and were shown how to put on their vests and how to board the boats; similar to what flight attendants do. Guess not! Also, I am aware that many ship employees have multiple jobs. I’ve had friends who have been performers on the ships in the 90s and early 2000s. Their other jobs usually consisted of cleaning or acting as hosts for multiple events. These two folks told us that their only “other” job was to meet us at the muster. That gives them plenty of free time. We’d see them in some of the ports shopping, and they were always very pleasant and not off “partying” loudly or anything of that nature. The Actual Cruise When we got on the ship, I knew that we weren’t able to access our rooms quite yet, but that we could start eating. Concierge guests were invited to an introductory lunch in Grand Epernay, the ship’s main dining room, so the two of us went there, and I think the rest went to Oceanview Café (the buffet). I remember that, at this point, not everyone else knew or understood that there was a dining room that was included with all fares – they thought they had to do the buffet every day! General comments about the cruise, in no particular order: The Solstice is a beautiful ship. I assume this is what’s considered either large, or maybe midsize. I definitely noticed larger ships in some of the ports (mostly RC and Princess) but also smaller ones. I know the capacity is 2850 passengers + crew. Is that considered large, or medium? She was built in 2008 and last refurbished in 2016, according to Google. I would say that’s accurate – there are sections that feel dated, but not terribly so. There are places where you can see some rust, but not a huge amount. Most things appeared to be in pretty good order for a vessel that’s on the sea 24/7 for 15 years. I wonder if another refurb is due for 2024, another 8 years from the last one? The cabin was delightful. I was initially worried about feeling claustrophobic, but never once did, even when in the bathroom with the door closed. Having a sliding door directly out to the sea and nature really helped to that end. The king bed was very comfortable. There are no outlets for charging near the bed – a sure sign this ship was built before the height of the cell phone craze! We both wear CPAPs at night and were able to fill out a special needs form that gave us a gallon of distilled water as well as a heavy duty extension cord to power both of our machines. Our steward graciously connected it and taped it down on the floor and ran it under the bed, where we were both able to connect. We never once tripped on anything, so this was a really nice accommodation made for us. Having a verandah was truly the ultimate luxury. We didn’t spend as much time out there as I would have liked, but when we did, it was magical. On the first night when we were in the pitch black ocean heading from Seattle towards Canada, I saw half of a shark just floating by. That was totally eerie. No blood or anything, but definitely not an entire shark! Much of the cruise was fraught with fog and clouds, so we missed a lot of great views and sunsets, both on ship and in the ports, but toward the end, the skies did clear and we had a couple of perfect blue sky days. Either way, it was great being out there, and I can’t imagine cruising without some sort of outdoor element to my cabin. It also serves as a great place to sea-dry your laundry, which I’d done in the bathroom sink using a detergent pod I’d brought from home. There was no way in hell I was paying for their laundry services! The temps during this cruise ranged from 50s-70s, so we left the slider ajar most of the time, including overnight. It was hard to tell if the HVAC is really effective, so I wondered if, on warmer cruises, the A/C works well enough to keep the cabins cool. Our cabin steward was a very sweet, soft-spoken gentleman. We didn’t see him too often, but whenever we needed something, he was quick to accommodate. The rooms are made up in the afternoons with a further turndown service in the evenings. During the latter, you receive the printed program for the next day placed at the edge of the bed along with 2 chocolates. Apparently some other lines are doing away with little touches like these chocolates, so (although I didn’t care for them) I guess we’re lucky that Celebrity still does it. Concierge guests also receive a mid-afternoon “snack” delivered by room service. Sounds like a great perk, but the food they bring is truly awful. It’s a plate with 4 compartments covered by the standard metal lid. We received things such as grape leaves, watermelon with feta, cheese, marshmallows and more. The quality was pretty bad, and most of it got left outside our door. I suspect this is one area where many passengers do the same thing – seems such a waste; either improve the quality or stop wasting food that nobody eats and come up with a different concierge perk. We were on Deck 10, which is fairly high up. I liked the location quite a bit, and being up that high did not cause us to feel any more rocking, in my opinion. ELEVATORS! There are a lot of them – I think 8 midship, and 4 each at each end for a total of 16. They run fast, and the midship ones are glass, so you can always see where you are going, which is fun. As efficient as they are, there are still many, many times of day when they can’t handle the volume and you end up waiting forever. I abandoned many times and simply took the stairs. I also wasn’t comfortable being stuffed in an elevator stopping at 8 different floors sometimes, so I would throw on my mask during those situations. Of course, I got looks, but I don’t care – it’s what makes me feel safe, and sure enough I came out of this cruise with no sore throat and no cold, so I’m doing something right. If anything, COVID enabled me to no longer have any stigma about face masks – Asian cultures have worn them for decades, and now this American will do the same when he feels it’s helpful. Restaurants! Without any add-ons, the included dining options are the buffet (Ocean View Café), the main dining room (Grand Epernay), the Mast Grill, Spa Café, and limited Room Service. We definitely tried all of them MANY times. The buffet is on the 12th floor and has a great view of the aft on the outdoor patio. It is open the longest, serving all