Solstice Thoughts

[VK3DQ]

Hi Folks

 

My wife and I arrived back yesterday after twelve nights on board Solstice.

Here are a few thoughts and observations.

 

Firstly let me say that we were well pleased with the ship but are a few items that should be mentioned.

 

Lets start with food, in the main all the food was of good quality and nicely presented , nothing arrived luke warm or cold

The only area where improvement is urgently needed is the Coffee, its dreadful even the extra charge coffee is not good at all .. Celebrity needs to address this issue urgently.

 

Service in all the food venues was great and prompt

 

 

Cabins and service from the housekeeping staff was first class

 

Entertainment was good , however in this area the choice of what event to hold in each venue needs to be reviewed , the bleed off of sound from the main foyer is not good and disrupts enjoyment in close by venues.

 

Music volume was NOT too loud however again the choice of venue for some performers needs to be reviewed careful selection will solve issues , my main suggestion is that the main foyer is NOT a suitable venue for dancing and other events , other venues are very much under used in the evenings such as the skylounge which is a great venue for a dance .

 

In the daytime the ship was very pleasant not too noisy at all however the recorded music played in the ocean view cafe is NOT suitable many repeats of a female singer singing what appeared to be a wailing lament, was not good

 

There were some excellent performances by many of the entertainers on board.

 

Housekeeping was first class the ship is well maintained and spotless clean and attention to personal hygiene was evident throughout the ship

 

 

Staff were polite and engaging , we saw no staff members who were "sour" the entire crew is to be commended .

 

Would we book again ?? Yes in fact we booked to sail on Solstice again in Late January next year

 

We saw no "drunks" as a result of the beverage packages but there were a few groups in some bars that were shall we say getting their moneys worth .

 

 

These are just a few quick thoughts I will attempt to write a full review at a later date , but suffice to say we had a wonderful time aboard Solstice, and the information gleaned from these forums was a great help.

 

 

If you have any questions please feel free to ask I'll do my best to answer.

 

 

Best regards

John

[mtn_couple]

Thanks for posting your thoughts. We are very much looking forward to boarding the Solstice in November.

[Gail360]

We found if you ordered a double or triple shot the Coffee you pay for was acceptable .. Not great , but pleasant enough .

 

:) .

[VK3DQ]

Thanks for posting your thoughts. We are very much looking forward to boarding the Solstice in November.

 

Hi Folks

 

I'm sure you will enjoy the cruise as much as we did .. we had a wonderful time and our expectations were exceeded , we sail again on 27th Jan 2015 and will take four friends with us .. dont forget if you can book your next cruise on board there are many advantages and you can get a great price and in our case US$500 on board credit

 

 

my critique was only minor (except for the coffee) :D

 

Regards

John

 

BTW Celebrity told us that the 123 options will be exclusive for on board bookings in future

[VK3DQ]

We found if you ordered a double or triple shot the Coffee you pay for was acceptable .. Not great , but pleasant enough .

 

:) .

 

Hi Folks

 

We used shore excursions to go in search of coffee, I have a plan for my next cruise .. I'm taking my own coffee I did on Rhapsody of the Seas last year (we had kettles in the cabin) but can get boiling water from room service and brew my own

 

:p:p

 

regards

 

john:D

[The_Big_M]

If only they'd bring on Dr Pepper.

[oskarNZ]

Thanks for your review.

 

What a shame about the coffee. During a month long trip to the USA last year, including a week on the Disney Fantasy, my husband had one coffee that he enjoyed. He was suffering from serious withdrawal symptoms by the time he got home.

 

Unfortunately, it seems that what is considered a good coffee over there is quite different to what is considered good coffee here.

 

I was hoping that Celebrity might be different, but it seems not. We are travelling on the Century in December and I will tell my husband to make the most of the cafés we visit in the Aussie ports.

[bar_20]

Thanks for your review.

 

What a shame about the coffee. During a month long trip to the USA last year, including a week on the Disney Fantasy, my husband had one coffee that he enjoyed. He was suffering from serious withdrawal symptoms by the time he got home.

 

Unfortunately, it seems that what is considered a good coffee over there is quite different to what is considered good coffee here.

 

I was hoping that Celebrity might be different, but it seems not. We are travelling on the Century in December and I will tell my husband to make the most of the cafés we visit in the Aussie ports.

 

What do you drink in NZ. We will be boarding the Solstice next Friday in Sydney and will be making a stop in Auckland and would love to pick up a pound of what you think is good in NZ. My wife and I drink Peet's Major Dickason's Blend out of Northern California. If X served that we would sail with them a half dozen times a year!:D

[oskarNZ]

What do you drink in NZ. We will be boarding the Solstice next Friday in Sydney and will be making a stop in Auckland and would love to pick up a pound of what you think is good in NZ. My wife and I drink Peet's Major Dickason's Blend out of Northern California. If X served that we would sail with them a half dozen times a year!:D

 

Hi Bar_20

 

I just asked my husband, the serious coffee drinker in the family, and he said it was a hard question to answer.

 

NZ has so many coffee roasters the competition is fierce. As well as the roasters, baristas take their job very seriously, and are quite particular in the way they think coffee should be prepared. I think the main difference you will find between here and the US is the strength of the coffee.

 

When my husband isn't spending good money on cafe coffees, he happily drinks a common supermarket brand called Moccona.

 

This link about coffee in NZ may be more helpful than I have been.

