Sometimes the the over-inflated reviews of past guest cause you go into an experience with too high of expectations. Our cruise aboard the Celebrity Solstice was one of those.

The ship itself is simply beautiful and glides through the water so smooth you barely know you're moving but it seems that the hotel management operation is where the short-comings were for us. While you didn't hear about it in the news the ship was infected with the Noroviruse in the previous cruise therefore there were lots of leftover affects during our cruise that affected what was in our cabin, all dining operations, etc.

I think the greatest shortcoming of this cruise were in the areas of dining and entertainment. In these areas this ship was far from the 5-Star experience I expected and did little to make this a fun and enjoyable experience. The food was boring, over-thought, limited and did nothing to compliment our Hawaiian cruise theme. The entertainment was brilliant in the big shows but did little to encourage nightlife in the lounges and casino. Perhaps that was because the median passenger age on board was around 65-70 years of age. This cruise was essentially a floating retirement home. I'm no partier but I do still have a pulse and the Solstice did little to increase it's rate! Boring!