Going this summer! Solstice questions!

[BigB0882]

Hi everyone! Last night my husband and I got a little crazy and we booked an Alaskan cruise for this summer on the Solstice! We were originally going next summer with my in-laws and quite a few other friends and some of their family. It was going to be about 16 people or so going with even more thinking about it. My in-laws have never been on a cruise and were a little overwhelmed at the idea of such a large group so we decided to make it easy and go with them this summer AND go next summer without the in-laws but with all the others. Plus, let's be honest, I did not like having a countdown of over 400 days!!!

 

Anyway, back to the point. We booked two rooms that are next to each other. Room 7245 and 7247. My question is will those balconies have some kind of dividers we can open to make one big balcony? I found a thread and it seems they will but the thread was on Solstice class ships and I don't know if they are all exactly the same in every aspect. Could anyone who knows specifically about the Solstice please answer?

 

Also, I found out we could go from our 1A Veranda to a GTY Aqua room for the exact same price. However, I am assuming that there is no way to guarantee our rooms will be together or even be close. Are all AQ rooms the same or should we stick with our unobstructed Verenda rooms that we know will be mid-ship? I think if we weren't with the in-laws then I would go for the GTY but with them I want to make sure they are next to us and I worry about Blu because I think we would want to do MDR some nights and I heard that can be an issue depending on how busy they are.

 

Any and all advice is appreciated for this first time Celebrity cruiser!

Edited March 16, 2016 by BigB0882

[az_tchr]

Will only address a bit of your questions - two problems with a group in Aqua. Unless your are all in Aqua you will have different dining rooms - Aqua in Blu and the other cannot go to Blu. Also Aqua Gty would likely mean you no longer have 2 adjacent cabins. If you stick to veranda - cabins are all the same size - then you can link all the reservations and be seated at 2 tables of 8 for dinner.

 

The partitions do open between the cabins on request. They are locked closed if you have any sort of weather.

 

Happy cruising and you will have a ball!

[BigB0882]

Thanks! I don't think I was clear about the Aqua cabins. I was asking about that for the cruise this summer with just my in-laws. So it would be our two cabins only on the cruise and we would both do AQ or both stay in our 1A. As for the cruise next summer with 16 people, we will all be eating dinner separately. Not even going to try and arrange big tables. I'd rather jump ship than deal with that mess and who knows how long of a wait. :p

[CathyCruises]

Yes, if you have a guarantee, there is no way to be sure that your rooms will be close together and most likely they would not be. Secondly if you have a 1A you have an extra large veranda which you would almost certainly be giving up if you moved to aqua. Those ships are huge and midship is a fabulous location, easy to get everywhere. Some cabins are so far forward or so far after that it is a long walk just to get to an elevator or stairs. I think for their first cruise, experience including dining in the main dining room would be special.

[BigB0882]

Thank you. I didn't know the balconies are larger on the 1A. That is good news. :)

[Pean]

They are lovely balconies. The first and the third from the hump are roughly three times the depth and the second and fourth about double. We have had them a couple of times and they are brilliant. The room steward used to be able to open the divider between the balconies but I believe they are now no longer permitted to do so.

[awhfy]

The dividers open; however, they don't open all the way. The most they open is about 3'. You can walk back & forth (like a hallway) but can't have it open like a room

[Cruise Raider]

Jump on that Aqua Guarantee ... I would do it immediately. You will be on the same deck even if your cabins are not right next to one another. It would just be a short walk and Aqua is the least you would get. You could even be upgraded to a suite, although unlikely. If you link your reservations, I have found Celebrity will try to locate you next to one another....although that is definitely not guaranteed.

 

I love Blu but also love the Persian Gardens, relaxation lounge, and all the little extras that come with Aqua Class (early boarding, priority tendering, extra captain's club status points, pillow menu, expanded room service menu, additional toiletries such as facial spray and lip balm, foot stools on your balcony, afternoon appetizers, etc etc). Whenever I can get Aqua class for just a little extra, I jump on it!! It is a very special experience in my opinion.

[BigB0882]

Jump on that Aqua Guarantee ... I would do it immediately. You will be on the same deck even if your cabins are not right next to one another. It would just be a short walk and Aqua is the least you would get. You could even be upgraded to a suite, although unlikely. If you link your reservations, I have found Celebrity will try to locate you next to one another....although that is definitely not guaranteed.