 

http://www.newzealand.com/travel/media/features/food-&-wine/food&wine_new-zealands-coffee-scene_feature.cfm

Edited April 5, 2014 by oskarNZ

[bar_20]

We have lots of coffee roasters in the USA. A good roaster will have at least 20 different types of coffee from beans grown all over the world. First and foremost Starbucks roasts terrible coffee. It's too bitter. When blended with fru fru flavorings it might taste good but as a stand alone coffee it's crap. I think because most passengers on the X ships are from the USA they tend to brew what the average coffee drinker likes. Go to Italy and you get mud, go to France and you get French roast, go to Brittan and you get tea. With the ships selling specialty coffees why give away the good stuff for free. However what they are pushing as good stuff is mediocre to a real coffee drinker.

[oskarNZ]

We have lots of coffee roasters in the USA. A good roaster will have at least 20 different types of coffee from beans grown all over the world. First and foremost Starbucks roasts terrible coffee. It's too bitter. When blended with fru fru flavorings it might taste good but as a stand alone coffee it's crap. I think because most passengers on the X ships are from the USA they tend to brew what the average coffee drinker likes. Go to Italy and you get mud, go to France and you get French roast, go to Brittan and you get tea. With the ships selling specialty coffees why give away the good stuff for free. However what they are pushing as good stuff is mediocre to a real coffee drinker.

 

I'm sure my husband would agree with much of what you said, including a general dislike of Starbucks.

[MargoK]

Hi Bar_20

 

I just asked my husband, the serious coffee drinker in the family, and he said it was a hard question to answer.

 

NZ has so many coffee roasters the competition is fierce. As well as the roasters, baristas take their job very seriously, and are quite particular in the way they think coffee should be prepared. I think the main difference you will find between here and the US is the strength of the coffee.

 

When my husband isn't spending good money on cafe coffees, he happily drinks a common supermarket brand called Moccona.

 

This link about coffee in NZ may be more helpful than I have been.

 

http://www.newzealand.com/travel/media/features/food-&-wine/food&wine_new-zealands-coffee-scene_feature.cfm

Great link oskarNZ - very interesting

 

I am a Moccona girl!:D at home and work, and a flat white in a cafe!

[Jacs]

The main difference I find between the coffee we drink in Australia and New Zealand vs American coffee is we generally drink espresso style coffee. So here when I go to a cafe I will order a cafe latte, and I have an espresso machine at home. But in America it seems to mostly be brewed coffee.

 

I will drink brewed coffee here that I make up in a plunger (I think you call it a coffee press in the US), and providing the beans are good quality it's a great coffee. I found that most cafes and restaurants in the US make horrible brewed coffee though, it's probably one of those things best made at home.

 

I did buy some amazing Kona coffee in Hawaii that I recently finished, I've been considering ordering it online it was so good :)

[shovelrae1959]

my hopes of getting some decent coffee while on the Solstice this fall are being crushed! guess they are being cheap with their brewed drinks. are coffee places easy to find in Ketchikan or Skagway?

[Gnomey]

Off on a bit of a tangent here, but I found the coffees and teas really good on P&O Arcadia. Even their 'bulk' stuff out of the urn was quite reasonable. As for the rest, forget it. My preferred line, Princess, even struggles with specialty coffee. The best I've found was Samantha on Sea Princess who was very skilled.

Steve.

[MicCanberra]

Thanks for the review VK3DQ.

For me the free coffee on most ships is very border line, I think Princess has the most bearable that I have tried so far. The specialty coffees from the Cafe's (International cafe, Cafe Al baccio, etc) on board are much better but can still be hit and miss. It is something that all cruise lines should work on, just like their websites.:D

[cruisin-m]

Agree with everything you are saying :)

 

Don't know why they chose to use the Atrium for events when they could have used the Sky Lounge, the one time they did use the Sky Lounge for an event it was the most well attended and lively event they held, seemed like not too many were fussed with dancing in the atrium.

 

Also felt the coffee was awful, even the paid for stuff was average. I usually drink a straight cappuccino but since they were average I turned to getting flavoured coffee like caramel latte's or hazelnut mocha's as the flavouring helped to make the coffee bearable as you couldn't taste it much anymore!

[Gnomey]

I think too the quality of milk might be a bit of an issue. I saw them using long life on our short Sea Princess trip recently. Thank goodness for cafes on shore!

One thing I disliked about Radiance was bits & pieces of "performance" happening everywhere, quite loudly most of the time and it was something you had to "push" through or take a long detour to get to where you were going.

Steve.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!

[rugbypopsie]

Thanks for your review. About to gave our third trip on Solstice and yes there is a lot to like. I hated the bleed of music from hand atrium into the martini/crush bar..but other than that..it's a great ship.

 

Sue

[Waihekean]

Hi Folks

I'm sure you will enjoy the cruise as much as we did .. we had a wonderful time and our expectations were exceeded , we sail again on Jan 27th 2015 and will take four friends with us .. dont forget if you can book your next cruise on board there are many advantages and you can get a great price and in our case US$500 on board credit

my critique was only minor (except for the coffee) :D

Regards

John

 

Come and join the roll call. It is a very lively one. Pax are already full on: organising shared trips, cabin crawl, poker pull etc.

Also it is Australia Day on the 26th and a group of us have a Harbour cruise booked to see the fire works in Darling Harbour in the evening with a buffet dinner. Should be a great weekend in Sydney.