Celebrity’s New Solstice

Solstice Info

Fast Facts

Occupancy: 2850
Tonnage: 122,000
Length: 1033 ft
Beam: 121 ft

Route

Eastern Caribbean with stops in San Juan, Puerto Rico, St. Maarten, Tortola, BVI and Labadee, Haitii.

Destination

Fort Lauderdale round trip

Includes...

A martini bar, way too much really great food, a much too crowded buffet and a grand time had by all.

OK, there has to be a disclaimer right up front. Before we ever boarded I had broken my three biggest cruising rules. First, I don’t like big ships. Of course that is totally irrational as I had never been on one but since I love the M-class and the C-class I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t like anything bigger. With Solstice having almost 1,000 more people than an M-class ship (1950 vs 2850) I knew going in that I might not like it.

Second, (and this one I know from experience) I hate the Caribbean. And hate is a really good word. There are so many things I don’t like about it. I don’t like the heat, I don’t like beaches, I don’t like the ports (they all look alike). I much prefer Europe or Alaska. In Europe there is so much to see and in Alaska at least I like the weather. This cruise proved part of that to be true. I did enjoy the warmth after a very cold NW winter but I enjoyed it a lot more in Key West pre-cruise than I did on the ship. Maybe it is less the place than the type of crowd you get on an Caribbean cruise. Bob calls it a Royal Caribbean crowd. Especially a seven day Caribbean cruise. Please do not take that wrong if you like seven day Caribbean cruises. They just aren’t for me.

And lastly on this cruise I broke what is probably my primary cruise rule; NEVER DO THE SHIP’S SHORE EXCURSIONS! I tell every one this. I post it on the Cruise Critic boards on a regular basis. I have to say that I have only once, out of 12 cruises I believe I can honestly say that there has only been one ship-sponsored shore excursion that I would ever do again. The most memorable ones and the most enjoyable have been trips we have planned on our own (always with the help and counsel of the god of shore excursions--Mr. Mike Preisman). I broke this rule for myself once on this trip as well as going along on a group shore excursion with the Cruise Critic group. I will explain my feelings on these in a separate area of this review under Ports of Call but I just wanted to mention it up front.

Embarkation

Of course the best place to start any cruise review is at the beginning and for every cruise that is embarkation. We have embarked from many cities and I can honestly say that the three times we have left from Port Everglades have been three of the smoothest. This one was no exception except for some really small glitches. We like to board early. In the past we have been the first ones onboard (literally) on three of our cruises. We like to start the vacation early. We arrived at the port around 10:45 and dropped off Kathleen, Judy and our luggage and went to return the rental car (getting thoroughly lost in the process). If you are returning a car to Thrifty Rental Cars get good directions. But I recommend you don’t rent from them, so you shouldn’t have that problem if you are following my advice. You can read about our experience with Thrifty by clicking here.

That said, once we found them, it was really quick getting back to the ship on their shuttle and by 11:15 we were in line and on our way. First minor glitch: X just has too many ways to get you onboard. Let me explain. When we walked up to the “lines” we had a plethora of choices. We fit into a lot of categories. Three immediately came to mind. There was a boarding area for general passengers (we could do that), one for Concierge Class (that’s us too) and finally a line for Captain’s Club Elite (we fit in that as well). Which one to choose to get through the lines in the most efficient manner? We picked the Captain’s Club Elite line as it looked to be the shortest. Of course as soon as we did this, it stopped moving completely. Part of the problem was that when a person in the line had to go and get seapasses for anyone they had to walk almost the entire length of the registration tables to get them as they were in alphabetical order behind the registration tables. I am a firm believer that you don’t criticize something unless you have a better solution so maybe they should think about trying something different.

I would propose that they actually treat their Captain’s Club Elite and Select members they way they should be treated. Separate their seapasses from the rest and send those people (with an escort) to the separated registration booth where once they get their seapasses they are then escorted directly onboard. This is another example of how X could really live up to their promises to their Captain’s Club members that would cost them little or nothing. I know that some will feel like this is just me feeling entitled to something and you would be right. I am a big believer in loyalty programs. I firmly believe that if you are loyal to a company then you are their MOST valuable customer. As a marketing professional the most important law of marketing is that you spend 90% of your marketing budget on selling more of your product to your best customers. They already believe in what you sell. You treat them right and they will not only keep coming back but they will bring others. I know that is true for us. More about Captain’s Club later.