three meals per day, BUT beware; they do close down between meals and only offer limited selections during those breaks. At certain times of day, you’ll only be able to get something from the salad bar, the pasta bar, or the pizza counter. It’s a great place to stop by late at night after everything else is closed to grab a snack. As far as the quality, it’s definitely subpar. The displays and arrangements are all very nice, but the actual food ranges from okay to gross. You will definitely find your favorite items on the first couple of days and keep coming back to them. For example, randomly, they had some of the best buffet chicken nuggets I’ve ever had, lol, while the desserts were absolutely deplorable across the board. We joked, “What kind of flour are they using on this ship??” repeatedly. Nothing has any flavor. They are beautiful to look at, but disappointing upon first bite, and have weird textures. Many of them are gluten and/or sugar free, which is great, but even the regular recipe stuff is just off. The stations are all separated, so the lines for each type of food are relatively short, but the people servicing these stations are painfully slow. More than once, I came upon someone who only spoke the basics of English and knew nothing of anything out of the ordinary – one customer asked if she could have her bread toasted, and the person had no idea what “toasted” meant and had to grab a more senior employee. Instances like this came up constantly throughout the cruise, and I found myself being reminded that while there’s this perceived image of being on a “luxury” vacation, you’re also being served by folks from developing countries who are doing everything they can to support a family back home because they can actually make better money on the ship than back at home. So, they sacrifice time with family to provide a better living for their family. Amazing. The dichotomy and disparity between guest and employee income level was truly something I didn’t realize would affect me as much as it did. I did everything I could to engage with the staff and smile and chat with them and be a very pleasant guest. I had researched why more Americans don’t work on ships – apparently, there’s a couple of reasons. The cruise lines don’t recruit heavily in America, for one and also, the wage scale, tax implications, and time away from home apparently aren’t very attractive. The main dining room is a huge two-level space with square shape windows offering some decent views. There is a staircase in the center to travel between levels and a large wine display, along with some pretty light fixtures. The lower level is reserved for those who choose timed dining (specific time each night) while the upper level is for flex dining, or walk ins. I’ve known about timed dining for years and figured it was probably done to help balance out demand each day. Then, when open seating came along, I was confused as to why they offer both options. But, it seems to work. We had chosen open seating and I’m glad we did. There is far too much going on each day to have to report to a dining room at the same time every evening. The menu at Grand Epernay changes daily, with some staples available every single day on a rotation basis. You can check the menus ahead of time on the Celebrity app and plan accordingly. They offer breakfast and dinner every day, and lunch ONLY on the sea days – I guess they figure enough people are doing excursions that they don’t need to offer it on port days. Some of the windows are super small – such as lunch from 12:00-1:30 and breakfast from 6:30-8:00 (on the last morning, for example). Of course, not everyone gets out right at closing time, so you will still see customers lingering past the published closing times. The staff never hustles anyone out or asks you to leave, which is nice, but probably a big burden for them as they’re constantly having to turn over the entire space for the next meal. I took the behind the scenes tour of the kitchen, and it was fascinating. It is an enormous space with multiple different prep stations, all of which were spotlessly clean. Of course, as one fellow cruiser said to me while we were chatting at the jacuzzi; sure, it looks great during tours, but that’s all a farce and it’s complete chaos during actual service 😊 She may be right, but it was still impressive. The offerings on the menu look nice upon reading them. The actual food served ranged from good to very good. A couple of entrees were great, while two desserts we were really excited about (Cherries Jubilee and Baked Alaska) were both absolutely horrible. By no means is this fine dining, but it’s presented as such: the hosts stand behind you and help push your chair in as you’re seated; linens, nicer dinnerware, salt/pepper/sweeteners and fake “candle” on each table were all nice touches. The tables have little standees with a QR code that tell you the names of your servers and sommeliers, but it was always wrong. I imagine that’s way too labor-intensive to be switching them around as staff move about. The entrees, apps and desserts are all very small sized, but do not fear: if there’s something you don’t like or want more of, all you have to do is ask. Lobster night was on the final night of dinner service, where you could choose that as your free entrée or you could pay a certain amount more to get a 2nd lobster tail. In our party, we had a couple people who didn’t like their original choices, and the waiter allowed them to switch over to a single lobster tail instead. I can totally see the potential abuse, though, and these poor servers have to please the customer regardless. The food waste appears ENORMOUS and was, frankly, grotesque. Bread baskets come automatically, and feature items all baked on the premises (learned on the tour). In fact, a LOT of what one eats onboard the ships is from scratch – I believe we were quoted 16,000 breadsticks per day as an example. Most of the time, we didn’t even want bread, but we didn’t think quickly enough to tell them not to bring it, so we’d end up wasting an entire basket of carbs. Someone on our tour asked if the meat was fresh; well, most of it is frozen, because remember, they only take in new food supplies in the departure port. In this case, that means everything comes from