Celebrity Solstice Alaska cruise (8/26/16 - 9/2/16) review with many photos

[Boxerlover2]

Oh, and one question, Lucie. Were the short ribs as good as they look in the picture?

 

Yes! The meat was very tender. I preferred this dish over the signature burger.

[Hollywood Traveler]

Yes! The meat was very tender. I preferred this dish over the signature burger.

 

Thanks. I will follow your advice.

Edited September 15, 2016 by Hollywood Traveler

[LPCKG]

Wonderful picture and review. We are taking the same cruise next year, can't wait to read more.

[vickykay]

The pictures of you and your husband are beautiful. We also love to,dress up on a cruise. Have you ever been on a European cruise? They tend to be dressier than the Caribbean, etc.

 

Enjoying your review.

[norn iron]

Great review. Great photographs.

[Texed]

Boxer,

 

Thanks for posting. :)

[Boxerlover2]

The pictures of you and your husband are beautiful. We also love to,dress up on a cruise. Have you ever been on a European cruise? They tend to be dressier than the Caribbean, etc.

 

Enjoying your review.

 

Hi! We have not been on a European cruise... yet. It is definitely something we have talked about. My husband serves in the military and so we are hoping to get stationed overseas in the (hopefully near) future and then cruise around there a few times. :)

[Boxerlover2]

After dinner, we headed over to the World Class Bar to try out some new drinks and waited there to catch the 9pm show, the “Broken Strings,” which was my favorite show of the whole cruise.

 

 

 

We also gave the comedian another chance that night, but again, we were not impressed.

 

If I am not mistaken, today was also the day that we received an “exclusive invitation” to the Helipad scheduled for the sail time out of Ketchikan and then again from 6am-8am as we were scheduled to cruise through Tracy Arm Fjord. I assume this invitation was sent to suite guests mainly as it came from the Michael’s Club Concierge, but I am not really sure who all typically gets invited. Either way, we were thrilled to be presented with such an amazing opportunity and looked forward to attending both events.

[Boxerlover2]

Day 3, Ketchikan, AK (28 August, 2016)

Our Ketchikan day was an easy day! We had a couples massage booked for 9am, planned to get off the ship to have lunch at the Alaska Fish House and then walk around the town. We did not plan any excursions in Ketchikan (we did a sea plane excursion on our previous Alaska sailing); we wanted to take this day to relax on an empty ship.

 

The natural light from leaving the curtains slightly open the night before woke me up in the morning. I got up and anxiously rushed to the balcony to see what view we woke up to. We were already docked in Ketchikan! And so while my husband was still snoozing, I grabbed my camera and took some photos of the port as well as the Carnival ship docking. The balcony had soot all over it so I had to be careful not to mark the carpet in the cabin with black footprints.

 

(A very good morning in Ketchikan)

 

 

(I love capturing other ships up close... it later allows me to look at the photos and compare the ships to Celebrity's fleet for all the various differences).

 

 

After another great breakfast, we headed over to the Persian Gardens before our massages. (The Luminae menu was the same, minus one or two items, if I remember correctly, but below you will find a photo of the mouth-watering pastries).

 

 

We had the PG area to ourselves, which was very nice and peaceful.

 

 

 

We checked in for our treatment and waited a short while in the Relaxation Room. Our 50-minute deep tissue massage took place in a couples room in front of the ship. This room has an ocean view, which sounds quite attractive when they try to lure you into booking a treatment for two, but the reality is that your head is stuffed down inside the massage bed’s head rest and the only time you see the ocean is when you are undressing and putting your clothes back on after your treatment. Perhaps there are other treatments for which this room is used that allow you to soak up the views for sure. Of course, we did not book our treatment because of the view, but because we had an insanely large amount of OBC that had to be spent somehow. Our therapists were both from Thailand; two petite women who were very professional, skilled, and very strong to produce a nice deep tissue massage. As select members, we used a 10% off coupon which was only good on port days and so with the port day price and the additional small percentage off, I think we got a good deal.

 

We spent some time in the outdoor hot tub after our massages and then got ready to walk off the ship to get lunch.

