My (Very Honest) Review of CELEBRITY SOLSTICE - Not What I Expected

I'm an avid fan of Celebrity Cruises and in fact I usually call them my preferred Cruise Line I've now sewed on seven cruises with the brand but I just got off of a cruise that really shocked me it really surprised me and I couldn't wait to make this video to tell you about it so this is my very honest review of my cruise on board the Celebrity Solstice hello everyone my name is Zach I Am The Traveling Man and if you've watched the channel before thank you again for coming back I appreciate it go down below give me a thumbs up if you are new to the channel I'd invite to go down below right now and subscribe to the channel but if you've watched my videos before you know that I love Celebrity Cruises I have like I said been on seven cruises with them now and I often talk about how much I love the brand I love the food that they have on board I love their exceptional service and most of all I love their Edge series of ships and I've done many videos on those I've called celebrity Apex the best ship at Sea and I was really having a hard time thinking I ever could enjoy an older Celebrity cruise ship I just sewed on Celebrity Summit recently I sewed on Celebrity Equinox last summer and that wasn't the best experience I did put out a review video of that and I'll link that here so you can go back and see that so when I booked this trip on Celebrity Solstice and I was a little hesitant I was like I don't think it's going to be my favorite Cruise when I get off of it I don't know that I'm gonna have a great time I knew the ship hadn't been revolutionized which is celebrity his way of saying renovated because the cruise ship did come out in 2008-2009 and they really haven't done any major uh overhaul or refit of the cruise ship since then like they have done with some of their other ships and in fact the covid-19 pandemic inhibited them so much that I don't even think there are plans to do any type of revolution on this ship for quite a while so I was a bit skeptical I was like I'm gonna see an older cruise ship it's going to be run down the food might not be that great I know a lot of folks have been talking recently about some food problems with celebrities so I didn't have the highest of expectations but hear me when I tell you I was pleasantly surprised and I just had one of the best cruise experiences in my 23 cruises onboard Celebrity Solstice and I was so excited to make this video to tell you about it so if you've never watched one of my Cruise review videos before I'll tell you how we're going to do this I have a five steps process and I literally call it the steps process where the S is for ship we'll talk all about the ship and I'll give you my critique of it then the T is for taste or food we'll talk about how tasty the food was and I'll also do a separate Food review video too so look for that to come out soon the E is for entertainment about all the shows and all the live entertainment around the ship the P is for ports the S is for service so we're going to talk about all the components of the cruise and we're going to kick things off with the S the S being for ship of course and the Celebrity Solstice was a fantastic cruise ship and in fact I'll just go ahead and spoil this right off the bat I think she's one of my top three favorite cruise ships now a lot of folks were following me on Instagram and by the way if you're not following me on Instagram make sure you go and do that because I do behind the scenes I'm always showing what I'm doing on the ships as they happen real time but folks are messaging me when they were seeing what a great time I was having and how I was just gushing about the Celebrity Solstice they were like oh is she better than Apex because they knew Apex was my favorite and I'm like I wouldn't say that I'm not saying she's better than Apex but I would say she might be better than some of the apex's sisters The Edge and Beyond uh one of my top three favorite cruise ships now for sure for many reasons the biggest reason being that I was so pleasantly surprised at how well the ship had been maintained approaching 15 years old hasn't been revolutionized so I was like this is going to have a gaudy appearance it's going to look bad when I set on Equinox I did not like my stateroom my state room was just kind of run down and ragged but not so on Celebrity Solstice when I first entered my stateroom I went in and I was shocked at how great it looked even though it hasn't had the revolutionized appearance added to it yet it was still a very clean you could tell it had been very well maintained nothing was frayed the carpet was in good condition the couch was in good condition the bed was comfortable the balcony was beautiful so I was very pleasantly surprised from the get-go and then as I started walking around the ship exploring the ship I'm like wow this ship is beautiful and before we had even set sail I set it in my embarkation video I don't even own the ship about an hour and a half I'm like there's something very Charming about this ship I can't put my finger on exactly what it is she just has an energy A vibe to her um that you just fill it whenever you get on board and as you walk around the ship she's not the latest she's not the most modern ship but she is a great filling cruise ship and that was very important and that really set the tone for the cruise experience because that initial surprise that initial like wow this is a great ship actually stayed with me throughout the entire cruise the ship just felt like a premium Cruise Line ship everything was just so nicely done uh everything was laid out so nice I just really love the solstice I could gush about it all day and tell you how great it was there are a couple of things that I also critique under the ship header uh one being the internet and I was really interested this Cruise because I knew that celebrity has recently been upgrading all their ships to the starlink system it's like a new satellite system of internet and it's supposed to be a lot better A lot faster a lot of folks have been talking about it online it's much faster than the old internet infrastructure that celebrity had on a lot of their ships I was very excited to try that and I will