The split personalities of the Solstice

[Beachdude]

I don’t think it was a big deal for those who are accustom to Celebrity services and service policies, but this was our first trip and I’m still not sure we have a good feel for a typical Celebrity cruise. Solstice arrive in Honolulu with the Norovius. The crew reacted proactively by sterilizing the ship and everything within her to make sure the virus didn’t rare its ugly head again. They also change their food service policy so that ship personnel handed out all “all” food and eating utensils to each passenger individually.

 

The aggressive policy overall basically removed everything in the cabins and common areas of the ship after it reached Honolulu to be sterilized. Even all the freshly laundered items like towels and sheets were relaundered after ship arrival, which was the highest priority so the cabins would be ready as soon as possible for the boarding Honolulu passengers. We heard later that was around 6:30pm. All "everything" other items were sterilized and replaced back in the cabins as the crew could get to them during the cruise. Even the books in the ship library were removed to be sterilized. I’m didn’t notice when the books where put back or if they were put back. We got our ice bucket the 3rd day of the cruise, but didn’t get the ice tongs until about the 6th day. I could use my fingers to grabbed the ice, but we were squired with hand sanitizer so many times, I just wasn't sure. Something new showed up in the cabin every day leaving each day with a little feeling of a Christmas. We didn’t start getting our daily flower arrangement until about day 8 because the flower vases were a lower priority than the umbrellas. It never rained on the whole trip, but it was nice to know we were covered for that after day 6.

 

I think where Sally and I really aren’t sure of the typical Celebrity policies are in the food serving area. As I said, all food, condiments and eating utensils were handed out to each passenger by the crew. While I’m sure this change in policy was frustrating for some passengers, it was obvious that it was very frustrating for the crew because it required adding more personnel to the serving stations. I never saw the drink stations with a line less than five minutes long and 10 minutes was more typical. The ship management tried to help this problem by adding more personnel as lines got longer, but there is only so much room and so many dispensers in the drink areas to serve 3000 passengers. The wait was just as long for one glass of water as it was to get four cups of coffee and tea because it also had to be handed to the passenger.

 

I think the polices changed back to normal about day 9 because that is when we were directed to fix our own salad using the same serving tools as the passengers before us. But as I said, this was our first Celebrity cruise, so we really don’t know what is normal.

 

All that being said, most folks were upbeat and cooperated during the whole cruise because they didn’t want the norovirus to crop back up. The only complaints we heard was the boarding in Honolulu. Most folks interpreted instructions emailed to all passengers a few days earlier to be at the dock for boarding by 2:00 pm. But it turns out they weren’t allowed to board the ship until 5:30 pm, leaving a couple thousand passengers stuck sitting around for several hours without knowing why. Even after they were allowed to board at 5:30, the cabins still weren’t open until 6:30 pm. Sally and I missed all that because we hung around on the Oahu North Shore beaches until 7:00. We strutted on board in our ignorance and went straight to our cabin without a problem having no clue to the frustration most passendgers experienced through the day. We didn’t get our bags until the next morning, but that wasn’t a problem for us because we were in bed early from trying to get use the 6 hour time zone change.

 

All and all we enjoyed what we experienced from Celebrity enough to plan another cruise soon. AND, it will be like a whole new experience again because we don't know which personality we will see next. I’m all giddy thinking about getting to personally shake pepper on my steak with a real the pepper shaker provided on the table. I also like that umbrella.

 

Burt

[kitty9]

I believe what you experienced is what goes on industry wide. I experienced exactly what you did on our 11 night Equinox cruise last February. My cabin was stripped of everything, including the hair dryer and Gideon Bible. We didn't not have the grand gala brunch and anything that passengers could touch were taken away.

 

My cousins were on Cunard's world cruise when they had an outbreak of Noro, and they reported the same things. My neighbors were on an RCI cruise in the Baltic when they had a Noro outbreak and they, too, told me they experienced exactly what I did on Celebrity.

[Starry Eyes]

One occasionally hears of ships that have noroVirus outbreaks on cruise after cruise, seemingly unable to eradicate that virus.

 

So, as disruptive as Soltice's cleaning process may have been, it seems to have worked. For that I am grateful. Hats off to the management for designing an effective (so far) program, and many thanks to the crew for the hard work getting through it.

[FunCruiser56]

Burt,

We thought this was one of the weirdest cruises we have ever been in, but in a good way.

We were glad that the Noro never came back and felt the crew worked so hard to keep it that way. This is our first experience with the Noro mass sanitation on a cruise and I will say this changed everything about the cruise.

I think most people just rolled with the changes, but I did see some very rude, crabby passengers that were very unkind to some of the crew, very sad.

 

We were AQ for the first time and all the in cabin 'perks' we were looking forward did take along time, and some never happened at all. I agree with you tho that some days were like Christmas finding something new added back- like ICE- ya! Our welcome aboard wine sat there for nearly 5 days before we were able to get a ice bucket so we could enjoy it..:rolleyes:

 

This cruise was totally out of the norm for Celebrity- BUT we still had a wonderful time, Hawaii is a beautiful place to visit and we were a cruise.

 

No vacation we have every taken goes just the way we plan, we will be sailing again and yes probably with Celebrity- smooth sailing on your next cruise!

 

Umbrella?? what umbrella :rolleyes:

 

Bev

 

Bev