the Port of Seattle and has to be kept fresh for the duration of the cruise. They have multiple refrigerators down below, all with different temps according to what is dictated for the particular protein or vegetable, per the FDA. Menus are planned in advance on a rotational schedule, and (this is what were were told) the entrée selections are chosen in part by looking at the demographics of the guests onboard and trying to accommodate all ethnicities with some sort of specialty from home that they’d enjoy. All in all, I enjoyed going to the dining room, but it does mean you need to invest a good 45 to 90 minutes for each meal depending upon the service speed. I can’t imagine what it means to have to feed 3,000 hungry guests in the span of 90 minutes. It’s mind boggling. The Mast Grill is up on level 14 above the outdoor pool, and is adjacent to the Mast Bar. The Grill is where you can order hot dogs and burgers with fries. You simply tell the person behind the counter what you want and they assemble it for you. You are able to choose beef, turkey or veggie for the burger patty and then decide if you want things like grilled onions, sauerkraut, mushrooms, cheese, lettuce, pickle, tomato, etc to order. Sort of like the assembly line at Chipotle. This is where we found the very best burgers on the ship. They are not spectacular by any means, but very good and with that great charbroiled flavor. The ordering process can be painful, though, if there is any sort of line. Most of the patrons at this location were either the 20 year old drunk college bros gathering en masse or the older wine snobs “out for a breath of fresh air on the upper deck” away from their spouses. Yes, I’m judgy, and lump people into small compartmentalized boxes sometimes 😊 In my case, the first time I visited, I wanted the turkey burger as a lettuce wrap. First of all, the Nigerian attendant had no idea what a lettuce wrap was, and they also can’t hear anything up there in the open air with music playing and grill noises behind them, so you have to yell the same thing multiple times. I finally said “no bun” and he got that, although he was surprised. Jesus, am I the only one on the ship trying to save a few carbs? Anyway, as to the turkey, sorry, that’s a special order and it will be 10-15 minutes. OK fine, so I stand to the side as hundreds of others are served the standard beef. I finally gave up and left. We went back two more times and had much better experiences when the line was nonexistent. We learned to simply say “no bun” and then, miraculously, a turkey patty or two were already ready to go in the drawer below the grill. Easy peasy; why couldn’t it have been this way the first time? The process to customize your burger was, frankly, a bit ridiculous. I would much prefer that the cold toppings be at a self-serve bar than having to holler your preferences to someone who barely understands you. The manner in which these people were using tongs to delicately apply lettuce leaf by leaf in a perfect pattern was basically making me go insane. The time wasted….I could have been on a lounge chair an extra half hour. Anyway, if you have the time and patience, and aren’t bothered by operational details such as these, you’ll enjoy the Mast Grill. Some of the customizations being asked for were pissing me off, though – people are far too demanding of a simple free burger than they need to be. If you ask for pickles, and you get three but you really want four of them, you’re a PITA. Just accept what you’re given and keep the line moving. Push your “I paid for this cruise and I’m going to get whatever I want” mentality aside; it’s overblown. There was one kid, around 18 or so I’d guess, and he ordered TWO double burgers. Yes folks, that’s a total of 4 patties split across two burgers. His friends joked with him about it and he defended it with, “What? I’m hungry”. He was thin as a rail, too. Ah, the metabolism of an 18-year old… The Spa Café is what I’m calling my best kept secret. It is located on Deck 12 just outside the spa, and was never really crowded. The open hours are limited, and I believe it closes by 2 or 2:30pm each day. You can grab small bites that are already out on the counter and available for the taking, or you can ask for items that are kept in the back and/or prepared to order. These are lighter, small portion items like tuna salad, chicken salad, lentil salad, fruit, low calorie soup or a (surprisingly delicious) club sandwich. All of those items are included for everyone, but their smoothies are at the menu prices. We never tried the smoothies, but I have read multiple other reports that they’re never cold enough. That would bother me - I want mine directly out of the blender like Jamba Juice, not at room temperature. Even at this small location, they use linen napkins and silverware. Come to think of it, I think the entire ship is on this system, which eliminates a lot of waste. I appreciated that. There are no plastic bottled waters; they are all aluminum cans (and they cost extra if you don’t have a drink plan). We stopped at the Spa Café many times. It’s a very pleasant spot on the ship in general. One terrible incident did take place here on our final visit: There was this very entitled older woman guest who was causing a terrible scene when we arrived. I didn’t get the entire gist of the conversation, but it was something about her requesting blueberries and not being able to get them. I can guarantee you, whatever the reason for the lack of blueberries was not Celebrity’s fault. She had called over a manager, and she was loudly pointing to the employee who “wronged” her and calling her out by name (Jezebel), saying that she would be filing a comment card on her and that it would NOT be good. This is when I began paying closer attention. Jezebel tried to respond “But ma’am I already told you that….” but she was cut off. Ultimately, the woman did get a portion of blueberries and proceeded to say, very loudly, BLAHBLAHBLAH NAH NAH NAH SEE JEZEBEL? I got all the blueberries I want, ha ha ha.” In a taunting voice. It was deplorable. The reason we heard so much of this is because it happened to take place right when we were at the counter with Jezebel ordering a few menu items of our own. She was trying her best to be attentive to us while