say right off the bat I was not impressed the first day embarking education day we were in the Port of Los Angeles that day I had to keep my phone on cellular mode because of course we're so important I could still get cell service but the internet was just so bad when I first turned it on it would just keep dropping and dropping so I finally cut it off we finally headed out to sea and I was like things will improve things did not improve it wasn't until the second day when things actually improved and I had the premium internet I will say and it was Blazing fast once the second day hit all the way to the end of the cruise really good internet service but using Wi-Fi calling on the old system of Internet with the premium package I was able to make phone calls to places all over the world I was in Israel last fall on a cruise ship celebrity Apex and I was able to call anyone all over the world with Wi-Fi calling however on starlink Wi-Fi calling wasn't that great it would work but the person on the other end of the phone would sometimes be like what what did you say the call dropped you're very spotty so I don't know what was up with that the upload download speeds were a lot faster with starlink but Wi-Fi calling it just sucked so be aware of that make sure you have you know face time maybe WhatsApp or telegram these other third-party apps that you might be able to use to make phone calls or video calls that will work better I did use FaceTime audio a couple of times and that worked much better than Wi-Fi calling but just know if you depend on Wi-Fi calling on a cruise ship may not be as great as it was under the old system now on starlink and while we're on the topic of internet I will say that the basic internet package was not that great at all premium was much better much more reliable and faster I had some friends I was selling with they had the basic internet and it was very slow I saw the struggles that they had just trying to you know load a picture on social media or just to even open their Cloud to see a video or something like that so it was very very slow the basic internet package so if you are going on Celebrity Solstice or really any of the celebrity ships under the starlink just know if you want to do any type of work if you want to have the reliability of being able to make you know FaceTime audio calls maybe try a Wi-Fi call you're gonna need the premium internet package for just about any of those things if you have the basic package you know good luck uh even being able to load social media so just keep that in mind and if you do feel like you're going to be a little bit more internet intensive on your cruise make sure you pay the extra it's not that much more for the premium internet package so that you know you're going to be able to have the connectivity that you need throughout the course of your cruise so to summarize All That Celebrity Solstice is a fantastic cruise ship and in fact I've already been looking at itineraries for her in 24 and 25 because I want to sell on her again I loved Celebrity Solstice so much one of my top three favorite cruise ships in the entire world now I would sell on her again in a heartbeat and I can't wait to do so so I'm going to give the ship a four out of a five rating all right up next is T for Taste we're going to talk all about food and I'd heard a lot of stories recently A lot of people were saying I was on edge and it was not good food or the food was very limited and these are people that I trust so I believe them so I didn't know what to expect when I got on Solstice but I was very mindful anytime I was in ocean view in either restaurants you know focus on the quality of the food focus on the availability of the food and I didn't really have any complaints I didn't see anything lacking on Celebrity Solstice in fact I didn't have a bad meal the entire time I have nothing to complain about when it comes to food I was able to try a couple of the specialty dining opportunities the first step being late petite Chef which I had on the first night of the cruise my only complaint and it's not even a really complaint it's just something to note I didn't feel like the menu options which is a preset menu there's actually two preset menus you can choose from but the main preset menu that follows the programming of the show I went with that one and I feel like it was a little bit weaker than some of the other late petite Chef menus I've seen on my other two experiences on that on the equinox and the Apex Murano was hands down the best meal that I had that was my second specialty dining opportunity that I took and it was a fantastic Mill the service was some of the best that I've ever had my waiter was fantastic and the food was just so delicious I of course had to get the Murano live Lobster I think that's why everyone goes I did ask the waiter I'm like is this the most popular dish because it tastes like the most popular dish he was like yeah actually it is this is what folks get it's one that they make their uh tableside I think they actually prepare all of the main entrees tableside so it's really cool and I had such a fantastic server he talked me through everything he told me about how all the flavors work together all the herbs and spices how they sort of uh influence the taste so it was just a really good dining experience and it made me want to go back to Murano I had gone to Murano on Equinox and didn't love it that much but here on Salsas I absolutely love Murano the best meal I had all Crews long I was also able to try luminae during this Cruise uh thanks to some friends and I had one dinner there I don't have any clips from it because it was such a great dinner but it was a really good meal really great exceptional service which is what one would expect and a restaurant exclusive to those sweet guests but luminae was fantastic and I'm very grateful that I got an opportunity to try it on the solstice I was Aqua class this Cruise so that meant I got uh specialty access to blue blue of course is that restaurant exclusive only do those guests stay in aqua class and also to guests of The Suite they can actually come down to Blue and dine too if there's space available however we were pretty maxed out this cruise we had over 300 people in aqua