This was our 24th cruise, but our 1st cruise on Celebrity. (Certainly won't be our last!!) We have also sailed on Royal Caribbean, Holland, Princess, Viking (European river boat) and Carnival (once). Our 1st cruise was in 1991, a gift from my parents for my 50th birthday, on the retired Crown Princess. That 1st cruise hooked us onto cruising as a wonderful, relaxing vacation value. Solstice is an extremely BEAUTIFUL ship, both dEcor and layout of public areas.

We live in Tennessee and being retired, we prefer to drive to Florida ports, in order to avoid frustration with security and baggage weight issues. Plus driving allows us to visit relatives in FL and to go at our own pace. Due to a weather forecast of snow and cold weather early January, we headed farther south 5 days prior to the cruise, spending a night enroute in Macon GA in a Fairfield by Marriott, a favorite chain of ours. We used our Wyndham timeshare points to stay at Wyndham Palm-Aire in Ft. Lauderdale for 3 nights prior to cruise. (The 4 Wyndhams in Ft. Lauderdale are all very comfortable, and we have been spoiled with staying in spacious well-appointed apartments with all the facilities of home. Non-timeshare people can rent timeshare units from Wyndham through several websites.) Thurs Jan 7 and Fri Jan 8 were warm, sunny & definitely Florida-weather, but that changed abruptly overnight. We enjoyed the Carrie B boat tour of Intercoastal and a great meal outside at Bubba Gumps on A1A. Saturday was cold and rainy - a perfect day for Sawgrass Mills shopping center, which was packed with half of south FL, followed by a wonderful early dinner at Sea Watch restaurant on A1A, a favorite of ours. Also on Saturday we drove down to a residential area across from Port Everglades to get a glimpse of the Oasis of the Seas, and I was able to get some good photos of the amazing aft end of Oasis despite the rain. Although Sunday was once-again sunny but extremely windy and cold, we had to wear our winter coats and gloves to the ship - colder than boarding the cruise ship in Alaska!!

We parked at the "Park N Go" facility and can highly recommend this new company, which offers 1 free day coupon after you make a reservation. Although there were 5 or 6 ships in port that Sunday, Park N Go had plenty of drivers and buses to take us to the Solstice. We found the same very convenient service back to the parking lot after disembarking. Read more