Onboard

First let me state that even though she is big, Solstice is a marvel. Probably the most incredible ship I have been on in our short cruising life. I told Kathleen early in the week that I thought Solstice could best be described as a Thomas’s English muffin. In their ads, Thomas’s used to advertise that they had “lots of nooks and crannies to hold the melted butter.” Well just about says it for me about Solstice. Even though her public areas are vast, if you look there are lots of places you can find peace and solitude. I think that is her most amazing featured. That and being new. A lot of the things I liked had to do with being new. And no, as the Carnival ads claim, there is not a “new ship” smell.

As soon as we were onboard we went to our cabin and dropped our carry-on luggage in the closet. If you haven’t done this before, it is perfectly acceptable on X. Never had a problem with it. Last fall we could not do it on HAL as they had the hallways to rooms closed off but that has never been the case on X and we carry a lot of carry-ons so we always want to drop them off. You can too. Just get in and get out and don’t bother your cabin steward.

After that it was time for lunch. We had 12 people in our Martini Mates group and amazingly we found all of them almost immediately. Then the problem was finding someplace to eat. And thus begins the good, the bad and the ugly. And from that I will go in a kind of different direction.

Solstice-The Best Parts

Instead of walking through the entire cruise, for those who just want to know the down and dirty, here is my scoop in three parts. The good stuff, the not so good (bad) and the really bad (ugly). I think you will see that the good stuff far outweighs either of the two other areas.

Service

From the start let me say that anyone who thinks that X service has gone south, you need to sail on this ship. From the Martini Bar, to the gym, to our cabin and especially in the dining room, everywhere we went the service was back to what we consider Celebrity standards. Now it may be that the service has been diluted on other ships because I truly believe that they have taken the best of their crews and moved them to Solstice and I worry that this will happen again as Equinox and Eclipse come online but for now, Solstice service rocks. (In fact, our incredible waiter Wilmar told us he was going on vacation in two weeks and then he and a lot of his Solstice cohorts are off to Equinox.)

That was our experience. Others in our party did not fare so well. Carol’s asst. cabin steward was forgetful and left dirty laundry under her bed. And we had the same people cleaning both our rooms and we had nothing but good things to say about both him and our cabin steward Emily. She was our first clue that things were back. She came to introduce herself just before muster drill and asked if we had our luggage. We didn’t. She wrote down descriptions of it and said she would get right back to us. About 10 minutes later there was a knock on our door and there was her assistant with our bags. HOLY COW! We had the same experience in just about every place on board. Others in our party had both good and not so good service so it may not be as incredible for you.

Here’s another example. We were in a party of 12. Half of us had booked with one travel agency as part of the cruise critic group. Three other couples had each booked with their own TAs. When we tried pre-cruise to get two tables for six next to each other in the dining room we were told they could not link our reservations because we (the six who were part of the CC group) were part of a group and you can’t link reservations from outside a group to those inside. The Captain’s Club rep who I had talked to on the phone said she would send a request to the maitre’d and we would just have to see what happens. After we had finally gotten some lunch (see The UGLY below) we went to the dining room to see what we could find out. We really planned that we were going to have to put up with not being with our entire party and just have to see them outside of meal times. But who should we meet but the amazing Branco who told us, “No problem. We got your request three days ago and it is all taken care of. You have these two tables right here with our best waiter on both of them.”

Food

The food was outstanding. We ate in a variety of places. We did breakfast in the Aqua Spa cafe most mornings. I still try to eat healthy once in while, even on a cruise. We at there five out of seven days. They have an outstanding granola, not much variety of yogurt and some strange rule about keeping blueberries for smoothies only (even though they have unlimited blueberries in the buffet 100 yards away.) Suffice it to say that breakfast there was very good.

