Waiting for our Celebrity Solstice sailing to arrive was much like waiting for the Freedom of the Seas, when we booked her in her inaugural year. Not only did we have that sense of anticipation that you get from knowing there is a vacation on the distant horizon, we got to watch as each of the details of the ship was unveiled, knowing that we were going to get to experience these treats first-hand. We booked the hour that bookings opened and signed up for an Aqua Class cabin that was slightly forward of the forward elevators. Our feeling was that this would allow us to avoid the over-hang that seemed likely to shade the bulk of AQ cabins. Also, this would put us under the hair salon instead of the pool and after experiencing a lot of cleaning noise each day at 6 a.m. with a room under the pool on HAL's Westerdam, we had no hopes of repeating the experience. Only time would tell if we were right, but I’m getting ahead of myself in this story. I should stop to say that I’m a 42 year-old guy who travels with his partner, also in his forties, and we were traveling with another couple. We’ve sailed on 14 previous cruises, mostly with RCL but also with HAL and NCL. This was our third Celebrity cruise, having sailed on Century and Constellation.

We flew to Florida on a direct flight from Ottawa. Many of you will take for granted the ease of a direct flight but for us, not having to connect through Toronto, Philadelphia or some other city made the trip so much easier. We were initially scheduled to fly down in the morning (with our return flight being at noon of disembarkation day) but our outbound flight was re-scheduled to noon a few months before the trip. I suspect that this is because now the return flight from Florida is at 4:30 and this allows Air Canada to attract cruise passengers returning to both Fort Lauderdale and Miami. The flight down left more or less on time and we had the curiosity of being able to see one of the Air Force One planes that have United States of America on the side of them sitting at the diplomatic terminal in Ottawa. I understand there are several of these planes and presume that this one was here doing advance work ahead of President Obama’s visit here later this month. The funny thing is that on the way to our last cruise, when we had to connect in Philadelphia, we saw the McCain/Palin plane. What a funny coincidence.

The flight itself was fine and I love Air Canada’s in-flight entertainment systems, which feature on-demand movies, TV and XM at every seat for free. Our bags came without incident at the Fort Lauderdale airport and we managed to fill out our paperwork for the car rental very quickly, too. We reserved the car through Priceline for $20 a day for a mid-size and were upgraded to a crossover Mazda 5 at check-in. It was a nice ride.

Our room was incredibly comfortable and included not only a mini-bar but also an empty fridge for our own use. I’ve never seen that before. Our bath had a separate shower and tub, with the tub being deep and quick to fill. If you’ve stayed in a Westin before, then you know already that the beds are incredibly comfortable. I think Westin was the first hotel chain that started selling their beds to guests, due to so many of them asking to buy one having had a good night’s sleep.

We set out from the hotel for Wilton Manors to have dinner with a couple we met on our NCL cruise last year. Mike and Mark are fun to chat with and seem to have similar cruise expectations and experiences to ours. We really enjoyed their company and we liked the restaurant they chose, Rosie’s, a fun local place. By the time we got back to the hotel, I was bushed and I think I was asleep within a minute or two of hitting the pillow (note earlier comment about the comfy bed!).

The nice thing about flying in two days ahead is that the day before the cruise is so much more relaxing and you arrive on the ship less weary. We spent the morning sleeping in, running to McDonald’s for breakfast (something we have never actually done in our hometown) and heading over to the Sawgrass Mills Mall for some off-price deals. We each had a seated massage and we bought a few things but it was a pretty aimless morning. We do enjoy Target stores and Sawgrass has a Super Target. We have nothing to compare in Canada. Stores are either cheap and crummy or they’re expensive (and crummy).

We headed back to Hollywood and were tucked into bed sometime around midnight, knowing that the very next day, the real vacation starts.

Sunday

The day was finally here!!!! Today we were going to board the ship we'd waited eighteen months to see. I don't know about you, kind reader, but I am someone who finds it hard process, how quickly something I've looked forward to for a very long time becomes something that is happening (and then a memory) so quickly. I was determined to take in the whole experience and remain in the moment as much as possible.

Before I start in on today, I think I should describe a perfectly poetic piece of justice we saw the night before. We were driving home from South Beach and were closing in on our hotel when a car swerved in front of us, passing cars on the left and right as though he were driving in a video game. Why do people like this never, ever get caught, we wondered, just as we saw that in fact this person was being pulled over. I'm not a spiteful person, I hope, but it's nice to see this sort of behaviour curbed. Anyway, back to today.

We got up fairly early and puttered around the room. Because we had such an amazing balcony and a fridge, we had decided the day before to buy some breakfast supplies at Target and eat at the hotel. We had those individual bowls of cereal, which were a dollar at Target and almost $4 at the hotel coffee shop, as well as pastries, yoghurt and fruit. All in all, a good way to start the day. It was still cold in Fort Lauderdale and so I had to have socks on to be on the balcony but didn't realize until I saw the pictures that I had become one of those people who apparently think it's ok to wear dark socks and a white robe. Not pretty.

We went from there to Winn-Dixie to buy some Bailey's Irish Creme for the cruise. We're not big smugglers but there is no way we're going to have a balcony without having Bailey's in our coffee during breakfast and I don't know how we could accomplish that onboard otherwise. I love Winn-Dixie because their liquors are really cheap and they always seem to have some little thing we don't have at home, which we enjoy trying. I used to think Winn-Dixie was a name made up for the movies and was surprised when we actually saw our first one on a trip to Florida. Now, we want to find a Piggly Wiggly.

From the Winn-Dixie, we went to the gas station to fill up the car. I forgot to keep the receipt, which was silly of me and annoyed Mike. We recently dropped off a car in Ottawa after-hours and they claimed I had not returned it full and charged me $30 for a quarter tank of gas (crooks!). A receipt from a nearby garage would have been acceptable proof that they were wrong but I had thrown it out. Luckily, this car was being returned when the agency was open and I made a point of reminding the attendant that it was full.

