Spoiled Rotten on our Cruise

We were very spoiled on our cruise last week. We left our RV in Los Alamitos (south of Los Angeles) and spent the last week on a twenty-two hundred-mile cruise from California to Los Cabos in Mexico and back. This story is all about the ride, not the destination. We didn’t choose a cruise ship with the destination in mind but to experience life on a luxury cruise ship. Neither Tami nor I have ever been on a cruise ship.

Our cruise ship

Our cruise ship for the third week in January is the Celebrity Solstice. Not that it is important for this blog post, but our route was from the Port of Los Angeles. The next morning, we anchored for the day off Santa Catalina Island. The next day and a half were spent enjoying the cruise along Baja, Mexico, to Los Cabos. After a day and a half in Cabo, we traveled north back to Los Angeles.

The photo at the top

The picture at the top shows the view of the grand staircase and dance floor on our cruise ship. This location is at the bottom of the main elevator shaft and near the reception area. The picture was taken from the fifth deck, looking forward between the elevators. Behind us is the main staircase. Much further forward is another staircase and an additional set of elevators.

This next picture is about halfway up the elevator shaft. The ficus tree in the next picture is about 35 feet tall. It looks small compared to the elevator shaft. The above pictures’ dance floor is at the elevator shaft’s bottom. You could hear it clearly (with plenty of echoes) when they were playing music on every deck. The rooms, even the ones near the elevator shaft, were quiet.

The Main Theater

We should have gone to the main theater every evening while on our cruise ship. Every show was performed well by various singers, dancers, and even acrobats. The following picture is the stage setup for the last show about Rock and Roll in the 1980s.

Our Room on our cruise

I think we had an average balcony room on the cruise ship. It was on the seventh deck, just above the tenders, and we had an unobstructed view from our room and balcony on the port side of the ship.

Glamping

We are not campers in our RV. The term Glamper applies to us. Glamper is a combination word of glamor and camping. Glamping in our RV is nothing like the glamor of our cruise last week. Pampered and catered-to is a very accurate description of how we felt while on this adventure.

Similar to the Navy

The next picture is the only thing similar to my fifty thousand miles at sea (a wild guess) and the time on our cruise ship. Overall, I have to say that my navy ships occasionally had a prettier wake behind them. That doesn’t, however, discount the fact that I think the wake behind the cruise ship was very pretty.

Everything you could ever need

Included in our fare was everything we needed on our cruise. The fact is that we were spoiled and started marveling at how spoiled we were. I think we are grounded enough to never let any of it go to our heads. The only “extra” we paid for on our cruise was a one-night visit to the exclusive dining opportunity in a specialty restaurant. We could have gone to the main dining room, but this was extra. That night we had an eight-course dinner with Filet Mignon and ended with the best limoncello cheesecake I have ever eaten.

The main dining room

We usually ate at the buffet for breakfast and lunch, although service was still available in the main dining room. Both the main dining room and buffet were great. The main dining room was elegant but not stuffy, and the buffet was amazing.

While the food in the specialty restaurant was a cut above, the food in the main dining room was wonderful. “Lobster Night” was great, but my favorite meal was probably in the following picture.

The buffet

The biggest difference between the main dining room and the buffet was table service. Both locations had great food. The buffet selection was huge. I have never encountered a selection of foods that was so vast, and each selection was wonderful. The only exception may have been the “proper English breakfast.” I skipped it, choosing yet another freshly cooked omelet instead.

All the extras

Everything I have told you so far falls into the category of extravagance. I have a hard time relating to things that are so over-the-top nice. At each part of the ship, we had a wait staff cheerfully ready to meet our every desire. Not only did they meet our needs, but they also anticipated things that would make our trip more enjoyable.

About the Destination

We had a good time, both in Los Cabos and at Avalon on Catalina Island. I will post a separate blog post about what we saw at each location. Edit 1/29/2023 Where did we go on our cruise? Here is the story.  Catalina Island and Cabo San Lucas

Recommendations

As a novice cruiser, I don’t really feel qualified to make recommendations, with the the exception of this one critical item. The crew on our cruise ship waited on us hand and foot, and we are very grateful. One of my next duties (yes, I feel that strongly about this) is to make sure to identify these wonderful people, each by name, and then comment to the cruise line how each of them helped us and enabled us to have so much fun.

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The Celebrity Solstice

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