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Two nights on Solstice

GUT2407

By GUT2407,
in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers

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tazza_0712

tazza_0712

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Thanks for your ongoing review.

 

Your sentiments about the booze cruise atmosphere ring true to my previous experience with 2-3 night cruises as well.

 

The Princess coastal cruises (Syd-Mel/Bris vice versa) never seem to get as rowdy.

 

I would like to try Solstice one day.

 

Look forward to reading more.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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GUT2407

GUT2407

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Thanks for your ongoing review.

 

Your sentiments about the booze cruise atmosphere ring true to my previous experience with 2-3 night cruises as well.

 

The Princess coastal cruises (Syd-Mel/Bris vice versa) never seem to get as rowdy.

 

I would like to try Solstice one day.

 

Look forward to reading more.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

This was by far our shortest cruise, but we went in eyes open knowing that it would be a booze cruise.

 

I feel sorry for those for whom this was their first cruise that may have gone home thinking this is what cruising is really like.

 

On a side note, I’m not sure how many nights at sea we have all up, mainly Princess our second on Celebrity, also P&O and Cunard, other than this 5 nights has been our shortest 33 our longest, but I have NEVER seen so many drunks on any cruise.

 

I am certain that many had the drinks package and ere determined to take full advantage, then those who were late boarding felt they needed to drink even more so they didn’t miss out.

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GUT2407

GUT2407

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After muster drill we had to make a beeline for the MDR.

 

They had been announcing that the doors would close half hour after your seating time. We had early 6:00 pm, I can’t recall why now, it’s not our usual pick, I seem to recall that they didn’t offer Select on the sampler and late must have been booked out when we booked the cruise.

 

So got down there a bit after 6:00, doors didn’t actually open till near on 6:30.

 

The food was pretty much what we are used to on cruises, that’s to say OK.

 

Mrs Gut had Corn soup, Raviolli and Creme Brûlée.

 

The Gut had the same soup, rib eye (cooked a little more than I like it when ordered medium rare), and Creme Brûlée (with Ice Cream) Bangbang, our waiter, must have though that Gut was fading away as he also bought be an off menu Caramel Brûlée.

 

We were glad that we had check about wheelchair access as our original table was

 

1. All but totally inaccessible to the wheelchair

 

And

 

2. Had nowhere handy to park the chair while we ate.

 

I was a little surprised that the table allocation hadnt taken into account that we were in an accessible cabin, but perhaps that just becomes too difficult.

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The_Big_M

The_Big_M

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On a side note, I’m not sure how many nights at sea we have all up, mainly Princess our second on Celebrity, also P&O and Cunard, other than this 5 nights has been our shortest 33 our longest, but I have NEVER seen so many drunks on any cruise.

 

I am certain that many had the drinks package and ere determined to take full advantage, then those who were late boarding felt they needed to drink even more so they didn’t miss out.

 

It's not just the drinks packages, but as you saw there are quite a few bucks party, lively birthday groups and similar that go on, all keen to have boisterous fun. Often there are TAs on complimentary famils and some of them are young and like to party on.

 

It makes a different atmosphere.

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GUT2407

GUT2407

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Now we did sail at 6:50, which was a bit of a shock.

 

Sailed from Sydney on many occasions at all different scheduled departure times, never left on time when scheduled around 6:30, peak hour Ferry Service gets priority, I was predicting a much later get away more like 8:30, so it was a pleasant surprise.

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NSWP

NSWP

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Sorry to hear that the drunken bogans spoilt your 'sampler cruise Mr Gut. I blame the cruise line for not complying with the responsible service of alcohol policy.

 

Celebrity is not doing itself a favour by permitting this sort of behaviour, it deters decent people like Mr and Mrs Gut from doing short cruises.:(

 

Now the miracle was....red carpet on their disembarkation, spethial treatment at last.:*

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GUT2407

GUT2407

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Sorry to hear that the drunken bogans spoilt your 'sampler cruise Mr Gut. I blame the cruise line for not complying with the responsible service of alcohol policy.

 

Celebrity is not doing itself a favour by permitting this sort of behaviour, it deters decent people like Mr and Mrs Gut from doing short cruises.:(

 

Now the miracle was....red carpet on their disembarkation, spethial treatment at last.:*

 

 

They didn’t spoil my cruise Uncle Les. And it wouldn’t deter us from doing another sampler, we have a reasonable idea of what a real cruise is like so if we liked a ship we did a sampler on it’d be all systems go.

 

The miracle will be disclosed....

 

No red carpet poor old gbenjo is still laid up, but pretty sure the red carpet was lost anyway during th3 great rebuild of ‘14-‘15.

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GUT2407

GUT2407

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Saturday a little lie in and then off for breakfast.

 

Buffet again, and again had a staff member insist on helping the poor old cripple.

 

Now we liked the lay out of the buffet with stations and all, but we really noticed the issues that came with service rather than self serve.

 

Firstly things were way slower, ie at one station they had various hot foods probably eight or ten varieties, with two serving, so whereas normally maybe ten people would be serving themselves at a time, now only two were getting served (we were later told that many of the serves had been pulled from waiting in the MDR and those serving in the MDR had to take on an extra table or two.) now all this extra work didn’t help with staff morale.

 

Next if you wanted something from more than one station you had to go through the wait again, ie I decided on eggs Benedict not a major issue but then when I also wanted a hash brown with it had to line up and wait again.

 

Finally there was portion control. For example the b3autiful Mrs Gut wanted some fruit salad, was given about twice what she really wanted, and something else (I can’t recall what) and three times asked for “just a bit more”. Which of course adds further to the delay.

 

But what else can they do??? I doubt there is a simple answer.

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GUT2407

GUT2407

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Yes, Yvonne is a lovely lady but sadly she does not do check in so you may still be stuck with me next time.. but hey... I am more than happy to flick you to some other poor unsuspecting check in person :eek::eek:

They’d probably pay you for the privilege.:evilsmile:

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GUT2407

GUT2407

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Forgot to say before breakfast a trip to the aqua spa cafe for some concoction Mrs Gut thinks will keep her looking young. Now if she wanted to stay looking young with no gray hair why on earth did she marry the old Gutster???

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GUT2407

GUT2407

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Lunch.

 

Tried to go to the Mast grill but the line was half way around the deck.

 

Seemed to be a constant on this cruise, lines and waits way beyond anything we have had elsewhere.

 

I assume because it’s such a short cruise everyone wants to fit everything in.

 

We were a little disappointed in the lack of activities on the one Sea day (really the only day of the cruise) I thought they’d have had some of the silly little games, putting in the atrium, egg drop, more trivia (only one and that not till after 5:00, I think only one session of bocce (and couldn’t get near that).

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GUT2407

GUT2407

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So after lunch we set out to visit every public area on the ship.

 

Before we got anywhere near visiting them all had to recharge the chair so Gut and Mrs Gut had a nanna nap and snuggled up.

 

Then finished our tour before diner.

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The_Big_M

The_Big_M

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Elegant Chic night.

 

To be honest I don’t know what they bother. Little if any difference in most dress to casual night the night before.

 

It's a sop to those who like formal night, so they can say they still have it 'for those who want to dress up.'

 

But meanwhile anything goes so those who want to wear whatever they feel like may do so without problem, and without any complaints to Celebrity about enforcing the dress code.

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