I like renting cars in Florida. It's quick and easy, as opposed to some places where the paperwork makes me feel as thought I'm buying a timeshare. We've also learned that you can rent a car in practically any touristy city in Florida and drop it off in another without an extra fee. I also just like the sheer organization of it all. We pulled into the rental car parking garage at Fort Lauderdale and had our receipt and were on our way within a minute or so. Most of the car agencies have banded together and offer a free shuttle to the port from just outside the parking garage, too. They use the same buses that shuttle you between terminals so there's lots of allowance for luggage. We were at the port in no time!

We were the second drop-off of the morning (after the Princess ship) and arrived around 11:15. They had just begun checking in people and we were unsure whether we should join the Aqua Class or the Captain's Club Elite line. A guide told us the AQ one was faster and I'm not so sure about that. We only waited about 5 minutes but the other lines had more people serving them. No big deal, though.

There was no special area for Elite guests to wait in FLL (although they do seem to have a suites area) so we were with the great unwashed (or, as you could point out, us a few cruises ago). I say that smilingly, I hope you realize. In any event, we waited there only for about 5 minutes before they let us on at about 11:30.  We went up the escalator, had our security and souvenir pictures taken and were on the ship, being welcomed with champagne. Our cruise was no longer in the future, it was happening now. We noticed that there were two ramps (steep ones, too) leading up to the ship. Ours deposited us near Café al Bacio. The other one was nearer the forward elevators.

There were announcements regularly, welcoming people aboard and asking us not to proceed to our rooms until they were opened at around 1 p.m. but we went anyway. We do try to be considerate guests and follow the rules but I was carrying a laptop in my backpack and it was heavy! We didn't plan to stay in the room so much as drop our bags and leave immediately so we hoped it was okay, which it was. Our room attendant came in and apologized that she was not done preparing our room and in all honesty, I could not imagine how she could improve upon it. It was immaculate, with champagne on ice and everything else in place. Nonetheless, this was still her workspace and not yet our room so we locked the laptop in the large safe and headed out.

We started touring the ship from the top, making our way downward. All I can say is that this is the very first time that we have followed a ship from drawings to reality where the in-person experience was as good as the drawings made it look. Each and every area, practically, elicited a WOW from us, even though we had poured over pictures, drawings and other travelers' albums for months and months. We really were blown away by how pretty the ship is. Beyond that it was just a great ship, we loved being able to explore a new ship, where we didn't automatically know where everything was already.

We checked our room to see if the luggage had come since we had express delivery as a perk of being in Aqua Class but it had not. Express service has never once worked for me. We're always at the terminal early but I don't think we've ever got our luggage until well after the muster drill. We took the opportunity of the time and toured the rest of the ship. My plan with this review is to talk about the rooms as we used them but as an overall comment, I will say that the ship is very spacious and has so many quiet corners for conversation that it's simply impressive! Celebrity tends to feature longer itineraries and I can't imagine getting bored of this ship.

The muster drill was at 4 p.m. and it was very brief. We were not required to go to our actual lifeboats but rather we went to our gathering stations. For us that meant filing into the theatre and waiting for instruction. The safety video was played in English only on the screens and then our safety monitors gave us some more information, also only in English. Then, it was over. On other lines, I've listened as they simply tell people in a few other languages to refer to channel x in their rooms for instructions in their language but we didn't hear that. We heard a lot of French around the ship from passengers so this surprised me.

From the muster, we raced to drop off our life jackets and then head up to the deck for sailaway. I love the point where you start to push away from the pier and also when the ship passes all the condos and heads for the open sea! We actually backed out of our berth and then turned around. The ships' abilities to do this stuns me still. We enjoyed the sailaway drinks we'd bought and watched the world go by for a while. This was a great way to spend the first day of February for this Canadian!!!!

We wandered around a little while longer and then returned to the room to unpack some of our things. The storage space in the AQ cabins is a little tight, as it is in the others. The five drawers are a little shallow but we found that the bins over the beds held all of our t-shirts and shorts. The bathroom had great storage but I think they could have used all the dead space under the sofa for a couple of large drawers of storage (I mean the sofa in the room; there isn't one in the bathroom).

Since I'm telling you about the cabin anyway, let me say that the AQ one is a winner! It's a standard balcony cabin that has a few cool flourishes. The wall is curved so that each two cabins interlock. This accommodates the fact that you need more room to get around the end of the bed than in the rest of the cabin. This is why every other cabin has the bed closer to the cabin door or the balcony door. The balconies themselves have two chairs and two ottomans. It didn't occur to us until late in the week that the chairs themselves recline (we're not that bright). Very comfie!!!

The AQ cabins come with an expanded room service breakfast, to include some smoothies, and the in-room TV also has some wellness classes loaded in the on-demand system. Speaking of the on-demand, it's a big winner! The TV has about thirty movies you can watch for free at will, pausing and coming back anytime within 48 hours, even if you've watched other shows in the meantime. There are also movies you have to pay for (which were not necessarily newer), music to listen to, port lectures, excursion previews, maps and all sorts of neat diversions.

Finally, Aqua class has a few other treats, like flowers, fresh fruit, champagne on arrival and a selection of pillows to choose from. The body pillow was almost as tall as me and took up half my bed.

We met up with David at the buffet for what has become a tradition for us. We like having sushi on the sunset bar as a snack. We've discovered we deal well with late dining if we do this. We don't go hungry and we're not over-eating when we arrive for dinner at 8:30. It was pretty to watch Florida disappear on the horizon.

