Here is my in-depth review of our maiden voyage experience onboard Celebrity Solstice. First, my background. I have travelled on most of the mainstream cruise lines including Celebrity over 10 times, Princess, RCCL, HAL, Cunard and Carnival. We are in our late 30's and traveled with friends and family members. Celebrity is our cruise line of choice.

Embarkation was very easy and well coordinated. We arrived at the port about 10:45 am and after a short time in the waiting area we proceeded to the check in area. I was impressed that there were 60 check-in stations. The one thing I noted about the embarkation was that the ramp going up to board Solstice was extremely steep. I have never boarded such a steep ramp to a ship before. This was not a problem for us, however I could see where someone that had mobility issues could be challenged.

Our stateroom was balcony cabin 7163. We were immediately impressed with the new layout and decor of the cabin. The huge interactive flat screen TV is wonderful. It works quickly and has a great picture. It functions more like a computer than a TV. You can access your onboard account, the internet, typical TV programming, movies on demand (some are free, some are a charge) and most impressively your onboard photo's. It also has a great navigational screen showing very clear maps. I have to believe that they have face recognition software as all of our pictures showed up from throughout the cruise. We only had our card scanned once before a photo, and that was for our embarkation photo. The closet is noticeably smaller, however we found it more than adequate for our hanging clothes. There is storage above the bed which is very nice and spacious as well as several drawers under the TV. The bed is noticeably higher which makes it easy to store your luggage. There is a great feature in the bathroom which merely dims the light when you turn off the switch, creating a nightlight. There is a dimmer switch as you walk into your stateroom, which is wonderful. A very annoying feature that took us a bit to figure out is the power switch on the upper bank of switches as you enter your stateroom. When you engage it, it turns off all power to your cabin. The bathroom is very nice and large. The attacking shower curtains are a thing of the past. The shower stalls have the capsule-like doors like the Radiance class of RCCL have except these showers are noticeably bigger. The towels seemed to be upgraded, however it could be because they are new. The verandah was a very nice size and the furniture is wonderful. It is much like that on my own deck at home. There is a full size white leather sofa which is quite nice and comfortable. The one complaint I have in regards to the stateroom is that they have removed the water pitcher. The silver ice bucket and glasses are there but in place of the pitcher is a large bottle of water for purchase. A sign of the times I suppose, I guess they need to increase revenue where possible. The safe is noticeably larger and is located in the closet. Read more