Solstice 10/10/10 Review

[John73]

OK, I know I'm a bit late with this one. It was a just over a week ago that we arrived home. Anyways ...

 

I have to say upfront that this cruise was just a bit disappointing compared to my July Solstice Western Caribbean cruise. The main reason for that is the ports that we were diverted to due to Hurricane Paula. I had really been looking forward to scuba diving in Cozumel and Roatan and the diversion just didn't end up with ports that were good for diving. That said....

 

Embarkation was smooth. Due to my travelling companion's luggage being lost by American on the flight down on Saturday, we had to do some last minute shopping to ensure she had the 'necessities' for the cruise. We only made it to the cruise port at around 3:15 and were easily checked in and onboard within about 10 minutes. I'm not sure there were too many people behind us in boarding :)

 

The room was great. We were in a C3 room and had the sparkling wine waiting for us when we arrived. We got onboard just before the drills so we dropped out bags and went strait to Blu as it was our station. The presentation was painless but seeemed to go on longer than I recalled the July presentation took in total. Still, not too bad. After that we were up at Sunset Bar getting our sailaway drinks and ready to go. As my travel partner was still in a bad mood over the luggage, we didn't engage in the CC group meet-up for sailaway and instead just kept to ourselves to try and reset our vacation.

 

Monday, our first sea day, was great. We really enjoyed the buffet brunch in the MDR on Monday morning. The rest or the day we just took it easy and read.

 

Tuesday morning we had a great surprise from the concierge - my companion's luggage had been forward by American to Grand Cayman and was onboard around 9AM. We slightly delayed our departure to the tenders in order to get some of the items out of that bag. We then headed off for our Stingray City excursion. I have to say that next time I go to Grand Cayman I will definitely pick scuba diving over the Stingray City trip. While stingray city was kinda interesting, it was not near as enjoyable as the diving I had done back in July on the same ship itinerary.

 

As others have mentioned, Tuesday afternoon/evening was when we found our about a change in itinerary due to hurricane Paula. This was very disappointing for me as I had a private scuba diving tour setup in Cozumel. But, oh well, you deal with what comes your way.

 

(continued in next post)

[John73]

As soon as we found out about the new itinerary we were online trying to find out options for diving in the new ports. We were both very disappointed to find diving was not offered in any of the ports at that time (diving in Nassau was added later).

 

For Jamaica, we decided we'd like to go in to town and do some shopping at one of the markets. If you ever go to Jamaica, do spend the $15 for the Hot Spot shuttle. We didn't do that at first because we were told it was only $5 to get back to the ship. Well, that may be true, but it also seemed like it was $5 to go from anywhere to anywhere else. And people were not helpful in providing walking directions. We tried to walk from one stop to a craft market and ended up not where we wanted to be. Thankfully some tourism officials walked by and helped us get to the market. Lesson learned: stay with reputable transport and get dropped off exactly where you want to go. Do not try to walk anywhere as you will be constantly propositioned.

 

We ended up finding a very nice Hot Spot Shuttle agent in one of the crafts markets who allowed us to purchase the wristbands after the fact. We then used those to head to Margaritaville for a snack and drinks. After that we did some shopping and picked up some of the Blue Mountain Coffee my companion had been wanting to purchase.

 

The next day was Labadee. We did not have high hopes for this as it was part of Haiti, but we were extremely surprised. We ended up just spending most of the day relaxing on the beach, listening to the waves, and reading. We had tried to do the Dragons' Flight zipline but when they got to our group they set the max weight at 200 lbs (which I'm over), so it was back to beach reading for us.

 

Friday at Sea was nice and relaxing. Got to do a bit of reading and a good workout.

 

Saturday in Nassau was probably one of the best days of the trip. We had a great dive excursion with Stuart Cove's. First dive was on a wall and the 2nd dive was where they do their shark feeding so we got to swim with a number of reef sharks. Both my travelling companion and I really enjoyed that. After diving we caught a cab back to Arawalk Cay to find a place to have conch. We ended up at a place that I can't recall the name of, but had some great conch fritters, conch salad, and a fish disk that was amazing. This from a guy who normally doesn't like fish!

 

On Sunday, we were disappointed to leave the ship. We had hoped to be able to find breakfast somewhere but didn't have any luck.

 

Overall, the ship was phenomenal. We had a great time at the martini bar. We tried the molecular bar but my companion thought that the bartender was too abrupt.

 

I'd say that the trip overall was a bit below my July experience primarily due to the itinerary change. I chalk part of this up to me just having connected so much better with my tablemates at dinner. We tried changing tables after the first night when we realized we didn't click, but it still wasn't as easy as my July cruise. Not bad, by any means, though. I think I just had an exceptional experience in July and was hoping for the same.

[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.