tigervixxxen

It’s been nice, warm and humid. The second sea day when were were at about 10 degrees north we crossed through some weather and it rained briefly and was cloudy in the morning. Otherwise fairly calm seas and good weather, today very few clouds. We crossed the equator last night on sea day 3 at 10pm. The captain blew the horn about 4x and then this afternoon after lunch the Neptune Ceremony is at the pool deck. Murano was a lovely dinner last night, as expected. I had the lobster and crepes for dessert. DH had the duck. No complaints and the service was good. We got a little extra chocolate cake for our anniversary. We will check out Tuscan Grill in about a week. We had to go hand in our passports today in preparation for our arrival in French Polynesia on Saturday. I don’t love parting with it but we don’t have much choice and I’m sure it will be fine. Thanks for following along! Don’t have much to report on these sea days. We’ll be back in the MDR for lunch and dinner. We’ve had a couple coffees and teas at Al Bacio, which we enjoy in the mornings.

No I’m not but I can try to keep an eye out for that. We only have the classic beverage package so I could see what we could get on our package. Dinner in the OVC last night was pretty standard buffet. Not my favorite type of meal but no complaints. Most of the stations were open, just a couple on the sides weren’t. Looked like a full offering. The ice cream station wasn’t at like 6:30pm which was odd but I think something might have happened to the cooler, it was fixed for lunch today. Another great breakfast in the MDR and lunch I think was Indian day in the OVC with an expanded offering which was fantastic. Enjoying another relaxing sea day.

I’ve been looking at the fall TA, it looks to me $500 cheaper all included rate for veranda.

Checking in to say MDR lunch was lovely, enjoyed every bit of it today. Had the beef/chicken skewers, pork loin and chocolate mousse. Will hit the OVC for dinner. Haven’t noticed anything with temps, overall pleasant. Nothing overly air conditioned or hot. If anything maybe gets a little warm in the observation lounge and conference room (deck 14) but otherwise haven’t noticed much.

Greetings from another lovely sea day. It’s a bit cloudy today but still warm, humid and it is clearing a bit. Glad to hear the safe issue was resolved! I agree the ship doesn’t feel very crowded which is nice. There’s definitely a very quiet and relaxing vibe onboard. The only time I’ve seen much of a line is for the Effy charm giveaway 😆. It’s fun to collect them though but I can’t believe the line. Anyway, mixed thoughts on the food over the last 24 hours. Breakfast yesterday in OVC was good as usual and I always enjoy the omelette station. Lunch was good too, we favor the mozzarella sticks. Dinner was a bit disappointing. It was nice to have one of the non-typical menus so beef carpaccio appetizer was a welcome sight and was tasty. French onion soup was pretty typically good. The chicken saltimbocca was tough, I prefer chicken on the dry side anyway and never had tough chicken before. The mini mash was present and some medeterranian veg at least. DH had the standard chicken and he was happy with it. Apple tart for dessert was kind of lackluster too, so I’d give the dinner a 50% success. Also we arrived at 6:30 for anytime dining because I wanted to watch the sunset. Had to wait maybe 10 minutes for a table which was fine but the service was definitely a lot slower than we are used to closer to opening time when we usually arrive. I think we will skip Chic night in the MDR tonight, I don’t care much for the menu and we will be doing our own Chic night tomorrow in Murano for our 20th anniversary. The good news is we had breakfast in the MDR this morning and was fantastic, probably one of the best seated breakfasts I’ve had. Great fast service and we enjoyed everything. I had the French omelette and DH had a create your own. So we are hopeful for a good MDR lunch. Other than that not much to report, just doing a lot of relaxing early on for this cruise.

We bought the premium upgrade at $2.99 per day. The lowest I’ve seen it outright I think was $15.99 per day during a flash sale.

One other thing I’ve noticed is that the date on our sea pass cards is for the day we debark the cruise. Is this an error or something they’ve changed recently? The cards work fine but don’t want it to be an issue getting back in port.

There hasn’t been much entertainment yet, I am hoping for a few evening shows of this nature as the production shows aren’t really our thing.

Oh please do feel free to share your thoughts and experiences, this thread is for everyone. Our room did have a safe, that’s funny though. Wonder if you could ask for one. One thing I found funny is there’s a mix of magnetic and door hang do not disturb, we prefer the magnetic to cover up the light from the peep hole. Maybe we’ll see if they’ll switch it. Another thing that I noticed was different is out balcony table seem to be full size, I think we always had a low cocktail/end table type thing but this one you could definitely eat a meal on, which might be nice to try. Also it seems formal/chic nights are on nights 3, 11 and 17. They are just skipping day 12 for the international date line so we will have 18 nights on this 17 night cruise.

