Photo Review: Solstice 12 Night Great Barrier Reef Jan 2 2018

Was the change after Newcastle??

 

 

 

Newcastle is in NSW, as is Sydney.

Ok. I just rechecked my notes. I'm glad you said something because I was wrong!

The time change occurred on the night AFTER we left Newcastle.

I'm sorry about messing that up!

Ok. I just rechecked my notes. I'm glad you said something because I was wrong!

 

The time change occurred on the night AFTER we left Newcastle.

 

I'm sorry about messing that up!

No worries, just puzzled me, enjoying your review.

I’ve read up to Embarkation Day so far and I am really enjoying it. Also, the photos are excellent.

Do you think you’ll do a detailed trip report like this of the upcoming January Reflection cruise?

I’ve read up to Embarkation Day so far and I am really enjoying it. Also, the photos are excellent.

Do you think you’ll do a detailed trip report like this of the upcoming January Reflection cruise?

Thank you for those nice words. We'll see about doing a review of my Reflection cruise. I've done this GBR review and last year's South America cruise (https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2450417) because those reviews are hard to come by and so I thought I would offer something back to this website.

On the other hand, the Caribbean is pretty well and regularly reviewed. And our 14 night Carib is the last one as Celebrity is stopping them after having started then around 2011. Besides, I think this cruise board well be EDGE crazy by then!

Thank you for those nice words. We'll see about doing a review of my Reflection cruise. I've done this GBR review and last year's South America cruise (https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2450417) because those reviews are hard to come by and so I thought I would offer something back to this website.

 

On the other hand, the Caribbean is pretty well and regularly reviewed. And our 14 night Carib is the last one as Celebrity is stopping them after having started then around 2011. Besides, I think this cruise board well be EDGE crazy by then!

All good points.

Although if you do decided to do a review, I will be eagerly reading along. I’ve never read a trip report from someone who was on the same ship as me, and I figure that it would be fun to read and compare notes. :)

I’m just trying to decide myself where best to blog the cruise (and the rest of our 5 week holiday) for interested family and friends.

Anyway, back to reading this trip report. Your pics of Sydney are bringing back memories of our cruise from there a few years back. It’s such a beautiful city to sail in and out of.

Thanks so much for posting all the dailies and menus. Grat readibg b4 my GBR cruise next month month.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Forums mobile app

Day 3, Thu Jan 4: At Sea Day #1 of 5

Celebrity Today

"Important Information" Bulletin

MDR Breakfast Menu page 1 and page 2

MDR Dinner Menu page 1 and page 2

MDR Dessert Menu page 1 and page 2.

Kirk: Mr. Sulu, lay in a course for the Great Barrier Reef system. Warp Factor 3.

Sulu: Course plotted and laid in, Captain.

Kirk: Engage. Steady as she goes.

Sulu: Aye, Captain.

This was the 1st of our 5 sea days. The ship's official itinerary lists only 4 sea days, but the Willis Island day on Wed Jan 10 is effectively a 5th sea day. Anyway we had two straight sea days ahead of us as Solstice was heading to its main objective, the Great Barrier Reef!

Decorations from the prior Holiday cruise adorned the Grand Foyer and Main Dining Room. They were gone by the end of our sailing.

The ship's clock was moved back an hour from the night before which gave everyone an extra hour of sleep. We went to the main dining room for breakfast. I am the lone member of the family that likes to have breakfast there. I figured that the buffet was going to be overrun with people and I detest that. Although it is great to have a lot of eating options at the buffet, I absolutely hate waiting in line for my food (e.g. omelette or pasta station). looking around endlessly for an empty table with my tray of food in hand, or trying to locate my other family members (if they found a table before me), and then making additional trips to get drinks, forgotten sliver-ware, etc. I find the whole affair decidedly un-relaxing on certain days!