also dealing with this lunatic spouting off nonsense 10 feet away. I didn’t realize it at the time, or I would’ve let her finish with that mess before we gave our order. Later, after we’d received our items, I went up to her and said, “Are you ok?” She sort of put her head down as if to say “You’re not supposed to see this – don’t worry about it” but I told her to remember, this woman means nothing, her comment card will not jeopardize your job, and you did nothing wrong. Well, that actually made her start to cry! I felt even worse after that. During the course of the next 20 minutes or so, while we were eating, I could see her tear up many more times, and felt really bad. Eventually, my mom came to sit with us and I told her what had happened. When Jezebel came by to tidy up our table, mom decided to repeat what I’d said, about how that customer meant nothing and not to worry about it. She told us that she was leaving the ship the next day, when our cruise was over, to go back home. It must have been the end of her contract, but I hope she’ll be back and not let a stupid incident like this ruin her career. The woman came back at one point and innocently asked for blueberries AGAIN – as if that entire nonsensical event had not just happened. By this time, we were ALL watching and had our guards up to defend any BS she was about to pull. We noticed that a lot of the Filipino staff sing while working. It’s cute, but they also know when to tone it down. Apparently, the woman had heard Jezebel sing at one point and probably thought she was making fun of her blueberry nonsense and mocked her when she got her berries. For Room Service, there are continental breakfast offerings that you can request the next morning by filling out a card and leaving it hanging from your door the night before. These are basics: breads, tea, coffee, juice, fruit, and maybe a bit more. But we are not talking a full breakfast. If you want any hot items, it’s a $9.95 flat fee. We never paid for anything, but did get the continental service at least twice. The presentation is really nice – just like you would picture in a hotel decades ago with linens, tons of dishes and silver creamer cups, the works. The number of pieces of silverware and dinnerware that were given to us for a quick snack were almost laughable – but after learning that the dishes onboard are washed with sea water (of course, filtered through onboard systems), I didn’t feel bad at all. In fact, sea water also populates the showers, sinks and pools! I was fascinated by that, and imagined what a huge desalination and water processing plant they must have onboard. Coming from California, we have to conserve water SO much these days – so this was a treat not having to worry about how much we were using, or that the ship was using. As far as specialty dining, we did three: Tuscan Grille, Murano, and Le Petit Chef. We did NOT do Sushi on Five, although the menu there looked nice. Coincidentally, Sushi on 5 was never full; they were always very eager to seat anyone without a reservation. I wonder why that is – it looked good to me! We never ate at Blu or Luminae because we were not in those classes of cabins. I walked in Luminae once, thinking it was Grand Epernay, and BOY did I get a very quick “Excuse me sir” as I approached! I learned really quickly to enter on the other side, lol. Tuscan Grille was our first dinner onboard the ship. This restaurant has a huge picture window from floor to ceiling and offers amazing views. The menu here is Italian, and it’s very plentiful. As a table of 8, the waiter basically “forced” us to have a platter of every single appetizer brought out, rather than letting us choose what we wanted. This resulted in way too much food, and several reported indigestion the next day, along with “I will never eat again” speeches. That said, everything was very good and service was top notch. They offered this restaurant at a reduced price for booking on opening night, so I think I paid around $35 per person for this feast. I’d do it again. They claim to make their own pasta onboard as well. Murano was the next night, and this turned out to be Roger and mine’s favorite. The atmosphere is dark wood walls and lower light (think Steakhouse 55 at the Disneyland Hotel) and is more elegant than Tuscan Grille. There is a chef’s table up at the front, which would have been great if we had a larger party, but this meal was just the two of us. We were seated near the magician onboard, Jessica Jane, who was treating herself and a fellow cast member to dinner that she had been looking forward to for a long time. Roger said “hi” to Jessica one time and she was gracious to pose for a picture with him. At this point, we hadn’t yet seen her show, so it was nice to get a “preview” of who she was. Our meal here was fantastic in every way – we tried several different things and had excellent service. I couldn’t have been happier. It’s the kind of place you miss and dream about going back to when you get back home. Some of the other members of our party went here on other nights and weren’t as blown away. Just goes to show, different strokes for different folks. Le Petit Chef was our final dinner on the second to last night of the cruise. This is a fun, interactive prix-fixe meal that has been around for several years. There are projections on every table that are programmed to line up exactly with your dishes, so you watch cute little animated videos between each course, ultimately ending with the presentation of your actual food in a synched, choreographed motion by the wait staff. The meal itself is good, but I wouldn’t call it spectacular. It’s more about the novelty of the projections on the table than anything else. I notice that Le Petit operates on other Celebrity ships, too – and it’s usually placed in the space of a former restaurant that’s not being used for its original purpose anymore. In our case, it was held in what used to be known as Silk Road. The Silk Road signage is still up everywhere, so I’m guessing Le Petit will eventually move on and Celebrity will repurpose the space with another dining concept. Upon reading up on Le Petit after returning home, I found that there used to be more courses and food offerings. I chalk this up to just the usual budget cuts due to