If Anyone Cares - My Solstice Holiday Review

[PS90]

Sorry, it's kind of long:

 

My wife and I are 28 and 35, respectively, and have 2 children. Lucky for us, however, the kids has prior plans, so we were free to have a "couples holiday vacation" for the first time in years!

 

Embarkation -

We arrived to Port Everglades at about 1:30, and were the only ones in the AQ line to check-in. Took less than ten minutes from arrival until boarding the ship. There were at least ten separate lines to check-in, and probably 30 representatives checking people in, so I'm not sure they could have done any better than that.

 

Stateroom -

Our room was immediately available, and we went there as our first stop. I have to say that, while the AquaClass room was very nice, and we really appreciated the very large, angled balcony in front of the hump, I don't think I would pay more than about $50 per person more for an AQ again. The shower is sort-of nice, but nothing else is of benefit at all. Bottled water perk is also handy, but since we had a Beverage Package, we could have gotten these for free, anyway. The canapes are a joke, and many of the AQ perks, such as the "pillow menu", are unavailable unless you ask for it (and therefore, had to have known about it beforehand).

 

Maurice, our room attendant, was very nice and very helpful, but was seldom available and seemed very timid, for some reason.

 

The only practical upgrade that you get from AQ is Blu (more about that later), and the fact that you get to try to act cool because you get to walk around with a Aqua-Blue colored SeaPass card, and most everyone else's is white.

 

Public Rooms -

Honestly, the solstice is a huge, gorgeous piece of engineering, but I just don't see what all the fuss is about, concerning all the reviews about how great the S-Class is supposed to be. I loved the Lawn Club, although (as many have mentioned in their reviews) it seems to be underused for the amount of space that was given-up for it. The public rooms were beautiful and the artwork was nice (if you're into that kind of thing - which I'm not). And I agree that the "uncrowded" feel of the public areas is one of the single biggest attractions to this ship.

 

Everything else, IMO, was equal to or worse than the M-Class, though. Most of the deck levels are nearly identical to the M-Class, just a little bit bigger in size - and some parts, such as Michael's Club's bad location and the lack of a T-Pool, are big negatives compared to the M-Class.

 

In conclusion about the structure of the ship - I would sail the S-Class again, but I would not necessarily pick the S-Class over the M-Class just for the "newness" or "greatness" of the S-Class.

 

Fellow Cruisers -

Just wanted to note that this cruise had a very UNconventional demographic compared the to normal Celebrity demographic. I am 35 years old, and certainly there were more people younger than me, than there were people older than me. The only time this many kids was a direct problem for me is when a teenager on the elevator pressed the "Close Door" button at the same time my wife was entering the elevator, and so the door closed on her pretty hard. I hadn't even gotten on the elevator (and it was obvious that I wanted to get on the elevator), so I have no idea what this kid was thinking. I though about confronting him, but decided not to. Other, indirect problems with the high number of kids onboard was the constant use of the adult-only areas by minors (with no enforcement by the crew), and the time we noticed a bunch of 10 to 12-year-olds opening and throwing sugar packets all over the buffet area for no reason at all.

 

Crew -

The only general "category" of crew-member that struck me as unfriendly were the bartenders. And not just one, but 3 or 4 different bartenders seemed rather unfriendly. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with our Beverage Package or not. Otherwise, everyone was extremely pleasant and always smiling and offering to help in any way. I should note that there were no norovirus precautions on this sailing, although I heard of people getting sick on the last day.

 

Entertainment -

Some great, some not so good. In general, Celebrity's main entertainment gets a pretty bad rap, so I was prepared for all their entertainment to be horrible, but was certainly very surprised - in a GOOD way.

 

The entertainment in the main theater was hit-or-miss. The Cirque-type show, called "Solstice", was actually very good - probably not Vegas-quality, but MUCH better than I expected it to be. Pete Matthews, the British comedian/juggler was AWESOME - very funny, very good juggler, and definitely had tons of on-stage energy. On the other hand, the Celebrity-staff singers and dancers were the typical over-the-top, but yet not very good, kind that all Celebrity ships seem to employ. Shawn O'Shay, the impersonator, had a couple rare flashes of brilliance in his show, but was generally pretty terrible. And the midnight, "risque" comedienne, Michelle Balan, did not impress me - despite her supposedly excellent resume, her jokes seems dated and too reliant on swear-words to make them funny.