After this, we stopped by the computer room and purchased an internet package. We did this because if you do it the first day, you get a bonus of 20%, in terms of minutes in your package. The ship has wi-fi most everywhere so I was rarely in the computer café when I was using my minutes. Of course, if you didn't bring a laptop, you could use the computers in the café or you could rent a laptop, according to their brochures.

We went from here back to the room to change for dinner, before heading to the martini bar. I felt badly for the martini bar waiters because many of the people who had plopped down in seats had no intention of buying a drink, they were just early for their dinner seating and decided this was a good place to take up space. I'm not sure why anyone shows up fifteen minutes early for dinner on a cruise (it's not like there is a shortage of tables) but many of the people occupying space in the martini bar didn't want to buy a drink and were preventing others from getting one. Many of them were defensive as waiter after waiter approached them to offer a cocktail, which they had no intention of buying.

After this, Mike and I strolled through the shops and photo gallery. The shops were more extensive in most ways than the other Celebrity ships, but were rather pricey. The photo gallery offered an intriguing deal. For $99, you can have every picture they take of you for the whole cruise. They also will do a private sitting with you at locales around the ship. Solstice's photo program did seem a bit more imaginative than most ships these days.

After this, we attended the Friends of Dorothy gathering, a mixer for the line's gay passengers. No women ever showed up (as seems common) but lots of guys did and we met some very nice people we'd see over and over throughout the week. This was held in the Galleria Tastings Bar. I'm not sure I ever saw any tastings actually going on here, come to thinks of it. Our friend Tim is good at plunging in and introducing people so I find that if you just stay close to Tim, you'll eventually meet everyone.

It was getting late and so Mike and I excused ourselves and took a walk on the deck before bed. Somehow, we wound up in the casino and I donated $20 to the cause. There is no smoking in the Solstice casino and that doesn't seem to have put a dent in their earnings. I suspect there are some who do not come out anymore but they have been replaced by others who didn't like the smoke when it was allowed. Smoking is very curtailed on the Solstice but there are certainly a few venues where it is allowed.

We went to bed this night throughly blissful.

Monday - Sea Day

What could be better than waking up and knowing you are heading to a cruise ship? Waking up on one! It’s a nice sort of realization that for me, usually begins with a lot of questions. Where am I? Why is this bed so small? Why is Mike snoring? I may pay for that last comment.

I woke up early, as I do at home. I try my best to sleep in on vacation but it doesn’t usually happen since my body seems hard-wired to get up around 6. Today, I was up at 7 a.m. (a small victory) and not wanting to waken Mike, I slipped on some shorts and a t-shirt and headed out. I hadn’t slept all that well so I decided to go and sit in the relaxation room of the Aqua Class for a while and just mellow out. It’s at the front of our deck and is composed of a bunch of loungers that are beyond comfortable. Whoever chose the furniture for the Solstice should be given a bonus, I think. The relaxation room has tea, fruit and water coolers with lemons or cucumber slices in them. I sat and watched the waves for a while before heading up to the gym area. There was a spiral staircase from our deck directly into the spa, which was sort of nice.

The Persian Garden is comprised of a number of elements, including ceramic chairs that are heated. I lay down on one and thought maybe it was not turned on but noticed that the longer I lay there, the warmer it felt. I’m not really sure how this works but I do recall in some early reviews that folks claimed that these warn not all that warm. Maybe they didn’t wait long enough? Whatever the case, I felt as though I was falling asleep and the thought of snoring as some other poor soul walked in was enough to convince me to move along.

The other elements of the thermal garden are less likely to lull you to sleep. The herbal steam is just that, a steam bath that smells of herbs. It started off slowly but I found that by ensuring the door was closed firmly, the room filled with enough steam. At the other side of the Persian Garden was the aromatic sauna. It was essentially a sauna with a metal container of oil that was giving off a very nice smell. I’m not great at describing smells so all I can say is that it reminded me of that first rush of smell you might get if you walked into an Aveda store or spa. It was very nice. Oddly, one of the large windows was broken and sealed up. It looked like something very large had struck it, which given that it was on one of the highest decks of the ship was rather puzzling.

The last elements of the experience was the showers. There was a spring rain setting where the water same down gently from a number of streams above and a tropical rain setting where the force of the water was stronger. This rain was a little too refreshing and cold for me.

Most of the areas here have a really terrific view of the sea but later in the week, our friend caught a view he had not expected when he went to the Persian Garden with the aim of using one of these showers only to discover a man and woman enjoying the showers in a way the designers hadn’t intended. Enough said.

Even a thoughtful partner can be only so thoughtful when he’s hungry so I went back to the room to wake Mike up before our breakfast arrived. We’d filled out the card and hung it on the door the night before. Celebrity allows you to order via the in-room TV service but it’s rather tedious because you have to scroll through and find each little thing (including jam, creamers, etc.). The door-hanger is the way to go, in my opinion. You have to indicate a 30-minute window within which you want it delivered and our meal came in the first five minutes of that window.

One of the nice things about Aqua Class is that the breakfast room service is somewhat expanded. We had some nice smoothies and other treats that we think are not on the regular menus, or are offered for a fee as premiums (we saw the smoothies done this way later in the week).

The slow and easy balcony breakfast we enjoy once or twice a cruise is probably 80% of the reason we get balconies. We rarely go out there otherwise but I like the mental space of not feeling hemmed in by four walls. I also really like being able to have fresh air in the room. This morning, we enjoyed the Bailey’s in our coffee, the sea breeze and each other’s company. It was a renewing and enjoyable time.

We bumped into our friends David and Tim and that’s when we realized that we were not just bumping into them. They were where we agreed to meet; we had just actually forgotten about the meeting and got lucky by being in the right place at the right time. David and I had agreed to meet for the wine tasting and Mike and Tim set off for other pursuits. I’m not always the most thoughtful friend (that’s Mike’s department) but I do get lucky sometimes.

