Overall the Celebrity Solstice was a beautiful ship, but I'm not sure we're cruising folks. I had cruised on the Carnival Elation 3 years ago but found out I am not a Carnival cruise party type. My husband has travelled extensively around the world and I have done a lot of travel in the US and Europe, so we have a lot of travel experience. This was a special price for the Solstice inaugural, so I felt I found a fairly good deal. While most of the problems we had were minor and didn't have the time to try to rectify them (for example the breakfast service was wrong but we had a tour to get off the ship to attend so no time to reorder to get the right items). I did bring these items to the attention of Celebrity after the fact, and I only mention them for future cruisers information. They did not make or break the cruise, but rather just lessened the impression we had of this claimed outstanding service of Celebrity.

Embarkation: We had cruise air connections which turned out really well because it was about $400 less than I could find for airfare from North Dakota to Fort Lauderdale. As it turned out, Celebrity couldn't find the airfare for less either as the ticketed price was twice what we paid for it and we had first class seats on the flight from Fort Lauderdale to Minneapolis. I do note that I do not see our town in North Dakota as an option for cruise air any longer. The transfer people to pick us up in Fort Lauderdale were not easily found though. We saw every ship company but ours. After we collected our luggage, we asked the Princess transfer lady who sent us to the other end of the terminal building where she thought our transfer person was. She was not, so I called Royal Caribbean's line and they said they would send someone over and to just wait right by the luggage carousel. We did and a person eventually came and made us feel rather stupid. Apparently the person with the Royal Caribbean sign was to get the Celebrity folks as well, but I never saw him with the sign. The transfers continued to be confusing and waiting for long periods of time. The confusion and hurry up and wait mentality included the next day with our transfers from the Marriott hotel to port. We were to bring ourselves and our luggage to a ballroom, according to the instructions given the day before, but the ballroom was closed. I went up the bell desk who said there aren't enough Celebrity people so I don't know why they told you that, just wait in the lobby starting at 11:30am. No clear instructions were given and we eventually asked other travelers (when the Celebrity personnel said to just wait in the lobby and there will be an announcement) and the other folks told us that the Solstice people were around the corner. Luckily we followed and found the bus. We mostly waited, standing up except for the last 20 minutes on the bus, until 1pm. Once we got the terminal, it was a smooth embarkation though.

Ship: She is a very beautiful ship. The public spaces are absolutely lovely. The art is rotated often, even throughout the cruise. The welcome aboard mimosa was nice (though I had to ask for it as the lady on one side only had champagne). No one took our carry ons or even told us where our rooms were but we managed to find it. One huge problem they need to fix are the elevators. It isn't bad when all are in service, but during the day often 2 elevators would be out of service. When you have 8 midship and 3 stern, this slows down the elevators and causes congestion. I understand they need to clean the outside of them but it would make much more sense to do so at night when people don't use the elevators. Read more