inflation. One last location worth mentioning is Café Al Bacio. This is the coffee bar of the ship. The coffees are all at an upcharge, so unless you have a drink package, these will be at cost and you’ll have to sign for them to be charged to your cabin. Roger fell in love with the Pistachio Latte and had MANY of them throughout this cruise. They also offered a fine selection of better teas, and I’d often get those, since I can’t do caffeine. There is also a pastry case there that anybody can request. This isn’t really published, and I noticed the pastries don’t move very quickly. Again, they are beautiful to look at, but much like in the buffet, they don’t taste too good and are made with “questionable” ingredients. It was always fun to see what the “cake of the day” was. There is also a Gelateria across the way, but we never tried it, as it’s not included in the Classic Plan. Even so, the cost was low compared to what you’d see charged for Gelato at, say, a theme park or resort. A couple other notes about budget cuts. Obviously, as a first-time cruiser, I have no frame of reference other than the research I did once I got back home. There are items that have been reduced or eliminated. Café al Bacio used to have napkins with the logo printed on them. Now, they’re plain. There are fewer pastry choices in the case than there once was. There are fewer menu items in EVERY restaurant and cheaper cuts of meat are sometimes used. Older pictures show hanging gardens in the solarium pool. That was all gone. There are only 3 levels of drink packages and, from what I could find, there used to be more. Apparently the hot items used to be included in Room Service, but now carry the upcharge. Most of these things are expected, but it’s just another reminder of how quickly our world changed during and after COVID. Shopping The ship offers two different duty-free shopping areas; the first of which is comprised of a strip of stores carrying typical cruise merchandise such as logo clothing, fragrances & cosmetics, sundries, wine and beer, and lower priced garments. There’s even a “sale” section put out into the walkway each day. The other area is comprised of the higher-end jewelry and watch stores. We perused them all a couple of times, but only bought 1 or 2 low cost items. Some of the jewelry was tempting – but it’s clear that the markup is just as bad as it would be at the mall. Worse, in each and every Alaskan port were an arrangement of MORE jewelry stores – an endless arrangement, at that. Who goes to a tiny coastal Alaskan town to buy a diamond necklace? It was so ridiculous and tacky. Apparently, these landside shops are also run by the cruise ships, but I’ll admit, I haven’t done that much research. Either way, it’s a captive audience and I can see the appeal for some, but there are more employees than customers most of time. They’re rather predatory, too – it was gross. I can just imagine their management telling them they have to make a certain quota each week or be sent back to India. So sad. We really did try to justify a purchase, but realized we could get the same thing at Macy’s if we just timed it properly. The main upscale jewelry location offered a free charm every day if you showed up during a specific time period. There would be lines of mostly women claiming their free charm every single day. Whether or not any of them went on to make a large purchase, we don’t know, but it’s obviously done to bring in foot traffic. The other retail opportunity onboard is to purchase or bid on artwork. OMG – it’s hideous. I don’t know who the “curator” is of this mess but it’s some scarily out of date and tragic stuff. I didn’t get in to the method by which people actually buy it, but I would occasionally see groups gathered while an auctioneer spoke. The group size was minor, though, so I can say not too many are interested in this anymore. All of the shopping “events” were listed in the daily newsletter ad nauseum; each day sounding like something would be a better deal than the day before when the truth is it’s the same price every single day, except in the case of jewelry where you could, in fact, haggle your way down. I love the idea of shopping while on vacation – but if I’m going to do it, it needs to be priced well, and offer something I can’t get at home. Ports As mentioned above, each of the American (Alaska) ports had an overabundance of jewelry stores. Besides that, there are Alaska souvenir stores offering things with the name of the city printed on them, or a nice selection of native crafts, rocks, minerals, gems, and some fine art. Some of it is very nice, and some is typical tourist tacky. We enjoyed wandering through these shops, but never did buy anything, other than a package of beef jerky sticks made in Alaska and with something like 1% reindeer meat. Turns out those are FABULOUS! I looked online when I got back home and ordering them from the manufacturer was actually a bit cheaper than what I paid at the store, but they want $30 in shipping. Boo, so sad. There are also some local, non-jewelry vendors offering items such as Christmas décor, fudge and ice cream. This was more of what I was hoping to find instead of rows and rows of brightly LED-lit jewelry windows. Ketchikan is a very small town with a small population of 8200. It has a cute little wharf area with lots of shops where you could easily spend a couple of hours. We didn’t do any tours here, but did take a nice walk past a river where we could see Salmon swimming upstream (which is a HUGE thrill for a Californian) and then on to the local park, which was adorable and picturesque. There were a couple of museums with totem pole artwork and such, but we were content just wandering around without paying admission. It was misting this day, but we had on rain gear and made the best of it. I guess the main excursion attraction here is seeing the lumberjacks carve totem poles. We could hear it in the distance, and it sounded as hokey as the Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue at Disney World. An easy pass for us. The local people in Ketchikan didn’t seem particularly friendly, and probably hate the tourists for invading their little town so often. Here is where we also walked right past the local homeless shelter and got an indication that it may