The wine tasting for Elite members is free and was attended by about 75-100 people. The sommelier who led it was very chatty at first and we had a lot of learning before we were aloud to taste our first wine. Clearly, though, he knew what he was doing because once some folks had a bit of wine, it was harder to hear the sommelier! I think it’s kind of rude of people to come to something like this and then talk amongst their table the whole time but then again, it was early in the day to be drinking, too! Still, it’s not a free wine and snacks session, it’s meant to be a lesson. We thought the leader dealt well with it and the people who kept wandering in through the entire session. At first, we thought they were just the chronically late people you see everywhere but then it turned out that some of them were just VERY early for lunch and wanted to be seated and wait for service to begin. Honestly, I don’t understand this impulse.

After the session, David and I enjoyed a coffee at the Café al Bacio. The place is pretty busy and the service is great. The coffee is for a fee but the delicious pastries are complimentary. I managed to abstain because lunch was coming up.

For lunch, we ate at the Aqua Spa Café. This was a big favorite on Constellation and particularly on Century, where it has its own area tucked next to the spa. On Solstice, it is a very small space in a high-traffic pedestrian area, so that was a bit of a let-down. The food we ate was very good and we had a great meal. I had a mint and melon salad and a plate of antipasto. I think a lot of people avoid the Aqua Spa Café because they think that healthy food will be foisted onto them but they miss a lot of really tasty food combinations in the process.

After this, Mike and I found a very comfortable Bali-style bed in the solarium and conked out for a while. These are round beds with a sort of domed tenting on the top and are absurdly comfortable but I had to leave because there was a group of Canadians sitting nearby in a hot tub yammering away about politics. We’re Canadian and the only thing worse than listening to Americans prattle on in overly partisan tones turns out to be hearing Canadians do the same at a deafening volume. Why do people in hot tubs always yell? It didn’t take long to grow tired of hearing the new from home as it was being filtered by these talking heads.

I coped with this by taking a nap in the room, which I highly recommend. I followed this with what would become a bit of a daily ritual. The in-room movie system has a collection of free movies and some movies for a fee. I started watching the movie Knocked Up and watched maybe 20 minutes of it. On Solstice, you can pause a movie and come back and watch it later so I did this and then retreated to the relaxation of the Persian Garden again. I started in the men’s locker room sauna but it was very crowded. That’s the nice thing about Aqua Class, being able to use the Persian Garden for free, but the cynical side of me wonders if they’ve reduced the size of the free sauna to push people in this direction.

I headed back to the room and realized that I was starting to look like a lobster from the sun and heat. I cooled down a bit and got ready for our afternoon snack of sushi. Again today, it was tasty and we enjoyed it. It’s such a treat and allows us to enjoy the sunset together.

Dinner in Blu was very good tonight and the room was more full than it had been the previous night. I had a nice lamb dish, which shocked our friends. Previously, I had not liked lamb but tried it at their house and quite liked it. David thought I was just being kind on that night but I think he realized he had turned my preference on lamb when I ordered it again here. Again, I was disappointed in the dessert in Blu but in all honesty, I’d rather polish off the bread basket than order dessert anyway.

We stopped by the Martini Bar (a developing trend) again and had drinks with some of the people we had met the at the Friends of Dorothy gathering. They were very nice people and we were enjoying getting to know them but I was afraid we were going to miss the show so I asked Mike to ask for the tab. He tried and tried but he seemed unable to get the waiter’s attention. In fairness, the bar was very busy but it was getting annoying that we couldn’t pay and leave. Finally, Mike stopped the waiter as he was walking by and asked for the bill. The waiter told him he had paid it thirty minutes earlier and sure enough, Mike had the receipt in his pocket to prove it (and a developing blush on his face). Thank goodness for him he’s pretty because our seating options were very limited by the time we got to the theatre.

The show itself was a disappointment in two ways, one which was not Celebrity’s fault and one that certainly was. The seas were high so the show was not as ambitious as it normally might be. That’s not Celebrity’s fault and I think the safety of the performers is very important. That said, the show is really a shameless rip-off of Cirque de Soleil, with whom Celebrity used to have a strategic partnership. Apparently, when that agreement expired, Celebrity figured it would be cheaper to imitate Cirque de Soleil than to just pay them the fees to create a show. The costumes, choreography and overall feel are all obvious mimicking of the Cirque de Soleil experience. Sadly, the level of skill is not comparable. If you had not seen a real Cirque de Soleil show, you would not know the difference.

An odd thing about this itinerary is that ship’s time would mimic local time and so we were told to set our clocks forward as we went to bed that night. That’s rare and usually, you ignore local time and stay on whatever time zone you departed from. To me, shifting to local time makes a lot more sense and I’m glad Solstice is doing this.

We really enjoyed the relaxed pace of our sea day and were enjoying getting to know the new people we seemed constantly to be meeting and sharing our vacation with. Solstice was turning out to be a very social ship.

Tuesday - San Juan

You might recall that I said in a report from a day or two earlier that I rarely sleep past 7, even on the weekend or holiday. It’s a natural enough thing because my normal work schedule is 7:30-3:30. I love that schedule because I love being home from work so early but it really does mean that I’m bad at sleeping in. Well, everything is better on the Solstice, apparently, because Mike and I did not get up until 11!!!! Now, the silly sleeping mask might have helped by blocking all the light but I’m still impressed by my new-found superpower.

At least I did not manage to miss a meal by sleeping through breakfast. Solstice has abandoned the Midnight Grand Buffet in the dining room (apparently, everyone took pictures but nobody ate so it was a huge waste) in favor of a brunch. We were pleased at the idea of a brunch because it would mean that our eating at Blu did not preclude a Grand Epernay experience.