class so blue was busy every night of the cruise there was not any time where you could go and be immediately sad it just seemed like from the time they were open to the time they were closed I went at all different times throughout the course of the cruise it was always busy but the service was good in there they could be a little slow at times but the food was always exceptional as blue always is this was my third Cruise having access to Blue and I just really loved it so I highly recommend if you're on the fence about Aqua class do it just for blue that's what I tell everyone I did have one bad experience in blue though actually probably my only bad experience with service the entire cruise and that was one morning I went for breakfast actually the first morning of the cruise I went there for breakfast I think the only morning I actually made it up in time for breakfast in balloon and when I got there I was sad and someone brought me over coffee and other than that no one else came over I had a menu I was looking at the menu and I was waiting and I was waiting maybe for some water I was just drinking my coffee I was waiting and waiting I saw other tables were being sat all around me the server was coming over they were getting them water they were taking their order and I was just sitting just waiting I'm like well you know maybe my server's not out here yet they'll be out here in a minute finally the table sat next to me that had been there for a while and they were there when I sat down they looked over and said why is no one waiting on you you know you've been sitting here longer than all these other tables and I was like I don't I don't know I didn't want to say anything I think maybe they're just having a slow morning they're like maybe you should you know say something and about that time the server did finally come over but I probably sat there a good 10 or 15 minutes if not more you know waiting to be waited on waiting for someone to come take my order to give me some water so service was quite slow there in blue and that's my only you know bad experience I guess with food the entire cruise otherwise the food was great I also took it advantage of the captain's Club breakfast uh several mornings and that was really good they're in Tuscan Grill the best location on the ship to have a meal because it sat right there in the very after the ship you get to see the wake back behind you really good to have breakfast in there service was always fast they would let me walk in and pick my seat wherever I wanted so if you have access to the captain's Club breakfast if you're an elite or hire in the captain's Club highly recommend that you try that breakfast out sometime and it is open later than blue one of my arguments about food on the ship is that it closes too early you know blue for breakfast closes at 9am that's a that's really early when you're on vacation but the captain's Club is open till 10 so if you miss blue well right there beside blue is Tuscan Grill you can go into the captain's Club the other place I would go for breakfast sometimes was the ocean view because they're open even later they're open till 11 for breakfast and the Selections in Ocean View no matter what time of the day were always varied there's always plenty to eat I did go in at dinner time one evening and I noted that at least two-thirds of the stations were open there was a station and with uh I think they were having German food that night it was just the whole station was Sherman food there was another station with hamburgers and hot dogs and salads and sandwiches there was another station uh of course the pizza and the pasta there's a whole dessert station open so plenty of food and I can't really make a judgment on how things are on other ships but just what I know of solstice I didn't see any signs of any type of cutback other than you know a couple of stations were close at dinner time in fact I'm going to give food a four out of a five rating all the food across the ship was delicious next up is e for entertainment and there was so much entertainment and I was so glad to be able to take part in so much entertainment on board the ship and I'll start with the three-stage production show there was one on the second night of the cruise there was one on the third or fourth night of the cruise and then there was a Stage production show on the final night of the cruise the first one was a show called broken strings and this show was really good the second was a show called amade Amadeus really wild it's really random and weird but it was still really good oh I enjoyed it and then the last night of the cruise was a show called Rock City which was of course all those famous rock ballads good rock music to end the cruise on and a great production crew great singers and dancers onboard Celebrity Solstice in addition to those three main Stage production shows they also had I think three or four guest performers on board the ship throughout the course of this Cruise there were a couple of singers that had shows in the main theater there was a Pianist who came and did a fantastic show one night plenty of entertainment always live music to be found in the main atrium of the ship in The Ensemble Lounge they had a nightly musician in there they also had special events in the main Atrium throughout the cruise one night it was the full moon party another night they had a night dedicated to music of ABBA there was also a silent disco which was so much fun and I met so many new friends at silent disco so I'm gonna give entertainment on this Cruise a solid four out of a five rating next up is P for ports and this was my first time on the Mexican Riviera itinerary and I don't think I've mentioned that and I probably should have said that up front but yes I was on the Mexican Riviera itinerary it left from Los Angeles and then we had one sea day then we stopped in Cabo San Lucas the next day we were in maslatan and then the third day we were in Puerto Vallarta before two sea days back to Los Angeles and I thought this itinerary was okay I don't think it's anything I would go back and do again but it was on my bucket list it was one that I wanted to try this is also a very chilly itinerary uh granted I did so in February of 2023 so during