Live (kind of) from the Solstice 2/4-2/11

[abbydancer2003]

Solstice Day -1

 

Here we go again - it’s time for my annual cruise with my sister (as always known as Beth).  We’d originally booked a January 30 10 day cruise on the Equinox, but it turned out we had tickets for the US Figure Skating championships in San Jose the week before, and that ended at 8:30 pm on the 29th.  So we decided to move that to 2024.  

 

We got a pretty good price on a 7 day Mexico cruise on the 4th, which is 5 days after skating ended, so we booked that.

 

And it’s almost time.

 

When we were looking at flights, we faced a challenge in that she wanted to fly Jet Blue, because that’s where she has free bags, and I wanted to fly United because that’s where I do.  We couldn’t find any combination that didn’t involve DH making two trips to the airport, so I looked up the price of a rental car.  A one way would cost less than two flights.  So we set that up for today.

 

However, a week and a half ago, my mom fell and broke the top of her leg.  She’s 90, so the surgery was hard on her and it wasn’t clear when she’d be out of the hospital and into a rehab facility.  So a couple of days ago, we looked at going down tomorrow (Feb 3) instead.  We changed it, since, with driving, we don’t need the extra day of cushion.  It’s about 5-6 hours.  And it was a good thing, since she went to rehab today.  (And she’s looking pretty good).

 

So I’m packed, mostly, and about to toddle off to bed.  We’re picking my sister up at my mom’s house at 9:15 tomorrow, and picking up a car at San Jose Airport soon after.  

 

Our ship leaves from San Pedro and goes to Cabo, Mazatlan and  San Diego.  

 

It will be our fist time on the Solstice, and we’re looking forward to that.

 

[LaCal]

Looking forward to your review of the Solstice 

 

Have a fun cruise 

[vickykay]

Safe travels and hoping your mom does well. Always enjoy your reviews.

[Georgia_Peaches]

Following. Safe travels. 

[lovecruzin]

Looking forward to following along especially since we board on the 11th.

Drive Safe and hello to Beth!

[asnaleah]

Following along. Best wishes to your mother for a speedy recovery!

[abbydancer2003]

Solstice Day 0

 

Today was travel day.  Again, supposed to be yesterday, but just as well.

 

Got up at 8 and had my morning coffee in a to-go cup - I’ll take it to the airport and leave it in Glen’s car.  At about 9:10 we left to pick up  Beth.  We turned off all the lights, etc at mom’s, and headed to the airport.  We’d rented the car at 10, and were going to be a little early, or so we thought.

 

San Jose airport has to be one of the most confusing for where to go.  The car rental center is across several lanes of traffic from the terminal, and separated by islands. We ended up on the wrong side twice. There are two terminals at San Jose, and to get to the entrance to rental car you have to go around the other terminal.

 

About 10, Glen dropped us, and we waited a few minutes and got our car.  We were offered a bigger car, but we already had an intermediate, since it was cheaper than a compact, so no on that, but we did decide to pre-pay the gas, so we didn’t have to drive around LA looking for gas.

 

We took off, and first stop was about 15 minutes past our normal first turn because we were on a mission to see a mission.  Seriously, I’m taking a US history class, and we can do two extra credit things such as visiting a historical site or museum.  They have to be relevant to US History before 1814.  So for my first one, I decided to visit Old Mission San Juan Bautista, in San. Benito county.  It was about 30 minutes out of the way round trip, so this seemed as good a time as any (we can do 2 extra credit things, and see the blog I’ll do in March to see if I do the second as planned).

 

We arrived at the Mission, walked to find the entrance, and paid our 7 dollar entry fee.  There’s a not very well explained museum there (I think they’re still working on its), including a replica of what they think it looked like after it was built in the late 18th century (1790’s).  Luckily for us, there was a volunteer docent there who explained all that.  

 

After the museum we looked at the gardens and the chapel.  The church was unavailable due to a funeral.  

 

After about 45 minutes, we’d seen most everything, so we decided to take a walk around town.  Beth likes antique stores, so we stopped in a couple and she bought some very nice candlesticks and cards.  Following that, we went to a bakery and got a couple of cookies and some tea for the road.