A buffet, whether it’s in the main dining room, the buffet itself or by the pool, is an interesting experiment in human psychology. When there is one long line, there are some people (me) who wait less than patiently while folks feel the need to slowly evaluate and pick at each item. When there are stations to visit with different types of food, others tend to feel it’s disorganized. We heard a lot of this grumbling at today’s brunch. One woman cornered a waiter and said to him within my hearing that she didn’t know where you were supposed to start. He told her she could start wherever she liked. She said “well, that’s just ridiculous” in the most crusty tone that it made me laugh and I had to speed away before she realized I was laughing at her!

The meal was tasty and we eventually did get our drinks. The food was a good mix of breakfast, salads, pub food (chicken pot pies and fish and chips) and great desserts. I particularly liked the chocolate fountain with its fruit and marshmallows. We all had a good chat about cruises, Canadians (as we all were at the table) and our plans for the week. The timing of our meal was meant to work out for us to be able to watch the sail in from the deck but the Captain had got us there early so we were just finished our meal as we arrived. I think San Juan has one of the prettiest sail-ins in the Caribbean.

We had heard from friends and from the Crowncast podcast that the Segway experience in San Juan was great. While the excursions desk offered a 2-hour experience, I was not sure I wanted to be on a Segway that long. One of the [few] things I have in common with former President Bush is that I have actually fallen off a Segway. Lest you think they’re unsafe, let me assure you I was not listening to instructions (no comment on what happened to Mr. Bush).

The tour guide took us down the street and up the embankments of the city’s wall. We stopped at a few places along the way and she gave us some of the history of the city. She also used our cameras and got some great pictures of us on the tour. She clearly has a love for her city and it was contagious. I could see myself returning to San Juan for a vacation one day. The guide pointed out a cat walking nearby that had the corner of its ear cut off. This is not the result of a street fight; the city controls the population of cats by neutering most of them. The clipped ear is a sign that an individual cat has been neutered. Cats are controlled in San Juan but they are also fed by local workers. The reason the cat population is maintained is that it’s an ancient city and someone has to control the mouse population. The cats were very cute.

The tour seemed over so quickly! With such a great guide, I was regretting that we had not reserved the longer tour. When we go back, we will do that one!! We think that this is one of the best guides we have had in a cruise career that includes 15 cruises now. I’d recommend the tour to anyone and think that booking it on your own is worth the minor savings over the line’s price. You will not miss the ship by booking this one. You’re never further than a 15 minute walk from the ship.

We were going to walk around the city but there was just only so much of watching Mike look over his shoulder at the ship I could take before I gave up, so we ended our explorations and returned back home. I spent a part of the afternoon watching some more of my movie. Eventually, Mike came back to the room and we went to the coffee bar together before getting dressed for dinner.

We had plans to meet David and Tim at the Martini Bar and were early. I really like sitting in one of the busy bars on a ship and watching the people stroll by. The Crush area of the Martini Bar is a great place to do this. We were enjoying our drinks and Adele and Peter stopped by and we enjoyed some more conversation while we were waiting for David and Tim.

The Tuscan Grille is perhaps the only room on Solstice that I think is not as nice as it looked in the renderings. There certainly is nothing wrong with it but it doesn’t have as clubby a look as I thought it would. I’m not sure if they were aiming for Napa or Tuscany or generic Italian steakhouse.

The food at the Tuscan Grille was good and the wine was great. I know that this is perhaps tipping my hand but I would usually much rather work my way through the whole bread basket than eat dessert and the bread basket at the Tuscan Grille was one of the best I had ever tucked into. The focaccia was wonderful, as were the bread sticks. The food was very good but it was an overly generous meal. I hate leaving a restaurant stuffed but it was hard to rebuff the constant volleys buy the waiter that he could bring more than we ordered. I like the friendliness but I hate all the wasted food. After the bread basket, I was not able to finish my meal. I don’t regret the $25 cover charge but I think Tuscan Grille is not my favourite specialty ever. It’s not bad, it’s just not special and a speciality room should be. If you have a decent steakhouse or Italian restaurant in your town, you’ve already done it. Ok, maybe your local steakhouse doesn’t have a spectacular view of San Juan receding into the distance but you know what I mean.

We walked from here and just strolled through the ship looking around. What a pretty ship. We were still so very impressed. I went to the casino and to the great surprise of Mike, I not only won $160 but I walked away, as well. I like to keep him guessing.

Wednesday - St. Martin

St. Martin is a great island and I was very happy to waking up there but unfortunately, I was not feeling very well. I was not sure if it was something passing or something more serious so I decided to head to the medical center. I did not want to get to the beach and then find I was not doing well. We called our friends and told them to go ahead because I was not sure I would be getting off the ship. I think our kind friend Tim was even more disappointed for me than I was for myself, if that were possible.

The medical facility was not yet open when I arrived but I saw that you could phone guest services be seen immediately for an additional fee outside normal office hours. Since we spent thousands on the vacation, the idea of waiting an extra half hour to save a small amount of money made no sense to me, so I called. The door to the medical center opened almost immediately and I was admitted. I was surprised that there was already another person sitting in the waiting room. They closed the doors to the medical center after I entered, since it still didn’t open for another 30 minutes, and I was given forms to fill out.

I cannot tell you how impressed I was by practically everyone I met in the medical center. These folks are meeting people on their vacations, which is normally a happy time, but they’re meeting them in less that optimal circumstances. Still, they were all uniformly compassionate and kind. While I was waiting to be seen, I became aware that the hub-bub around me was not typical. The Captain’s Club hostess was sitting with the other patient and was offering to get him some tea or anything else that might make him more comfortable. As it turned out, I was not sitting in the waiting room with another patient. The gentleman’s wife had died the night before in the medical centre and they were preparing him for the process of disembarking with his wife. They were incredibly gentle and I was moved by how kind they were to this man on what was surely one of the lowest points of his life.

