South Pacific Cruise Reviews

Ship was very good. Clean and modern room. I'd give the food an 8.5 out of 10. Ports were great and the special overnight tour was well worth the price.

This cruise was dream cruise for me. Since I was young I always wanted to go to New Zealand and Australia. The staff on board did what they could to make up for the lacking staff. We were informed several staff was off for the  holiday. The internet did not work.  Photographers had to be tracked down to get photos made even though I pre paid for the photos a head of time. The food in the dining area was cold at time. We had to  wait for water and refill as staff was not around.

The positives were the Bar tenders were great as well as the coffee bar staff. Our  room was cared for by a great crew.  The buffet staff was much more available then the  dining room staff.

The staff working the excursions was also great very  helpful too. I  enjoyed the port of calls and had a great  time talking with  the natives.

The cruise was very nice,the ship cleaned and well maintained. The food was good and the service really good on the main dining Grand Epernay but the food was poor quality on the Ocean view cafe.The stateroom was OK and the service really good in the cabin, well cleaned. The entertainment was really not at at a level we expected for Celebrity,especially for Christmas time. ( especially shows at the Theater)  . But the worst will be our experience at the jewelry shop.We bought a Tag Heuer watch ( 3000 US$value).After 2 days and a visit at the pool,the watch was full of water ( supposed to be a diving resistant), they did not want to repair or exchange the watch ( still have one in stock). This event has ruined a part of our cruise experience. The manager of the shop,a turkish girl was not professional at all. Those people are not able to manage a shop with luxury brands and are not a good publicity for those brands. 

Ship and crushing were exceptional , food in the restaurants better than the dining room or windjammer stay away from those 

bar staff, shows, sports and spa awesome

excursions and ports were terrible had to tender to 2 different islands could not even get on the second island Jesu stayed on the ship the ports were awaful nothing to see or do beaches marginal why Royal decided to go to these three ports when there are many other options from Sydney is a mystery to me hopefully they will not go back to these ports

All in all it was a good cruise.  Enjoyed the breathtaking views of New Zealand especially cruising through the sounds.  It met my expectations.

The Celebrity Solstice is a lovely clean ship. Lots of activities and entertainment aboard. 

Ending the trip in Sydney was fantastic.  It was so wonderful to open the curtain an see the Sydney Opera House up close and in person.  Always thought the roof or sails were white when they are actually beige.

Sydney is a lovely walkable city but expensive.

Looking forward to visiting Australia again, if not on a cruise definitely an on land trip to view more of the country.

Even though the flight and traveling was long, I highly recommend this itinerary.

Happy Cruiser

The 11 day PG cruise to French Polynesia was wonderful. The locations, the cruiseship, its crew and their services, the food and entertainment, were all excellent. I would highly recommend this world class cruise to anyone.     

In 2010 my sister and I had the good fortune to cruise on Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas -top of the line experience.  Since that time we have cruised every year on other cruise lines and always agreed that RC was our best in every way.  We were not disappointed for the most part - Voyager of the Seas was a different model but RC has such a superb ambience throughout.  Here are some of the things we were thrilled with:  Outstanding RC orchestra; excellent headline shows except for a couple which I will address later; great food; friendly and helpful staff and crew; Park West very personable, efficient - thoroughly enjoyed interaction with them.  Enjoyed the Christmas atmosphere and the attention to the children's enjoyment, even though we did not have any children - just nice to see the ship's interest in their wonderful overall experience even opening the ice rink for their enjoyment.  Excellent ice show - went twice - still wanted more!!!

Special kudos to the Captain who kept his ship under control - hardly any rocking to and fro - not one night did the ship rock me to sleep - darn!!! Special mention of the excellent service by our room steward, Inyoman Yoga; servers in dining room, Dinesh and Xuetin and Vinkada; Sean and Seananna O'Conner, Tanya, Brittony, Preston and Li, the art gallery crew; everyone in the buffet and Café Promenade.  We had one great tour guide at The Isle of the Pines, Aina - so personable and very informative.

Now some of the things we did not enjoy.  The hypnotist show - he had a very offensive and rude attitude towards the audience.  The magician who needed better technology so we could see what he was doing when mingling with the audience thus did not enjoy this show.  Felt a little cheated with short stay in Auckland NZ - after travelling so far (US) then having to be on ship so early.

Suggestions:  more 24 hour eating places;  more food coverage especially after returning from excursions; more iced tea coverage throughout the ship, especially the Café Promenade and do not be afraid to put "ice" in the iced tea; would have been nice to hear the announcements in our room.

OVERALL:  it was a relaxed, "have fun" environment!!!!!!

Royal Caribbean is still #1 in our book.

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.

The Celebrity Solstice main dining room tables are way too close - feel as if we are packed like sardines. The fish and meat were over cooked. The size of most dishes are also smaller than before. It's a shame.

14 days of pleasure and relaxation. 

As anticipated, Princess, in my estimation still delivers everything promised and more.

Very well organized in every aspect. Everything on board was perfect and all shore excursions were as described and very enjoyable.

United Cruises proved to be a very good booking agent and will certainly use them again for all future cruises!