 

By FAR, however, the single best entertainment on the entire ship, and maybe on any cruise that I have ever been on, was the Hot Glass Show. We attended the show at least 5 or 6 times and it never got boring. It was amazing what those guys were able to create, and all the while they were very personable and funny, and even very patient with some passengers' stupid questions. I HIGHLY recommend the glass show, and frankly, except maybe due to the high cost, I can't understand why the newest S-Class ships don't have a Hot Glass Show.

 

Food -

The buffet was better than I expected in terms of quality of the food, but the unchanging menu got old very quickly. One note about the lay-out of the buffet - the concept of different food "islands" is a good idea to cut down on buffet lines, but seems to almost make it worse, in the fact that they now have hundreds of people wandering in every direction looking for different types of food. The end result of this is people cutting-off and running into everyone else.

 

The grill by the pool was decent for county-fair-type hamburgers and hot dogs, but I didn't even bother trying the AquaSpa cafe, since things like Tofu and couscous have absolutely no appeal to me.

 

As AquaClass, we were assigned to Blu. We did not bother to try any Specialty Restaurants or the MDR, and we didn't miss any of the them at all. As AQ, you show-up at Blu whenever you feel like it, and the host and maitre d' quickly learn what waiter and what table you prefer, and will try to accommodate you if your table is available. We had a total of three different waiter/assistant waiter teams over the course of 8 nights, and all of them were very good. We did prefer Bernard and his assistant (sorry, can't think of his name right now), since they were the most personable. Bernard seemed to enjoy being there and was quick to make jokes, and was always suggesting that we try multiple entrees, desserts, etc. As far as Blu's food, for the most part, was excellent. The filet mignon on the first night was very good, for example. My wife really loved many of the cold soups and salads. And despite what many reviews have stated, I didn't find the the Blu desserts disappointing at all. There were certainly a few misses - the lobster was a little overcooked, and the panko-breaded, fried cheesecake tasted like eating congealed fryer-grease. But overall, we felt no need at all to try any of the Specialty Restaurants because Blu more than adequate for us.

 

Fitness Center -

I have mentioned this on other Celebrity reviews, and I understand that the company needs to spend it's money where they think it would be most utilized, but the gyms on Celebrity ships are always pretty poor, in my opinion. They remind me of a "Curves for Women"-type gym. Would it be so difficult or so costly to add a decent barbell bench or two?

 

Excursions -

We were plagued with some fairly poor/windy weather for the entire trip, which messed with our excursion plans to some extent, but I must stress that I don't blame Celebrity for those problems in any way.

 

We arrived into San Juan, Puerto Rico about four hours late, so all excursions had to be cancelled and it was completely dark when we docked. Now, we have cruised before, but have never before been to the Caribbean, so therefore the safety factor of making the hike to the fortress in the dark was an unknown to us. Because of this, we decided to bag the entire plan and just walked around the area right next to the ship for about 30 minutes, and then got back on-board. Again, disappointing, but not Celebrity's fault.

 

Even more disappointing, although again not Celebrity's fault, was our SNUBA excursion in St. Thomas that was cancelled due to high winds. We were fairly bummed-out about missing that, so we decided to take a taxi to one of the beaches. WARNING: this was probably a rookie mistake, but when the cabbie said the fare to the beach was $6, we assumed that was the fare, based on the distance, like it would have been in the US. Turns out, however, that after we got to the beach, we were told that the $6 was PER PERSON! The main problem was that we only had $10 in cash left, which wasn't enough to get back to the ship! We decided not to worry about it for the time being, and the beach was very nice, although the water was unusually wavy due to the wind. As to the return cab ride, we had to ask a couple of cab-drivers if they would take $5 per person, rather than $6, to get us back to the pier. One guy refused, and another female driver gave us a VERY condescending lecture about not being prepared. Thankfully, though, a second female cab driver heard this woman lecturing us and came to our rescue - she basically "guilted" the first male driver into taking us for $5 each, by asking him "what would you want if you were in that situation?" She was a life-saver!