Edited September 16, 2016 by Boxerlover2

[Boxerlover2]

Really enjoying your review. Looking forward to the rest of it. Your photos are excellent! Thank you for posting them!

 

Thank you for taking the time to read my review. I see that you're from Dublin! My husband and I will be visiting there in a couple of months for the very first time and are truly looking forward to exploring a few places in Ireland.

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[buckeye rob]

Wonderful review. Terrific pictures. Couple of questions if I may. We booked this cruise for this coming August 11. We will be in an S1 corner aft on deck 12. Hearing about noise from the buffet/restaurant above. Also saw you went to Michaels, but on our reservation it only shows access to Michaels to only Celebrity suites or higher. Was it a frequent Celebrity status that allowed your admittance ? Or all suites now included ? Thanks, Gerry.

[Boxerlover2]

Wonderful review. Terrific pictures. Couple of questions if I may. We booked this cruise for this coming August 11. We will be in an S1 corner aft on deck 12. Hearing about noise from the buffet/restaurant above. Also saw you went to Michaels, but on our reservation it only shows access to Michaels to only Celebrity suites or higher. Was it a frequent Celebrity status that allowed your admittance ? Or all suites now included ? Thanks, Gerry.

 

Hi there. We were on deck 11 and so I can't speak for deck 12 and the noise. However, there is a chance that not that many people will be eating outside due to the colder weather and so the noise may be limited. One advantage of your location is the fact that all balconies on deck 12 are covered unlike all the rest of balconies on lower decks.

Michael's Club is now open to all suites; they changed this policy sometime last December, I believe. If you go to the Celebrity's website and click on "Onboard Experience" and then "Staterooms" and lastly "Suite Class," you should see that admittance to MC is open to Sky Suites as well.

[Disnyfan2]

Your pictures are great. Two questions, what type camera and lens do ypu use and do they provide robes in PG as well. Woludnt want to carry the one from the room.

[Boxerlover2]

Your pictures are great. Two questions, what type camera and lens do ypu use and do they provide robes in PG as well. Woludnt want to carry the one from the room.

 

I used Canon 5D Mark II with the following Canon lenses: 28-70mm 2.8, 100mm 2.8, and 70-200mm 2.8.

 

My husband used my old Canon 40D with wide lens: Canon 10-22mm 3.5-4.5.

 

We walked over daily to PG in our nice thick robes from our cabin (the non-suite staterooms, except for the Aqua Class, have thinner robes), but the Spa should be able to provide you with one and even some slippers.

[Boxerlover2]

As we were getting ready to get off the ship for lunch in Ketchikan, I told my husband that I think I should go out and take some photos of the ship, while it's empty. You see, I take photos of each and every ship we're on. The interior design and decorations may vary slightly, but in general, it all looks the same since all the ships we have cruised on Celebrity are S-Class ships. Yet, I continue to have a desire to haul my camera and lenses around the ship and take pictures - somehow I hope to capture something that I may have missed before. Also, photography soothes me.

 

(And so here are just a few photos of the interior of the Solstice ship)

 

 

 

 

 

[Boxerlover2]

 

 

 

 

 

[Boxerlover2]

 

 

And while I was out and about, I decided to take a few photos outside from the decks. This is when I realized there was a third ship docked in Ketchikan, the Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas. Since I captured photos of the Carnival ship earlier that day, I also had to add the RC ship to my photo album!

 

 

 

 

[Boxerlover2]

 

 

(This is was the first bear that I saw in AK).

Edited September 16, 2016 by Boxerlover2

[Boxerlover2]

As soon as we got off the ship, it started to rain a little, but it did not stop us from our walk to the Alaska Fish House to grab some lunch (http://www.alaskafishhouse.com).

 

The restaurant had a line of people waiting to order, which gave us time to debate what foods we’d like to explore and taste. We agreed to both get the AK Sampler Fish & Chips, which included 1 piece of bearing sea cod, one 1 piece of local silver salmon, and 1 piece of local halibut. We first hesitated about the salmon option, but we were nicely surprised… all pieces were quite tasty, including the mesquite fries!

