Celebrity Solstice Review
Rating by category
Additional details
My wife and I started talking about our first cruise a year out. A friend at work and his wife are avid cruisers with lots of experience with various cruise lines. Another friend is also an avid cruiser and a travel agent (we booked our cruise through her). Between the two, we got lots of good advice.
Reviewing the various cruise lines available, we were interested in being around career professionals in their mid-50's (like us). Wanted to reduce exposure to the exclusive singles/party scene, too many kids and the golden age crowd. Heard various stories about seniors racing for the buffet tables on at least one well known cruise line. All in all Celebrity fit the experience we wanted. I would estimate the ship population mix at 45% senior couples, 40% professional career couples, 5% kids and 10% assorted singles of various stripes.
Because we had saved up for this cruise, we opted for some decent onboard packages including the full drink package and unlimited WiFi. I was disappointed that my Android Samsung smart phone was not compatible with the shipboard WiFi (a problem ship staff already knew about). But my tablet saved the day and quenched by thirst for email and daily national news. We decided for our first cruise we would make selected "purchases" to experiment. I did not recall it when we purchased our cruise reservations 8 months before the cruise, but we ended up with $300 in ship board credits that was nice. In the end we spent out of our pockets only at the gift shops and restaurants in the ports of call.
Cabin Review
Deluxe Veranda 1B
Based on available web site photos, for a Deluxe Oceanview Veranda cabin, I was not expecting a gold plated experience. The size of the smallish cabin was about as expected. Bed was very comfortable. The cabin did have 2 shortcomings: There an olive sized hole in middle of the leather sofa. I don't know how it could have been missed by staff. No effort to patch/repair or replace. The other quirk was a continual water leak on the veranda deck from an overhead drainage pipe. It caused drips all around our deck severely limited our ability to set comfortably in the deck chairs. Only 2 of the 8 days on board was the leak small enough to not be noticed. It did not rain during our cruise so I am not sure where the water came from.
For a future cruise, I would like to consider going with several other couples and renting a cluster of cabins with a combined deck.