We (two mid-fifties Aussie couples) sailed on Celebrity Solstice for 12 nights, out of Sydney on 23rd October. Embarkation was pretty smooth, wouldn't have taken more than an hour or so. The ship looked very impressive from the dock, and from on board it is even more so. Plenty to see and do, which was necessary as we had three days at sea before our first port.

Speaking of ports, we didn't really think much of them, with the exception of the Isle of Pines, which was beautiful. I should preface my review of the ports by saying that we didn't book any shore excursions, so certainly we didn't see all there was to see at each destination. That said, we didn't think that any of the excursions looked that interesting, and some were ridiculously expensive to boot.

Our first port was Lifou, in New Caledonia, and I'm not really sure why we stopped there. Apart from a small beach which was good for snorkelling (at a charge of $15), and a walk to a church on a hill, there is not much there. The highlight of Lifou for us was two small children displaying their crab on the end of a piece of string (for a small donation!). Next day we were at Isle of Pines, which as I said was nice. We spent the morning swimming and sunbaking, as did about 2000 of our fellow passengers. Both of these ports were tendered. Read more