February 29 - Saying goodbye and hello in Melbourne

After a day of cruising south through the Tasman Sea, we arrived in Melbourne.

This is going to be a very sad as we are debarking from the Celebrity Solstice.  It always sad to say goodbye to friends, who have shared this experience.  We had such a great time with our group of fellow travelers.  It was fun to reacquaint ourselves with Coleen, Ron, Janet, Keith, Pat and Matt.  We met these wonderful people on a cruise around South America, two years ago, and seeing them again it seemed as if no time had passed.  There were fourteen other people in our group, some from England, some from New Jersey, some from the Okanagan valley and some from Vancouver Island. The way everyone bonded was fantastic and we hope that we get to travel again with them in the future.

Again, a big thank you to Coleen Foster of Cruise Ships Centers for putting this all together.  She is not only a great travel agent but is wonderful friend to all people in this group.

In past blogs, I’ve documented why I love cruising on Celebrity Cruise Lines.  I won’t repeat myself and bore everyone. 

Here are some final thoughts specifically about the Celebrity Solstice. The internet service is pathetic.  It was so slow that I thought I was using a dialup modem. Although I can’t prove it, I’m sure that their firewall was putting traffic control on Google services.  For example, it would take up to five minutes upload a picture to Google Photos but it would take a Facebook posting with the same picture about two minutes.  Their wine selection was poor.  To get wines of quality, you needed to buy a wine flight which they didn’t tell you about until after you bought their drink package.  The cheese selection was also terrible as Keith can tell you.  There is no excuse for such poor selection.  

This all pales in comparison when you consider how great the service staff is.  The dinning room, bar and room service teams are a 10 out of 10 in our books.  Also, the food is outstanding as my expanding waistline can attest to.

We are now starting our land / air tour of Australia with the Globus tour company.  In Melbourne we are staying at the Savoy Hotel on Little Collins.  It is a classic hotel, with a very comfortable room.  Their concierge was very good as he helped me arrange to have a suitcase sent home with clothes were no longer required.  This will make our loaded lighter during the remainder of our holiday.

Our first impression of Melbourne is that it is a very modern city with modern office and hotel towers.  I’m sure that we’ll expand that impression when we go on a city tomorrow. We will be in Melbourne for the next two days.

This evening we met some of the people on our tour.  It seems like the group is comprised mainly of Americans and Canadians.  We had dinner with a couple from Lethbridge, Washington DC and Pennsylvania.  The Americans were very much anti Trump and interested in Canada. Our tour guide seems very personable. So it is a positive start.