South Pacific - Australia Cruise Reviews

Our cruise from Perth to Sydney 6-15 December 2016 was plagued with technical glitches.

To start we endured 3 hour standing queues to embark as the card printer was not working properly.

Tried to use the phone app and Ipads on board to book things.  Mostly they did not work. The earliest booking for Ifly was 7 days later (but I enjoyed it when I finally got there).

Had to stand in line for 2.5 hours for a standby ride on the North Star Pod as no bookings were available. Bookings on port days were given to travel agents and media in preference to paying passengers.

Was unable to get a restaurant reservation for 'My Time Dining' for the whole cruise, had to eat in the cafeteria or dine standby at 6:30 or 8:30.

All four included restaurants were serving the same menu, not different menus as shown on the internet site when booking.

Food standard was average.

Cruise compass document has little new information.

The virtual balcony tv screen only showed a rear view, not choice of views as shown on the website.

Finally the feedback survey did not work, as the bar code on the feedback form was for the earlier cruises in China and was in chinese! So I am giving my feedback here instead.

On the positive side we enjoyed the Wonderland restaurant.  (Beware that if you let them choose dishes for you then you will get several deep fried dishes.) Our waiter was very nice in bringing another dish to make up for the deep fried stuff that I did not want to eat.

The shows were good, although very loud.

Our stateroom attendant was very good.

The solarium spa pool section was very good and nice to have somewhere to go out of the wind.

Overall facilities were very good, nice walking track and gym, excellent indoor court used for sports, bumper cars and roller skating.

The drinks were very expensive, but on our cruise we were allowed to bring our own wine to the restaurants with no extra charge.

Perfect in every way.New Zealand is Beautiful,best way to see NZ is cruising also,I will never travel any other way My next is January 2018 can't wait

Over all the cruise was OK. The food was very good and had a good variety. The bands, piano player and stringed group were very good. The staff was great. Service was great. The production shows, solo singers and magician were not up to par. Cooking classes were very good as well as the wine pairing seminars. The casino was just OK. 3 to 4 machines were out of service and 3 to 4 continually broke down, but the casino staff were very helpful in all areas. For the most part, docking was in the harbor and we had to be tendered to shore. When docked, the docks were working docks, filled with containers, etc. We were able to take 5 of the 6 shore tours booked. Norfolk Island was canceled due to rough seas. The tours were for the most part, way over valued (expensive). 3 of the 5 tours did not meet advertised expectations, one of which was so bad, they should give us all our money back.

- Moorea Island Highlights - Just OK. Hard to understand the tour guide

- Le Truck Island tour - Bad - should not be called a tour. didn't see much, very few views, couldn't understand the guide

- Pago Pago Eastside and Downtown - Terrible, terrible, terrible. No views, stopped at family craft spot, visited a beach that was nothing but a coral wading area where several people were cut and no entertainment as advertised. Should get our money back.

- Nadi Sightseeing - Good tour, nice views and good stops, good tour guide

- City Sights and harbor cruise - Good tour. Great views of all aspects of the harbor and a very informative bus tour of the city with good stops along the way. Good tour guide.

As first time cruisers we found it hard to start with as we didn't know how things run and where to go to find out info , people spoke to us as if we knew what happens.... maybe have a short info talk for first timers when you board the ship (optional) 

This was my first cruise and overall it was pretty good and fun.  The food in the main dinning room was very good.  The dinner wait staff we had was amazing and was on point the entire time.  The room was also nice and clean every day. The port of calls were nice except for Aukland.  There was just nothing in the dam city.  The rest were fun and were very entertaining.  The food was amazing. The lobster was VERY GOOD.  Overall the experience was very good and if i were to go on another cruise it would be with this ship/company likely.  Also casinos take all your money. 

We have traveled Celebrity for many years. I have watched this cruise line go from being high above the other mainstream cruise lines to being like all the rest.  As the onboard crew will always say "tell Miami" when you have a complaint. Some passengers were joking about this group of spoiled greedy young MBA's sitting in the Miami corporate office and trying to outdo each other with who can cut service in the least obvious way to save the most money.  Celebrity has always been a nickel and dime cruise line, but now it's not ashamed to show it....at every turn. 

All complaints aside, the itinerary was superb, the food and service in Blu was very good, and the ship is very pretty. Just dont look too close though, because Solstice is definitely showing its age. Rust, worn carpets with holes, dirty pool chair cushions, and so on are becoming noticeable if you look closely. "No one will notice" I'm sure "Miami" is thinking. After many years of loyalty to Celebrity, we have been sailing with other higher end lines and have been much happier. However, if Celebrity presents an itinerary that we love, we would sail them again with mediocre expectations. 

