With one previous cruise on Sun Princess in 2008 we are not expert cruisers. Maybe we expected too much. The serve yourself buffet was a real bun fight, dodging people and collecting food then trying to find somewhere to sit and eat was at times a problem. On occasions we just took our meals back to our stateroom. Imagine the utter chaos in the buffet leaving Dunedin at 3pm with everyone having to be back onboard by 2.30pm and the only place for lunch was the buffet. It was horrible. We tried to eat in a more civilised way in the Dining Room whenever we could but queue for breakfast, queue for lunch and when you entered the Dining Room there were lots of empty tables but just not the staff to service them. Also on December 9th, 10th,11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 21st, there was no option for lunch but to join the previously mentioned bun fight in the buffet. Not good enough in my opinion for a supposed 5 Star ship. On the plus side the crew were excellent, the food was great in the dining rooms and in the buffet. The ship was spotless throughout - a real credit to a dedicated crew with every effort made to minimise the risk of virus outbreak. Excellent Captain and bridge crew. If you do the cruise make sure you are in the Theatre for The Captains talk on the building of Celebrity Solstice - do not miss it.

So Celebrity open at least one complete Dining Room for breakfast and lunch everyday, charge us a couple of hundred dollars more if you have to but as my father (a Navy man) used to say don't spoil the ship got hapeth of tar.

Just one more request to back off from the constant up selling "pressure" for drinks packages or speciality restaurants particularly before breakfast it's just not civilised!