4th cruise, 3rd with Celebrity, 2 others on smaller Constellation & Millenium. Value of cruise good but inclusions very expensive. Had balcony midships level 8, excellent. Internet usage $55US per day, Drink Packages ridiculous prices as well. $25US corkage if you bought your own wine to dinner. (1 bottle per person allowed onboard first day). Food in main dining ok except for 2 nights when the choice was inedible. Ocean View cafe ok but again some of the meat dishes were a bit dry & unappetizing. Trying to find a seat at breakfast was a challenge. Solstice is getting a bit tired & needs a refit which is happening next year I think. Captain Tasos is THE best & he & his staff of many could not be faulted. Dining room staff were exceptional & really looked after you. Ports of Call on this itinerary were great, especially our sail through The Sounds. Much prefer to cruise on smaller ships. 2200 pax & 1200 staff just not as personal. Read Less

We choose this cruise because the last Solstice trip (to Sth Pacific) the average age was around 60, still way older than us but ok. This time is very around mid 80s and most people were not mobile. Getting around the ship was very frustrating and the music on board was obviously to cater for them - 30s and 40's (which my husband and I can't stand). We don't have children (by choice, they annoy me); so it was good that there weren't too many to be seen or heard. The ports were mostly good but I would get rid of Lautoka and Suva and try and use a beautiful outer Fijian island. I've been to Fiji a few times and the ports are not a true reflection of the beauty of the Fiji. We both really enjoyed Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga - we did shore trips in each location but not through the ship. We did the Oolala trip, with the ship, in Lautoka and it was terrible - I went two years ago and everything has changed for the worse. It was overcrowded, mean and the food was inedible. The entertainment was generally ok, if geared towards very old people. The dining was good but portion sizes are very small. I'm a size 8 and I had to eat 2nd dinner in the buffet some night as I was still starving. One of the guys (a professor) giving talks was so boring and his material very old. Surely they can find people who are actually interested in their material and pass that on to the cruises. Cost for gym classes is a bit expensive at $17US Why is the spa so expensive? I would love to have treatments but not at twice the price of Australia. The shops are ridiculous - LV and Tiffany - seriously???? why not have nice brands that your target market can afford. Get rid of the stupid art show - just have nice stuff around the ship to admire (not to purchase) Based on this cruise, we have decided to cruise again in about 20 years time - unless Celebrity really do something to encourage a younger (but Childfree) market. Read Less

Found the cruise relaxing staff were very helpful. Didn't enjoy the meals tried twice in the restaurant on Deck 3 or 4. Because we don;t consume alcohol and don't put on airs down to earth couple didn't really feel welcomed there. After that experience used the Ocienveiw Cafe for all our meals and the Mast Grille nice presented food. Enjoyed the show put on most nights in the Solstice Theatre pity they were only a hour long. Enjoyed the outdoor movies pity they repeated them over and over especially The Black Panther and Skycraper. Enjojed watching the girls on deck 15 working with the glass very pleasant and customer looked happy with their items. Bands that played were good normally listened to them in the library. Really not a lot to do at night if you don't gamble or drink. The ship looked nice and clean Indra did a good job making and tiding our room. A few issues with wind blowing thru the door at night whistling, broken tiolet seat cracked T.V. losing signal when watching it otherwise okay.Choose excursions thru the ship 1st not to be left behind and 2nd not to indated by the locals if going ashore. Went on the Nausori Farmers Market Drive hard to hear the person talking as microphone kept cutting in and out. The third excursion I didn't do due to illness which was spreading thru-out the ship coughing, sneezing runny nose and sore throat, as no opening windows in our room think it was spread by the air conditioning.Older couple early 60's no children. Yes we have booked again for same trip 2021 with a room at back of ship with opening balcony hopefully to prevent illness. Read Less