Lunches were eaten in a variety of places. We did the buffet (Oceanview Cafe) twice, Bistro on Five twice, the Grand Epernay dining room once and we were off the ship for others. My comments on the buffet and the dining room are below but I want to mention here is Bistro on Five. It is a small food concession located (where else) on deck five. You have to pay extra to eat there. The charge covers service only and is $5 each. They primarily serve crepes but also have salads and desserts. We loved it. Some of the most interesting food we had on board. They have quite a variety of crepes and they are outstanding. And the best iced tea we had on board as well.

And speaking of tea, here’s some big news. The coffee in almost every venue on Solstice was OUTSTANDING! Those who have read my reviews of our previous cruises know that it has been one of my biggest complaints about X. To get a decent cup of coffee we always had to pay for it in the Cova Cafe (Now Cafe Al’ Baccio) but not on this cruise. Every cup I had was good. Some were really good. Take that from a guy who loves his coffee. And I love it strong and rich. And the coffee in almost everyplace was just what I liked.

Dinners for us included five nights in the Grand Epernay (which we were told is a champagne grape growing region in France) dining room. We felt the food was up to the old X standards. Didn’t get my escargot every night but I did get my shrimp cocktail every night. As usual the appetizers were great, the soups good, the salads week and main courses good as well. Desserts were good too. Now to be honest, I had such a good time with the 12 of us each night that I can’t remember specific things I ate there. So none of it was remarkable but it was all very good. No complaints.

We also joined Mike, Carol, Bob and Judy in two of Solstice’s alternative dining spots. On our third night onboard we ate in the Tuscan Grille. This is an Italian-themed alternative restaurant ($30 service charge per person) that features Italian appetizers and desserts and meaty meat entrees. Kathleen and I had the mixed grille which was a plate with a really good Italian sausage (lots of great fennel), a steak, a chicken breast and a lamb chop. All done very well. The antipasto and the dessert were excellent too.

The next night we were able to wrangle reservations in Murano, the French cuisine alternative restaurant. We had made reservations for the Tuscan Grille pre-cruise through Captain’s Club but could not make reservations for Murano through the X website as part of our group (Bob and Judy) use a “different currency” (yes, they are Canadian’s) they would not let us book it online. So I had to call Captain’s Club and they will only let us book one reservation that way so we had to wait until we were onboard to get the Murano reservation. I suggest that if you are waiting until you board to do this, you go there immediately.

Our dinner at Murano was wonderful. We had a 6:30 reservation and were escorted right to our table and placed our drink and wine orders immediately. I could go on and on about the food and the drink and the company but I suffice it to say that it was one of the best dinners we have ever had on or off a ship. We have eaten in the United States dining room on Infinity numerous times. All of them were outstanding experiences. We ate in Murano on Century and found it a much less satisfying experience but this one may have surpassed them all. We got the usual four course (appetizer, entree, cheese course and dessert). We were disappointed that they no longer offer our favorite goat cheese souffle appetizer or any type of souffle for dessert but that didn’t spoil our dinner. Carol got us all to believe that her crepes with strawberries (sauce made from balsamic vinegar at the table) were the best thing she ever had and I got to taste the sauce and she may be right.

As Inigo said in The Princess Bride, “Let me sum up.” Food was good. Best we had on the ship was Murano and lunch in Bistro on Five. Coffee was wonderful.

The Cabin

Inside the cabin I found it outstanding. The cabins are configured so that every other cabin has the bed near the verandah. That means the one next to it has the bed near the bathroom. We were really hoping to get one with the bed near the verandah but we didn’t. Somehow all our other friends did. Go figure? But we did like the cabin. The bed was comfortable, the bathroom was bigger, the shower a glassed-in compartment as opposed to having a shower curtain--all good things. The storage was nice but I would have loved to have one more drawer. I love the new bathroom and I would book CC class just for the new bath sheets. They are just the best towels I have ever used. I want to get some for home if I can.