Mike was really, really happy that I was fine. I’d like to think he was just happy that I was well but I’ll admit he might not have been human if he wasn’t also happy to have his carefree day at the beach back, as well. We went up to the buffet and had a light breakfast and we headed out.

There were four ships in port this day and one of them was one of the small Balmoral ships from Great Britain. Compared to the three megaships parked next to it, the Balmoral ship looked like a yacht and not a ship. We chatted with folks from that ship later that day and it turned out they had sailed a transatlantic from England, followed by a Caribbean cruise, followed by the return transatlantic to Great Britain. In total, the trip would take a month. Lucky ducks!!!

Finally, it was time to be off to the beach. St. Martin is likely the best Caribbean port we’ve visited in terms of a traveller being able to get off their ship and get on their way. The taxis are easy to find and the lines for them are divided based on where you want to go, with the fares displayed on signs before you get in. What could be easier? The taxis are mostly large vans and they fill them so you may need to share but they load quickly and the ride to the beach is relatively quick.

Mike and I don’t have a song we call our song and we don’t have a favourite restaurant we share. After nearly seven years, we still don’t have a lot of sentimental things that are uniquely ours but I imagine that if you asked either of us what our idea of a perfect beach day would be, we would chime in and say St. Martin. The beach is pretty, it’s easy to get to with a 20 minute cab ride and we just keep coming back. We’re sure that the rest of the island is nice but I’m not sure we’ll ever get around to seeing it! Seriously.

We had a great lunch at a beach bar called Baywatch. This place is run by a couple from New Jersey who have really big personalities. They are warm and welcoming and their food is great. I would recommend the place to anyone.

We lay there on the beach for a long time and had a great day. Unfortunately, when we put on our SPF, I didn’t put much on my feet because they were very sandy. By mid-afternoon, my feet looked like lobster claws! We decided to head into town and buy some duty-free liquor. It is very easy to get a cab at the beach by asking any bartender to get you one. Most of the cab drivers try to get you to arrange a time for them to pick you up when they drop you off at the beach but we haven’t done this since the first trip. If you’re having a nice time, you’ll want to stay longer. If you aren’t and want to go, who would want to wait around for a cab?

We find that St. Martin is a pretty good place to buy duty free liquor but the key is to avoid the big store on the pier. While that store still has better deals than the ship, the little stores on the side streets seem to improve on these prices even further. We found some Bailey’s and some Grand Marnier and set out to find Mike a coffee. He was having a strong craving and there didn’t seem to be a Starbucks nearby so we wound up at McDonald’s.

We went for a walk on the boardwalk and then took the water taxi back to the ship. The port has added some small docks for yachts and these water taxis, and they are about half done the new piers for the Oasis of the Seas. I’m excited that the itineraries for that ship will include St, Martin because I love this port so much.

When we got back on the ship, I went to the Aqua Spa but then realized I was already so over-heated that this was a bad idea. I went to the room to cool off before we had to put on our dinner clothes. Mike and I went to the buffet for our daily ration of sushi; I love these little rituals.

Dinner in Blu was very good again. We were coming to enjoy our little corner of the ship and our nice, quiet meals there. Mike brought a bottle of wine and was charged the $25 corkage fee, which we knew about from the travel documents. Given the general reasonableness of prices on the wine list, I doubt we’ll do this again since you don’t really save much. I know that many bristle at the mark-up of wine on ships but to our minds, it’s the same as any restaurant on land. I could only see paying the corkage fee if you had very specific or lofty taste in wines and we have neither. Interestingly, it was indicated on our bill that the fee was $20 and the gratuity was $5.

After dinner, we went to the Sizzles dance party on the pool deck. It was an attempt to create a South Beach feel at sea but we’ve yet to see this actually work on any line. The closest we’ve seen was on NCL Sky, where it actually snowed on deck during the party, the laser lights were neat to watch and the staff seemed encouraged to attend so there seemed to be tons of people dancing. At this party on Solstice, most people were watching the dancing but nonetheless, we had a lot of fun chatting with new friends. We bumped into a couple from Texas I had met on Cruise Critic before the cruise and we chatted with them for a while. As that wound down, we said goodnight and headed up to watch the sailaway from St. Martin (I love night time sailaways). In one of those pieces of happenstance that seem to mostly happen to us on cruise ships, we wended up talking for an hour or so with our new friends, Byron, Sean and Steve, and got to know them a bit better. It’s always nice to meet new people and it seems to happen so much more easily at sea that at home, most likely because we’re more likely to meet and chat with strangers on vacation.

We were now more than mid-way through our trip but I was not sad about it, as I often am once I realize a trip is half done already. We had already had so much fun and felt so removed from our normal routines that even if we had to get off the ship the next day, we would have been pleased with our experience. Luckily, we would get to stay onboard for a few more days!!

Thursday - Tortola

We woke up late again today. I was getting good at this sleeping in business!!! Mike and I had been to Tortola before and we decided that unless we were on an excursion, we would just stay on the ship. Given that this port call was only until lunchtime, it didn’t make sense to us to book anything, since that would mean getting up very early on vacation. Instead, here we were waking up at 10:15 and wondering where we should eat.

One of my criticisms of the food on Solstice is that the hours of service can be limiting, especially at breakfast. By 10:00 in the morning, it was no longer possible to eat in the main dining room (which closed at 8:30), Blu (which also closed at 8:30) or the Aqua Spa Café. Instead, we opted for the late breakfast at the buffet, figuring many would be off on excursions and the buffet would not be too loud. We took our food outdoors at the aft and enjoyed the view. Tortola is a very pretty port and looks like what I imagine St. Thomas did before all the stores popped up.