This is my second cruise with hubby (both 50 yr olds) and our first one was on Solstice also 2 years ago. Our first cruise was perfect and so it was inevitable that we would be comparing both cruises and that the second one wouldn't be as good as the first. Celebrity have the embarkation/disembarkation process down pat and we can't fault them on that at all. Even at Princess Wharf Auckland where it is so small and could be utter chaos, everything was good and moved quickly. We had stayed at the Sebel Quay West the night before which I recommend as it is a lovely hotel and an easy walk with luggage down to the wharf. The ship is as lovely as ever and looked after well although you can see some minor things showing some wear and tear. The best thing about Celebrity is the staff - they are all friendly and helpful. As with the last cruise, the only staff member to not acknowledge us as we walked by everyday was the Captains Club hostess. This itinerary seemed to attract an older age group - a lot of baby boomers on this cruise and more then half were New Zealanders. We seemed to find this age group to be really rude - always needing to be first in line for everything, and would push in front of you to grab something (with their hands) in the buffet. We noticed on a few occassions some were really rude to the bartenders - was terrible to see and was no need for it. Poor bartenders have to work so hard to keep us thirsty aussies and kiwis satisfied as it is without having to deal with people who think they are entitled. I thought there might not be much nightlife because of the older crowd but a lot of them liked to party. The Full Moon party, and silent discos were pretty popular. The sea days were pretty quiet with not too many activities which was disappointing. We ended up going to the afternoon trivia most days to fill in some time - even though we are really bad at it. Luckily the bartenders there were the best on the ship- in particular Eric and Nevil. Last cruise we spent a lot of time at the outdoor bars - Sunset and Mast but they've changed the rules and they are now smoking bars so we didn't go there much at all. Sunset bar is only supposed to be smoking on port side but this doesn't seem to get enforced. While we were sitting at the centre of the bar, a woman was standing directly behind us smoking while ordering a drink. Bit of a deal breaker unfortunately for us when the best bars are now off limits for the non smokers. The food is still good but probably not as good as the first cruise. The quality has dropped a bit in the buffet eg used to be able to get different varieties of bacon but now only thin stuff that was cooked in the oven making it hard. There isn't as much variety either. The food in the main restaurant is tasty. The bread basket is dangerously good. The portion sizes are small on some things but you can order more. We found it is difficult to get a drink there if you don't drink wine. Went one night without being asked at all if we wanted a drink. And another night we had to ask. We went to Silk Harvest once - good food but the restaurant is a bit too dark and it was very stuffy. Tuscan Grille is a lovely place to have a good meal before it gets dark so you can see the views. Service was good, they were probably a bit too attentive if anything as there was always someone asking us how the food was, do we need anything else etc. Pretty sad but one thing I was looking forward to was the $10 watch sale. They don't have it anymore. Luckily nothing else grabbed me, including the casino so didn't have to spend much costly US$. Missed hearing Captain Tasos's daily announcements this time- Captain Taramas doesn't have the same character and isn't seen as much around the ship. The ports were interesting to see. We didn't do any Celebrity excursions as they all seemed too expensive. In hindsight it might have been better to go with Celebrity - it would have saved us having to deal with some undesirables in all of the ports who see cruisers coming and want to rip them off. The entertainment was good mostly - pity the production shows are the same ones we saw over 2 years ago. The singers seemed more suitable for musicals - they weren't really cut out for Rock City. The impressionist seemed to be popular with the older people but wasn't to my taste. Magician was good but all the tricks were shown on a screen that made everything look blurry so was difficult to watch. Couldn't fault our cabin - had a balcony on the hump on the Portside. If this itinerary is repeated exactly, I would recommend staying on the Starboard side. Read Less