The Solstice has just departed from Honolulu a touch early and we are on the way to Tahiti, in which we will arrive after 5 sea days. Day 1 was a success. The embarkation process was as simple as ever and we had completed out muster checkin, unpacked our carryon and were eating lunch at the OVC by noon. As reported by many here the Indian dishes were a standout. After unpacking the big bags we enjoyed a martini flight in the afternoon. Bartenders were great as always including one we recognized from our Equinox sailing over New Year’s. We were also given two regular size martinis for free after we finished the flight (we have the classic package so would have had to pay for them otherwise). For dinner in MDR it was prime rib night and was accurate in the app. There’s no menu yet for nights 9 and 10 plus some repeats the last week of the cruise so I’m not sure I believe those yet but up until day 8 I think the app is correct. Overall the meal was good, tiny mash and matchstick carrots were with the prime rib. I ordered the masala potatoes on the side to supplement and worked out well. DH enjoyed the spaghetti bolognese. We’ll see how my opinion of the MDR evolves as we go. First day on the ship I’d describe as quiet. Not sure if the prolonged embarkation and midnight departure contributed to this. We are still getting used to the time change so it was an early night and haven’t checked out much of the entertainment yet. Ship is what I’d expect from an S class but can tell it’s one of the older ones. Nothing glaringly obvious though. Only real annoyance is somehow we can hear pretty intermittently some sort of vacuum noise presumably from the toilet system. We are on deck 9 in one of the veranda rooms on the hump if that makes any difference. All in all a good start to the cruise! I also found a duck in the library so that was exciting. I brought my own duck to hide near the end of the cruise. Thanks all for following along!

We made it to Honolulu! Up early today, haven’t gotten used to the time change from the US yet but that’s ok, we’ll enjoy some breakfasts before we get used to it. Going to head to the ship in a couple hours, we have a 11:30 embarkation slot. We stayed at the Ala Moana hotel overnight and I’d recommend it. I wanted an option that’s not Waikiki and it’s closer to cruise pier and attached to the giant Ala Moana mall, cost $250 US including all taxes and fees. It’s a nice hotel, big Starbucks with shops and restaurants too. Flight was uneventful thankfully. Will check in later from the ship.

It’s more like Aqua and Retreat passengers saying everything is fine.

We too are flying back premium economy. Air Canada let’s you bid on business class so we put in an offer, fingers crossed.

I did two price drop adjustments for my cruise without any need to cancel associated bookings. I did not go through a TA however. Sunset Verandah guarantee sounds like a very specific category though which I do believe leads to more difficult price adjustments. I don’t even see a SV or guarantee offered in a mock booking.

We are going to do the excursion that visits the Kelly Tarlton’s and Sky Tower, anything I should know about either? Also, any restaurant recommendations by the pier? We might just go back on the ship but with a late departure maybe we’ll get off again later on. Ive seen some heat wave temps in Sydney, we can definitely leave the 90 degrees behind lol.

Yes we are going to spend a few days in Sydney after the cruise but unfortunately can’t do much more, we aren’t retired!

Yes, we have sailed the Equinox and Silhouette. Probably won’t pay for a class but might watch someone else do the glass blowing. As mentioned yes we had to obtain Australia and New Zealand ETA, not as bad as a full blown visa process. Only having to do the flight one way was a big draw for doing this itinerary. We are taking Air Canada back through Vancouver to Denver, we’ll see if the strategy of avoiding LAX works out for us lol. Thanks all for the comments, I hope to keep updated regularly.

Hello and welcome to my first go at starting a live thread for this upcoming cruise. I will try my best to keep it updated and my fellow shipmates are welcome to post their photos and experiences as well especially as I will likely not post too many photos. If there’s any questions I have 11 sea days worth of time to go check something out and report back. We will be primarily dining in the MDR so follow along and see if we make it through all 17 nights before burning out! A couple nights for Tuscan Grill and Murano are planned as well. This is our 20th Anniversary cruise and have been looking forward to it for a long time. We cruise about once a year and have been on three Celebrity cruises prior to this one, having never been on Solstice but familiar with S class ships. Our longest cruise was a 14 night round trip from LA to Hawaii and back so I know a little of what to expect but much of this will be a new adventure. We fly into Hawaii on Saturday and will be ready to board the ship bright and early on Sunday!

Someone else here said that the maintenance crew will just stick thick paper or cardboard in the joints where it’s rattling, you could probably just do the same.

We have Murano booked for our 20th anniversary, how do we go about telling them?

Find a current sailing to the same ports, look it up on the app and see if they have more excursions to give you an idea of if more are going to be offered or not.

Thanks for the info, I’ll just keep an eye out.

I’ve heard several mention a dining package that includes lunch. Where do I find this? Is it only offered on E class? That’s hopefully my next sailing and ideally if there’s a package for 2 dinners plus 1 lunch that would be perfect.

That means the old menu was deleted and the new menu hasn’t been added to your sailing yet. In the app swipe all the way to the right and click on “select a different cruise” then go to “browse ships” select infinity and the current sailing to give you an idea. My problem with the new menus is the lack of variety. I always am suspect of quality of food mass produced in a galley. We’ll see here shortly about the overall quality of the current menu. I frankly don’t care about the E class menu until I’m sailing on one, it’s not relevant. Also, the Silhouette still has more additional options for some reason. Maybe their head chef likes food, who knows. But don’t count on their increased offerings elsewhere. Best strategy is to look up the current sailing of your ship to get the best idea.

Or driving an ATV on excursion, something like that