On our balcony, a towel is left---surly not by housekeeping since cleaning of our balcony never occurred. This towel remained here for the final three days of our cruise.
Around mid cruise, all books that are within standing reach in the library have been removed. The library remains bookless the remainder of the cruise.
When there were books in the library… on board management has provided the library’s main area---surly a public space---for a private function (and so public access is denied.) I don’t mind changing plan and doing something else…. what does concern me is on board management considering it reasonable to benefit some guests at the expense of others.
The snow & ice-topped surface of the Martini Bar makes for a unique, playful environment that many---including Maggy and myself---enjoy.
Around mid cruise, the bar’s frozen top is shut off and remains so for the duration of the cruise.
Specialty Restaurants including Blu, Tuscan Grille, Murano and Silk Harvest were each experienced for dinner. Blu is by far the worst restaurant among this group in terms of what the kitchen delivered to our table.
Dinner at Blu… A lobster app was just served to me in the dining room. The flesh is a flat, grey color and is at room temperature. I believe this app having been prepared well ahead of service and sitting unrefrigerated for an extended period (unless this lobster was indeed refrigerated and then heated to room temp and the meat completely dried prior to serving. Given the other food experienced at Blu, there’s no reason to think Blu’s kitchen would spend the time doing this.) In my culinary opinion, a professionally trained Chef would never serve grey lobster meat at room temp, nor would a professional server. I’m immediately inclined to question the food handling skills on board.
Given the lobster dish just served me, the question of whether the gastrointestinal illness on board is viral and so passenger born and infectious, OR, whether it’s a matter of inept food handling and so a food poisoning issue…this question is now forefront as we sit for dinner. What’s witnessed from Blu and in conjunction with the ship-wide mediocrity of maintenance and caring, the latter seems quite plausible. Adding to this concern… I recall no public report of the ship having performed a clinical analysis that factually confirms the illness being viral. The absence of such a public report, as I hold it being absent, adds more reason to doubt the legitimacy of the gastro-illness being viral rather than a matter of food poisoning.
…Continuing with dinner service, a main course of chicken, mashed potatoes and vegetables arrives. There’s absolutely NO pride of creation in the plate before me. Instead, this dish was literally thrown together in hast. The chicken’s roasted skin… rubbery. A professional Chef does not sauce-over roasted chicken with skin on. The sauce itself tastes terrible---uneatable to my palate. The tablespoon portion of mashed potatoes tossed on the plate… bland. The vegetables, are vegetables. Surly Blu’s kitchen is well equipped with an adequate inventory… and this misery of a meal is the outcome. Where Celebrity’s website refers to Blu’s Chefs “raising the bar,” that’s not reality according to any of the food I’ve been served at Blu. Rather, what I’ve received is amateur cooking at best.
For reference, I grew up in a fine (not snobby) successful European restaurant environment---my parents being owner operators of a 150 seat property in NY. As it relates indirectly to this cruise, my father also served aboard Moore-Mccormack Cruise Lines as an on board executive in charge of food. While I’m not a professional chef, my experience supports knowledge of restaurant-driven kitchen management, equipment, food care & prep, table servicing, and a reasonable understanding what makes cuisine good, average, or bad.
My partner insisted we give Blu another try. We did. We did not return to Blu the remainder of the cruise.
In the Ocean View Café around mid cruise, clear plastic has been wrapped across the front of all buffet stations.
New format: A food server is now responsible for dishing out plates at each station and handing them over the buffet to guests. In effect, the appealing convenience of self-serving one’s own meal and the expediency of doing so has just been taken away from all guests dining in the Ocean View Café.
NO GUEST I’m familiar with is pleased with this new system.
In some buffet areas, orderly lines form. Other times there’s chaos. Luxury aside in the Café, I see no initiative on the part of restaurant management to respond to a service format that has declined in performance and so in guest satisfaction.
Line for a beverage. Single server is on station at this moment.
The ship---visible just above & beyond the cue in the far distance---is now in the bay at Akaroa, NZ. It’s currently 5:15 pm, the time the last tender of the day was scheduled to depart the pier for the ship. The pier here is approximately 100+ yards in length and guests are standing two or more abreast waiting for, for as long as I’ve been looking on, a single tender serving this volume of guests.
I know the Solstice has close to 22 life boats onboard to address tendering needs. Crew accredited to skipper these life boats should---in number---at least match the lifeboat count. Watching over fellow guests doing the same wait as I am… it’s aggravating to stand here and witness how onboard management can be so inconsiderate of so many. This is notably not the first exposure to this sort of frustration. As I watch, two tenders eventually show up. Shortly after 6 pm, Maggy and I board the final vessel. Given tender capacity, approximately 450 guests have been standing in line here for an hour or more. Surly where hospitality is genuinely offered, tenders would be waiting on guests.
Now, just back on board and heading to our stateroom, conversation begins in the elevator among guests concerning the wait on the pier. A fellow passenger informs the delay being caused by a life boat tendering beginning to SINK. Given maintenance and conditions on board, a sinking lifeboat makes---unfortunately---perfect sense.
... I’ll leave it at this.
A “Modern luxury experience." Really?
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