Live: Dec 22 2023 Solstice 12 Night Thailand & Vietnam Holiday Cruise!

[hcat]

We are usually in AQ Class/ BLU  since the time it was introduced.  Usually quieter, more personalized... They are willing to place dressing and sauces on the side;   less salt , fat and sugars. Love the breads and pre dinner  spreads... We liked it much better than Luminae on Beyond 

 

Sometimes the menus can be boring

(lots of birds) so we make arrangements for the MDR...or Specialty Dining...In Jan in Ascent, we'll be in BLU but have 3 or 4  nights planned elsewhere.

 

  Breakfast are very nice too..we trade off with the Elite  lite  bkfst and  go once or twice the buffet for fresh  waffles.

 

Hope you enjoy it!

 

 

[mahdnc]

Just now, hcat said:

Amazing!

in Fl we are near a place called Selby Gardens,( Sarasota)  World famous for Orchid cultivation and display.. but this is truy exceptional...huge!

 

Inside the Cool House at the Botanical Gardens, some of the orchids came in big slabs.  I have never seen that.  The length and linearity of the blooms were also impressive.  Ready-made leis!

 

[mahdnc]

Just now, villauk said:

 

Your experiences are so similar to ours. We usually cruise with our children so dine in the MDR, but next March we have decided to try Aqua for Blu for the first time without them. We also did this itinerary over Christmas and took the elephant tour in Ko Samui. You’ve not booked Japan as your next cruise, have you 🤣?

 

That is interesting and funny.  No Japan cruise scheduled, but maybe I need to rethink that!

[mahdnc]

Just now, hcat said:

We are usually in AQ Class/ BLU  since the time it was introduced.  Usually quieter, more personalized... They are willing to place dressing and sauces on the side;   less salt , fat and sugars. Love the breads and pre dinner  spreads... We liked it much better than Luminae on Beyond 

 

Sometimes the menus can be boring

(lots of birds) so we make arrangements for the MDR...or Specialty Dining...In Jan in Ascent, we'll be in BLU but have 3 or 4  nights planned elsewhere.

 

  Breakfast are very nice too..we trade off with the Elite  lite  bkfst and  go once or twice the buffet for fresh  waffles.

 

Hope you enjoy it!

 

 

 

I miss the bread sticks in the MDR.  They don't serve them in Blu.  Our waiter told me he would have them for me tomorrow!  I may be developing a reputation as "that" guy amongst the Blu staff.

 

Oh, breadsticks! Where art thou?

[mauimary]

 

Out of our 16 Celebrity Cruises so far this is the first time that we are not eating in the Main Dining Room for dinner as we are also first time AquaClass passengers.  This means we are having a Blu Christmas.

 

 

We have only eaten in Blu twice.  I think I am still partial to the MDR dining experience which puts me in the minority as far as this forum is concerned.  But that opinion could change by the time the cruise is over.  On the other hand, my wife definitely favors Blu as she likes the smaller venue and the quiet that comes with it.  More importantly she likes the menu better whereas I have ordered at least one item off the MDR menu for both meals so far.  I figured that my wife would like Blu and that was the main reason that I decided to put in for a move up bid from our V1 cabin.

(Quoted from mahdnc)

 

——————————————————————————

On our last cruise on the Eclipse B2B2B our third segment was in Aqua. We did enjoy breakfast in Blue  there every day as long as we were not in a table right next to others. We found that to be too crowded.   Breakfast was hot individualized and servers were attentive.  We were also not fond of the dinner menu in Blue so we did eat in the MDR select.  The hostess got to know us so she was able to seat us at the same table every night which was perfect. We could not make reservations on the app so did it day by day. . We mostly had part of the same staff.  We were quite happy there. .  We liked the menu much better than Blue since we do not like fish dishes and there were a lot of them.  From what I’ve seen there does not seem to be very many of US who are not lovers of eating in Blue!  But there are a few!!!

[Lena11033]

6 minutes ago, mauimary said:

We have only eaten in Blu twice.  I think I am still partial to the MDR dining experience which puts me in the minority as far as this forum is concerned. 

 

I didn't enjoy Blu when in AQ this year so you are not alone. The staff and menu were great but the menu wasn't great for me (and I mainly eat chicken and fish)

[NMTraveller]

On 12/23/2023 at 6:05 AM, alyssamma said:

First, let me say thank you to @mahdnc and everyone else who has contributed to this thread. I'm taking this cruise next year, so love the details. That being said, I have 2 specific questions I was hoping someone could answer...

 

1) We are actually doing a S2S. It looks like (from Google Maps) that the cruise port handles 2 ships that are docked basically side by side. In other words, leaving one ship to check into the other should be easy and not require transportation or anything like that. We are leaving the Solstice and boarding the Millennium.

 

2) How early can we check in our bags? We are hoping to check them early and then do some exploring.

 

Again, thanks so much for the live blog.

2.  We arrived at 1030 AM yesterday and we were able to check our bags then.  There were about 50 in front of us.

[dlh015]

17 hours ago, mahdnc said:

and perhaps a cool greenhouse to house them all.