I did think the bathroom was configured a little strangely. Not to be indelicate but when sitting on the throne it is really hard to reach the TP. If I weighed about 50 more pounds it would have been very tough to use the facility at all. Another things that needs improvement, the toilet paper. I understand it has to be pretty much self-destructible but does it have to self destruct while you are using it? Kathleen agrees with me. She said that the TP they use in the public bathrooms on board is even better than what you get in your cabin. I would way it is the worst TP I have ever used. Enough said!

Kathleen didn’t like the closet. She felt it was smaller than the M-class closets and harder to get into since it was next to the bed and not in the hall across from the bathroom as it is on the M-class ships. I am a guy. A closet is a closet. Kathleen also was not overly pleased with the hairdryer because it has switch that you have to hold in the on position with constant pressure while using it. Plus we really had to search for it when we first got in the cabin. If you have the same problem, check the desk drawer. It’s located there because the only outlet that you can use it with is at the desk.

Other Good Stuff

There are other things I loved on Solstice and I want to give them a brief mention. Starting from the top, I love the Hot Glass Show and the Lawn Club. There has been a lot of discussion on the Cruise Critic boards about both of these. Many people don’t get it. I do. I love the Hot Glass Show. We went up three or four times and watched the excellent team create their art. They are not only great artists but they are excellent communicators and even those who are not into glass blowing should still find it interesting.

The Lawn Club is gorgeous. Yes, there are some spots that need work but nothing quite equals the really cool feeling I got at sailaway when I looked over at it and went, “Wow, there’s a lawn on the ship.” It was great.

Solstice has two pools. We are not big pool people. On the M-class ships we use the T-pool (think giant jacuzzi if you have never seen one) on a regular basis. On Solstice the outdoor pool was slammed all the time. In fact on my way to the gym at 5:45 in the morning on sea days there were already people putting books and other clothing out to save chairs. Some of us call these folks chair hogs. I tend to agree. Walking by a pool butler at 7:00 am coming back from the gym, I remarked that if it were up to me, I would toss all the stuff holding chairs overboard. His only comment was, “I wish!”

We did like the indoor atrium pool. It is gorgeous but couldn’t they have installed some jets and made it a T-pool. I am sure it wouldn’t have cost them that much. There are two hot tubs which were pretty empty on the days we used them. But forget it on sea days. Not a chance.

I almost forgot one of our absolutely favorite things; (and it is true about all of Celebrity, not just Solstice) the new smoking policy. There is now no place that smoking is allowed on the ship other than four designated areas. And those areas are pretty small. But one thing I don’t get. Why is one of the smoking areas right outside the Aqua Spa cafe? The smoke drifts into what is probably the healthiest eating spot on the ship. All they have to do to change it is to move the smoking area to the other side of the ship. It would make a lot more sense. Other than that, the new policy is WONDERFUL!

Design-wise, one of the things we love is the way the casino does not completely span the ship. That means that you don’t have to walk through the casino to get anywhere on the same deck. There is a very nice walkway on one side of the casino that has shops on the other side. It was actually one of my favorite parts of the ship. Right past this area is the Celebrity Central area which serves as both a great venue for some of the smaller acts and unfortunately as a bottleneck when there is a performance there and the theater is getting out. Forget getting by it.

The Shows

Speaking of theater, we went to most of the main shows (five nights). The first night is kind of a intro act to the entire week with some previews of everything we would see this week. That included an acapella group, a xylophonist and the usual singers and dancers. The second night was the brand new show called “Solstice, the Show.” What a name? (That was sarcasm, in case you didn’t know.) The show is a Cirque rip off and as big a fans as we are of Cirque, I felt it was a pretty poor imitation with the exception that they did all they did while on a moving ship. I think the performers were up to par but the show itself just doesn’t do it for me.

A few nights later we went to a “rock and roll” show that we left early when we it became just a song fest of songs that we didn’t know. Two nights later was the Broadway show and I was suitably unimpressed although there was an OUTSTANDING young lady singer. Her voice was excellent and she could win American Idol any night. The xylophonist came back and did an entire show on his own which might be your cup of tea, but it wasn’t mine. We skipped that one.

