Fantastic first cruise!

We sailed on Solstice 30 March from Sydney to the GBR and back over 12 nights

This was our first ever cruise and we chose well – people we spoke to onboard said we had chosen the best cruise company to go with

We did a lot of research before choosing this cruise and chose it because of the itinerary and because Celebrity seemed more of a ‘grown up’ cruise catering more for adults than children.

We arrived in Sydney the day before our cruise (thanks to the advice we got from fellow Cruise Critic members) and awoke to see Solstice from our hotel in Sydney.

Boarding was ok – took about 45 minutes from the time we entered the queue, to the time we made it on board. We were greeted with a warm welcome and a glass of champagne…. But didn’t know what to do next – no one advised us where we could go or what to do, so we sat in café al bacio, had a drink and a chat with some fellow passengers.

We did a ship tour that afternoon where one of the staff showed a group of us around the ship to get familiar with the layout…etc…. and that was well worth it

The muster drill was a bit of a mess…. We didn’t know what to do and assumed everyone met in the theatre, but we were then told to go to the main dining room.

We were very impressed with the size of the staterooms and how well they had been designed. There was plenty of storage space for clothes and even the suitcases could fit under the bed. We were on deck 9 in stateroom 9221

We were worried about ‘chair hogs’ at the pool but there wasn’t a problem with finding a lounger / chair in the pool areas on Solstice.

Now the good stuff – Food, Entertainment, Service were all top notch. We were very impressed with the food in the Main Dining Room and in the ocean view café / spa café.

We ate in the MDR every night at 8:30pm because the food / service was just so good.

The shows in the theatre every night were all top quality and entertaining – they had everything from comedians / impressionists / violinist / Motown singers as well as the solstice singers / dancers who put on their own fantastic shows.

Service was also excellent – we never saw a grumpy face the whole cruise. Everyone always smiled and said ‘good morning’ or ‘have a nice day’.

There were plenty of activities to do on the ship – everything from Rumba dance lessons to music trivia, pub quizzes, talks on different topics, plus in the evenings and at see the shops on board were open

After about day 3 we had decided we liked it so much that we would like to do another cruise, so we booked one while onboard for April 2020.

We had an absolutely fantastic time and thoroughly enjoyed the whole cruising experience and we are now cruise converts!