The ship was wonderful In all respects. The country of New Zealand captured my heart. Our shore excursions from sheep farms to Kiwi vineyards and Maori experiences were well worth the extra expense. I would highly recommend this trip.

Our first cruise on Celebrity and we where very pleasantly surprised. The ship was must larger than we normally book but everything was handled very well. We didn't experience long lines  or overcrowding and found the other passengers to pleasant and engaging. Everybody was willing to share tips or ideas on ports or seeing New Zealand.

May have been our first but we have booked others on Celebrity and are really looking forward to our next. 

Great first experience. We really loked what first looked to be a boring type of holidays. Awesome Australia, great ship, skillfull musicians. Special thanks to the crew members Alexander and Olena from Ukraine who helped us a lot on board. Great Art Gallery leaded by Valery. Will recommend the cruise to all friends 

I enjoyed this ship - it was large but not hard to get around. Better than some of the smaller ones which can feel a little too small - you run out of things to discover. We rarely eat at buffet - prefer a la carte dining. Shows were really good! Loved Tassie!!! Overall a very enjoyable cruise!

Had a wonderful time on this cruise. Had two level 7 balconies for a family group. Ship immaculately clean, housekeeping staff excellent and on the whole food of a very good standard considering how many people they are catering for. The itinerary was very good and even though we are NZers we enjoyed the spectacular scenery. I loved the christmas decorations, the well appointed centrally located cabin, the orderly manner of getting on and off the ship, the Apple certified trainer Charle's iPad workshops and the Main dining room and Murano speciality restaurant. food.

Our teenagers loved coming and going as they pleased and the family time that a cruise enables. Their favourites were the Ocean view buffet and the Mast burger bar near the pool. My husband loved the library and the running track and the gym and our balcony.

The weather was great and the Sounds cruising truly spectacular.

Only grumbles would be the expensive drinks packages and the exorbitant internet rates which we decided not to go for, so it got to be a long trip without our ultra fast broadband! Also quite a lot of pressure to spend money onboard, just have to exercise self restraint there. We got some lovely photos from the pro photographer, which I was happy to pay the rather high price for as they were the best photos we've had taken for a long time, and they were just the ones on the staircase in the atrium before dinner.

My advice for this ship is to get a 2a cabin around level 7 on the central hump, excellent value and if you can get perks included especially the internet and beverage package that is even better. These cabins seem to be more in demand than the 1A cabins, I think because they look down to the sea without obstruction. Have to book early for the Xmas trip as it was full and seemed to be very popular. Many aussies, americans and english onboard.

Shows were variable, some excellent, some not so good but I wasn't expecting a broadway quality show every night.

We boarded the Solstice on December 4th, 2015.  The check in was really fast and efficient.  The champagne greeting really hit the spot after touring The Rocks before we boarded.  Our stateroom was really nice...lots of storage for clothes and gear.  The staff was always available and the service was great.  The food in the Epernay dining room was really good.  Excellent selections, lots of variety.  The kangaroo was great (don't tell your granddaughters...).  The New Zealand ports of call were all fun.  When we got into the countryside the hospitality was great.  People went out of their way to take our photos, give us a lift and share information.

Jorge, Stanley and Serat took great care of us!

The ship is old the food is awful We all got very sick on the cruise . The staff could not care if you are having fun. Parts of the ship is falling apart. Sat on a chair in the celebrity lounge fell to the bottom. The shows were the staff members. 

We all had the worst time of our lives. Overnight trip o Queenstown what a rip off . 600 dollars a person not worth 200 dollars You can see I am so angry Celebrity gave my friends a free classic drink package  by mistake they told me tough on you Stay away you would be angry if your friends 2 couples paid the same as you did and they got a 1400 dollar upgrade Ship is falling apart. 

First of all we had a great time.  The room was nice. The food was much better than I expected it to be.  For the most part the service was good or above.  The main dinning room had some problems.  The big problem with this boat is there is not enough common space room for everyone. Everything was crowded. For the 9PM show there were never enough seats. I had to sit on the floor one night.  The one big lecture room was not that big and was always standing room with people sitting on the floor.  The buffet which was good for breakfast and lunch was always too crowded and took too much time to find a table.  The excursions were very expensive so we just walked off the boat and found local ones for less than half the price at every stop The entertainment was usually poor

First cruise around New Zealand from Brisbane return. This ship could do with a refit & 24 hr cafe same as he sister ship. All in all it was a good cruise with great weather apart from Milford sounds.