We got food from the Aqua Spa Café for lunch, which we ate on our sunbed, and the waiters kept us fully supplied in icy drinks. This was likely my favorite day of the trip.

I headed to the Persian Garden after this and then we got ready for dinner a bit early because the welcome back reception was this night. It was held in the Sky Observation lounge and the canapés and cocktails were free and free-flowing. The speeches were short and not a lot of new information was doled out but still, I enjoy these parties.

We went to the Martini Bar after this and I had the sampler. It is much larger than it used to be and I would say it is the volume of three martinis. I liked being able to try six drinks at once very much and it likely enhanced the experience of the show, which we went to next. The show was called Pulse and was fairly good. It had a Stomp segment at the first, with the cast banging garbage cans. I don’t really like that but I admit that some must; Stomp has toured through our town three times now and each time I am amazed that there must be thousands of people who enjoy this.

We ate dinner this night in the Silk Harvest. In a word, it was spectacular!!! They have a ton of appetizers on the menu and you don’t really need to chose. They said they would bring any we were interested in and while I don’t like to waste food, they do it a neat way here. We named all the appetizers we liked and they made up just enough for each of us to have a taste! Brilliant. Then, we shared a number of larger plates in the way you might I an Asian restaurant. The cuisine here is a delicious mix of Thai, Chinese and Japanese. We didn’t eat one thing that we wished we had not ordered!

We turned in after yet another drink and a stroll. Life was indeed very good.

Friday - Labadee

Today, we finally managed to haul ourselves out of bed in time to eat in Blu. It is the exclusive right of AquaClass and suite passengers and is a great place to have breakfast and your first coffee of the day as it is very quiet. The menu is a little more inventive than the main dining room. They offer complementary smoothies and table-side muesli tossing. I kid you not. I tried to get Mike to order it but I guess having someone gingerly mixing his granola and berries did not appeal to him. I thought it would be fun to watch but don’t eat cereal much. We finished up and headed to the Ensemble Lounge, which is where the Elite passengers were asked to wait for priority tendering.

I have to admit that private islands were not much of an attraction to me when we started cruising. I presumed that they were a part of the cruise line’s attempt to make sure that they were the only people you could buy your fun from. While that is likely at least partly true, I now also see great value in a day at a private island. When you get off the ship, you’re not looking for the taxis to the beach, you’re on the beach. There’s no need to carry lots of money in port, you can use your room key to pay for most things (except handcrafts and tips for the chair attendants). You don’t have to worry that the food might or might not be safe; it came off the same ship that you did.

We love Labadee and think it is one of the best private island experiences out there and certainly it is the best we have visited, having also seen the private islands done by HAL, NCL and RCL’s other location, Coco Cay. I think there’s a good variety of beaches (pounding surf on one side and a more tranquil environment on the other), the food is generally well organized and everything is just easy.

This day presented a fairly unique challenge for us since it was rainy. In fifteen cruises, we rarely have had a foul weather day. It was not pouring but it was rarely clear and sunny either. It put a real damper on the day and pointed out a shortcoming of private islands that had not occurred to me. When you can’t go to the beach, there isn’t a lot to do at all!! We gave up on the beach portion of the day but decided to eat at the barbecue before returning to the ship. Labadee had two eating areas the last time we visited but one was not open today so all the pax onshore had to queue up at the same barbecue. The lines were VERY long for a barbecue that would be a pretty poor buffet if it were onboard. I love eating outdoors but this was not very much fun.

We headed back to the ship and had a coffee and pastry in the Café Al Baccio. It was very good and the service is great here. We both liked it very much and would return over and over throughout the cruise. We missed the boozy coffees from RCL and the other Celebrity ships and wish we had just asked. Others told us later that they had requested spiked coffees and the barista had happily fetched the ingredients.

After this, I headed to the Persian Garden while Mike went to the gym. We met up at 6pm and headed to the buffet for some sushi and had yet another yummy snack. I really do love our onboard routines. By this point, the weather was improving.

This night was the second formal of the cruise and while walking back to the room in our t-shirts and shorts, we felt very much out of place in the elevators and corridors as we passed very nicely dressed folks from the early seating. I’m not sure I would want to sail this ship if dressing up were an issue for me. Folks dressed very nicely for the formal nights. No worries, though, we were clean and ready to impress in our formal duds soon enough! It does occur to me that men tend to dress more uniformly, in dark suits (us) or tuxedos (about a third or half of the crowd), than the women do. What passes for formal for ladies seem a lot more fluid and runs the range from the dress you might wear to church, to the standard mother of the bride dress, to really glittery formal wear. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with any of it but men don’t have quite so many options available to us!

We went to the Broadway show this night, called Ghost Light. It was very good and the variety of the shows highlighted was great. I like a broadway show so I was happier than a clam. After this, we went to the martini bar and stayed there until two in the morning. We never, ever do that at home, even on New Year’s Eve, so we were surprised when the upbeat house music in the martini bar suddenly turned to sombre Joni Mitchell songs. It was almost Pavlovian and we all got up and went back to our cabins. I think the bars stay open until they have no customers left but there are still good ways to empty them (no offense to Ms. Mitchell).

What a great day! We had a lot of fun despite the weather and we still had another full day to look forward to!