I like the open seating format at the MDR for breakfast and lunch as we get to meet other people. Even though we ask for a large table for dinner, my family of 4 was seated at our own table for dinner on this sailing so we don't get to meet people. For this breakfast, we were seated next to an interesting couple from Kansas. The husband was a retired Methodist minister. He and his wife were on this cruise as part of the second leg of a B2B. I believe that the first leg visited New Zealand. We hand an enjoyable breakfast conversation and then I looked at my watch and realized that we were late for the Cruise Critic Party!

Little magnets hold up our Cruise Critic Connections invitation on our stateroom wall.

The Cruise Critic Connections Party usually occurs on the morning of the first sea day which ours did. Our party started at 9:30 am and was located at Cellar Masters which is on Deck 4. We received our invitation as well as our little name tags in an envelope delivered to our stateroom on the first day of the cruise. The party was also advertised on the Community Board located next to Guest Relations on Deck 3.

A good time was had by all! Even if it was at 9:30 am!

Our online registration stood at 41 before the system stopped working (which is really lame that this is still true today). We had a pretty good turnout for the party of over 30 people. Because I was late (by only 10 minutes!), I missed the opening remarks and the formal introduction of the officers that were there (I don't believe the Captain was one of them). It looked like everyone had a good time talking to people and meeting many roll call members for the first time in person who before were simply pixels on a computer or smartphone screen!

Solstice community board has the Cruise Critic Connections Party listed on it. The board is located right at Guest Relations on Deck 3.

The weather on this first sea day was very nice. To the delight of us passengers the sun came out and stayed out for the entire day. From our forward location of our cabin on Deck 8, on sunny days like that day, I like taking the forward stairs/elevator up to Deck 14 and walking the entire length of the outdoor Lido Deck to go to the Oceanview Cafe for lunch.

Although beautiful and inviting, the alcoves were seldomly used.

Captains Club

Captains Club Elite Member Events

Captains Club Elite Priority Boarding Information

One of the Elite member perks that I have begun to enjoy is the traditional Captains Club Elite Cocktail Hour. By traditional, I mean when it is held in the Sky Lounge. There are cruises (like the 14 night Caribbean sailings) where the number of Elite (and over) members is simply overwhelmingly too large to accommodate in the Sky Lounge and in those cases drink ticket/coupons are given out for you to redeem during the cocktail hour at any bar on the ship.

During our South America cruise last year and this Great Barrier Reef cruise, the cocktails are held in a private section of the Sky Lounge. It's very relaxing and we got to talk to a lot of familiar faces every evening where we shared our stories on what we did that day and what we were planning for the next. And on a couple of days, we had dolphins joining us (see above picture).

The Captains Club Hostess was Kirsty Sparks. She worked hard and did a good job.

One very strange aspect of the cruise was the shop and casino hours. They were extremely limited even on some of the sea days. If you look at some of the printed material, you can see the projected hours that they would be open. On the first sea day we were told by the staff in the casino that this would be the only sea day that the casino would be open in the morning, afternoon, and evening. And that the other sea days the casino hours would be very limited. For that reason, the blackjack tournament was held at 11:30 pm on the day we were at Port Douglas.

"Showcase Only" means that the store is open for viewing only and that you cannot purchase anything.

In reality the casino and shop hours were trimmed back, but not nearly as bad as what was published. What I am guessing is that it was difficult for the Captain to predict when the ship would actually be more than 12 nautical miles away from the Australian coast which marked the beginning of international waters. I presume that the Great Barrier Reef itself (shoals, tides and currents) made that determination complex and not straightforward. One of the blackjack dealers told me that sometimes they would only get 60 minutes notice that it was time to open up the casino.

As it turned out, we would have been better off if the casino had remained closed during the entire voyage because the blackjack tables were absolutely brutal!

My son doubles down on his 11 and gets a............deuce! It was that kind of night at the Fortunes Casino, nothing was easy! Fortunately in this hand, the dealer busted. Whew.

So enjoying your narrative and photos. Thanks for sharing your adventures!

