Celebrity Solstice to Alaska with children - one year late review

Celebrity Solstice to Alaska with children - one year late review

I have been meaning to post a review of our 8 day cruise to Alaska on board Celebrity Solstice last spring for the past year but somehow, time flies and good intentions never turn into action... so anyhow, I figured now is better than never as I so very appreciated the various reviews I read on here prior to our own family vacation. I am not too sure the best way to write out the review so I think I am going to split it down into sections.

BACKGROUND INFO: We are a family of four from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Our two children are J (boy ,age 7 at time of cruise ) and P (girl,age 3 at time of cruise) , we ourselves are a couple of small business owners in our early to mid thirties. This was our first family vacation in over 5 years due to the difficulty of getting away from our business for more than a couple of days at a time and it was our first cruise. We decided to take full advantage of time off and so were away from home for 18 days in total. We drove down from Edmonton through the Rockies to Vancouver, cruised and drove back home. If you have any questions about the Rocky Mountains in addition to the cruise, I would be happy to answer as we have vacationed almost exclusively in Canada's mountain parks prior to this trip.

WHY CELEBRITY SOLSTICE: Being a researcher at heart, I spent two months meticulously researching cruise lines and itineraries for Alaska before settling on this one. We chose Celebrity for a variety of reasons and are happy to report that all our expectations were not only met, but exceeded. We appreciate fine dining and for us, good food is a huge part of a holiday so this was a top consideration in terms of choosing a cruise line. Celebrity is known for their food and they did not disappoint, I will elaborate later. We also did not want a line that specifically catered to kids, even though we were bringing our kids along. Our children are both introverts and easily overwhelmed in chaotic environments so Celebrity seemed like a great choice as they offer an excellent children's program but it is neither flashy nor over run with children. There were 98 children on board this particular cruise and on average 10 - 12 each in their two age divisions.

PRE CRUISE: After a few nights with family members in BC's lower mainland, we spent two nights pre-cruise at the Pan Pacific hotel in downtown Vancouver. We absolutely loved the Pan Pacific, we had booked a family cruise package that included buffet breakfast for the whole family each morning, goodnight treats for the children (cookies and milk) and a tv movie rental. It also included a late checkout time of 2pm on cruise day and baggage transfer onto the ship ( the Pan Pacific sits above Canada Place, Vancouver's main cruise terminal). The hotel is perfect for getting into vacation mode - the room overlooked the harbor and you could watch sea planes come and go as well as other cruise ships approaching and leaving. The hotel pool is one of the nicest we have seen with a view of either the ocean or the city skyline behind you. Buffet breakfasts were delecious and all in all, we concluded that this hotel is well worth its pretty hefty price tag!! As a side note, I HIGHLY recommend a stop at award winning Bella Gelateria, which is just a block or two away from the Canada Place terminal/ Pan Pacific hotel, in particular the salted chocolate variety, amazing and worth the line up. Downtown Vancouver is a beautiful place to spend a few days prior to a cruise, this was not our first trip to Vancouver so we didn't necessarily do alot of the usual tourist activities as we have done most of them on previous visits. We did do the Vancouver Aquarium for our kiddo's sake and spent a good hour or two wandering Stanely Park's beaches. We also wandered the downtown, it was very eye opening for our children, especially our 7 year old son to see the level of homelessness that exists in Vancouver. Coming from the prairies, we are not necessarily accustomed to such poverty on the streets and there is a substantial amount of homelessness/begging in the downtown area, especially as you head east of Canada Place towards gastown/hastings. We never felt unsafe but we did have quite a few conversations with our kids and it was a sobering reminder of just how fortunate we are and it actually made us that much more grateful of the blessing of being able to stay in nice hotels/go on fancy cruises. very blessed.

EMBARKATION: The front desk of the hotel had told us to be patient in terms of lining up to get onto the cruise, so we took advantage of our late checkout and just chilled out quietly till 1pm, our bags were taken at 12:30pm and we made our way down to the line ups at about 1:15pm. Boy, were there line ups lol!! Never having cruised before, we had no idea what to expect but it looked like half of vancouver was waiting to board the Solstice, we were the only ship boarding so I can't imagine what it looks like when there are multiple ships !! We were amazed however to be waved over after 10 mins in the initial line up to bypass due to having a stroller with us for our 3 year old. We ducked our heads, ignored the glares and took the bypass!! *I highly suggest borrowing a baby and a stroller if you want to speed up the boarding process lol* . All in all, we were in lineups for about 60 mins start to finish, not bad at all. We took the cheezy family photo with the ship backdrop and stepped onto Solstice, where they handed us champagne and orange juice (such a nice touch).