Saturday - Sea Day

The only nice thing about being on the last full sea day of a cruise is that you're still on the cruise...for now. We woke up and were happy to see that the weather had improved a great deal from the day before. It was going to be a good farewell to Solstice. We woke up at 9:30 and were confronted by one of my only ongoing complaints about this ship, which is that breakfast service ends too soon in too many of the dining options. We decided to make the best of that and head to the Bistro on 5. What a little piece of genius that was. As you will have read from day one of our review, the Bistro on 5 charges a $5 cover but it was easily worth it for the delicious and quiet breakfast experience. I don't mind the buffet at breakfast but it is so noisy and, occasionally, pushy. The dining room, on the other hand, requires that you chat with others who might be seated with you, something I am not prepared for before coffee. The Bistro offered our own table in near perfect peace. You can choose one of their breakfast crepes or you can simply tell them what you'd like in the crepe. I did this and loved the results. In retrospect, I would have asked for a little fruit on the side instead of salad.

We decided that since the poor weather the day before would make people even more determined to soak up every last bit of sun today, Mike would run up to the Solstice Deck and grab two chairs while I got changed. Then, I saved the chairs while he did the same. We think that this is the best place on the whole ship to catch some rays. It was really enjoyable because we'd been on the ship for 6 days and so as we sat there, folks who we knew would stroll by and we'd chat. It would seem that one group would no sooner walk away than another new friend would stop by. It was a great and chatty day.

We wandered to the buffet for lunch and Mike had the brilliant idea of asking them to make a sandwich with the beef from the carving table instead of the regular cold cuts. It looked delicious. I really enjoyed my sandwich too but really, I just wanted to grab Mike's out of his hand. He probably wold have forgiven me but I try not to squander all of my relationship credits too freely.

We kept packing and one of the things that strikes me about packing is that there is a point half way through the packing where I think I will not have enough to fill the suit case. Then, a short while later, I am wondering how on earth I'll ever squeeze it all in. Somehow, it usually works out. I have also developed a very delicate sense of when the bag is over-weight. We sometimes get tot he aiport and the clerk warns us that we should be careful because we were only a pound or two from being over weight. I just smile. We haven’t had to re-pack at the airport yet.

Having got the back broken on the task of packing, we decided to go look at our pictures. We liked many of them but not enough to purchase. I know some think that the prices on pictures are high but for my money, I think they're quite reasonable. They're usually well done and there's never an obligation. I like that we always look so relaxed and happy in the pictures.

The closing show was not very strong. We thought their idea of having a few bits from each of the shows throughout the week was intended to remind you of the great time you'd had before they send you out into the world but it comes off as unoriginal, in my opinion. We'd rather have seen a comedian or something new. They did feature an accapella group that had been singing around the ship and once they started doing Franki Vallli songs from Jersey Boys, the show picked up some momentum. They should have had these guys on for a greater amount of time because the audience was really into it. Instead, they brought back a xylo-synth player who was very Siegfried and Roy. It was the most dreadful abuse of music I've ever heard. Total schlock.

Getting off the ship and getting home went off without incident. We didn’t fly out until later in the day so we booked a rental car (so as to have someplace to lock our luggage, since most airlines cannot take it until 4 hours before the flight) and went to South Beach for some wonderful sushi at Samba Sushi on Lincoln Road. It was delicious!!

This was really a wonderful cruise. Sometimes, as you watch a new ship being built, It can be easy to allow your hopes and expectations to overtake reality. After all, the artists renderings are usually a perfected view of something. In the case of Solstice, I think that the renderings were perfectly accurate, except they didn’t convey the incredible flow of one space to another. They also don’t adequately depict the warmth and comfort of the ship. That said, if a person’s biggest complaint is that the pictures in the brochure were not as good as the reality of the experience, that is a pretty good day.

Here, in no particular order, are the things I liked about solstice and the areas I could see them improving:

1. •The Lawn Club is a great idea and there were always people watching the show. That said, you can still claim to have the only lawn at sea without dedicating too much space to it. I think the grass space should be halved and the rest of that deck given over to more lounge chairs.
   

2. •I LOVE Labadee and this is the first time we have ever been there when it rained. That said, I think they should have something like a rain plan so that there are more activities onboard when it rains. There was really not a lot to do that day.
   

3. •I thought that for a new class of ship, the entertainment was fairly mediocre. I expected a little more oomph but instead felt let down.
   

4. •The specialty restaurants are great on this ship. We particularly loved the Silk Harvest because of the ability to taste a lot of things without committing to a large plate of any one thing.
   

5. •This was one of the friendliest crews we have ever encountered. You really do notice when staff are happy in their jobs because it affects the way they act with the guest. This is one happy staff and they are so very kind.
   

6. •The interior spaces on this ship are simply breathtaking at times. Clearly, a lot of thought and design went into creating such a fantastic environment. The furniture was also incredibly varied and lovely without getting weird for the sake of weird.
   

7. •We enjoyed being in AQ and I think we would hope to sail in that class again. The food in Blu was terrific (except for a constant weakness in the dessert area) and we liked the little perks of AQ. The cabin was very comfortable and the only thing that would have improved it for me was a shelf in the shower large enough to hold two people’s toiletries. That’s a small complaint but was a constant annoyance.
   

8. •The bars were all very enjoyable. The martini bar kept going late into the nights and maybe future versions could be moved and made larger. I’ve never seen a Celebrity lounge so consistently full. Conversely, a lot of space is given over to the wine bar and really, there never seemed to be anyone there. Perhaps it should be relocated and the martini bar enlarged.
   

9. •As a non-smoker, this is the first ship I’ve ever been on without having to be concerned about smoke drifting into the non-smoking area. It was wonderful and I hope Celebrity keeps up with this healthy direction.
   

10. •We were on vacation but were always aware that we needed to choose between getting up earlier than we wanted or being stuck in the buffet for breakfast. The dining room should be open a bit later.
    

11. •Embarkation and disembarkation were both smoothly handled.
    

12. •I actually liked the tips being automatically added to my onboard account. Less to do the last day except to say a heartfelt thank you.