We have previously sailed on Celebrity and enjoyed the upmarket ambiance and cultured environment BUT alas this seems to have been eroded into what has become a very ordinary cruise line. The harassment we experienced form staff as soon as we boarded to 'purchase a package' was beyond annoying. On no less than 45 occasions we were asked to purchase on day one. This continued for 3 days and on one occasion I was even challenged to explain why I did not want to buy a 'package' .. by a wine waiter. After declining to purchase a package we then found it literally impossible to get served on deck and in the theatre unles we were standing at a bar. The other great dissappointment was the total lack of discernable dress code. Evening chic - a joke. On dressier nights it was common to see formal attire mixed with shorts and thongs. TRhe redeeming factors were .. the dining room staff who were excellent .. the room steward who was also excellent .. the Lighthouse string duo who were beacons of entrertainment .. and the best show on the ship The Hot Glass blowers .. Read Less

We chose this cruise as we had done the cruise from Auckland to Perth the year before and were very impressed with the Solstice . What a difference a year makes , the ship was showing a lot of wear. The entertainment on the cruise the year before was excellent , this trip it was less than average. The drinks packages had gone up and the discount they offered on board was 10% , 15% ,20% respectively as apposed to the 30% we received of the basic package last year. When we embarked we ticked the box which indicated that our account would be charge direct to our visa card at end of cruise . that didn't happen and we were charged through the cruise lines bank which resulted in a lot higher conversion rate. BE WARNED. Overall the service on board was excellent , the crew were very good and were always polite and helpful which certainly goes to making a pleasant cruise. We thought the food was a bit ordinary this time around , we dined in the GE , anytime dining . Overall an average cruise and we will probably try a different cruise line next time. Read Less

CELEBRITY SOLSTICE embarked in PERTH for a back to back of 29 nights, to SYDNEY/AUCKLAND/FIJI/SAMOA/TONGA and back to AUCKLAND. A wonderful experience of personal service, excellent dining in the Luminea / Murano / Tuscan restaurants, especially the Luminea where all the staff were very attentive and obliging, our thanks, and deserving recognition were KAVI ( nothing was ever too much), RYAN (thanks Sunshine), DOMINIC, ALEX and JURUS ( Christine is now hooked on 'Pinot Gris'). Although the food in Ocean View ( renamed: Bread Pudding Café) a little more imagination there please Chef, was good with a wide choice to please any calorized diet. But it was MANIC a frenzied throng weaving around the food stations and hunting elusive seats and slow Bar service. ALAN from excursions was amazing, he tirelessly coordinated, organised, arranged and lectured upon forthcoming excursions, whilst expediting the vast numbers of guests ashore on their trips. LEWIS..mmm..with his extensive wardrobe, still forgot his socks! The theatre productions were very professional, enhanced by the brilliant ACROBATIC TROUPE who were phenomenal. The guest acts varied depending on your personal choice, but generally good and entertaining. All guest areas were busy and noisy, apart from the 'Silent Disco', very good ( we even joined in!) Fortunately our sanctuary was the suite guest club room, and the delightful OLGA and helpful bar steward. Now our Suite Attendant & Butler, ALDRIN (Buzz) was so friendly, caring and efficient he deserves an award, along with ROGELIO and his constant smile and attention, he made sure we wanted for nothing. The Suite Manager ANASTASIA and the lovely ALANA Guest Relation Director, whom had the unenviable task of being front line to guest complaints, including our suite issues, they deserve medals and a salary hike, they did all they could in an impossible situation, thank you both. Celebrity and RCCL as a company, seriously need to address the problems on the Solstice and others in this class during the forthcoming refurbishments. We will avoid any concierge or S2 suites on Deck 12 on these vessels. Again our thanks to all the dedicated staff and crew. Read Less

This cruise is a disappointment.The food in the restaurant was never hot and the menu choice just seemed to be juggled about each night.Restaurant staff very good as usual but the wine waiters seemed to give you one glass then disappear.The cafe is a nightmare and very difficult to find a seat not because there are not enough of them but the over 70 groups seem to just sit there for hours after they had finished breakfast and refuse to move.The Itinerary is lacking in ideas with too many days at sea and two of the ports Esperanza and one of the New Zealand ones were just stop to refuel.The Dunedin trip is a waste of time as we wandered a botanic garden for over an hour when only getting 25mins in downtown Dunedin not even time to enjoy the shops or have a coffee.Your tours are also overpriced compared to the local tours when you disembark.I have never seen such disorganisation than at Fremantle port where preferred guests are ok but others waited for over 2 hours to board.Perhaps you could cut New Zealand out of the tour and let us see Brisbane and Canberra and please arrange to dock in Sydney and not tenders.Lastly your staff on board were impeccable as usual but the bands were somewhat lacking in variation.I would not recommend this cruise to the under 30s unless they want to sit about playing cards,knitting,or sleeping in the library.CELEBRITY can do better than this Read Less

We chose this cruise as it was a long time since we had been on a larger ship (Celebrity Alaskan cruise 11 years ago) and we felt like an end of summer holiday through Australian ports that we are fairly familiar with. We flew to Perth from Auckland 4 days prior to the cruise and thoroughly enjoyed this delightful city. Embarkation was a nightmare as no training had been given to the local staff who were trying their best to process the guests with no help from the bored Celebrity staff who were wandering behind them. Once onboard we ran the gauntlet of Celebrity staff trying to sign us up for drinks and dining packages( we had been warned but they are very annoying). The cabin war excellent except for the wardrobe doors which supposedly slid and got in the way. No doors or bifold would be s vast improvement. Food in Blue and the main dining room was excellent. Also good in the buffet restaurant but the huge number of people there turned us off. We enjoy good lectures but these were scheduled at 9.00am on sea days which is crazy especially as you had lost an hour due to time changes. We also enjoy playing bridge on sea days as did a lot of fellow guests but nothing was organised. Flying paper aeroplanes and throwing bean bags is not everyone’s idea of entertainment. Shows were mixed with some very good and some less so. Overall our experience was enjoyable and good value for money but could have easily been better Read Less

We researched heavily before we picked a cruise line and ship, broken down into tonnage, amenities and restaurant choices, as well as general destinations. We chose to book a deluxe verandah stateroom, and got placed starboard on level 7. We feel that our travel agent should have indicated to us that by paying more we would have had included all the perks and extras that we paid for anyway, but hey, she didnt, we didnt know, there you have it. The embarkation process in Perth was actually not that bad at all - a small wait in a holding area but that wasnt a drama. Do not understand why people grizzle about that when they are trying to process through as many people as you could find living in a small town. We got on board and found our cabin - it was tidy and clean. We realise that unless you board a vessel of ANY sort on its maiden voyage of course things will feel a bit pre-used, but on the whole they have gone to length to make it feel clean and fresh. For those grumbling about the black line around the toilet, I suspect that has to do with the sanitation system so maybe is just the way it is - it didnt make our bathroom smell nor did it detract from the use of the loo in any shape or form, so hey - get over it! The staff are nice and very helpful, but also pushy - a constant push to buy more, upgrade more, do this, do that. Some are extremely aggressive, some try to do it in a more subtle way - but the outcome is the same, it isnt nice when we have already paid a bit to get there and prepaid for packages and extras before we even embarked. We found the household staff a bit intense - we do not want our cabin turned down at night, dont want our things picked up and moved and dont want our already folded clothes refolded and put in one big pile. we tried to explain we didnt need the evening service thanks, which sort of fell on deaf ears so we started to put up the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. A morning spruce-up of the cabin is nice, fresh towels etc (which sometimes when the old ones were removed no new towels were left in replacement) but this constant in and out was a bit much. The premium non-alcholic drinks package was a brilliant investment - we used that a lot. Really liked that we had this as we are frequently at Cafe el Bacio on level 5, where most of the staff who prepare coffees etc do a sterling job. We had one staff member who made ghastly coffees, frappes etc - I mentioned to the wait staff who brought the coffee that it wasnt very good at all, she made excuses for the fact it was awful, then must have gone back and told the girl who was acting as barista that day. We heard "expletive you" from behind the counter, so we consequently made a decision to AVOID the cafe if this staff member was on the machines. Because so many of the rest of the staff were really nice and some made really quite good coffees, we did not go down to Guest Relations and make a complaint. On the mainland it would have been very different. OCEANVIEW CAFE - is really okay actually, they try really hard to turn out a good selection for the masses, I think they do very well and have no complaints. A great staple with a stack of selection. Whats not to like. I will say though that real vegetable selection was sparse but once again it must be hard to carry enough of everything on a ship. GRAND EPERNAY - We went twice. It was a horrid experience and is the fly-in-the-soup of the restaurant dining experience for us. We refused to go back there again, rather using speciality restaurants most nights or good old ocean view cafe. Epernay was like a factory, noisy, seated almost right on top of the next couple where too many 2-seat tables had been crammed together. The cruise demographic did not help Epernay I suspect, all trying to turn up at the same time for dinner and of course the staff will attempt to accommodate them, but its not nice when you just want to eat in peace and the neighbours who are almost sitting on your lap feel obliged to talk to you. Other half and I obliged somewhat, but werent really there for the chitchat with others beyond the odd hello here and there so found that felt like a difficult transaction that was forced upon us because of the tight space. The food was okay but not outstanding. MURANO - We love Murano and have been many times. Small portions but you will feel stuffed when you leave, nicely prepared food. A definite 10 out of 10. SUSHI ON 5 - a hidden gem! Once again suspect because of the demographic on the ship it has been under-utilised on this trip. Good sushi, great serving staff - this was our other 10 out of 10. A really great sushi chef. MARTINI BAR - loved it. Good martinis pre dinner - candied apple martini and dessert martinis scrumptious. A fair few happy martinis pre dinner were had. The whole laundry service isnt a good concept - I have woollen items that I am NOT paying someone else to wreck, and anyway we refuse to pay at least 25USD per day on Laundry. Its not that we cant afford it, its that they warn you that its a case of caveat emptor when it comes to using laundry services. No thanks. We did pre-order two cakes off the web site for the stateroom - one choc raspberry for one week, and one choc coffee. We got the same choc raspberry each time which wasnt that great so consequently ended up getting binned. We just let it go because sometimes things can be very hard to sort, and when we mentioned it to the housekeeping girl who brought it to the room (that they had got it wrong and we received the same thing two weeks running) she just looked blank, and to be honest I couldnt be bothered going there. Be careful when ordering cakes in advance as a room treat. We didnt do organised shore packages - more just a trip into town in whatever port we were in. It was really great. Didnt go into adelaide but went everywhere else. Shop staff in esperance WA rude. We didnt do theatre etc - for us this has been about catching our breath and decompressing on a real break. The Gym and the Persian garden top up have been great. For better or worse we feel like we had a break. This has been our learning curve cruise - we now know how it works. The mistake we made is that we didnt go for suite class in the booking phase. It might have given us a bit more respite from some of the faux snobbery that seems to prevail amongst certain of the demographic, but on thorough dissection we have decided we are going to bite the bullet and go for royal suite or penthouse suite class next time if we go celebrity as that will give us the extras and packages that we bought anyway if I understand correctly, plus a suite with a bit more room will be a bonus! Dont get me wrong through - I have never felt like we are falling all over one another, but a bit more space will make it really amazing. We went down to future cruises and tried to secure something for approx 2 years away in July 2021 - the very helpful lady there told us that we could find 2021 cruises up on the site by the end of this year - that works for us. We've already worked out that we want to do St Petersburg 14 nights, Viking cruises does a better itinerary of stops in Scandinavia but we are debating giving Celebrity another go and see if booking a different sort of class of accommodation irons out the wrinkles, so to speak. All in all, a very good experience, we feel rested and like we have had a real holiday, someone else has done the driving and the cooking and the cleaning. Loved seeing Melbourne and Sydney again, the sounds are stunning and Dunedin is a southern gem. Read Less