 

St. Maarten was nice, we took a zipline tour along with a small island tour to get there, including views of both the Dutch and French sides.

 

Finally, in St. Kitts, we were actually able to get into the Celebrity-sponsored SNUBA excursion, because two other passengers cancelled, and had an excellent time. Our guides were very good and very patient with us, since we are complete noobs to almost any type of ocean recreation. I would not say St. Kitts is the most beautiful Caribbean island, but we had a great time nonetheless.

 

Disembarkation -

Getting off the boat was certainly not as smooth as embarkation, but I think that is fairly normal when dealing with US Customs. Nothing really to complain about here.

 

Conclusion -

In general, I really enjoyed this cruise, and would sail with Celebrity again without question or hesitation. I think, however, that for me, cruising is becoming a little too "constrictive" - I am looking forward to some more land-based vacations that I am able to do what I want and go where I want a little bit more.

 

I WILL cruise with Celebrity again, but I'm not sure when that will be.

 

If anyone has questions, I will attempt to come up with an intelligent answer. Thanks for reading. :)

[Ma Bell]

Thanks for your well balanced review.

[PS90]

Thanks for your well balanced review.

 

Thanks, Ma :)

[miched]

.

 

 

When we were on the Sostice in April 2011 the bartender at Fusion was really arrogant and basically a A Hole. We wanted to try a few of those drinks but he was so bad that we didn't want to give him any business.

 

Didn't have a problem with any others but we didn't have the drink package and when ever we got a two for one during happy hour Imwould always double the tip.

 

 

 

.

[PS90]

.

 

 

When we were on the Sostice in April 2011 the bartender at Fusion was really arrogant and basically a A Hole. We wanted to try a few of those drinks but he was so bad that we didn't want to give him any business.

 

Didn't have a problem with any others but we didn't have the drink package and when ever we got a two for one during happy hour Imwould always double the tip.

 

 

 

.

 

Yeah, miched, I kind of had the same experience. Off the top of my head, there was one guy at the Molecular bar, one guy at the pool bar, and a couple of other bartenders that seemed like they couldn't care less about me. I didn't give any extra tips (other than what's already included in the beverage package), but I don't think that would have helped - since they were indifferent right from the start.

 

I guess the most shocking part about those guys being so unfriendly was due to their stark contrast to every other crew member, who were excellent and very friendly without exception.

[miched]

Yeah, miched, I kind of had the same experience. Off the top of my head, there was one guy at the Molecular bar, one guy at the pool bar, and a couple of other bartenders that seemed like they couldn't care less about me. I didn't give any extra tips (other than what's already included in the beverage package), but I don't think that would have helped - since they were indifferent right from the start.

 

I guess the most shocking part about those guys being so unfriendly was due to their stark contrast to every other crew member, who were excellent and very friendly without exception.

 

 

It was the Molecular Bar. For some reason I thought the name was the Fusion. Old age and brain dead from drinking too much alcohol. :D

 

 

 

.

[sarahc78]

Excellent very detailed review!

[dkjretired]

Excellent review, glad you enjoyed Blu, I know you were a little apprehensive....

[dln929]

Thanks for the review! I got a chuckle out of this line: The only practical upgrade that you get from AQ is Blu (more about that later), and the fact that you get to try to act cool because you get to walk around with a Aqua-Blue colored SeaPass card, and most everyone else's is white. When we were on the Voyager of the Seas last October, we were in a Grand Suite and as such had a Gold Card. My husband loved his Gold Card very much. He was cool for a week...kinda cute. ;)

[PS90]

Thanks for bothering to read my review to everyone! ;)

 

 

Excellent review, glad you enjoyed Blu, I know you were a little apprehensive....

 

Thanks, Don. :) I was a little worried about Blu, somewhat about the food, somewhat about the "new" dress code. I can say that the food was every bit as good as you and others have said. On the other hand, I'm still not really sure what's going on with the dress code in Blu...

