This cruise was the best cruise I've been on, hands down. It sailed out of Seattle, so my family decided to travel there a day in advance so we could experience the city. If you're going on this cruise, or any cruise out of Seattle for that matter, I highly suggest doing this. With the exception of New York City, Seattle is the best city that I've been to. There was so much to do that we have already planned a trip back there to experience the rest of what there is to offer. Pike's Place Market is a must-do, there is a lot of great stores, and fantastic seafood there, as well as the original Starbucks coffee shop (although the line is generally very long). The Space Needle was definitely the highlight of our experience in Seattle. If you're going to go to the Space Needle, go at night, it's an infinitely better experience. The gift shop at the end has a lot of traditional gift shop items, however everything is very low priced. I got a Seattle Sounders tee shirt for only $20 for example. The Marriott Residence Inn Lake Union was a very nice hotel. Complimentary breakfast buffet, pool with jacuzzi, sauna room, and separate room for children to play in. Stay here if you go to Seattle. We flew with United Airlines from Newark, and we didn't experience any hassles with our flight, we actually got in to Denver, a stopover, 15 minutes early, putting us in Seattle 25 minutes early. However, 4 of our other family members flew from Phoenix with Alaska Airlines, and their flight, scheduled for 8:05am, took off at 10:15pm because of an engine problem.

Now on to the cruise. I've only been on two cruises in my life, both Celebrity, and this was definitely the superior of the two. On both cruises I traveled with a large group of family members, there were 10 of us, and the staff and passengers on both cruises knew us as "the life of the party". The first cruise we went on was a 7 Night Bermuda Cruise on Celebrity Summit. Don't get me wrong here, it was nice, but the beauty of Alaska combined with the amazing Celebrity Solstice brought this cruise far above the other one. Allow me to elaborate. Embarkation in Seattle was relatively quick and easy. We arrived at the port at approximately 12:00pm. Although the line looked very long the staff at the port moved the line along very quickly, as we were in and out in approximately 20 minutes. The staff was very friendly, no problems with them. After the check in process we then boarded the Solstice. The ship from the outside was a "WOW" factor in itself, its truly a gorgeous vessel. However, once we went inside, we were floored by how beautiful and magnificent the interior of the ship was. The atrium was flawless and, as always, we were greeted by staff members handing out glasses of Champagne and Mimosa. We were allowed to go to our room immediately as we boarded the ship, so we did and it was very nice. I'm writing a separate review about the room so readers can see the details. Our luggage got to the room at around 5:30 which was surprisingly quick, and it worked out so we could all change for dinner. Our stateroom Custodio was a great guy, he definitely cared about us having a great experience, and made up our room impeccably. As a plus, he also made fantastic towel animals! Embarkation day went great, which put only good thoughts in our heads for the rest of the cruise.

The second day was a day at sea, so we could really experience the ship for a day. The ship is truly a work of art. It really is amazing in every way, it is virtually flawless. Every one of the bars was filled with people looking like they're having a great time enjoying fantastic drinks. The pool was a little bit crowded with children, but looking past that they were two fairly large sized pools with four jacuzzis and it was fun when the air wasn't cold. One complaint I have about the ship is that because it was cold out, for two one-hour slots of time throughout the day (10-11 and 4-5), the staff decided to open the adults-only solarium to passengers of all ages. While I do see the good intentions in this, the pool was so crowded at points that you couldn't even see the water. Plus, because its indoors, the children yelling was amplified because of the echo, to a point where I had to leave because it was deafening. However at the ends of these hours the staff was very strict about returning the solarium to its adults-only environment which was nice. All of the childrens/teen clubs and their events looked enjoyable and all the kids looked like they were having a great time. Read more