Celebrity not anywhere like it was

Celebrity Solstice Cruise Review to South Pacific - Australia

R2015

Contributor Level: Third Mate

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 3

Helpful Votes: 88

Overall rating:

2 out of 5

Verified Review

12 Night New Zealand (Sydney To Auckland)

Sail date: December 04, 2015

Ship: Celebrity Solstice

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 2015

Traveled as: Singles/Friends

Reviewed: 8 years ago

Review summary

If we hadn't cruised on Celebrity before, then our last cruise might have been totally satisfactory. But the fact is, we have cruised on Celebrity many times before, where we have reached elite status on its loyalty program, as well as on three other cruiselines, and we preferred Celebrity because of its service, dining, entertainment, and general passenger make-up. That Celebrity we knew is gone.

The food is bland, even in the specialty restaurants. Other long-time Celebrity passengers on board had the same comment. Service in the formal dining room is acceptable, but the flair that the experienced waiters had before is no longer there. Even the formal nights had been eliminated. The nightly entertainment in the theatre was for a much younger generation, the mature clientele that Celebrity is supposed to have. My luggage was damaged on disembarkation, and that would not have been a big deal if only the Celebrity staff gave me the correct information in the first place. But the fact is, a Celebrity official on shore during disembarkation told me to wait as a replacement would be given to me (which I found surprising as I did not think the ship would be carrying an inventory of luggage). After over 30 minutes of waiting and wasting my time, another Celebrity staff came after I asked what was happening and told me to fill up a claim form, which did not take more than couple of minutes. So what should have taken five minutes took 45 minutes. Cruising on Celebrity is just no longer what it used to be.