While I do like to cruise, I will be more discerning on our next cruise. The ship was fine, the crew were great, the captain was a true professional and did an excellent job keeping us out of Cyclone alley. Where the problem lay was the 'extras.'  Used to be that when you cruised a 'small' upcharge could grant you access to the special dining rooms, now that charge is substantial. In addition, if you did pre-book the special dining, it is quite irritating to see the dining packages 'discounted' onboard. One dining venue was a la carte - after you were seated you got to see the prices (but they do not tell you this when you book it online.) Drink packages were obscenely overpriced, but then so were the drinks. We drank lots of water. We noticed that the once filled lounges were sparsely visited and the casino was empty most of the time. Many other passengers on our cruise said they abhorred the nickel and diming and in protest did not buy drinks or gamble - it showed. There was lots of confusion over the Wine packages, which were unavailable just weeks prior to the cruise suddenly and then being sold at check in. We are not big drinkers, but we just could not see spending that kind of money on drinks we could never drink in a day. The people I really felt sorry for were the wait staff, it was not their fault a glass of wine was $12-19 per glass, but they bore the brunt of the non-drinking because as a result they got no tips.

Trivia games were popular as were the cultural talks and the art classes. Many of the 'games' were not geared to our group's age and the music, oh and sometimes the music drove us to our rooms - again probably an age thing, but most of us would have much preferred classical, country or what is now referred to a classical rock. We hated the rap and other 90's noise. We did find good music sometimes, but you never knew. We did have some fun, we met some wonderful new friends onboard. The Chef's Table was a great experience; the food and wines were wonderful.

The odd choice of stopping in an industrial port was interesting - if you wanted to see ore dug from the ground I guess it was OK. Most of the ship seemed to be Australians which was fine by us. With the political unrest and recent troubles in Indonesia we chose not to disembark at Bali, where the ocean waters were filthy with trash. The highlights were the stops at Airlie Beach, Brisbane, Darwin, Port Geraldton, and Perth. More excursion choices would have been nice.

I wonder if too many passengers knew that the room stewards gets paid ONLY the gratuities per room - no hourly wage and they share that with all the other non-seen crew. Our room steward told us that they work every day for seven months with no day off.  I left with a bad taste in my mouth for Royal Caribbean. If you knew that you will be spending an extra $2000 or so onboard maybe it would have helped me in my planning.

One trip & one issue changes our view of Princess.  We have been on several Princess trips and are members of the Captains Club.  Now we intend to vote with our pocket book and not use Princess or any of the Carnival lines.

In short an issue arose (with out credit card number) and the Diamond Princess staff failed to properly notify us, and then tried to make excuses and cover up the issue.  Finally a Supervisor called, admitted the problems was theirs, and wanted to end it by saying we are sorry.

My wife & I felt this was far to easy a way out for the service blunders that had occurred.  Princess wanted us to make an offer as to what it would take to  satisfy us.  My reply was that ball was in Princess court and we were not out to exploit the situation. 

From that point on we did not hear from Princess except to fill out their automated on-line review.

Sorry to say that one of the other non Carnival lines will now be used. 

This was our 3rd Time on the Solstice - and I have to say it's showing a bit of wear paint etc -but still a fine ship. Very Very Clean. Great Crew. First time doing Aqua Class- loved the restaurant and staff and food - wish they were open for lunch. Love the affordable all inclusive drink packages - which is why we sail with Celebrity. This was a great itinerary. Enjoyed the cruise. Unfortunately we had terrible weather most sea days which is when we like to relax outside. It was too windy and too cold and many times raining. Not Celebrity's fault - but I felt there wasn't a lot of creative things to do inside for our age group. Had we had affordable internet - we could have spent some creative time sharing photos from ports etc. Really in this day and age - the internet should be faster and cheaper.

Disembarkation was inconvenient. We walked about a few hundred meter with our luggage in order to gat to the nearest taxi. The taxi should be allowed to the same place as during embarkation.

Previously known for its food it is now only a small step above Carnival and RCCL offerings. No outstanding foods stood out (soup was absolutely horrible, green mold on cheese chunks) Many of the amenities taken away by these 2 cruise lines, still remain-offers of water, hot chocolate when returning from shore excursions, small bottles of shampoo, lotion, bar soap, use of umbrellas and waffle weave robes in cabins. Excellent handling of getting people to their shore excursions.