 

We then drove for about 1.5 to Harris Ranch along I 5 and had lunch at the their steakhouse.  I had a tip sandwich that was pretty good.   We finished with coffee and tea, and at about 3:30 hit the road again.  It was about 200 miles more to go.  We also spent 10 minutes in the parking lot trying to figure out how to use Car Play with my phone to get the map onto the display.  (Going down I had it from Beth’s phone but it was my turn for the music).  We never did get it to work, so Beth just gave me directions.

 

We only hit traffic towards the end on 405 in Los Angeles, but it was only about 25 minutes of slow traffic so could have been way worse.

 

We arrived at the hotel around 7.  We asked the Bell staff if we could leave the car out front while we checked in, and they said sure, but there was nowhere to actually park it.  We unloaded, and then the helpful Bell staff took the keys and said they’d park it while we checked in.

 

We checked in, dropped our bags in the room, and then headed out to Target (Advil and a iPhone charge pack) and dinner.

 

The front desk had told us that there was a target a few miles away and gave us directions.  I had Beth use google maps and she found a tiny one closer to the hotel.  It was the smallest Target I’ve ever seen, but they had what we needed.

 

Next stop was Sizzler for dinner.  The ones near us have closed, so with thought it would nice and fairly quick.  I knew there was one less than two miles from the hotel, so I had Beth use google maps.  As we were discussing the fact that we were driving 3 miles, which didn’t make sense, we saw the one I thought of just ahead of us.  So we went there.

 

We had a nice mail, and a really great server.  We finished with their little ice cream soft serve.

 

From there, we went to Budget Car Return.  We had just under 1/8 tank of gas left, and we hadn’t had to fill it, so that was good.  The Budget return is across the street more or less from our hotel.  The choice was to walk to the corner, cross the street, walk back past the Four Points Hotel (FYI, we stayed there last year for one night, it’s odd don’t recommend) to our hotel, or take the car shuttle back to the airport,, and then the hotel shuttle back from there.   Beth had been concerned, but agreed that it was perfectly OK to walk, so we did.

 

Back to the room.  Only interesting thing was that I have plastic luggage tag holders, and so we cut the outer two sections off (where it says fold do not cut) because otherwise they’re too bulky.  I went to the lobby to use a scissors, but they said they had been lent out and not returned.  Huh?  Who does that?  However they did have a paper cutter in back, so the nice clerk cut them for us.  He didn’t do a very precise job, but good enough. 

 

So tags are attached and it’s bed time.  Tomorrow, Beth does her very first cruise out of LA.

 

[LaCal]

Have a great cruise and please give reviews on the Solstice 

[LaCal]

How was embark?

[britestar]

Following along. Hope you have a wonderful cruise.

[sdnich]

I look forward to following you on this cruise also we are doing the same cruise in 27 days!!

[DSWinBC]

My son is currently on the Solstice for the cruise this week. He said there is approximately 1500 passengers onboard (& 1200 crew)

[AG2]

Following, booked on Feb 25. Looking forward to hearing your reviews!

[Guindalf]

We had 1800 last week!

[Jim_Iain]

Have fun Abbey -     You will love Solstice an the cruise. 

 

If you are traveling in Retreat you will love the Concierge - Mar -   My opinion is she is the best in the fleet.     You missed a good drenching today.    Only a couple of cells came through but when they did even with an umbrella my pants got soaked.   5 minutes later it was gone.

[mahdnc]

Thanks for posting your live review.  I hope you enjoyed your first day aboard Solstice.  We hope to be on her again in December.

[abbydancer2003]

4 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

Have fun Abbey -     You will love Solstice an the cruise. 

 

If you are traveling in Retreat you will love the Concierge - Mar -   My opinion is she is the best in the fleet.     You missed a good drenching today.    Only a couple of cells came through but when they did even with an umbrella my pants got soaked.   5 minutes later it was gone.

Mar seems great indeed.  She has fond memories of you. I also like Anastasia.

[abbydancer2003]

Solstice - Day 1

 

 

Today’s the day we start.  Beth woke me up around 8, and I did my daily Wordle and mini crossword and got dressed.  We headed to the restaurant downstairs for breakfast around 9.  It turned out I’d scheduled my ride for 10:10, not my usual 10am.  So we had lots of time.  The restaurant was fairly crowded, which surprised me a little.  I’ve done this - Renaissance to San Pedro 4 previous times in the last year, and I have never seen the restaurant this crowded.  We did get a table fairly quickly though.  We finished our omelette and bacon breakfast (after waiting a few minutes for new bacon to arrive) and went back to the room to gather our stuff.  At about 9:55, our driver called to say he was downstairs waiting. We gathered our bags and were on the road by about 10.