Day 4, Fri Jan 5: At Sea Day #2 of 5

Celebrity Today

MDR Lunch Menu

MDR Dinner Menu page 1 and page 2

MDR Dessert Menu page 1 and page 2

One thing that I forgot to mention for Day 3 (the prior day) is to recommend that you attend the "Beyond the Podium" presentation. The presentation is on the "Great Barrier Reef Marine Park". Our speaker was the ship's pilot and it was fairly interesting. Because the pilot is not a marine biologist, it did not delve into the sea life too deeply. Instead it focused on the geography of the Great Barrier Reef. The "Beyond the Podium" presentation give the following day (Day 4) was entitled "Marine Creatures to be Aware of" and although I did not attend that one, I am sure it discussed the sea life.

For the first time every, our entire family of 4 made use of the ship's gym. The kids had been using the gym on our past cruises but my wife and I were the lone holdouts. But this past fall I started an exercise routine that I continued on the cruise using the treadmill for a good half hour on several days. It was fun to do as a family, but not as fun as having dinner together as a family.

Today we had lunch for the first time in the MDR. The above photo is the Seafood Brochette.

My wife and daughter used the AquaSpa during the cruise a few times. The cruise spa services are, of course, much more expensive than what you find on land. Here is a price list: Canyon Ranch Spa Club Fee for Services List (effective Jan 2017).

Day 5, Sat Jan 6: Airlie Beach (tender)

Celebrity Today

No MDR Dinner Menu (we ate at Silk Harvest)

No MDR Dessert Menu

Shore Excursion: IE05 Great Barrier Reef ($229 per person) operated by Cruise Whitsundays

This was the 1st of our 4 Great Barrier Reef "port" days, Airlie (pronounced like "early") Beach. I was so excited--I had trouble sleeping the night before. When I attended the Beyond the Podium session on Day 3, the speaker (the ship's pilot) said that Solstice would be cruising by the picturesque Whitsunday Islands on its way to its anchorage location at Airlie Beach and that it would be worth getting up early to see it. So I did. When I woke up, I immediately opened up the curtain to our balcony door and saw......rain. And the Whitsunday Islands. Although this was not how I pictured it in my dreams (it was sunnier in my dreams), it still was kind of cool. It reminded me a little bit of the archipelago islands in southern Chile that we saw a year earlier aboard Infinity--when her propulsion system was in full working order, I might add.

7:32 am: sailing by the Whitsunday Islands on our way to Airlie Beach for anchoring.

The ship anchored and was set up to go into full tender mode. Except for one of our Great Barrier Reef port days where winds did not permit it, Solstice had 4 stations set up to simultaneously handle tenders and excursion boats. Two on one side of the ship and two on the other. It was like a little airport with four gates--and a lot of airplanes. I imagine that there were officers on the bridge that served as air traffic control to manage the all the boats. Sometimes the "gates" would have to be manually reconfigured with a different style of ramp to accommodate different tenders. During one of his PA system announcements, the Captain noted that they usually get all 3000 people off the ship in 3 hours which he thought was pretty good (whom am I to disagree with the Captain?).

As in all the Great Barrier Reef ports, the bulk of the tendering was handled by very large comfortable boats that was contracted out thru other companies. The tendering was supplemented by the ship's own tenders when the contract boats were not running (early in the morning and late at night). The tenders shuttled back and forth between Solstice and Port of Airlie. There were no other cruise ships with us at this or at any of our ports on this cruise.

Using my MarineTraffic app, I could see the track of one of the contract tenders as it traveled back and forth between Port of Airlie (lower left) and Solstice (upper right hand corner)

We did not use the tenders at this stop because our snorkeling/diving shore excursion boat picked us up directly from the cruise ship and dropped us off there after the excursion was done. This was a big time saving convenience.

The whole operation to load and empty the boats went fairly well. The weather got better by the time we got off the ship as the rain went away. On the way back to Solstice, we had to wait about 20 minutes before our tender got clearance to come along side one of the gates to allow us back on the ship. It seemed like an eternity as we waited and watched other boats get priority ahead of us.

Except for one of our Great Barrier Reef port days where winds did not permit it

so on one of the days Celebrity were unable to tender passengers into Cairns or Port Douglas?