be a lower income area. Some of the homes were in disrepair, but it was still beautiful. Juneau, the state capitol, was next, and we very much enjoyed it. We did some more walking and toured the capitol building. We went into more shops and found a local artist who made pins and pendants and bought a couple of them. He had been in business for decades and was remarking something about wanting to close up soon or sell the business. He was tired! Since he was the actual artist, I asked him to sign our purchases, which I thought added a nice touch. This city is larger, and therefore is a bit more civilized in terms of diversity. Back in Ketchikan, there were way too many homes and cars with political nonsense plastered all over them – why is it necessary to show everyone else what you think by defacing your vehicles and homes? It’s so annoying. Juneau had none of that, and we felt much more welcome there. It’s amazing to think that Alaska’s capitol is only reachable by plane or boat; you can’t drive there. Wild! Skagway was a pleasant surprise. It’s another small town, but it has a village set up like the old west. Again, too much jewelry, but also some other cute shops. The highlight here was the White Pass railway train ride, which takes you far away from shore and explores some beautiful vistas. The train itself is a smoke-spewing one, so don’t sit too close to the front unless you don’t mind the smell of billowing smoke in your rail car for 2 hours. I made that mistake – but still managed to make the best of it. The train fills completely up, so don’t plan on being able to spread out. They use each and every available seat, and there are restrooms and bottled water onboard. There are different lengths of train rides, too. One goes into Canada; one does not. We were on the shorter one, but it still lasted a good two hours. All three Alaskan ports had local seafood restaurants/bars that were very well known and had great ratings online. Unfortunately, we either didn’t time them right to try them in enough time, or were being cheap and relying on our “Free” food back on the ship. Victoria, BC was one our one stop in Canada. I had never been to Canada and was really excited for this, and the weather was perfect on this day. Unfortunately, the Solstice spends a VERY brief time there, arriving late afternoon, so we had to rush to complete our tour and get back on the ship with much less time than we would’ve preferred. We did the tour that includes the Butterfly Gardens and Butchart Gardens. You take a tour bus that routes you through a little bit of the city on your way there and back. The driver shared lots of local trivia and anecdotes; none of it was extremely remarkable, but it was fun. Some of the tours in Victoria use double decker buses, which would’ve been fun, but ours was just a typical single level tour bus. I did feel the driver overshared a bit – there was one point where he started talking about the cost of real estate there, which is fine, but then he shared what his own home is worth and went into details about the square footage, number of rooms, what part of town it’s in, etc. We didn’t need to hear that. You can simply say that it’s expensive to live in Victoria and the average home is around a million CAD, and gas converts to over 9 dollars a gallon, and the weather is very temperate and they very rarely get any snow. You don’t have to elaborate as to how long ago you bought your house, what you paid back then vs what it’s worth now, etc, to a group of total strangers. One interesting share was that the driver pointed out that the CEO of Budweiser currently has his personal yacht docked there (which we saw); presumably hiding out from all the fallout from the recent controversial campaign. The Butterfly Gardens is a small greenhouse-style building just down the road a couple of miles from Butchart. There is a small educational section before you actually enter the garden, and then a gift shop afterward. This was fun – it’s not a major attraction, but it made for a nice add-on to the Gardens and was in the same vicinity. There were not that many butterflies nor that many different varieties, but what was there was interesting. Many of them would land right on you if you got close enough. There were also some lovely birds in there and one flamingo (the partner had recently died) amongst beautiful tropical landscaping. Butchart Gardens proper, on the other hand, was a MAJOR attraction! I’d done some research online, but also purposely didn’t dig too deep because I simply wanted to see it in person. Thankfully, sunset wasn’t until 9:30pm, but for the last hour at the gardens, you are walking around in basically dusk-like conditions. On this night, there was a musical performance taking place, so there were hundreds of locals out on the lawn enjoying that. We didn’t have time to stop, but we could hear it throughout the gardens. There are 55 acres of meticulously kept gardens of many varieties, and it was all simply stunning. To be able to see blooming flowers like that in August, for a Californian, was amazing. The only blooms we see in August at home are those in a nursery, or from a plant that doesn’t know what time of year it is. There is also a vintage carousel on property, and I paid the $3 per person for Roger and I to ride it. Sidenote, with the exchange rate, it came to about 25% less in USD. I only wish we’d had time to shop more in Canada with that favorable rate! By the time we finished touring the gardens, their gift shop was closed and their café was wrapping it up, so we missed out on both. If you enjoy plants and flowers at ALL, you will love it here. I can’t recommend it enough, and I would gladly go back if ever given the opportunity. Back at the dock, there is one gift shop that has a few Canada-inspired items, so we picked up a few sweets. It’s not very big, and doesn’t have anything of value; more of a sundry shop. It would have been nice to venture into the town and waterfront, which we DID see by bus, but rather on foot, to experience it in more detail. Again, on this itinerary, you have to pick and choose very carefully what you want to do with the 5 hours you’re given. Entertainment The ship had quite a variety of entertainment, especially on sea days. First of all, we had an excellent