 

 

After lunch, we walked around the town and stopped on the deck that overlooks Ketchikan Creek, which was truly the highlighter of our time in Ketchikan - we saw a bunch of salmon swimming up the creek, seagull feasting on dead fish, and lastly, a seal appeared from nowhere swimming up the current and we watch it capture a fish. After all, it was lunchtime! It was quite the show!

 

(If you look carefully, you will find the seagull, dead fish, and salmon swimming in the creek).

 

Since there was nothing else we were interested to see in Ketchikan, we decided to take a few more touristy photos and head back to the ship... to spend some time in Michael’s Club.

 

 

 

[Boxerlover2]

Michael’s Club was, again, completely empty. However, we did meet a new bartender named Jaya from Indonesia. (This young man served us drinks in MC for the remainder of the cruise as he was assigned to work there for a couple of hours each afternoon until about 4pm). Jaya was the best and created any drink that you asked him to make (for me, it was sangrias – red and white). We asked him to also make his favorite drinks and he did so with excitement.

 

The helipad visit was scheduled from 4:00-4:30pm on this day and so we arrived to our meeting point right on time, only to find out the viewing was cancelled due to the weather. The MC concierge left us a message on our phone during the time that we were in the club and so we did not have a chance to hear the change of plans. We were slightly disappointed, but hoped that we'd still get the opportunity to visit the helipad the next day. We returned back to our cabin and spent some time on the balcony taking photos and soaking up the last views of Ketchikan as we were sailing away.

 

 

 

 

(This photo is a great example why some guests prefer to book cabins with covered balconies and avoid the ones on the aft. All Solstice aft balconies, except on deck 12, are not covered. Deck 12 balconies have been reported to suffer from chair noise from the Oceanview Bar seating area above, instead).

 

 

[Mamma Drum]

I feel as though I took the vacation with you. Very nice review.

 

 

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[Lady-tans-a-lot]

Wow, these pics are amazing and you have a great writing style. Eagerly awaiting the next instalment!

 

 

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[Boxerlover2]

Unfortunately, today (Ketchikan) was also the day that we did not enjoy our dinner in Luminae very much, specifically the main dish that we chose – grilled NY strip steak. Of course, to each person the food tastes differently and some may have loved it, but our piece of meat just did not taste like beef.

 

 

(Kale Salad; this appetizer was very good)

 

(Grill New York Strip... I think even the picture may show that the meat just does not look like beef)

 

 

After dinner, we headed to the World Class Bar for a couple of drinks and also planned to see a show or two, but our next day was filled with two excursions and so we called it an early night to get some rest.

 

(Do you remember the Lucky Cat from the Molecular Bar? The drink in the photo on the left, called Mystic Ketel One, tasted very similarly to the Lucky Cat! Lucky Cat is made with muddled raspberries and Mystic Ketel One with muddle strawberries).

 

[Boxerlover2]

Day 4, Endicott Arm Fjord & Dawes Glacier and Juneau, AK (29 August, 2016)

From the talks from staff onboard, we knew there was a possibility that we would cruise through Endicott Arm visiting the Dawes Glacier, instead of Tracy Arm and Sawyer Glacier due to large pieces of ice in Tracy Arm.

 

(If you have an Alaskan cruise booked for next year with Tracy Arm Fjord as your cruising destination and are currently thinking that you may be cheated, feel free to scroll down immedietly until you see photos of Dawes Glacier. Not to worry, Endicott Arm Fjord and Dawes Glacier is a fantastic route and destination, respectively.

 

And so for us, day 4 started with a very early morning and waking up to Endicott Arm Fjord's beauty and cruising toward Dawes Glacier.

 

(View from our balcony)

 

We walked over to the meeting point to access the helipad at 6am and were extremely happy it was not cancelled this time. Once we stepped outside on the helipad, the X staff welcomed us with hot chocolate and blankets (nice touch, Celebrity)! My DH and I probably spent about 20 minutes on the helipad, just enough time to soak up the great views and take photos. We were quite in a rush this morning; helipad, breakfast, and 8am excursion.

 

Enjoy these photos taken from the helipad:

 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2016 by Boxerlover2