My family booked two cabins (solstice 7153 and solstice 8341) for a week long alaska voyage last month. We have previously sailed only once, on Oceania's Marina for 10 days in the Med. The purpose of this cruise was primarily to assess whether Celebrity would tick the same Oceania boxes for my parents, since Vacations To Go ranks the Solstice as 5.5 stars, right beside Marina. We would hate to find out in ten years that much-cheaper Celebrity had it all along. Turns out, it really doesn't compare.

Embarkation was a mess, and that was to be expected. I was warned by everyone and his toaster that embarkation for 2800 people would be a schmozzle in Seattle and it was. We were given assigned boarding times to help with the sheer numbers, but it made no difference. Everyone was there. We queued to drop the bags, we queued to enter the terminal, we queued for customs, we queued for security, and we queued for check-in. Marina check-in (granted, we were in concierge so we went early) was 10 minutes at the most. This was probably two hours.

When we got inside the vessel we were treated to champagne (and a little orange juice in champagne glass for my 5-year-old) which was brilliant. Sadly, little did we know that this little nicety was about to be overshadowed by the quasi-apocalyptic spectacle in the buffet (oceanview cafe). Read more