Rating this cruise was tough--I'd say 4.5 stars is closer to my vote. The scenery in Southwest Alaska is spectacular. The seas were 'bathtub calm'--not at all what I expected in September. Sunny, with warm temperatures for 85% of the week--couldn't be better. The Solstice is a beautiful ship; very clean and modern. At about 2900 passengers, it was the largest ship we've sailed on. That's a lot of people, but in most cases, the numbers were handled well. Exceptions to that: the Dining Room table assignments--many people (like us) were "double-booked" on tables, and that was rather chaotic for a couple of days. My husband and I actually prefer to have an "assigned" table each night, as Celebrity does, and was a major factor for our ship choice. Also, the ship did not dock in Juneau like other cruise line ships did. Tendering this large crowd ashore was disorganized, and poorly handled--especially for the hundreds of passengers that had "independent" shore excursions (not sold by Celebrity). The ship's wait staff and cabin attendants were excellent, but its Guest Relations staff needs to have a refresher course. All in all, it was a VERY good cruise experience, and we recommend it.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
5 out of 5
The only blip was the "double booking' of some dining tables. Excellent food.
Onboard Activities
The schedule was packed--one could keep VERY busy during the days and nights.
Entertainment
5 out of 5
Excellent theatre choices and interesting lecturers.
Children's Programs
I don't know
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
This isn't really "quality", but we wished they had another group of elevators near the rear of the ship. There were elevators only in the front and midship areas.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Nice cabin! We recommended that they repair some of the holes in the well worn leather 'sofa'. The television didn't work, and we had to have a tech person "reset" it. The location of the cabin was excellent, and it had a much larger, angled (forward) balcony than most. This was great for viewing the scenery coming up. The cabin was VERY quiet--the quietest we've ever had on a cruise. (I'm wondering if that was because the entire cruise was on extremely calm waters--an unexpected surprise.)
Spectacular! And we got to get closer to the actual glacier end than any cruise ship had been able to before, since there was little floating ice around.
Very historic. We really enjoyed the BUS tour up White Pass and into Canada (a bit). Our tour guide was very good, and allowed us lots of stops for photo ops that the train didn't allow.
We''ve been to Victoria MANY times, so we didn't even get off the ship. But it is a beautiful city, with lots to see. Unfortunately, we arrived around 6:30 pm, so that didn't allow much time for passengers to visit the shops, etc. before sailing off at midnight. Not good timing for that stop.
Sounds like we may be doing the same Skagway tour and I picked it for just that reason-lots of stops to enjoy the view. We are not scheduled to port in Victoria until 7pm, doesn't leave much time to enjoy it. Thanks for your review, I really enjoyed it!
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