cruise director by the name of Shawna. I truly did not understand the scope of her position until I saw it first-hand. We all have that image of Julie, the cruise director from the Love Boat, with her signature clipboard and smiling face, but other than that, I didn’t have much frame of reference. The cruise director basically takes care of ALL entertainment-style activities, including recommendation on hiring of the specialty acts, coordinating schedules, acting as everyone’s supervisor, and then showing up in person to all of these things to run and emcee them. It was amazing how we’d see her at one show, and then 10 minutes later she had changed clothes and shown up at karaoke. And this is non-stop, no days off, for the entire length of the contract. I’m still amazed by her! There is always some activity going on in the main concourse of the ship, near the central elevators. Silent disco, games, stretching, meditation, Zumba, etc – the variety was large and constant. When there were no activities, there would sometimes be small bands playing, which filled the entire atrium with music. There are comfortable seats along the edge of each upper level, so lots of places to just sit with a drink or snack and enjoy the ambient music. There seem to be a small crew of activity coordinators who run these events when it’s not Shawna herself. Think of them as multi-purpose entertainment hosts. At the outdoor pool, there were music and games, but only a couple of times. If I’m not mistaken, Alaska has a sound ordinance, and even ships 12 miles off the coast are to heed them, so there can’t be any loud noise going into the atmosphere. I was completely fine with that – I actually have a condition called Misophonia that causes extreme sensitivity to some sounds, and I was more than content to have quiet time out by the pools. When the music did come back up (heading back towards Washington), it wasn’t that obtrusive and didn’t bother me. There are added activities up on level 15, but they were either not that appealing or reserved for higher classes. We did take a peek at what was going on up there, and it was – well, almost nothing other than movie nights and pay-for-play glass blowing. I am amazed that there is an actual lawn with grass up there instead of astroturf. My mom’s husband remarked that the grass was too tall to putt golf balls on, and I’d agree. Seemed like a waste of space. There are also teen’s and children’s areas up top. I never once saw a child in the area, but admittedly, I was only passing by there late at night. The teens, on the other hand, were in full swing playing ping pong and other games until late hours. The main Celebrity Theater hosted three large-scale production shows during this 7-night cruise. Between those were other smaller acts, so there was always at least one thing to see each night. Competition for seats was never that bad – we would arrive at least 15 minutes early and were always able to select seats we actually wanted. Some of them have armrests with beverage holders; some do not, so pay attention to this if you plan to bring drinks in. There is a small makeshift bar off to the side inside the theater before you take a seat. The first production show was called Rock City, and is described as “an epic stadium style concert, featuring iconic rock anthems--from old to new favorites.” That’s fairly accurate, but most of the songs were on the old side. Many were standards that we all know and (hopefully) love – I can’t say most of the selections were ones I’d want to see performed, but the production value was good. My mom LOVED this show – she raved about it during the cruise. Roger and I were more feeling “It was good, but we don’t need to see it twice”. The second show was called Broken Strings – described as “Join us for a foot stompin', hand clappin' tale of friendship, laughter, and music. It’s a good time the whole family will enjoy.” It had more modern pop songs, sometimes rearranged, and a light storyline about a couple who are dating, then the guy does something stupid and drifts off, and then at the end they come back together and everybody is happy. The scenes are somewhat country western in appearance, though the music leans more mainstream pop. I enjoyed this one. I’m not sure how long it has been playing, but I did note that someone had posted about it in 2018, so it’s at least 5 years old, if not more. The last one was called Amade, and its description reads, “Experience how Mozart and the work of other classical composers inspire, evolve, and connect to modern music. Hear current favorites remixed and re-imagined as we present Amade. Celebrate the evolution of music from classical to contemporary with this award-winning show.” OK, that’s a very wordy description that basically means everyone is dressed up in classical wigs and costumes while performing modern renditions of classical pieces. It’s good, but – weird. There is a Russian acrobatic pair that performs in Rock City, and in this one. Well, Amade is where they truly had their shining moment, and that alone was worth seeing the show. I did learn later that this show has been around since 2011 or so (?), and it definitely appears so. It’s long in the tooth. I am surprised that Celebrity doesn’t invest more into changing up the shows much more often – like every 2 to 3 years, especially given the number of repeat cruisers. Looking on Celebrity’s website, I see there are a total of 16 possible shows, depending upon which ship you are on. That’s a lot to juggle, but still, I think they need to refresh them more often. The talent level of the performers ranged from good to excellent. I especially enjoyed a couple of the lead female singers who were true vocal powerhouses. So much so that I’d be the type who would want to know their Instagrams so that I could follow them (I didn’t ask). Sure, some of the ensemble were dialing it in more than others, but the main lead performers were all very good. They all stand outside the auditorium after the show to greet everyone, and it was clear that most are of British or Australian/NZ descent, by their accents. Another performer who had two shows during the cruise was magician, Jessica Jane. This is the one we’d seen dining at Murano. She’s really great, and her shows are entertaining. She