On my second sailing with Celebrity, my Family and Friends (7 in our party) received an e-mail from our travel booking company alerting us to the delay for embarkation on Solstice's 12/11/12 embarkation due to a gastrointestinal bug from their transatlantic sailing. Sorry to those on that cruise and especially those who fell ill.

We are Florida residents, so no flight or hotel notes are needed. On the day of embarkation we left later than normal as it was indicated from our travel agency there would be a cleaning delay of about 2 hours. As you may imagine a long line accrued and many claiming to have not been notified of the delay were quite vocal in their displeasure, so here are my thoughts on this issue. Always check the status of any ship, plane, train or other mode of transportation before you leave your house. Also, would you prefer to be on a cleaned ship or not after a viral outbreak? By the way, no illnesses were reported on our sailing.

Once we started boarding, things moved pretty quickly, but the animosity the passengers showed to each other was remarkable (you know who you are). Once aboard, we were greeted as usual with the customary glass of champagne and mimosas, but were told that rooms would not be available for entry until 6:00pm, which cause another round of the curmudgeons temper tantrums. Read more