Muffinz,

On one of the GBR days, the captain was only able to operate two stations (instead of four) to handle tenders and shore excursion boats due to winds or sea conditions. So things took a little longer. It either occured at Airlie Beach or on the first Cairns day.

Your GBR cruise is just a month away. I'll bet you're excited!

So grateful for this info! There has been so little written on this itinerary compared to others. Thank you again for the detail and thoroughness. We all realize the work and time involved in your report. Bravo!

Muffinz,

 

On one of the GBR days, the captain was only able to operate two stations (instead of four) to handle tenders and shore excursion boats due to winds or sea conditions. So things took a little longer. It either occured at Airlie Beach or on the first Cairns day.

 

Your GBR cruise is just a month away. I'll bet you're excited!

thanks for that.... you can't predict the weather unfortunately

Yes - we're getting excited.... me more than my wife as I seem to spend quite a lot of time on cruise critic! but we're both looking forward to our first ever cruise :D

I am really enjoying your review and information also. Thank you for taking the time, it is really helpful to those of us planning this itinerary.

Muffinz,

 

On one of the GBR days, the captain was only able to operate two stations (instead of four) to handle tenders and shore excursion boats due to winds or sea conditions. So things took a little longer. It either occured at Airlie Beach or on the first Cairns day.

 

Your GBR cruise is just a month away. I'll bet you're excited!

It was our first Cairns day. We took a Ships Excursion which was delayed by about an hour because of the weather and then the tender we were on hit the side of the ship just as we were leaving smashing the tenders window next to us. A few of the people we were sitting next to got cut with the shattered glass. It was actually quite interesting as we were all watching the tender heading for the side of the ship in slow motion and we could see that the accident was going to happen. The rumours though that floated around as to what had happened were funny, it went from a rope still being tied up to a Man Overboard situation. The captain of the tender told us that both the ship and the tender moved at the same time because of the wind/ sea conditions and that caused the crash.

Day 5, Sat Jan 6: Airlie Beach Shore Excursion (IE 05 Great Barrier Reef Snorkeling)

We bought our excursions thru the ship on 3 of the 6 different port days (Airlie Beach, Cairns Day 1, and Brisbane). The ship's prices are expensive but you do buy a lot of convenience with it. For Airlie Beach and Cairns, the snorkel boats picked you right up at the cruise ship and they returned you there afterward. The lengthy tendering times to get to shore at these ports made this convenience a humongous time saver (up to two hours). Also less time on the water in a smaller boat meant less chance of getting seasick.

This was the first day we had room service for breakfast. That's what we did on most of the diving shore excursion days. It's quicker and you can eat out on the balcony, or in our case, the dining room table in our family cabin. On one occasion I called for room service breakfast because I forgot to fill out the room service breakfast card on the evening before. In filling out the card I usually checked the box "6:00 AM - 6:30 AM" as the requested delivery time much to the dismay of my kids.

Sometimes it's the smallest things with cruising that make me disproportionately very happy. In this case it was handwriting a request for things that weren't on the breakfast card's menu--a ham and cheese omelette on one day, eggs benedict on another. What are they really worth? $10? Well when the handwritten items were delivered with my breakfast, it made me feel like I won the lottery. I guess this is not a big burden for the ship's galley unless everyone starts doing it. So forget I said anything about this.

We would send one of our kids up to the pool deck to get beach towels (x4) for the family in preparation for the scuba diving excursion. Even though this was a routine, I still had to remind one of the kids to do it each time! Surprisingly the towels were not supplied to our cabin as they were during our Caribbean cruises. Bottled water was for sale at the gangway where you get off the ship. You could either buy them or if you had any beverage package, you could get them for free.

We followed the instructions printed on our shore excursion ticket on when and where to show up. On this cruise we always were told to show up to the Celebrity Theatre on Deck 4. There we were directed to send one member of our party up to the stage to check in. We received color stickers with a number printed on it which was used by the Cruise Director to call out our group when it was time to go.