 

 

Thanks for the review! I got a chuckle out of this line: The only practical upgrade that you get from AQ is Blu (more about that later), and the fact that you get to try to act cool because you get to walk around with a Aqua-Blue colored SeaPass card, and most everyone else's is white. When we were on the Voyager of the Seas last October, we were in a Grand Suite and as such had a Gold Card. My husband loved his Gold Card very much. He was cool for a week...kinda cute. ;)

 

Thanks, dln. Yeah, the different-colored card that differentiates you from everyone else is a secret little perk for the ego, I guess. :cool:

[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.

[Mulege]

Sorry, it's kind of long:

 

My wife and I are 28 and 35, respectively, and have 2 children. Lucky for us, however, the kids has prior plans, so we were free to have a "couples holiday vacation" for the first time in years!

 

Embarkation -

We arrived to Port Everglades at about 1:30, and were the only ones in the AQ line to check-in. Took less than ten minutes from arrival until boarding the ship. There were at least ten separate lines to check-in, and probably 30 representatives checking people in, so I'm not sure they could have done any better than that.

 

Stateroom -

Our room was immediately available, and we went there as our first stop. I have to say that, while the AquaClass room was very nice, and we really appreciated the very large, angled balcony in front of the hump, I don't think I would pay more than about $50 per person more for an AQ again. The shower is sort-of nice, but nothing else is of benefit at all. Bottled water perk is also handy, but since we had a Beverage Package,T we could have gotten these for free, anyway. The canapes are a joke, and many of the AQ perks, such as the "pillow menu", are unavailable unless you ask for it (and therefore, had to have known about it beforehand).

 

Maurice, our room attendant, was very nice and very helpful, but was seldom available and seemed very timid, for some reason.

 

The only practical upgrade that you get from AQ is Blu (more about that later), and the fact that you get to try to act cool because you get to walk around with a Aqua-Blue colored SeaPass card, and most everyone else's is white.

 

Public Rooms -

Honestly, the solstice is a huge, gorgeous piece of engineering, but I just don't see what all the fuss is about, concerning all the reviews about how great the S-Class is supposed to be. I loved the Lawn Club, although (as many have mentioned in their reviews) it seems to be underused for the amount of space that was given-up for it. The public rooms were beautiful and the artwork was nice (if you're into that kind of thing - which I'm not). And I agree that the "uncrowded" feel of the public areas is one of the single biggest attractions to this ship.

 

Everything else, IMO, was equal to or worse than the M-Class, though. Most of the deck levels are nearly identical to the M-Class, just a little bit bigger in size - and some parts, such as Michael's Club's bad location and the lack of a T-Pool, are big negatives compared to the M-Class.

 

In conclusion about the structure of the ship - I would sail the S-Class again, but I would not necessarily pick the S-Class over the M-Class just for the "newness" or "greatness" of the S-Class.

 

Fellow Cruisers -

Just wanted to note that this cruise had a very UNconventional demographic compared the to normal Celebrity demographic. I am 35 years old, and certainly there were more people younger than me, than there were people older than me. The only time this many kids was a direct problem for me is when a teenager on the elevator pressed the "Close Door" button at the same time my wife was entering the elevator, and so the door closed on her pretty hard. I hadn't even gotten on the elevator (and it was obvious that I wanted to get on the elevator), so I have no idea what this kid was thinking. I though about confronting him, but decided not to. Other, indirect problems with the high number of kids onboard was the constant use of the adult-only areas by minors (with no enforcement by the crew), and the time we noticed a bunch of 10 to 12-year-olds opening and throwing sugar packets all over the buffet area for no reason at all.

 

Crew -

The only general "category" of crew-member that struck me as unfriendly were the bartenders. And not just one, but 3 or 4 different bartenders seemed rather unfriendly. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with our Beverage Package or not. Otherwise, everyone was extremely pleasant and always smiling and offering to help in any way. I should note that there were no norovirus precautions on this sailing, although I heard of people getting sick on the last day.

 

Entertainment -

Some great, some not so good. In general, Celebrity's main entertainment gets a pretty bad rap, so I was prepared for all their entertainment to be horrible, but was certainly very surprised - in a GOOD way.

