Let me start with a little background. My dad (71) and me (29) go on a holiday every single year. The last couple of years we have been on various cruises and I hope we can keep doing that for the next 30 years although my dad doubts if that will happen. ? We are experienced travellers. We live near Amsterdam in the Netherlands. We have also cruised with Royal Clipper (beautiful ship, luxurious suites but unfortunately inedible food on our voyage), Oceania (nice ships, smallish but well appointed suites, friendly service and fabulous food). I have also sailed on Carnival with my girlfriend (just good value for money). This was our first time on Celebrity. Although there is no real comparison between Oceania and Celebrity size wise, they do both seem to offer a high end cruise experience for somewhat more affordable prices that the 'real' premium liners. The price for our Celebrity Suite on Celebrity Solstice was roughly the same as for a Penthouse Suite on Oceania sailing during the same period. I did find that Oceania offers a more personal and much more luxurious experience, but our Celebrity Suite on the Solstice was more beautiful, spacious, had a great lay out with a separate bedroom and had better amenities. Since the Solstice is so much bigger than the ships of Oceania, Celebrity does offer far more options, entertainment, bars and restaurants. The food in the speciality restaurants on Celebrity was as good as the ones on Oceania and the quality of the food in the main dining room was even better on Celebrity. The dEcor, atmosphere and especially the food quality of the Ocean View Cafe on the Solstice was unfortunately not comparable to that of Oceania. We were greatly disappointed with this venue on board. For now I will stop the comparison and just tell you about our trip.

Pre cruise documents

I was a little surprised that our cruise documents just were emailed. No booklet, nothing personal, no luggage tags just a conformation email telling me to print everything and fill in all necessary information online. That wasn't personal nor did make us feel very special. We did like the options to book the speciality restaurants on-line. Read more