OUR CABIN: We had booked a balcony suite and our awesome travel agent was able to upgrade us to concierge for minimal extra dollars. Our cabin was number 1130 on deck 8. I also had no idea what to expect in the cabin, I had told my husband to expect it to feel like four of us were sleeping in a walk in closet for 8 nights so we were very pleasantly surprised when we opened the door to the room - it was far more spacious than anticipated. The king bed was for hubby and I, and one child slept on the white leather sofa and our littlest one slept on a little trundle bed which they pulled out of the bottom of the sofa, and pushed back in each morning. There was plenty of room for four of us, although we might have felt differently had our kiddo's been teenagers, but it worked well with small ones.

well, that's all for today, will continue on tomorrow with accounts of the ship itself, the kids clubs, foods and finally, best of all - Alaska!!!!

Thanks for posting this review. I look forward to the rest of the review as we will be on the Solstice in September, also with 2kids. There are not many reviews done by people traveling with children. And so far there appears to be just one other child on our roll call, so I will be curious to see how many kids are on the ship.

Do you mind if I ask which month you sailed? Please give us your reviews of any excursions also.

I'm really enjoying this and looking forward to more. Thank you for posting it.

Thanks for your post. I'm looking forward to you upcoming posts a we board the Solstice in 10 days for our Alaskan Adventure. We will have two 11 year old boys with us.

Also appreciate the tone you set with your review. Very nice!:)

Glad you all are enjoying what I have reviewed so far , I hope to write a little more this evening. It's funny how you can write for over an hour , post it and be like , what! That's all I got down ! Lol. In response to one of the questions though we sailed in early May , may 8 to 16 to be exact. Our roll call ended up being an unreliable way of determining the number of children on board as according to the roll call there was only my two and one more, however , the final tally of infants to age 17 was 98 children. Shows how few people actually use the roll call!

Glad you all are enjoying what I have reviewed so far , I hope to write a little more this evening. It's funny how you can write for over an hour , post it and be like , what! That's all I got down ! Lol. In response to one of the questions though we sailed in early May , may 8 to 16 to be exact. Our roll call ended up being an unreliable way of determining the number of children on board as according to the roll call there was only my two and one more, however , the final tally of infants to age 17 was 98 children. Shows how few people actually use the roll call!

Oh, good, that is encouraging. Like you we are traveling out of traditional school time. Did they allow the kids to swim in the heated, covered pool?

Also interested in your review. Trying to decide between Celebrity, Princess and NCL for May or June 2016 or 2017

Thank you for the review! I also sail with my children and appreciate the insights of those that do too.

To Brekat1: Your ongoing report will greatly help us decide if we should take an Alaska cruise on X. Can you comment on the shore excursions? (Age requirements for the children). Also, how did they like the kids club?

Oh, good, that is encouraging. Like you we are traveling out of traditional school time. Did they allow the kids to swim in the heated, covered pool?

I have no idea how to properly highlight people's questions into the post but in response to the question, they did not allow children in the heated pool for the first few days but they finally did introduce children's hours in the solarium from I think it was 4 to 5pm each day for the last 3 days of the cruise. Not too sure why it was only the final 3 days but it worked out okay as my kids actually preferred using the outdoor hot tubs anyways, they have four outdoor hot tubs (that aren't really all that hot, more like very warm pools) and its funny how if you stick some kids in there, everyone else leaves or stays away - it was like their own mini pool lol! They were comfortable to use even on cool and rainy days.

To Brekat1: Your ongoing report will greatly help us decide if we should take an Alaska cruise on X. Can you comment on the shore excursions? (Age requirements for the children). Also, how did they like the kids club?

Glad my report will be helpful, I could not find alot of reviews or info for folks with kids on solstice myself so I am glad I am finally getting to it - although finding the time to sit down uninterrupted is proving a challenge - I do think I will have time this evening to record further (hubby took the laptop to work last night so that was out). I will definitely comment on excursions that we did and will detail the kids club fully ( spoiler alert! it was amazing and my children LOVED it!!!)

continuing on with some more of my review while I have a little bit of time...