 

The entertainment in the main theater was hit-or-miss. The Cirque-type show, called "Solstice", was actually very good - probably not Vegas-quality, but MUCH better than I expected it to be. Pete Matthews, the British comedian/juggler was AWESOME - very funny, very good juggler, and definitely had tons of on-stage energy. On the other hand, the Celebrity-staff singers and dancers were the typical over-the-top, but yet not very good, kind that all Celebrity ships seem to employ. Shawn O'Shay, the impersonator, had a couple rare flashes of brilliance in his show, but was generally pretty terrible. And the midnight, "risque" comedienne, Michelle Balan, did not impress me - despite her supposedly excellent resume, her jokes seems dated and too reliant on swear-words to make them funny.

 

By FAR, however, the single best entertainment on the entire ship, and maybe on any cruise that I have ever been on, was the Hot Glass Show. We attended the show at least 5 or 6 times and it never got boring. It was amazing what those guys were able to create, and all the while they were very personable and funny, and even very patient with some passengers' stupid questions. I HIGHLY recommend the glass show, and frankly, except maybe due to the high cost, I can't understand why the newest S-Class ships don't have a Hot Glass Show.

 

Food -

The buffet was better than I expected in terms of quality of the food, but the unchanging menu got old very quickly. One note about the lay-out of the buffet - the concept of different food "islands" is a good idea to cut down on buffet lines, but seems to almost make it worse, in the fact that they now have hundreds of people wandering in every direction looking for different types of food. The end result of this is people cutting-off and running into everyone else.

 

The grill by the pool was decent for county-fair-type hamburgers and hot dogs, but I didn't even bother trying the AquaSpa cafe, since things like Tofu and couscous have absolutely no appeal to me.

 

As AquaClass, we were assigned to Blu. We did not bother to try any Specialty Restaurants or the MDR, and we didn't miss any of the them at all. As AQ, you show-up at Blu whenever you feel like it, and the host and maitre d' quickly learn what waiter and what table you prefer, and will try to accommodate you if your table is available. We had a total of three different waiter/assistant waiter teams over the course of 8 nights, and all of them were very good. We did prefer Bernard and his assistant (sorry, can't think of his name right now), since they were the most personable. Bernard seemed to enjoy being there and was quick to make jokes, and was always suggesting that we try multiple entrees, desserts, etc. As far as Blu's food, for the most part, was excellent. The filet mignon on the first night was very good, for example. My wife really loved many of the cold soups and salads. And despite what many reviews have stated, I didn't find the the Blu desserts disappointing at all. There were certainly a few misses - the lobster was a little overcooked, and the panko-breaded, fried cheesecake tasted like eating congealed fryer-grease. But overall, we felt no need at all to try any of the Specialty Restaurants because Blu more than adequate for us.

 

Fitness Center -

I have mentioned this on other Celebrity reviews, and I understand that the company needs to spend it's money where they think it would be most utilized, but the gyms on Celebrity ships are always pretty poor, in my opinion. They remind me of a "Curves for Women"-type gym. Would it be so difficult or so costly to add a decent barbell bench or two?

 

Excursions -

We were plagued with some fairly poor/windy weather for the entire trip, which messed with our excursion plans to some extent, but I must stress that I don't blame Celebrity for those problems in any way.

 

We arrived into San Juan, Puerto Rico about four hours late, so all excursions had to be cancelled and it was completely dark when we docked. Now, we have cruised before, but have never before been to the Caribbean, so therefore the safety factor of making the hike to the fortress in the dark was an unknown to us. Because of this, we decided to bag the entire plan and just walked around the area right next to the ship for about 30 minutes, and then got back on-board. Again, disappointing, but not Celebrity's fault.

 

Even more disappointing, although again not Celebrity's fault, was our SNUBA excursion in St. Thomas that was cancelled due to high winds. We were fairly bummed-out about missing that, so we decided to take a taxi to one of the beaches. WARNING: this was probably a rookie mistake, but when the cabbie said the fare to the beach was $6, we assumed that was the fare, based on the distance, like it would have been in the US. Turns out, however, that after we got to the beach, we were told that the $6 was PER PERSON! The main problem was that we only had $10 in cash left, which wasn't enough to get back to the ship! We decided not to worry about it for the time being, and the beach was very nice, although the water was unusually wavy due to the wind. As to the return cab ride, we had to ask a couple of cab-drivers if they would take $5 per person, rather than $6, to get us back to the pier. One guy refused, and another female driver gave us a VERY condescending lecture about not being prepared. Thankfully, though, a second female cab driver heard this woman lecturing us and came to our rescue - she basically "guilted" the first male driver into taking us for $5 each, by asking him "what would you want if you were in that situation?" She was a life-saver!

