Apologies for the length but hopefully you will think it a worthwhile read. This was our fifteenth cruise and having sailed previously with Princess, P&O, Royal Carribean and Celebrity we became firm fans of Celebrity. Sadly in view of this particular experience we are not sure we would regard them as our top choice anymore or that they are superior to other cruise lines. They are certainly no worse than other lines but they have dropped in our estimation at the moment. We have booked our next cruise for next May and have decided to go back to Royal Carribean who we liked but not as much as Celebrity. Such a shame as on their day Celebrity are streaks ahead of the rest, in our view. Overall the trip was very good but whilst the below were very poor experiences that just shouldn't be happening on a holiday of this cost, we all know that you can still have a good holiday overall even with incidences like these. So we would definitely say to book Celebrity but just be cognisant of the potential for the below..

The Solstice ship is amazing, and that is before the upcoming refurb, as were the ports of call, excursions etc but a ship is only as good as the crew and we found all too many examples of pretty appalling service levels with this one. Unfortunately we had to deal with a number of them when in reality the crew should be seemless to the customers. Just remember most staff on these ships are really lovely but the poor ones unfortunately are the ones that tend to stick in the memory and impact the remembrance of the holiday.

Embarkation was an ab shambles but tbf the oficers were well aware of all the issues and said it was a blip, They said the captain had ordered an enquiry into all that had gone wrong and to ensure all lessons learned were implemented immediately. We were supposed to be priority boarding yet we got served after most of the general queue. Created a bit of embarrassment for us with our friends on their first cruise and they were boarded long before us. They thought it was hilarious but we did not. No one was there to direct the boarding passengers sufficiently, very rude indeed staff just ignorantly waving us to " go there" and not even looking at us. We ended up heading for the wrong ship. Communication was nil. Read more