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS: Its a little disorienting in my opinion when you first step on board, you do not step into an open area or atrium but a rather small space directly in front of the elevators where they hand you a glass of champagne, look at your boarding pass and tell you where to go . Within one minute, the four of us were in an elevator with probably 20 other people heading upstairs to deck 8 . We dropped off our carry ons in the cabin and then proceeded to explore the ship as a way to orient ourselves a little bit. First stop was the welcome desk of the kids club, called "The fun factory,where they were having an open house. We essentially just registered them and had a quick tour of the facility as it was not open for drop off until 7pm that evening. Not too long after all this, it was time for the muster drill to take place, our assigned station was Murano. It wasn't exactly an enjoyable 30 mins of my life but it was only 30 mins. We sat on the floor in a back corner away from everyone with a few other people who had small whiny and overwhelmed children. Couldn't hear a word they were saying so thank goodness we didn't need to use any of the information being presented! Sail away took place pretty much right after the muster drill, It was rainy out for the sail away so we just stood on our own balcony and waved to the maybe 5 people outside who were waving at us lol. The first night and day (sea day 1 ) of this cruise ended up being a little rough for us. We had expected to be taking the inside passage to Alaska as that was what was shown on the website itinerary but instead we sailed out to the Pacific and up to Alaska, this would have been fine except that the Pacific ended up being very rough on night one. We woke up at about midnight and we were literally rolling in bed lol, I jumped up and grabbed sea bands and stuck them on everyone while we slept and tried to go back to sleep. In hindsight, I would absolutely have put the bands on all of us before boarding but we had expected an inside passage sailing and had read enough to believe that it would be smooth water ( Alaska's inside passage was completely smooth but the ocean ... not so much). The next day (sea day 1)had a lot of people on board looking green - there were barf bags in the elevator and several episodes of people upchucking in the buffet area at breakfast time (sooo not appetizing haha), the worst was probably when we went to drop our daughter off for morning fun factory activities and she sat down with another girl at the craft table and the other child projectile vomited. lovely. My daughter was fine that whole day but my hubby, son and myself were struggling so we pretty much didn't eat all day and all just sat out on the balcony as the fresh air seemed to help. That night was the first formal night and we missed it due to sickness :( All that said, first impressions of cruising were initially poor - I had a mini emotional meltdown on sea day 1 and cried " I can't believe we spent 5 grand just to get sick". THANKFULLY, first impressions proved to be completely wrong as I am now obsessed with cruising but truthfully, boarding day and sea day 1 had me questioning why on earth we were doing this!

still not sure on the best way to categorize the rest of my review, so if it seems disjointed, I apologize. I think I will break down the next portion following sea day 1 with ship related reviews and then Alaska and the ports/excursions following that. so with that said...

THE SHIP AS A WHOLE: Celebrity Solstice is a beautiful ship. Granted, I have nothing to compare it to but we found it to be very sophisticated and upscale feeling, like a really really nice hotel. Favorite parts of the ship for myself were definitely the library and the solarium. I would wake up at 4:30/5:00 am at the latest every morning, head up to the oceanview cafe and get a coffee ( tip: they have terrible coffee so to make it yummier, I would dump a hot chocolate packet in with cream - MUCH better), and head to the library on deck 8 with my journal and a few books. The library is beautiful and quiet with gorgeous lighting and a lovely place to start the day before the kids and hubby woke up. Note: I never actually read any of the books that the library had but more so just used it as the perfect spot to reflect and relax. Second favorite spot was the solarium pool - the hot tubs are warmer in here than on the deck and its peaceful and quiet with big windows to stare out of while you sail past the mountains. Gorgeous. Children were not permitted to use the solarium at all for the first four days of the cruise but on the last three days they put up signs on the door that said children could use the indoor pool from 4 to 5pm, there might have been an hour in the morning as well but I can't remember as we only went with them once at 4pm. In the end, kids enjoyed the outdoor hot tubs more than the indoor pool anyways - the outdoor hot tubs were perfect kid temperature and they could be fairly loud and no one cared ( it didn't feel that way in the solarium, very quiet in there). Other favorite areas on the ship were Cafe Al Baccio - the sweets in the display case are all free , the black and white cookie was the hands down favorite for all four of us and the caramel macchiato type drink they sell was very good. Line ups here were quite long though and the servers seemed stressed but it was worth the wait. Difficult to find a table in this area on sea days. Didn't utilize the outdoor decks that much as weather varied quite a bit and it was really windy most of the time but they have these lovely plaid blankets you can use to wrap up in while you sit outside, most of our outdoor time on board the ship was spent on our own balcony. We are not gamblers so did not use the casino and are not drinkers either, so did not use the bars. Will discuss restaurants in the food section. We also did not attend any of the shows as we preferred to relax in the evenings while kids went to their fun factory activities.