 

St. Maarten was nice, we took a zipline tour along with a small island tour to get there, including views of both the Dutch and French sides.

 

Finally, in St. Kitts, we were actually able to get into the Celebrity-sponsored SNUBA excursion, because two other passengers cancelled, and had an excellent time. Our guides were very good and very patient with us, since we are complete noobs to almost any type of ocean recreation. I would not say St. Kitts is the most beautiful Caribbean island, but we had a great time nonetheless.

 

Disembarkation -

Getting off the boat was certainly not as smooth as embarkation, but I think that is fairly normal when dealing with US Customs. Nothing really to complain about here.

 

Conclusion -

In general, I really enjoyed this cruise, and would sail with Celebrity again without question or hesitation. I think, however, that for me, cruising is becoming a little too "constrictive" - I am looking forward to some more land-based vacations that I am able to do what I want and go where I want a little bit more.

 

I WILL cruise with Celebrity again, but I'm not sure when that will be.

 

If anyone has questions, I will attempt to come up with an intelligent answer. Thanks for reading. :)

 

 

Your review seems to be picky, picky in every category. Sorry!

[celebritydave]

A good review, I appreciate your honesty. No cruise is perfect and I have no problem with you pointing out some negative things.

 

 

Dave

[helpthejuggler]

Only having tried S class so far, happy to hear you prefer some M class features. Makes us keen to try M class in future. Was concerned it might be a let down,

 

Thanks for the review

[TLCOhio]

Your review seems to be picky, picky in every category. Sorry!

 

I'll defend PS90 strongly. Picky can be good, especially when it is balanced, looking at all of the various pro/con factors, details to consider, etc., etc. Everyone has to decide for themselves what details and opinions fits their interests and needs. Good, comprehensive reviews such as done by PS90 are very helpful to consider and prepare for your upcoming cruise.

 

Glad, PS90, you liked the Solstice. We enjoyed it last June. As linked below, my live/blog has attracted lots of views (now 56,000+) and many good questions and comments. To share with others doing their first cruise on a Solstice-type ship, are two of my favorite pictures as previews.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

Did a June 7-19, 2011, Solstice cruise from Barcelona that had stops in Villefranche, ports near Pisa and Rome, Naples, Kotor, Venice and Dubrovnik. Enjoyed great weather and a wonderful trip. Dozens of wonderful visuals with key highlights, tips, comments, etc., on these postings. We are now at 56,048 views for this live/blog re-cap on our first sailing with Celebrity and much on wonderful Barcelona. Check these postings and added info at:

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1426474

 

 

The Solarium was one of our favorite areas. Food and drinks were nearby and it was very relaxed and sophisticated. Quieter, too, as it is an adults-only area. Two hot tubs here. Not crowded, especially in the evenings. Nice art and design with this facility. Wonderful setting for relaxing and watching the outside water/shore views, enjoying subtle inside action, etc.:

 

[noriboating]

I loved aqua class!!!!! It was a real perk to eat in Blu- no reservations- whenever you were ready- and excellent food. As the tables for 2 are close to others, we made new friends while dining. Service was excellent as was the food, which is described as "clean cuisine"

Breakfast was served and there was a wonderful "muesli bar", smoothies, fritatas and fresh squeezed OJ.

There was a booklet by the bed describing the pillow options. I believe aqua bedding is an upgrade anyway. Very large towels were provided.

The shower had multiple heads and was what you would find in a pricey spa.

You were also afforded unlimited entry to the Persian lounge and relaxation room.

I did not consider "the card" to be a status symbol.

Different strokes for different folks!

I can't wait to try aqua again. I don't want others who have booked aqua to think they made a mistake which is why I am writing this.

[PS90]

I'll defend PS90 strongly. Picky can be good, especially when it is balanced, looking at all of the various pro/con factors, details to consider, etc., etc. Everyone has to decide for themselves what details and opinions fits their interests and needs. Good, comprehensive reviews such as done by PS90 are very helpful to consider and prepare for your upcoming cruise.