 

The ride was uneventful and we pulled up to the pier at around 10:30.  A porter approached and asked if we needed help but our driver was on top of it.  In addition, Beth had not secured one of her luggage tags so we had to fix that.  By that time the porter had lost interest in us, but fortunately another very friendly porter came by and took our bags.

 

From there we went to the priority entrance, showed our boarding passes, and  were ushered into the building.  We went up the escalator (I remember filling out many a health questionnaire before heading up back in the pre pandemic Princess days), and quickly checked in with the reps for the suites.  All we had to do was show our passports and boarding passes, get new pictures taken (I don’t know why I ever bother uploading one I like) and we were good to go.  She said they were boarding, which surprised me since it was only about 10:45.  

 

We went through security, and the people there said it wasn’t boarding, but we could go to the suite/Zenith waiting area.  It’s, of course, the same room as for Princess Elite, etc.  We went in and there was almost no-one there.  We got coffee/tea and then met Mar, the concierge.  She said we could board if we wanted.   Wow.  We finished our drinks and away we went.  That does explain why there was no-one in the lounge.

 

We were onboard by 11 am.  We dropped our bags in the room, which wasn’t ready and met our room steward Mei on the way out. From there we went to Michael’s club and sat for a bit.  We then took a walk, looked at the casino and some of the ship.  We also went to the spa so Beth could make an appointment for a pedicure that she hadn’t had time to get before we left.  We went back to Michaels until it was time for lunch.  

 

We went to Luminae around 12:20 and it was busy.  I started with the pea soup - good as always, and had the NY steak with Bernaise for my main.  It was good, but not quite as good as it was on the Silhouette in October.  For dessert I had the Pear and Yogurt Clafoutis, which is hard to describe.  It was sort of a tart with ice cream.  

 

 

After lunch Beth headed to the spa for her appointment, and I went back to the room.  Our bags were outside the door, so I brought them in and unpacked mine.

 

I’d brought my external DVD player with me to try out, and I realized that with all the cords in there there was no power cord.  But I did connect the HDMI, and was able to change the source.  However, I was unable to get it back to the X tv.  While I was playing with that, Mei came in to introduce herself officially.  She said she always has extra towels for ladies.  Very nice.  Soon after she left, the tv started working.  I also texted Glen about it, and he thinks the power for it is at home.  Oh well, it was really a trial run for the March trip where we will be on an X ship for 24 days.  

 

Next it was time for railway, and there had been vague rumblings about a cruise critic gathering, so I put on my beads, etc and headed to the sunset bar.  While I saw nobody from Cruise  Critic there, I did meet the FB group and joined it. I chatted with them for a while, and eventually Beth joined us.  We sailed out through the channel, and I noticed a Carnival ship paralleling us from Long Beach.  

 

After that we went back to the room to change for dinner and for Beth to unpack.  Our butler Shingai called, and stopped by to see what we wanted, etc.  He’s very nice.  At some point, I stepped on to the balcony and noticed the Carnival ship behind us in the very pretty sky.

 

At about 6:30 we left and headed to Michael’s club for a drink before dinner. Now they serve evening bites, which was a list of small things, such as nuts, cheese, potato chips that you can get.  We had nuts and potato chips.   It was dead quiet in there, but we chatted until about 8:15 when we headed to dinner.

 

Luminae was very quiet by 8:15 and we got a window table in the front room.  We had the same serving team as lunch and that was fine.  Tonight, they offered the “Timeless” entrees and appetizers from the main dining menu.  For an amuse bouche, they had green pea puree with crabmeat.  Beth passed, and I took the crabmeat off and at the puree.  We both started with the Roasted Apple & hearty green salad.  Turns out it was mostly radicchio, and we both left most of it, but it was pretty good.

 

For a main I asked for the grilled Guinea hen with spaghetti squash, pepitas and sherry vinegar, but with chicken instead of the hen.  I wasn’t quite sure what I got, but it was quite good.  (No sign of pepitas though).  