FUN FACTORY: as most of you reading this are traveling with children, I will get to this part of my review as I found it very difficult to find information from others on kids clubs before we sailed and so had very little idea of what to expect. If I skip anything, feel free to ask!! The kids club is called the Fun Factory and is located forward of the ship on I believe deck 15, it can only be accessed via the forward set of elevators, which was confusing on the first day but we figured it out! first impression of the fun factory is not a fair representation of just how awesome we found it to be, its not too much to look at when you get your initial tour at registration - the rooms look kinda plain and small, there are no large play structures or ball pits or even that many toys really, so I was a little worried at the beginning. Thankfully, the staff who work here were all completely amazing and they don't need any of those things because the staff actually engage and play with the children ! Imagine that, babysitters who actually play with children and don't sit on their smartphone the whole time lol. They each made effort to immediately get know all of the kids and became quite close with them early on - they are like the happiest, funnest most energetic babysitters you could ask for. Each staff has a degree of some sort in a child related field and it really shows. The time spent in the fun factory is divided up into blocks of time - 9am- noon is the first time slot and is free, noon to 2pm is open on port days if you pre-register, 2-5pm is again a free time slot, 5-7pm is supper time and kids can stay for this portion if you sign up and pay a small fee. 7-10pm is the free evening portion and 10pm - 1am is available for a small fee if you so wish. Each of these time slots is fully scheduled (other than the lunch, dinner and after hours portions) with well planned themed activities for the different age groups. My daughter (age 3) was in the shipmates (ages 3-5) and my son (age 7 ) was in the cadets (ages 6-8), however due to the relatively small number of kids , (there were about 25 children total in these two age groups but not all there at any one time ), they often combined the two groups together which worked fine. Examples of some of the themed activties:

1. Cadets- " Fun Factory Olympics: craft of sports team banners, long jump and balloon relays, relay races, play on the sports deck, decorate your medal and team snack time"

2. Shipmates : "colors of the rainbow morning: face painting, coloring contest, color freeze dance game, hand print rainbows, sleeping leprechauns"

I have other examples if anyone wants more, one day was a pirate themed day which included a ship wide treasure hunt, I am pretty sure that was my kid's favorite theme, although they enjoyed them all. They also offered several family activities which we all thought were pretty great. The first was family bingo in the sky lounge complete with prizes, another evening was a "build a robot with your parents" activity, we showed up and were the only family there but it was still a lot of fun, the kids were given the cutest little plastic robots that they could decorate and keep with little display boxes, and it also allowed a chance for us to visit with the staff and hear about their crazy and interesting lives on the cruise ship. Another night was a family dance party in the dance club downstairs, the dj played family friendly pop music and they had colored lights going and a disco ball and the kids and staff and parents all danced, this was so much fun as it had a large turn out and was just a total blast. The last day on board featured their finale talent show which was actually a highlight of the cruise as both my introverted children totally amazed me by participating in the talent show, my son played the piano and did a made up hip hop dance and my daughter performed somersaults lol. The staff put alot of effort into this activity and even the captain was in attendance. The staff in general were so good with the kids that my children would run and hug them when we dropped them off. The fun factory was in our opinion, a perfect childcare service - it wasn't overly flashy and thus, overwhelming for the kids, the activities were age appropriate and creative, the smaller number of children allowed for a much more intimate experience in terms of building relationships with both staff and the other children and all in all, pretty much perfect ! We never felt guilty leaving them there as they were playing and making their own memories and friends the whole time, not being sat down to watch tv or occupy themselves while the parents have all the fun. The option to send the kids here also allowed this to be a perfect holiday for every member of the family - when both kids were at clubs, hubby and I could have much needed alone time, we also made sure to have indiviudal time for ourselves where hubby watched espn in the cabin and I read in the solarium. We would also drop one child only off a couple of times and have some great quality time alone with the other child, which is really difficult to do in regular life, so we were very grateful for the fun factory!!!