the winter months but if you're looking for a warm tropical getaway in the middle of winter the Mexican Riviera is not it because the first C day I think the temperature was like 60 degrees it was very overcast and chilly when you went outside no one was in the pool and then the last few days as well as we were headed back to Los Angeles very chilly so wouldn't recommend it if you want to be in the pool if you want to be in the beaches probably not the best itinerary for you I will say that Cabo San Lucas was the highlight of the cruise I actually went on a well watching Excursion and actually did a video on that I've never ever seen more wildlife in a port ever before in my life than I didn't Cobblestone Lucas it was amazing to see the seals in the water to see the wells in the water there were fish literally jumping out of the water everywhere this is a beautiful place love the rock formations as you're entering the port so highly recommend if you've never been to Cabo get on one of these itineraries so that you can go there I actually didn't get off the ship at all in mazatan because of a little bit of confusion the night before we called on mazatan there was announcement made on the ship that you know it's an industrial Port that you arrive in so you can't just get off the ship you actually have to get on a bus and be taken what myself and several people around me heard 45 minutes away to the town it was a 45 minute bus ride one way to the town and I was like that's a lot of time that's an hour and a half of my day don't think I'm gonna do that but I hadn't done any research or homework if I had I would have known they actually said four two five not 45. it wasn't just me a lot of people I talked to were like yeah we heard 45 too we didn't get off the ship we didn't want to be on a bus for 45 minutes and it actually wasn't even a bus it was these little tractor-like things that were like hauling people four to five minutes to the actual Cruise terminal building which was separate from the pair itself so missed out on mazatan but also just was nice to have a day on board the ship just to relax so like I said a solid itinerary really enjoyed those two sea days at the end just to relax on the way back to LA uh but probably won't do this itinerary again it was just one that I wanted to do to mark off the bucket list to try it out but now I've sort of been there and done that but uh was really glad I was able to do it also I will say because of ports you know cruising out of Los Angeles was so easy we're at the Royal Cruise terminal a super fast embarkation process that was early I think I got there at like 10 20 and right at 11 o'clock I was boarding the ship and I never stopped moving Once I arrived other than when I finally got to the waiting area and had to sit down so really fast embarkation really fast debarkation process as well there in the end so for ports I'm gonna give a rating of 3.5 out of a five and finally the S is for service we're gonna talk about the crew and I have nothing to say except amazing service everywhere on the ship I didn't have a single bad experience with service I only had that one time in blue where things were a little slow but I'm not even going to complain about that it was a busy morning things like that just happened in dining room sometimes especially during the rush of breakfast but service on board the ship was a solid five actually it was much more than a five but fives as high rating as I give I'll even go as far as to say that this was the best service I've ever had on a non-ed Sherry ship you know because I think the perception out there is of course they're going to put the best service on Celebrity Edge and Beyond in Apex and certainly I've had some of the best service experiences on those ships a little bit less so on Equinox and Summit when I sell them but on Solstice it was just as good if not even better than the Ed Shears of ship service so I was really happy to see that again going in I didn't know what to expect I was worried it might not be as good a service as what I'm used to with celebrity like I said I've heard a lot of stories lately a lot of people have been talking online there's locking in food locking in service but service was top-notch the Celebrity Cruise experience most of the time is always an exceptional one because of the exceptional service and that statement couldn't be true on Celebrity sources so with service getting a perfect five out of a five rating that means my overall Cruise experience onboard Celebrity Solstice gets a 4.1 out of the five and that's my second best rating for a cruise yet the only one that tops it was my celebrity Apex experience to Israel back in October of 2022 and that was a 4.4 out of a five so so close to being my best cruise experience yeah that's how great this Cruise was folks if you get the opportunity to go on board Celebrity Solstice she's going to be headed to Alaska uh this summer this is the summer of 2023 and then after that in the fall she's headed over to Asia she's going to be in Thailand and Vietnam so if you get the opportunity to sell on one of her itineraries I highly recommend it I don't think you're going to be disappointed you're going to enjoy it if you love the celebrity food the celebrity service the celebrity uh beautiful cruise ships you really gonna enjoy Celebrity Solstice and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to sell on her and I'm so glad that you chose to watch this video I hope you enjoyed it thank you for watching if you did enjoy it go down below give me a thumbs up also make sure you subscribe to the channel if you're not already have more content to come from Celebrity Solstice but thank you again so much for watching and I'll see you on the next adventure foreign

Channel: Zach the Traveling Man

Views: 64,513

Keywords: celebrity solstice, celebrity solstice review, celebrity cruises, cruise ship, celebrity beyond, cruise tips and tricks, celebrity edge, celebrity cruise tips, tips for travellers, cruise tips, celebrity apex, cruise ship vlog, cruise ships, celebrity cruises review, celebrity equinox, celebrity cruise ship, zach the traveling man

Id: vmr5krYk4eE

Length: 21min 0sec (1260 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 19 2023