tells the entire story of her career rather than just throw a much of magic tricks at you. The first show was a little bit better than the second, but I enjoyed them and would gladly watch her again. There was a male vocalist, Travis Cloer, who also did 2 solo shows. We only went to the first show, and weren’t that impressed. Mom liked this one, but we basically found it to just be something to occupy our time. He was one of the cast of the Jersey Boys from Broadway; I remember that much. We would see him hanging around Café al Bacio all the time with his son, whom he’d brought onboard. Lastly, there was a comedian one late night, and we went to his show. Ooph – pretty bad. There were a couple of laughs, but otherwise there was a lot of cringe. Let’s just say more of a redneck Midwest audience would have appreciated this guy. Shawna also gave an informal presentation about her career and opened it up to questions at the end. That was VERY interesting and I’m so glad we attended that one. I learned a lot about ship life, both from her speech and from the audience questions. She was also present at all of the other performances – the energy, once again! One other event in the theatre I almost forgot – there was a “dirty” uncensored version of family feud played before the comedian with members of the audience as contestants. I was hoping this would be fun, but it was a total travesty. It’s not that the material was offensive to me – I knew what to expect based on the warnings – but the game show software was not working well, and the multi-purpose event folks running it were acting like it was their first time ever, which it wasn’t. Even Shawna remarked that this was one of the worst ones yet. I would definitely skip this one next time. Final Thoughts Despite my tone, which sometimes can sound like I’m overly critical or non-plussed, I really enjoyed my first cruise! It’s such a shame that I waited this long in life to try one out. Now that I have, I immediately told Roger that I want to cruise twice a year, LOL. I’m particularly interested in comparing cruise lines – NCL, RC, HAL, Princess and Disney, to be exact. Then, once I’ve done all those, I can decide which line is best for me and become more loyal to it. One deterrent for me will be that I don’t really like the entire process of having to fly to the city, then spend a night in a hotel first, then find transportation to the port, and the same on the way back. For that reason, I’ll probably focus mostly on LA and San Diego departures because they’re very easy to get to. I realize that limits the itineraries quite a bit. If anybody has any specific lines and routes they’ve really enjoyed from those ports, let me know. As a non-drinker, having the beverage package was nice but not something I would pay extra for had it not already been included. Sure, I partook in several wines, mixed drinks and frozen drinks, but my enjoyment of the cruise was not influenced by whether I had those or not. They were just nice splurges. I don’t get the whole drinking culture where you have to have a drink in your hand the entire cruise. That feels very Carnival to me, and for that reason, I have no interest in trying their ships. I’m still confused as to where Celebrity falls in the hierarchy of cruise offerings. Is this considered a luxury cruise? A middle of the road cruise? A sort of high-end cruise, but nothing like Viking or Crystal? I see a lot of reports of people saying that Celebrity has better food than the others I’d noted above. Really? There was nothing that remarkable about it, and if this is as good as it gets, well – let’s just say I’ll keep my expectations in order. The prices on the photo packages were pretty laughable. There were a few that I really liked and would’ve liked to get, but it seems that once your cruise is over, you’re out of luck. In fact, there was a VERY marked feeling on the last couple of days of the cruise that everything in general was dwindling – the show quality, the food quality, the employee attitude and the general feeling that “This is almost over”. I don’t know – that may have just been our perception but we definitely felt it. As well, we both noticed when you log on to the Celebrity app after your cruise, nothing is there! LMAO! It’s like you are deleted from history immediately. And then when logging on to the website, there was no record of this cruise in my history. Maybe that takes a few days. Also, no place where I could view a detailed statement of all my charges. None of that felt good. I learned a lot, and will be more informed for the next one. One excellent feature about returning home is that the Port of Seattle sponsors a service known as Port Valet, whereby you leave your luggage outside your room the night before and it gets picked up and taken to the airport for you. This eliminates having to carry your luggage around Seattle on your last day. The language on the website states that it may or may not be available and never to depend on it, but after some nail biting, we found out that we were, in fact, confirmed for it. We missed the normal deadline for having our luggage outside in the hall, due to the late excursion in Victoria, but we called our steward and he said he’d be sure it got picked up. He sounded like he was already downstairs in the employee area, with a lot of general noise behind him. It’s crazy to think that these poor guys are basically on call 24/7 and have to pick up the phone when they are clearly clocked out, so to speak. Anyway, Thanks for reading along! Let me know your thoughts and of course, ask any questions you like. I can’t wait for our next cruise!

I can confirm the threshold is $10 and there are a LOT of drinks priced at $11...😏

Thank you! Exactly what I came here needing :)

Thank you! All helpful info. I created a separate post, too, asking "What if you want to book an excursion on your last day in the home port city, and it starts at 8am, and they haven't let you off yet".....another topic to figure out before booking anything.

Yes! This is exactly what I'm planning to use. Thank you.

Yes! I've been using it for a few years for rides at theme parks. Definitely helps! And thanks RE: the dining room - so we can leave the ship not hungry, lol. Yay for Dawes in June! Hope you have a great time.