This was our second Celebrity cruise the first being on the Reflection in April 2015. Though Celebrity is always touted and touts themselves as better than all the other cruise lines and prides themselves on "excellence" this has not been our experience. And we have experience since this was our 20th cruise. The overall impression is that Celebrity is catering to their higher paying guests and that all efforts are aimed at them spending more money whether its for a premium drink package, specialty restaurants, or specialty coffees, etc. And though the Elite status and above clientele is catered to above all else my question was why would I want to endure being treated poorly to reach a higher status in hopes that I'll then be treated better?

Now to the specifics. Despite our disappointments with the Reflection, the one highlight of note on the Reflection last year was the high quality of the food. This was certainly not the case on the Solstice. The food in the Oceanview buffet was mediocre at best and the selections were limited in choice and the quality was at a lower level. Examples of this were the choice of fresh fruits which were always: melons, apples,apples and bananas. never papaya, or any berries. If you happen to go to the Aqua Spa cafe you might find a bit of mango or berries but not in general. The same was true for the cheese choices: always: provolone, blue cheese, cheddar, monteray jack-all pretty plebian. In the dining room it was hit or miss-some nights there were excellent choices, others the food again was below par. All the pastries and desserts were very poor except at Cafe Baccio but many folks were fooled into believing they had to buy a specialty coffee to ask for these which was not the case. We ate in three of the speciailty restaurants. The Silk Harvest had lovely decor and service but the food was overall very poor. And we ate there twice so we had other choices in hopes that we had just gotten it wrong the first time. Shame on us. The Tuscan Grill was by far the best and I felt worth the money as well as excellent service. We were disappointed with the service and the food in the Murano and it definitely was not worth the additional tarrif.

Enough about the food. Read more