 

Glad, PS90, you liked the Solstice. We enjoyed it last June. As linked below, my live/blog has attracted lots of views (now 56,000+) and many good questions and comments. To share with others doing their first cruise on a Solstice-type ship, are two of my favorite pictures as previews.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

 

Thanks a lot, Terry! I have to say that your pics and reviews were some of the most helpful when we were getting ready for our cruise.

 

I must admit that I don't really understand the "picky" comment. Everyone has the right to their opinion, but if my review said "Food = Good. Hot Glass Show = Good. Bartenders = Bad.", then that review would be pretty much worthless to someone preparing for their cruise.

[PS90]

I loved aqua class!!!!! It was a real perk to eat in Blu- no reservations- whenever you were ready- and excellent food. As the tables for 2 are close to others, we made new friends while dining. Service was excellent as was the food, which is described as "clean cuisine"

Breakfast was served and there was a wonderful "muesli bar", smoothies, fritatas and fresh squeezed OJ.

There was a booklet by the bed describing the pillow options. I believe aqua bedding is an upgrade anyway. Very large towels were provided.

The shower had multiple heads and was what you would find in a pricey spa.

You were also afforded unlimited entry to the Persian lounge and relaxation room.

I did not consider "the card" to be a status symbol.

Different strokes for different folks!

I can't wait to try aqua again. I don't want others who have booked aqua to think they made a mistake which is why I am writing this.

 

Hi noriboating,

 

I can certainly understand your points about AQ. I didn't mean to make it sound like I disliked AQ, because Blu itself made it all worth it, I just didn't see the value in many of the AQ perks.

 

We didn't have any kind of pillow menu - I had to hand-write a note to our Room Steward about getting some different pillows, which he did, although not until the next day. I did like the towels, and the bed was nice, I guess.

 

One other problem that I didn't mention is the hours of the breakfast in Blu. The hours seemed to vary from day-to-day, but is was generally about 7:30 to 9:00 am. Well, since we are from the west coast of the US, and were traveling the Eastern Caribbean, the LATEST we could go to breakfast on "our time" would be 5:00am - no way was I getting up that early on vacation, and it's hard to acclimate to that much time difference in 8 days. Again, I'm not complaining about Celebrity with this issue, because I'm sure they have many factors contributing to how they determine their hours for such things - but it would have been nice if Blu stayed open a little bit later for breakfast.

 

And I was kind of joking about being "cool" with a blue Seapass. :o

 

Thanks for your great input!

[TLCOhio]

Thanks a lot, Terry! I have to say that your pics and reviews were some of the most helpful when we were getting ready for our cruise. I must admit that I don't really understand the "picky" comment. Everyone has the right to their opinion, but if my review said "Food = Good. Hot Glass Show = Good. Bartenders = Bad.", then that review would be pretty much worthless to someone preparing for their cruise.

 

Appreciate so much your kind comments on my pictures and review. Glad to be of such meaningful help.

 

Agree strongly that just saying good, bad or average to a number of different cruise ship categories or areas doesn't tell us much. When you get some or lots of details, as you offered, it helps provide some real understanding and "definition" that allows us to evaluate what fits or not for our needs, interests, etc. Keep up the great work.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

Did a June 7-19, 2011, Solstice cruise from Barcelona that had stops in Villefranche, ports near Pisa and Rome, Naples, Kotor, Venice and Dubrovnik. Enjoyed great weather and a wonderful trip. Dozens of wonderful visuals with key highlights, tips, comments, etc., on these postings. We are now at 56,048 views for this live/blog re-cap on our first sailing with Celebrity and much on wonderful Barcelona. Check these postings and added info at:

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1426474

[PS90]

Only having tried S class so far, happy to hear you prefer some M class features. Makes us keen to try M class in future. Was concerned it might be a let down,

 

Thanks for the review

 

Yeah, I've previously been on Infinity and Century and two others that I can't currently remember - and now Solstice. And they were all great. I would be happy with any of them again. I guess the point I was trying to make was that, maybe due to all of the hype of the S-Class, I was expecting Solstice to be a hundred-times better than the M-Class. In reality though, I would say they have different features, but are about equal in "greatness". :D

[PS90]

Appreciate so much your kind comments on my pictures and review. Glad to be of such meaningful help.

