A great and relaxing trip with good food at about 50% occupancy.

This is the second time Solstice has sailed from San Pedro California and they have some rough edges, namely the airport transfer. While the staff tried hard, apparently some admin person messed up the bus scheduling. We sat at the airport for over two hours before we gave up at 11:20 and took a taxi. Found out later that the bus arrived about 10 minutes after we left. Kudos to the Celebrity staff that put up with certain jerks (I am being polite) and for keeping us notified as to what they were being told. But once we got to San Pedro it was a smooth check in, mostly well organized with just a few stumbles in communications that were quickly recovered from, and we breezed onto the ship. That part was a relief after the airport and was a 4.8. Muster Drill was fast, watched the short movie on the phone at lunch, went to the station, scanned in, gone.

We did the Blu dining for breakfast and dinner. No complaints, desk staff were great, most of the waiters, mainly Joseph and Anthony, were great, the others we had a couple of times were good but not like them. Tia the wine person we did not use, but she stopped by and chatted. Milrose, the pastry server at breakfast was a hoot, even though we only took one pastry from her the entire week we had a great time talking with her. Breakfast was very good and the staff would run to another venue to get something the Blu did did not have for us. Dinner was mostly excellent with the ability to get items from the MDR menu as well as the Blu menu. Buffet we only did for lunch, but the breakfast and dinner looked good. With one exception, the lunch buffet was the best I have had. The exception was the Asian area and while I liked it, I thought the Holland Asian section was better. They had one section that was themed, Greek one day, Mexican, American, and others. Some of the deserts were actually tasty and the wife had some sugar free items that she said were very good. The pizza was good, but here we had an issue. One woman picked up the half pizza by hand, took one piece, put the rest back. Several of us complained to the pizza staff but they looked at the pizza and then ignored us. Specialty restaurants seemed very expensive compared to other lines we have been on. We did the Le Petit Chef and it totaled over $70 PP. Food was decent and the show (Family) was good. If we have the funds, we may try to get a different one next time. The show is basically a projection on the table of cartoon characters doing things that build your meal, then they slip a plate on the table that looks close to what the projection did. We had lunch at the Spa Cafe once, not our taste, but they had nice staff and good cookies. We did not drink anything but water on this trip, but one person, Iuliia (Russian) in the Ensemble bar was by far the best server at night. The others were just ‘working’, she was running around, getting orders, making, and serving drinks.

Pools were nice and had decent seating for reading, the adult pool was covered and a bit chilly and the chairs were not very good for sitting and reading and the wife sat down a bit hard and bruised tailbone. I liked watching the glass blowing but did not participate. The spa waiting room forward was a nice spot to look out over the ocean and to read in quite. I really can not say much about the other activities listed since they rarely had daytime music and I mostly kicked back and read, and watched people.

Other than a lack of daytime music, it was mostly pretty good. There was a band that played down at the bottom of the elevators we heard around dinner time and while going to other venues that sounded great, a pair of Russian ladies on violin and cello in the Ensemble bar we tried to do every night they played, and a Spanish couple (guitar and singer) did a couple of times mid afternoon in the Cafe al Bacio. Plays. None, just some productions. Amade advertised classical evolving to modern music, it played a few bars of the masters and then went to harsher modern music, we left. The Broadway Cabaret was ok, Master Cellist Bosworth was ok, Rock City was dance routines with the band ok to good, Upton the same, Comedian Francis Dilorinzo we missed due to the late dinnee at Le Petit. We did to shows with Andrew Lee, Mentalist and Magician, we like it but some folks did not complaining he was outdated and not using enough hi-tech stuff.

none

Room stewards were good, dis some extras for us, but not the best. Overall, most of the staff we interacted with were great as mentioned in other sections.

Glass elevators are not for acrophobics like the wife. Other than the layout for the Blu and Tuscan Grill area, it was fairly easy to find what I wanted, even without a good map (hate the environmentalists' "get rid of paper maps") Always saw someone cleaning in many areas.

I find it sad that the most of the pricier Blu cabins are under the pool area, while the cheaper ones are aft under other cabins. We managed an aft cabin which was comfortable. The best part of the bathroom was the shower had glass doors and was room, but the bad was there was no shelving in the shower to put stuff. But I rated it a 5 overall anyway.

Everything was fine, until the transfer bus. AC was flaky, door was broken and one guy had to hold the door shut with his belt. NOTE: do not blame the cruise line for the drop off points at LAX. LAX dictates two stopping spots and a long walk for some terminal, but some folks were saying it was Celebrity's fault and cussing up a hate storm no matter how much some of us tried to correct them.