 

For dessert I had the Vacherin, with Apple Blueberry and vanilla meringue.  Here’s a picture

 

 Looks sort of like a deconstructed vacherin.  It was good, though.

 

After dinner we went to the casino for a bit.  We gambled a little, watched the slot tournament, and then called it a night.

[abbydancer2003]

Solstice Day 2 - sea day

 

We woke up around 8 am, and we’d asked the butler to bring coffee, tea and croissants at 8:15.  He arrived promptly with everything, but there were two napkins, one of which he used to make a tablecloth, so we only had one.  Also, he brought two spoons, which made it hard to put the butter and jam on the croissant.  Oh well.  

 

We enjoyed our first breakfast, and got dressed to go to Luminae.  We got there with a couple minutes to spare.

 

We skipped a starter and Beth had crepes and I had a waffle, with a side of bacon.  We didn’t have any of the pastries offered, so I think for morning coffee we’ll skip the croissants.

 

After breakfast, we headed to guest services for a few things.  First, Beth wanted her cruise card punched, which they did.  Next was to even out the Onboard credit, and finally the lost and found for her sunglasses that she left in the spa.  No luck on the last, but we got the OBC straightened out.

 

I went back to the room and she went to the spa, where she was reunited with her sunglasses and her newspaper from Friday.

 

Following that, we decided to go for our soon to become daily swim at the Solarium.  In the pool we chatted with a couple from Reno.  We talked cruising and some other stuff and learned he’s a trained chef and a former head of food and beverage at the Peppermill. There used to be a couple of Peppermill restaurants near me that I really liked, so the talk was fun.

 

We followed up with the hot tub, and then went back to the room to get ready for lunch and the Captains club welcome reception.  We went to the welcome reception, and talked to a few of the officers.  I found out from the IT manager that Starlink is on all the ships, and we’ll have it on the Infinity next month, but it probably won’t be good in Tierra del Fuego.  Good to know.  Beth had a nice chat with an Israeli security officer.  My niece wants to do a language immersion after college, and so Beth was able to get information from her about dealing withe Celiac (niece has it) in Israel.  

 

After that we went to lunch.  We had the same wait staff as before, and they are starting to know our preferences.  We both started with the broiled feta and arugula salad, which was very good.

 

 

We followed with  the luminae burger, cut in half to make it less thick.  For dessert, I had white chocolate mousse which was very good.  I was tempted to order another one.

 

 

 

After lunch, we went up to the sky lounge for Harry Potter trivia.  We found a few others near us, so we played with a team.  Only 3 of the 4 really knew the subject and we missed 4 questions, at least one of which we shouldn’t have - how many points for the golden snich.  We missed a couple others.  What we didn’t miss were the two we missed in October.  

 

Following trivia, we stayed for the start of the music trivia, but we didn’t like it, as Patrick barely played  enough of each song to recognize it.

 

So we headed to the casino.  I won about 3 dollars, Beth has yet to be ahead on anything.

 

Tonight was the officers soiree in Michael’s club and formal night, so we went back to the room to get ready for that. 

 

At the soiree, we joined some people on the couch and had a nice discussion with them.  The servers, rather than walking with appetizers, dropped of little plates of 4 for each of us.

 

We then chatted with another couple for a while.

 

At about 6:45 we went to the show. It was called  Broken Strings, and sort of took place around a music venue.  The show started with the performers in the audience, and spent a little too much time there, but the show was nice otherwise.  After that, we went to get the final EFFY charm of the day, and then went to Al Bacciio for a pre dinner coffee.

 

We went to dinner, and were seated in the front section again.  We have the same serving team as before, and the two assistant waiters Yuna, from Indonesia and Helmi from Singapore, now know we want tap water with ice.  Our waiter is Aba from Indonesia and he’s quite good.  For dinner I had the Yellow Corn Soup and the Beef Tournedoes from the main dining room, and the Marscapone Cheesecake from Luminae for dessert.

 

After dinner we wandered a bit, did casino a bit, and then went to bed.

 

 

 

[Guindalf]

You have the same wait staff in Luminae as we had last week! Ana was very good at remembering your preferences. 
 

Try and catch Yuna without that huge smile on her face!

 

Don’t miss TJ Tana, the magician/mentalist if he’s still on the ship. He performed in the theater one day and a 2:30pm matinee on a sea day. He also did a close-up special for suite guests in Michael’s Club one afternoon. All three performances were excellent!