As far as we are concerned, if we want a show, we know where to find one here in Seattle but it was nice to see something new on an X ship after seeing the exact same shows on every cruise since 2004. Really. We have seen the old Broadway show with Joel Grey at least 9 times.

The Bad (not that bad but needs improvement)

There was not very much not to dislike on this cruise that I really didn’t hate. The aforementioned items like the smoking area outside the Aqua Spa Cafe, the closet space, the toilet paper, the distance to the elevators and stairs but that is about it. Asking Kathleen just now what else we kind of disliked we really couldn’t think of anything. That means that all in all, this was a pretty good cruise.

What the heck was up with the guest lecturer on this cruise???? They had a guy who lectured all week about the IRS. I hate writing those letters. Why in God’s name would anyone on vacation want to listen to someone talk about taxes and audits. Are they nuts? PLEASE!!!

And one other thing we thought about at dinner last night. Could you please bring back the breadsticks in the Martini Bar. Can you even imagine an X martini without a breadstick? Please bring them back and get rid of the funny nibbles. They were either too spicy or too sweet. Breadsticks are perfect.

The Ugly (Stuff I hate)

The biggest thing I really dislike about this cruise weren’t really about Solstice. They were more about the direction Celebrity (and the entire cruising industry) is headed in general. When we pulled into San Juan, PR I saw a great example of what I am talking about that. As the ship docked we looked to the right and there was Galaxy, the ship that I would say I took my favorite cruise aboard (to the Black Sea and Eastern Med in 2007). Galaxy was that very day being turned over to its new owners and leaving Celebrity. Some of the Galaxy crew joined Solstice that day after finishing off on Galaxy. In its place (and I am betting eventually that of Mercury and Century as well) we have Solstice and soon Equinox and Eclipse. And frankly folks, these ships are just too damn big for my tastes.

Some examples: We boarded at around 11:45 and went to the Oceanview Cafe to have lunch. Good luck finding a place to sit. Finally ended up taking turns with friends, eating and standing. Now go back to last August. Boarded Infinity and went to find a place to eat in the buffet. No problem. Lots of space. Plenty of room. Plenty on Infinity, none on Solstice.

During the muster drill it took us almost 30 minutes just to walk down the stairs to our muster station. We ended up standing on the stairs unable to go down because of the huge crush of people on the stairs. I do not want to be there during a real emergency. Just too many people.

The Oceanview Cafe (buffet)

The Oceanview Cafe is one of the few parts of Solstice I don’t like. Many people like it. I just don’t. It’s not that I find it confusing. The stations are well labeled and the lines are short but I find if very chaotic. I can’t believe the number of times I saw collisions or near misses. People going in every direction. I also really miss the trays. I know everyone says it is no problem. Well I am sorry. At breakfast I cannot hold on to a plate, a cup of coffee and a glass of OJ as well as my silverware and napkin while I search for a table that may not open up for a while. People have told me that you go get your food put it on your table, then go back for your juice and coffee. Well folks, there are three drink stations and there are lots of tables that are nowhere near those stations. So cold food or cold coffee, take your choice. If you don’t like crowds (and I don’t) stay away from the Oceanview Cafe. It reminds me of the worst buffet in Vegas, except that in Vegas the hostess would at least find you a table.

Music

This is another thing that X is doing fleet-wide that drives me nuts. Why does X think we want to listen to music in every public space. We actually had to tip our Martini Bar waiter an extra $5 a night to get him to turn down the techno music. And hey, Celebrity--look around. The average age of the people your ships is around 40. The average age of the people in the Martini Bar on the nights when we were there was 55. Now someone please tell me if they have ever met any 55 year old human that likes loud techno music. Please? And yet in our favorite bar, where we just want to converse, that’s what’s playing. And that techno music is playing at a sound level that is so loud you can’t hear the person right next to you speak in a conversational tone. And it’s not just the bars. So many places have so much background music. Can’t we just have quiet please. And you know what, X can fix this for nothing. And quickly. Please do that. Please. Heck, I will cut you a CD. Smooth jazz?