When our group was called we were led down to Deck 2 to board our tender for the snorkeling trip. Our snorkeling (we did scuba diving, too) trip was run by a company named Cruise Whitsundays. You should click on the link I provided because their full width photo at the top of their home webpage gives you an aerial view of where we were taken. Our comfortable catamaran was going to take us to the pontoon in that photo that was anchored at Hardy Reef.

Day 5, Sat Jan 6: Shore Excursion (IE05 Great Barrier Reef Snorkeling) continued

Our catamaran left Solstice at 9:35 am and arrived at the pontoon at 11:30 am Yes, it took almost 2 hours to get there. Fortunately the ride was pretty smooth and for some portion of the trip, you could look at the Whitsunday Islands. The crew on the boat was busy making sure passengers signed their medical forms and waiver forms. Also time was spent providing a pre-dive briefing for the divers and something similar for the snorkelers. There was about 100 people on the boat by my eyeball estimate.

9:43 am: speeding away from Solstice.

11:20 am: arriving at Heart Pontoon at Hardy Reef

Day 5, Sat Jan 6: Shore Excursion (IE05 Great Barrier Snorkeling) continued

After having done a lot of diving/snorkeling in the Caribbean, Florida, Hawaii, and Argentina, I have never ever seen a pontoon before and I have never seen snorkeling/diving done on such a large scale before. From an operations standpoint, it is mind blowing to me. A pontoon is a large semi-permanent floating structure. It immediately provides a lot more deck space room than what you get on the catamaran.

This map was posted on board the catamaran. It shows you the position of the pontoon and swimming areas relative to the Hardy Reef.

The pontoon has an overhead covering to protect you from the sun and rain. Free food and beverages are served there. There are lifeguard towers that are used to watch all the snorkelers--usually in areas that have floating ropes to mark off where you can go and to provide something to hold if you wanted to rest. There is even a little zodiac raft cruising around the snorkeling area in contact with the lifeguards in case someone needed assistance (I'll have a cup of tea, please").

A view of the entrance into the water for the snorkelers. There were two entrance areas (I was standing at the second one to take this photo). One of the two manned lifeguard towers is visible as well as the red motorized raft that cruised around to rescue any snorkelers that were in trouble.

All the snorkel gear, diving gear, stinger suits, life jackets, and Styrofoam noodles are stored and distributed on the pontoon. The pontoon is designed for easy entrance into the water. For the snorkelers there is a nice wide platform at the water level for you to sit and put your gear on before easing yourself in the water. For the scuba divers, there was a set of stairs that descended into and underneath the water from the middle of the pontoon itself--how cool is that?

Although it rained during the morning when Solstice approached Airlie Beach, the weather for this excursion was absolutely gorgeous. The catamaran used for the 2 hour trip from the cruise ship to the pontoon is partially visible at the photo's left edge. Note that there the pontoon is multi-leveled.

The pontoon itself was very stable. It's not possible to get sea sick on a normal day on one of those things. The pontoon had changing rooms and tables/chairs for you to sit down to eat and/or put your belongings at. There was no indoor plumbing. You had to use the restrooms on your catamaran. On the day we visited, there were two catamarans (including ours) that dumped passengers onto the pontoon, but it did not feel crowded.

One of the semi-submersible boats. The 15-20 minute ride was free.

Semi-submersible boats would dock at the pontoon to pick up a load of passengers to take a 20 minute cruise around the reef to see it through its glass bottom. And there was shuttle boat that would take people from the pontoon way out to another, smaller, floating dock where the helicopters landed for air tours. It was quite the operation. I saw $$ in the amount of investment that was made for all of this (and that we were helping to pay off).

There were several curious sea turtles that would swim around the pontoon.

Day 5, Sat Jan 6: Shore Excursion (IE05 Great Barrier Snorkeling) continued

As nice as the pontoon facility was, the diving was bad. And I thought the snorkeling was the least scenic of the 4 different days we went diving/snorkeling. The underwater visibility was not very good and the worst of the 4 diving days. There was some thought that this could be due to Cyclone Debbie which directly hit the Airlie Beach area 9 months prior.