We thoroughly enjoyed the cruise.  The only negative would be the selection of food in the International Dining Room.  Being from the United States we kept looking for a dish that we recognized.  We had difficulty with payment for the side tours.  We had brought AUD funds to pay for the tours but were not allowed to so.

While the locations were excellent this ship is very middle of the road especially when it came to eating.  There is plenty of food, just generally mediocre to poor.  The non-lemon lemonade is one example as was a hard-boiled egg for Eggs Benedict.  They had lamb so tough even the carver couldn't cut it and the list goes on and on.

Information was poor.  For example after a week on board we learned that the New York Times had been available for free on line the whole time.  Learned other things after the fact as well.

Do not exchange money on board!!!!.  As an example in Indonesia they charged about 6 percent exchange rate and on shore it was under 1 percent of the official rate.

Overall, we enjoyed this Cruise.  However, there were some issues.  I really think Royal Caribbean needs to put some more time and planning in the shore excursions, especially in Cairns, Port Hedland and Darwin 

Our cabin needed some updating, but was okay. 

We did enjoy meeting and talking to the Australians we met at meals and other sites on the ship.

The wait staff and room steward were great.

First of all, the ship's atmosphere was tense due to the sanitation issues from the previous cruise....being served at the buffet and always being reminded of the health concerns was stressful.  The staff was polite and efficient but overall there was a cloud of heaviness.  The captain was personable and available which is a positive.   The cruise director was fake - really did not have an engaging personality as he introduced the performers....sounded rote rather than real.  Other cruises I have been on had cruise directors who were cheerleaders and fun......

Room Steward was pleasant, efficient, personable.....Food was OK.....took the galley tour and got ill the next day so don't know for sure what that was about but lost a day at the reef?????

Really like Celebrity. Have sailed on the Solstice before. Ship really needs new furniture, especially on deck ( worn,some torn, faded). Food was not special in any way in dining room. Guess this is to force you to use the speciality restaurants for added costs. Cafe was much Better. Overall, you can't beat the service onboard. Due to weather a lot of indoor time was experienced. Lots of nice people with a seat hard to come by in thr public areas.

I had a wonderful experience on this cruise. The ambiance of the ship, the dedication of the staff, and the Itinerary were excellent.The destinations were very interesting. I was particularly impressed with the sailing in the sounds and the fjords Which were the best in the world. 

What a fabulous cruise.

We thoroughly enjoyed everything and were treated like VIPS wherever we went. We did not expect to have such a wonderful time on such a huge vessel and we were quite wrong.

Our only disappointment would be a wine tasting ( world wine)which we found to be a bit haphazard and a "free for all". However, this id simply constructive criticism only as it did not in any way reflect on everything else which we enjoyed to the full. We were particularly grateful to have met such fabulous staff ( those we found to be exceptional are named below). They are all to be applauded as they helped to make this one of our best cruises ever.

We will continue to use & recommend Celebrity highly.

internet was bad, too bad to be able to use, web pages and e-mail wouldn't load, yet no refund; they try to take every last penny from you, whether they deserve it or not. $3.25 for a small bottle of water? Really? The excursions run from mediocre to terrible. Food is monotonous. Service staff - room attendants, etc. - generally very good. Unreasonable to charge $8.00 to be able to get fountain soda (and up to $22/day or more for other soft drink packages.). Entertainment ranged from good to bad, but unfortunately most of it was very, very bad. They cater to "Diamond Club" members who have full use of the best lounge (only one where you can really see out) to the detriment of the rest of the passengers (like me).  You can look at the food on RCI to see how they cut corners - no veal, for example, in any dishes -they substitute cheaper pork. Medical staff is not smart enough to figure that if they taped open the rest room doors that would decrease the chance of transmission of norovirus, a problem on cruise ships and on this cruise ship as well.

Our 5th HAL cruise and 2nd on the Noordam. We were not disappointed. The service and dining on the boat were both fantastic.The Noordam was well taken care of as we saw constant cleaning, polishing, and upkeep. We opted for a suite this time and it was lovely. We used the gym, spa, casino, lounges, and attended all the shows and music we could fit into our schedule.

BB King Blues Club singers were great, offering a wide variety of music. Adagio players in the Explorer's Lounge were exceptionally good. Captain Henk Draper sailed the ship beautifully, knowing when to slow her down to avoid excess motion and when to speed her up.  There was plenty of trivia, music, culinary classes, port talks, and information sessions throughout the 14 days. We could not fit everything in our schedule that we wanted to do while on board.The ports of call were fantastic. Plenty to see, information at each port available for "sight seeing on our own". Shuttle buses provided where needed and everyone we encountered was friendly, helpful and smiling.

See detailed reviews below for each category. We took many pictures, I've shared just a few.

We obviously enjoyed our trip based on the five star rating.  While every shore excursion was either very nice or wonderful, the length of the excursion often precluded time for anything else in the town.  

Holland America could set themselves apart by offering free on board wifi.

We purchased extended leg room seating on both Delta and Air New Zealand.  Delta was fine.  Seating on Air New Zealand very disappointing and just plain cramped.  Would not to choose to fly that airline again.

We loved New Zealand.  Glad the itinerary included cruising Milford Sound.

Julie, from Cruises Only, was wonderful.  Attentive.  Helpful. Friendly.  Professional.  Good job, Julie!