Trip report continued...

FOOD: one of the primary reasons we chose Celebrity as our first cruise line was due to its reputation as being one of the better lines in terms of eating. Both hubby and I derive great joy from dining out and trying new foods and restaurants so high quality cuisine was very important to us. Celebrity certainly did not disappoint!! We utilized all the eateries onboard other than Murano, Silk Harvest and the little cafe inside the solarium. Our top food designation would have to go to Tuscan Grill - we ate here twice because we loved everything about it so much, the atmosphere is beautiful with a gorgeous aft view of the ocean and the italian dishes were delecious. We also actually really loved the Oceanview cafe as well - especially for breakfast, they had everything you could think of in here and it was very well laid out with separate stations for the different types of food so congestion was not really a major issue. I also loved how spacious and bright the buffet area was with great views out the huge windows. Lunch was also pretty good in here, we never ate dinner but it appeared to have a similar menu to lunch time, the favorite station at lunch was the "design your own pasta" station - you could choose from multiple types of pasta and sauces and then they would fry it all up together with whatever add ons you wished for - sun dried tomatoes and feta cheese mixed in was sooo good. The main dining room was very good quality as well although a little more hit and miss, in our opinion. We had select dining so we would make a reservation in the morning if we liked what was on the daily menu, we learned on night one though to not reserve a table for two as the tables for two were very, very, very close to the other two person tables - uncomfortably close. like you were also on a date with the other people close. lol. We reserved a table for four after that each night and had our children with us and then took them to kids club halfway through dinner and enjoyed dessert etc. on our own, it worked well and we were able to be seated in a much more spacious area with lots of room between the tables. Food was good in the main dining room, but like we said could be hit and miss depending on what we ordered. Shrimp cocktail for an appetizer and Creme brulee for dessert though, always a winner :) We tried bistro on five once and didn't really care for it personally, service was very slow and the crepes were underwhelming, although that could of just been the kind we ordered. The Mast Grill out on the pool deck was surprisingly delecious, we ate burgers and fries here on the tracy arm fjord day and all really enjoyed our food. Room service was also awesome, quick, hot and delecious. We also learned that we could hop up to the buffet and fill a plate up there, cover it with a napkin and bring it back to our stateroom to eat, we did this a few times with lunch. Cafe Al Baccio - awesome as well, yummy hot drinks and yummy free treats- especially that black and white cookie!!!

I think I might have figured out how to add a picture or two to my posts so hopefully I will have a couple images to go with my port reports :)

okay, well that's pretty much it for the ship side of things, now on to our actual vacation and alaska itself with the kiddo's... I will break it down by ports .

1. TRACY ARM FJORD : Day 3 of our cruise was the day we sailed through the Tracy arm fjord, we were set to head into the fjord from noon to 5pm so we headed up to the upper decks at about 11am to get in line for burgers, the decks were already packed full of people and so after finishing the burgers, we decided to enjoy the fjord from the privacy and comfort of our own balcony. This was a great idea as it was so nice to be able to sit down with your feet up and watch the incredible scenery pass by , the kids were excited to be able to pull out their binocalurs and look for wildlife. The fjord was absolutely breath taking, I love waterfalls so there was plenty to just look at and enjoy. We weren't able to get too far into the fjord unfortuantely due to abundant ice bergs but we were kind of expecting that after having read on here about that being pretty normal for the month of May, what we did see though was fantastic. The captain used up the rest of the fjord sailing time by taking us down the endicott arm instead, it was lovely as well, although not as dramatic as tracy arm.

As I can't figure out how to go back and add images in to my earlier reports, I thought I would add a few images in a post right here for you to see some of what I described :

a view of the beautiful library area on deck 10, this was one of my favorite spots on board and typically where I would start my mornings with coffee and a journal

my other favorite spot on board, the solarium hot tubs and loungers, you can see how the view from these is just incredible.

This is approaching the first signs of land in Alaska on the morning of day 3, the tracy arm day

Me and my dd on formal night number two in the main dining room

I will continue to include a few pictures now with the rest of my report, if there is anything specific anyone wants to see, I can try to add that in as well :)

The next port after day 3 and the tracy arm fjord was Juneau, Alaska....