This is a picture of the professional photographer that goes around taking a photo of you diving or snorkeling. The strong underwater current is clearly visible!

When I went snorkeling, there were some impressive areas of the reef, but I was underwhelmed. Looking back on it, I didn't snorkel and swim as far away from the pontoon that I could have because it was my first time in the ocean for a while and I was unsure of where I could go. That may have been the problem.

Even the fish looked unhappy. This fish seems to be saying to us, "what are you doing here in this underwater hurricane? Get out and save yourself while you still can"!

The diving on the other hand was absolutely horrendous. There, I said it. Our first dive at the Great Barrier Reef was utterly disappointing. There was an unbelievably strong underwater current flowing by the reef which was the biggest problem. If you weren't a strong swimmer, you were screwed. If you were a strong swimmer, you got tired very fast fighting the current. Our dive guide had to go "rescue" a guy in the group that couldn't keep up.

One of the biggest underwater highlights of Great Barrier Reef snorkeling/diving are these Giant Clams which are present only in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. We saw our first ones here at Hardy Reef. They are beautiful as they are amazing.

We originally were planning to do a second dive, but after experiencing the awfulness of the first dive, the family voted to not do the second dive. This has never happened before. The good news was that the other 3 days snorkeling/diving the Great Barrier Reef were much much much much better.

We did find Nemo (aka clown fish) regularly at every dive/snorkel location!

It was our first Cairns day. We took a Ships Excursion which was delayed by about an hour because of the weather and then the tender we were on hit the side of the ship just as we were leaving smashing the tenders window next to us. A few of the people we were sitting next to got cut with the shattered glass. It was actually quite interesting as we were all watching the tender heading for the side of the ship in slow motion and we could see that the accident was going to happen. The rumours though that floated around as to what had happened were funny, it went from a rope still being tied up to a Man Overboard situation. The captain of the tender told us that both the ship and the tender moved at the same time because of the wind/ sea conditions and that caused the crash.

Suzanne,

What an amazing story. I had no idea of the incident, but it makes sense.

For safety reasons, the Captain terminated the tender service earlier than scheduled during the first day at Cairns. It actually left us stranded on the ship (I'll save those details for the review later). Now I know why.

If you have more to share on how things went for you on this sailing, please do. It won't stop me from posting the rest of my review!

David

Suzanne,

 

What an amazing story. I had no idea of the incident, but it makes sense.

 

For safety reasons, the Captain terminated the tender service earlier than scheduled during the first day at Cairns. It actually left us stranded on the ship (I'll save those details for the review later). Now I know why.

 

If you have more to share on how things went for you on this sailing, please do. It won't stop me from posting the rest of my review!

 

David

David,

I'm loving your review. We went to the same pontoon as you did for Airlie Beach a few years back when we did a cruise on Celebrity Century as it did it's farewell tour (a few cruises at various countries around the world). I don't dive, but my two older boys do and they loved it.

I will add a bit at Cairns as we did the Karunda Skyrail and Train and then just a drive around Cairns. As we were travelling with my in-laws who are both in their mid-80's and my father-in-law is not that steady on his feet we didn't do anything to strenuous.

Susanne

We have stayed on the Whitsunday islands and also went to a floating reef to snorkel (not sure if it is the same one), but as someone that has not snorkeled before and also a not particularly strong swimmer, personally it frightened me because the current was strong and I ended up getting out of the sea fairly quickly even though there were the boats around to rescue you if you got stuck. We still had a fantastic day as we had flown over by helicopter and seen the reef from the air, plus we enjoyed the glass bottom boats so did get to see the reef.

Day 5, Sat Jan 6: Shore Excursion (IE05 Great Barrier Snorkeling) continued

Some more photos taken from the pontoon and underwater shots from the semi-submersible:

This was the catamaran used to transport us to the pontoon.

My son seated inside the semi-submersible looking through the glass bottom. The pictures below were taken from inside the semi-submersible.