Edited February 8, 2023 by Guindalf

[lovecruzin]

@abbydanceryour “live from” is getting me excited for our cruise next week. Although we still don't have a suite assignment.

You’re probably the rare diners requesting tap vs bottled in Luminae 😆 

I remember when we met you and Beth on Equinox and all of us commenting on the burger being too thick to eat, Im looking forward to one on Sat.

Enjoy!
 

[Jim_Iain]

On 2/5/2023 at 11:06 PM, abbydancer said:

Mar seems great indeed.  She has fond memories of you. I also like Anastasia.

 

They were both on with us on Summit.    Mar was suppose to go to a different ship but they reassigned her to Solstice while she was at the airport.   

[Jim_Iain]

Abbey -  for the TV.   Two ways to get back to Original TV.  

1.  Just turn it off with power button and will start with original ships screen

2.   From the Remote with the CC / Menu routine when you get to source choose the first one URL Launcher.     -    The tv's are operating now as a monitor instead of a tv.

[abbydancer2003]

Solstice day 3 - sea day

 

Today is our second of 3 total sea days.  Our butler brought us our early morning coffee and tea, and no knives for the croissants.  So we didn’t bother eating them, and made a mental note to just get coffee and tea going forward.

 

After enjoying our drink and getting dressed, we headed to Luminae for breakfast.  Our assistant waiter, Yuna knows now we want tap water, not bottled and brings that, plus a soda glass of ice.  

 

Following breakfast we checked out the casino, and then went to Al Baccio to play a new variant of Splendor- Splendor Duals, for two people.  While the basic idea is the same, they’ve tweaked some things to make them more fun for just two.

 

The game took a while so after dropping it in the room, and hanging around for a bit, we headed to lunch.  We now have our specific serving team, and they are great.  They make all kinds of modifications, and now we get regular water glasses with ice in them when we sit down.

 

For lunch I had the butter lettuce salad, the potato and leek ravioli and a single scoop of raspberry sorbet for dessert.

 

Today’s trivia was Disney, so we did that.  We joined an interesting lady for a team of 3.  We did OK, I think, because instead of counting number right, he counted down from perfect and stopped at 15.  There are still no prizes.

 

After trivia, we headed to the casino, and the decided to do afternoon tea at Michael’s Club.  We sat at the couch, and met Rich and Ron, a couple celebrity 30 years together.  We chatted for a couple of hours, and then talked to Mar for a bit.  

 

After that it was back to the room for Beth to shower in time for the show.  Tonight was a British vocalist named Paulette Ivory.  Apparently she’s bee on stage in Disney’s Aida, and a few other things.  She did some jazz, some Whitney Houston, etc.  It was good, but we probably won’t go to her atrium show tomorrow.

 

After that, we picked up our EFFY charm and stuck around for the end of giveaway presentation.  We didn’t win the goodie bag.  While I was waiting for it to start, I went to the World Class bar and ordered a Rose Water.  It was pretty good, but I might ask for them to go lighter on the vodka next time.

 

By then, it was about 8:15 so we went to dinner.  For dinner, I had a cream of wild mushroom soup from the main menu that was quite good.

 

For my main I had the New York strip with truffled potato puree (code for mashed potatoes) and carrots.  The strip was in 2 pieces and I could have lived with one, and it was all good, especially the carrots.

 

For dessert, I had pine nut flan with pomegranate sorbet.  The sorbet was good, the flan a little odd.  I’ll try to remember that for next time.

 

Following dinner, we headed to the casino.  They were having one of their free slot tournaments, so we did that.  Basically, you sign up, they give you a machine, and you press play continuously for 1 minute.  In addition some balloons go across the screen and you have to pop them for points.  The winner gets some sort of prize.  We didn’t win.

 

We have a fairly early day tomorrow, so we went back to the room.  Each night Beth calls my mom for an update, and I talk to Glen for his update. Following that, it was bed, because we have a fairly early day tomorrow.

 

 

 

[NutsAboutGolf]

@abbydancer Thanks for the review!  Could you do us non-suite peasants a huge favor and look in the app, tonight's MDR menu and see if the beef wellington is gone?  Just heard one data point that tonight is Chic, there's lobster on the menu but now the wellington is gone