 

Agree strongly that just saying good, bad or average to a number of different cruise ship categories or areas doesn't tell us much. When you get some or lots of details, as you offered, it helps provide some real understanding and "definition" that allows us to evaluate what fits or not for our needs, interests, etc. Keep up the great work.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

 

I agree totally. Thanks again and thanks for the pics!

[juliawinston]

Thanks for posting your review :)

[USVI-4-me]

Yeah, I've previously been on Infinity and Century and two others that I can't currently remember - and now Solstice. And they were all great. I would be happy with any of them again. I guess the point I was trying to make was that, maybe due to all of the hype of the S-Class, I was expecting Solstice to be a hundred-times better than the M-Class. In reality though, I would say they have different features, but are about equal in "greatness". :D

 

 

PS90,

 

It was your CONCLUSION with "constrictive" that hit a run for me.

 

We find the M-Class more to our taste than the S-Class but the constrictive aspects of cruising in general are weighing in as we evaluate our vacations.

 

It's the structure of cruising: dress codes, meal times, docking, lines, etc. that makes us favor more land based vacations. US beaches are so easy and big cities are full of non-stop adventures. Small towns are great for short getaways.

 

Still, DH loves TA crossings and the Med Ports. I look forward to the easy in and out of the Caribbean ports. St. Thomas and St. Martin are always a treat.

 

Cruising is "constrictive" but if Celebrity would introduce new ports, we will be booking again. Food and entertainment has become less important to us. We need to book balcony cabins in the future to escape the piped in noise.

 

PS90, I enjoyed your review with all of your comments. It gives us more food for thought. TLCOhio, we enjoy your photos and posts.

 

Marisela

[librarylady19]

I loved aqua class!!!!! It was a real perk to eat in Blu- no reservations- whenever you were ready- and excellent food. As the tables for 2 are close to others, we made new friends while dining. Service was excellent as was the food, which is described as "clean cuisine"

Breakfast was served and there was a wonderful "muesli bar", smoothies, fritatas and fresh squeezed OJ.

There was a booklet by the bed describing the pillow options. I believe aqua bedding is an upgrade anyway. Very large towels were provided.

The shower had multiple heads and was what you would find in a pricey spa.

You were also afforded unlimited entry to the Persian lounge and relaxation room.

I did not consider "the card" to be a status symbol.

Different strokes for different folks!

I can't wait to try aqua again. I don't want others who have booked aqua to think they made a mistake which is why I am writing this.

I have to agree with you. For OP to state that AQ was not worth $50 per day, but then compliment Blu and note that he felt no need to eat at the specialty restaurants makes no sense.

We really enjoyed eating at Qsine and Tuscan Grille but were also kind of sad that we were missing out on the Blu experience that night,

I enjoy the feeling of eating in a smaller, more intimate dining venue - that feels like a "status symbol" and a real perk to me.

I generally pay little attention to holiday cruise reviews as I know I will never cruise during those times (unless the cruise was free) and I think the abundance of families onboard really colors the experience and the service. I spoke to several crew members who were not looking forward to it!

[USVI-4-me]

I have to agree with you. For OP to state that AQ was not worth $50 per day, but then compliment Blu and note that he felt no need to eat at the specialty restaurants makes no sense.

We really enjoyed eating at Qsine and Tuscan Grille but were also kind of sad that we were missing out on the Blu experience that night,

I enjoy the feeling of eating in a smaller, more intimate dining venue - that feels like a "status symbol" and a real perk to me.

I generally pay little attention to holiday cruise reviews as I know I will never cruise during those times (unless the cruise was free) and I think the abundance of families onboard really colors the experience and the service. I spoke to several crew members who were not looking forward to it!

 

 

We look forward to AquaClass when we book again.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the PS90 review as it covered many aspects of his cruise experience.

 

If I was close to 10-12 year olds tossing sugar, I'd be the one confiscating the sugar. My DH would be the one to move to another table.

 

Now, back to the sadness in the news about the passengers and crews experience on Costa Concordia.

 

Maris