JUNEAU, DAY 4 : Waking up to our arrival in Juneau was my number one favorite memory from the whole cruise, I woke up at about 5:30 am that day and went out onto the balcony to watch the approach into town. The whole approach was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen - or smelled. That's right, the smell was impossible to describe except that it was the freshest smelling air I have ever breathed in. There were waterfalls tumbling down the rocks the whole way into Juneau and a cloudy mist that made it all very other worldy , I remember thinking that this had to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. We docked and I watched a lady come out and greet the ship as we were the first Solstice sailing to arrive in Alaska for the season.

We got off the ship around 10 am after breakfast and we had no set itinerary for the day, it was cool and over cast but not actually raining in the morning so we just walked around for a little bit and looked at all the shops near the dock. After a bit of shop hopping, we decided to pay for the independent glacier tour out to Mendenhall glacier. We boarded a little blue bus and headed out with our young, chatty tour guide, who told all kinds of stories about life in Juneau and the locals, which I enjoyed. Apparently the McDonalds in Juneau broke some kind of records when it opened and the other towns send float planes into Juneau to bring back McDonald's food for the villagers lol. The little blue bus drops you off at the entrance to Mendenhall glacier and we spent a good 45 minutes walking around and looking at everything. The glacier was very nice but being from very near to the Canadian Rockies, it did not necessarily wow us over, we concluded that western canadians are very spoiled when it comes to glaciers and mountains so in hindsight we would have probably chosen another excursion for the morning, it was still very beautiful though and I think it would have been even more scenic if we had taken the walk out to Nugget falls but we ruled it out because of daughter's three year old stamina and whining :)

3 happy people and 1 super grumpy one at Mendenhall Glacier :)

After walking around, you head back to the drop off area to re-board the little blue bus whenever it returns. This part is the most frustrating as there are many people waiting to board the bus and it only shows up like every half hour, there were people pushing in the line up to get onto the bus and one man who got downright angry and yelled at everyone that his family was there first so they were getting on first. lovely. We ended up not making the first bus, so we just killed time walking around in the little woods near the loading area while hubby held our place in line. The tour guide told more stories for the ride back to dock area and that was honestly the best part of the whole experience, I loved listening to all of her stories of life in little Juneau - such a strange and beautiful place to live, with no roads in or out...After we returned, we decided to head back to the ship and give the kiddo's a late buffet lunch and drop them off in the kids programs so hubby and I could go back into Juneau alone and eat at Tracy's King Crab Shack. Best idea of the day!!! Tracy's King Crab Shack was some of the yummiest food we have ever eaten - the buns and bisque alone were worth going for let alone the crab itself , it was pouring rain while we were there but we were able to find stools up near the counter and ate our meal under the awning. The Norwegian Pearl was also docked that day and a bunch of her crew members showed up at Tracy's and said they had been counting down the days till their first stop in Juneau for Tracy's food. It really is that good. After eating, we did a little bit of souvenir shopping and eventually headed back to the ship in time for dinner. Juneau was my favorite port overall even though I wouldn't repeat Mendenhall Glacier personally, I just loved the whole setting of the little city, the way it felt there, the way it looks... loved it.

Hi, Thanks for sharing this. I will be joining Alaska Cruise with Solstice too on 17th July.

Reading your experience makes me more and more excited. Especially about the kids club part. There are 3 generations in my family going on this cruise, my parents are on their 60s, my brother and sis in law are 30s, I'm 27 and my niece is 8. We have our own preferences for fun and usually someone has to baby sit my niece but it's great knowing that we can drop her off at the kids club to do her own things and pick her up for lunch and dinner in between.

We lived in asia and don't know what to expect on our dog sledding excursion. I'm still confused about what type of shoes should i wear. We prepared sports shoes which usually used for jogging or walking. Do i need to wear boots? buying a new pair of boots only for this trip is quite a waste of money and space on the luggage. Can you give me some advice please?

Regards,

Feli

Thank you the review. Sounds like a fantastic cruise and look forward to reading the rest :)

Hi, Thanks for sharing this. I will be joining Alaska Cruise with Solstice too on 17th July.

 

Reading your experience makes me more and more excited. Especially about the kids club part. There are 3 generations in my family going on this cruise, my parents are on their 60s, my brother and sis in law are 30s, I'm 27 and my niece is 8. We have our own preferences for fun and usually someone has to baby sit my niece but it's great knowing that we can drop her off at the kids club to do her own things and pick her up for lunch and dinner in between.