 

I love Blu but also love the Persian Gardens, relaxation lounge, and all the little extras that come with Aqua Class (early boarding, priority tendering, extra captain's club status points, pillow menu, expanded room service menu, additional toiletries such as facial spray and lip balm, foot stools on your balcony, afternoon appetizers, etc etc). Whenever I can get Aqua class for just a little extra, I jump on it!! It is a very special experience in my opinion.

 

Well I went and looked again and it appears I made a mistake when looking at the price. I was checking the price of our room (since I booked through a TA) on Celebrity's site and first looked at the 1A cabin. Then I clicked back a few times to select AQ and I didn't realize it changed the date on me. So the AQ GTY class cabin is not actually the same price as our 1A. That makes more sense. We won't be paying more for the AQ cabin. We have a Concierge Aft on our Alaskan cruise in 2017 so we will get to experience a better room then. :)

[SheriffJoe]

Well I went and looked again and it appears I made a mistake when looking at the price. I was checking the price of our room (since I booked through a TA) on Celebrity's site and first looked at the 1A cabin. Then I clicked back a few times to select AQ and I didn't realize it changed the date on me. So the AQ GTY class cabin is not actually the same price as our 1A. That makes more sense. We won't be paying more for the AQ cabin. We have a Concierge Aft on our Alaskan cruise in 2017 so we will get to experience a better room then. :)

 

I was wondering about this as our 2 B2B Alaskan cruise on Solstice this summer are pretty full already and even after final payment dates the prices were higher with less perks than when we booked last summer so I was surprised about those prices ....

 

Also regarding next year you could link all 16 ressies together for late dining in the MDR and request tables for 8 and then be all together in 2 tables and could rotate seats each evening to ensure you dine with everyone, it wouldn't be a hard thing to do and speaking of dining in the MDR I know many like early dining but after several Alaskan cruise we MUCH prefer late dining as it doesn't even get dark till around 10ish depending on when in the summer you cruise and then you never have to hurry back to the ships from excursions to make dinner and it just seems to make the evenings more fun and longer. We enjoy relaxing at the Martini bar for a bit before diner and/or see the evenings show before dinner and with early dining you just can't do that as easily beforehand

[Cruise Raider]

Well I went and looked again and it appears I made a mistake when looking at the price. I was checking the price of our room (since I booked through a TA) on Celebrity's site and first looked at the 1A cabin. Then I clicked back a few times to select AQ and I didn't realize it changed the date on me. So the AQ GTY class cabin is not actually the same price as our 1A. That makes more sense. We won't be paying more for the AQ cabin. We have a Concierge Aft on our Alaskan cruise in 2017 so we will get to experience a better room then. :)

 

I completely agree with your decision. Sometimes, AQ can be the same price but I really wouldn't pay a lot extra for it as you can oftentimes get the specialty restaurants for a lot less than the upgrade. If you do ever see it offered at a reasonable cost, you should try it out. That is the only time that I take that upgrade. I kind of got hooked on it when Celebrity still had the mandatory formal nights for the main dining room. We are not ones to like to lug a lot of bags with us so this gave us the opportunity to still go to a dining room without having to wear formal clothing. But what we realized is how much we liked the atmosphere of Blu.

For this one, you are right, the 1A makes more sense.

[Adventurous Grandmom]

Hi--we were just on the Solstice in Australia and NZ-You should definitely take the Aqua class rooms--The food in Blu is so much better than the Main Dining room. We had a 1A balcony on the Hump with a larger balcony. It wasn't worth the horrible food in the main Dining room -Friends ate in Blu-It was so much better than our food. I have cruised on Celebrity before and the food was always wonderful in the Main Dining Room but things have definitely change. I would book Aqua class kathy

[Mr. Click]

We had two 1As on Silhouette for our Baltic cruise last May. As soon as our cabin steward heard that our cousin was next door he offered to open up the balcony. We said YES!! and it was great. Part of the divider stays in place but it is nice to have the ability to sit out together and not have to keep hanging around the wall to say hi...

[lilcush1955]

So i booked several weeks ago a room Veranda ninth level on alaska cruise. I just noticed that an Aqua Class GTY is only 250.00 more .

Is it worth changing ? are the perks worth it ? Help with this one. I have until next week to pay in full should I call up and switch

 

Thanks for any quick replies ..