My husband and I were traveling with my 2 older sisters.  We have been on many cruises, but this was the first time that we had sailed with Celebrity and for the most part we were extremely pleased with the experience.   The Solstice was a new ship that had only been out a couple of times before our cruise, so it still had the sparkle that a lot of the older ships seem to lose after being in service for a while.  We got to Rome a couple of days before we were scheduled to depart and stayed at the Eurostars International Palace in Rome.  We were pleased with the hotel.  The rooms were pretty good size for a European Hotel and it was central to most of the sites we wanted to see, with convenient transportation to everything else.We checked out of the hotel in the morning and got to Civitavecchia around noon.  We were able to check in.  The process went very smoothly.  There were 10-15 people checking the passengers in, so there was almost no wait time.  They said that the rooms would not be ready until 1:30pm so we went to lunch.  As you walked into the Lido Buffet, there was a crewmember standing there with hand sanitizer, making sure everyone used it before they went in to eat. (This was consistent through the whole trip at all of their restaurants).  We really appreciated this since we were cruising just after the swine flu "epidemic" began.  It was the first time that we have been on a cruise that one of us didn't come back with a cold.   We did not book any excursions through the Celebrity Solstice.  We booked all private tours  just for the 4 of us before we left.   They were not only cheaper than the ones Celebrity offered, they were more flexible and built the tour according to how much time we wanted to spend at a site. On a couple of the tours, we actually changed parts of the itinerary as we went along. Things we liked about the cruise:The food was really good most of the time.  The only time we had issues with it was once or twice at night in the Oceanview Cafe.  They didn't have a lot of variety and sometimes it was cold. I think they wanted to encourage you to go to the dining room.  The food in the dining room was excellent.  We never had a bad meal there. The cabin attendants were awesome.  They always seemed to be on duty.  I don't know when they slept but they seemed to be available to us 24/7.  The waiters were also incredible.  They seemed to anticipate your every need.  The acupuncturist, Grace was very knowledgeable and was worth every penny I spent.  In general the whole staff was very good. The ship itself was beautiful and very clean.  It was easy to find your way around on the ship, which says a lot since I tend to get lost easily on cruise ships.  If you did get turned around, all of the crew were very knowledgeable and helpful in directing you to the right area. Things we didn't like:The ATM machines ran out of money about 3-4 days before the end of the cruise.  That in itself was bad enough but the front desk kept telling people that it was unable to get the signal when they were close to shore.  Of course after 2 days when it still didn't work we realized it was more than the signal.  One of the front desk crew finally told us that it was out of money and there was no way to fill it until the end of the cruise.  Unfortunately the others were still telling people that it was the signal until the day we disembarked.  They only had 2 ATM's on board for 3800 people. The meal times - They were 6:15 and 8:45.  The first one was too early, the last one too late.  We had the later time but switched half way through the cruise.  If you had the late dining, the show didn't start until 11pm  which was hard if you were going out the early the next day (10pm would have been fine).  Their shows were not attended well at all and I think part of it was their weird dinner times.  Everyone complained about that. The photographers were not as active as some of the cruises we have been on.  In fact we didn't even know that they were taking pictures at the dinner tables until several days in the cruise. Even on formal night, they still didn't take pictures of everyone in the dining room. They just seemed to do one side of the room and then left.  We are used to them being much more involved with the guests activities. Even though there were a few minor annoyances, It was a really good cruise, probably one of the best we have been on. We would definitely sail again on the Solstice.