 

We lived in asia and don't know what to expect on our dog sledding excursion. I'm still confused about what type of shoes should i wear. We prepared sports shoes which usually used for jogging or walking. Do i need to wear boots? buying a new pair of boots only for this trip is quite a waste of money and space on the luggage. Can you give me some advice please?

 

Regards,

Feli

Hi there, how exciting to have your cruise on the way, one month to go for you! Your niece will love the kids club, one reason I fell in love with cruising is because its such a great way to go on a holiday with children and yet get time alone and they also have quality kid time for themselves. its perfect. As for the snow boots for dog sledding, that is unfortunately a question I can't really help with as we never did dog sledding and were never anywhere where we had to stand on any snow, it does seem like that would be a huge inconvenience to have to buy big snow boots for one excursion though ! perhaps if you post a thread for that in the alaska forum someone there could better answer?? Thanks for reading though!!!

Thank you the review. Sounds like a fantastic cruise and look forward to reading the rest :)

Thank you for reading, I will keep on with the report hopefully tonight :)

Skagway: After Juneau, we were in Skagway for the full day and we had booked an excursion here through Celebrity for the whole family - the White Pass and Yukon railway. My son is a serious train lover so we were excited to be able to take him on a real train ride up into the mountains. The ride was about 3 hours total, 90 mins up and 90 mins down and the journey up was absolutely breath taking. I think I ended up appreciating it alot more than anyone else in my family did as I stood on the back platform of the last train car for most of the ride, it was squishy out on the platform as everyone wants to stand out there but it was worth it to be able to stick your hand out and actually touch some of the waterfall water running down the mountainside. The views that you see are incredible ! My hubby is afraid of heights so he was less a fan of the whole thing and refused to go out onto the platform, my 3 year old thought it was fun for about 20 mins and was then ready to get off, even my 7 year old got bored half way through and they actually both fell asleep on the ride back down. I personally loved every second of it though . I am glad we did it but I don't think we would do it again on a repeat trip as the 3 hours did seem a little long for the kiddo's especially our three year old daughter. As for the rest of Skagway, we didn't do too much else here, it was very hot on our day in Skagway and we were pretty overdressed for the beating down sunshine so after disembarking from the train, we walked around very briefly and then took our tired kidlets back to the ship for some food and rest time.

Icy Strait Point: The day after Skagway we were in Icy Strait Point for the day, this was a tender port so we got to experience what that is all like, it wasn't that bad at all really, my son thought it was pretty fun actually! Hubby and dd decided to stay on board the ship for this whole port as my son and I had an excursion booked for just the two of us and hubby decided to use the day to have some quality time with our little girl. I had booked whale watching here for ds and I with an outside whale watching company, Icy Strait Whale Adventures, and so that is how we spent the majority of the afternoon here. We had a little time before meeting our group to wander around the port area and I actually think Icy Strait had the best souvenir port shopping of any place we went to (it and Ketchikan but here was still better), they had alot of really unique and hand made items that we never saw in Juneau or Skagway or even in Ketchikan , I am still kicking myself for not buying a beautiful cushion that was a hand embroidered map of Alaska, I had assumed I would find the same thing in Ketchikan but no such luck! Anyhow, whale watching... ds and I met up with our tour group at the designated meeting spot and they took us to the boat in a big van. There were 6 of us in total, me and ds and two other couples. The other couples seemed initially very displeased to be paired with me and my 7 year old but after an hour and they saw how excited ds was, they softened and became friendly to us and that made it alot more fun of an excursion. As for the whales, we were very early in the season but we still saw five whales including two mothers and two babies, it was one of the most amazing experiences to see the big whale quietly glide past our boat with her baby!!

Loving this review. I am considering a cruise with my 6 year old, and have noticed that all the major cruise lines come in around the same price for Alaska. Just deciding what is the best fit for us. Good to know that the kids clubs are good. Your photos are great!

Loving this review. I am considering a cruise with my 6 year old, and have noticed that all the major cruise lines come in around the same price for Alaska. Just deciding what is the best fit for us. Good to know that the kids clubs are good. Your photos are great!

Thank you for reading :) if you choose Celebrity, I can't imagine you would be disappointed, we loved every single thing about it!!!