Well, this proves you haven't hacked my security cameras 🤣...I have built (one was a prefab) two walk-in greenhouses for them. Both about 12' x 16'...

[alyssamma]

28 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

2.  We arrived at 1030 AM yesterday and we were able to check our bags then.  There were about 50 in front of us.

Thanks...had people already been dropping off their bags? We were hoping to drop them off around 8 or 8:30am...

[mahdnc]

4 minutes ago, dlh015 said:

Well, this proves you haven't hacked my security cameras 🤣...I have built (one was a prefab) two walk-in greenhouses for them. Both about 12' x 16'...

Wow.  That is pretty awesome. 

[NMTraveller]

3 minutes ago, alyssamma said:

Thanks...had people already been dropping off their bags? We were hoping to drop them off around 8 or 8:30am...

There were about 30 bags in front of ours.  I have no idea at what time they opened.

[mahdnc]

While the time change presents its challenges, I can watch my Pittsburgh Steelers live on our stateroom television at 4:30 am ship time. At least the game had a late afternoon kickoff. If it were a early afternoon game, it would have started at about 1 am here.  

 

I was shocked to even see it on our television when I turned it on as I was really secretly hoping to go back to sleep. The Steelers are a train wreck this year, but I can watch them. 
 

It is an NBC television feed and being broadcasted in our stateroom on Channel 18 which is for ESPN1.

 

I may be a bit sleepy and tired when I see the elephants later today at Ko Samui. 
 

Edited December 23, 2023 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

Hello Ko Samui, good bye Ko Samui. 

 

We have arrived at Ko Samui just now on this Christmas Eve morning.  However the Captain just announced that this port has been cancelled because of weather.  I am surprised because it doesn't look that bad from our balcony, but I am assume the Captain knows better than me.

 

Following the Captain's PA announcement, the Cruise Director said that they were going to try to get to Laem Chabang a little earlier than scheduled.  In the mean time they are planning more onboard activities for us.  

 

For now, I am going to go back to watching Rudolph (the quarterback, not the reindeer) lead the Steelers to an unexpected Christmas Eve victory over the hated Bengals.  It's going to be a Merry Christmas after all as I just got my present.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2023 by mahdnc

[Miaminice]

15 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

I am surprised because it doesn't look that bad from our balcony, but I am assume the Captain knows better than me.

we were, too. But then I saw a ferry boat ploughing through the waves close to us.

That’s when I realized it sure looks different from “up here”. A tender boat would have considerably more problems with the waves than a ferry.

[Miaminice]

I guess it’s a sign… 

 

[mahdnc]

Just now, Miaminice said:

I guess it’s a sign… 

 

 

Nice photo.

[Miaminice]

2 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

Nice photo.

unfortunately, it will be the only photo of Ko Samui I will get to take. 🙁 oh well… 😉

[hcat]

7 hours ago, mahdnc said:

 

Inside the Cool House at the Botanical Gardens, some of the orchids came in big slabs.  I have never seen that.  The length and linearity of the blooms were also impressive.  Ready-made leis!

 

my next door neighbor in Fl..has quite a selection but will go crazy when I share these photos... i love the ferns too!

[mahdnc]

The Captain is back on the public address system telling us again that Ko Samui has been canceled. He also said that he was talking to the captain of the Diamond Princess and they are canceling their stop there, too (translation: don’t get mad at me!). 

[mahdnc]

9 minutes ago, Miaminice said:

unfortunately, it will be the only photo of Ko Samui I will get to take. 🙁 oh well… 😉

We are on the other side of the ship and so we didn’t even see the island!

[NMTraveller]

Hopefully the weather is fine in Phuket tomorrow.  We just passed Port Klang.

[mahdnc]

26 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Hopefully the weather is fine in Phuket tomorrow.  We just passed Port Klang.

Have a super nice cruise. Too bad the Christmas sailing from Hong Kong didn’t happen in 2020 because we would have met….

[mahdnc]

The Captain announced at 9:45 am that we will be arriving Laem Chabang at 7 am instead of our originally scheduled time of 9 am tomorrow.  I emailed our private tour guide to let him know this but I asked to keep our meet up time at 9 am as my wife and I were not that interested in getting up super early--and on Christmas Day for that matter.

 

A matinee show is being put together for the afternoon in the Celebrity Theatre.  The pool deck is open and is a popular place to be now. 

 

[mahdnc]

Here is:

Celebrity Today for Day 1 (Singapore)

Celebrity Today for Day 2 (Sea Day #1 of 3)

Celebrity Today for Day 3, Christmas Eve (Koh Samui, which was cancelled)

Celebrity Today folder

 

[mahdnc]

The conference room area on the port side of the ship next to the Sky Lounge was set up as a parent-supervised play area for kids that are too young to be enrolled in the kids program, aka Camp at Sea.  To be in the kids program, the kids have to be at least 3 years old and pottie trained.

 

 

This looks like a Toy Story set: