Us: Late 40's on our 12th cruise - 5th with Celebrity Cruises (hereafter referred to as X). Traveled with a third person (sister) and hence booked a Royal Suite for the additional space. Our focus was on food, service, accommodations, and itinerary. With the exception of the "Behind the Scenes" galley tour we did not attend any shows or participate in any Celebrity Life activities such as on board lectures. We arranged our own travel arrangements to/from the port.

Fellow passengers: 75% were over the age of 60 - fairly typical although not terribly unexpected for this length of cruise and the destination. While the majority of the passengers were from North America a very large percentage of the passengers were German. Cultural differences were evident on the elevators and in the buffet lines.

We had most recently sailed on the Silhouette and so we'll make comparisons to a true Solstice Class ship and the Solstice-ized version. Essentially the changes were simply the repurposing of various unused/little used areas (see CC's before/after slideshow) adding Solstice venues. In most cases the changes were very well done, the best of which we thought was the transformation of the flower shop into Qsine. Who would have thought that an orange and black decor could work together except for Halloween? Read more