Wonderful honeymoon experience
Written: Oct 09 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Beautiful old ship; excellent service
Cons: Single beds
The Bottom Line: Stately old boat that makes you feel romantic and pampered; intimate feeling and wonderful ports of call
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| amason's Full Review: Royal Olympic Stella Solaris |
We did a 7 day cruise starting from Athens to Piraeus, Santorini, Rhodes, Istanbul, Kusadassi for our honeymoon in August, 2000. We purposely chose a boat that wasn't your typical American cruiseliner experience. We wanted a small # of passengers and a more intimate, versus mass-produced experience. So let me say right now if you are looking for one of those boats with an 8 floor lobby/atrium, karoake, food at every hour, and lavish evening productions, this is not the cruise you should choose.
That being said, we got exactly what we wished for. On the first 2 days, we met a group of 3 other couples that we did everything with the remainder of the trip. They were all older than us and from different countries, but they loved to have cocktails, laugh, and talk until the wee hours of the night, which was exactly what we were looking for. We saw a lot of people making friends like this - it is a small enough boat that you see the same people throughout the trip.
The rooms were on the small side and the single beds were a surprise to us, but we got over that pretty quickly by putting the beds together. After that we realized we were only in the room to sleep so the size of the room became inconsequential.
We had taken the cruise as part of an overall Olympic package, and our tour director Dimitri was a history scholar. He would hold 10AM briefings in the library which we often missed (and got scolded for!). However, we ended up having numerous conversations with him at the bar and he fascinated us with his perspective on history - we got to know him really well and truly enjoyed having someone knowledgeable as our guide for the trip. He actually recommended us to the captain for the captain's table one night which was great. We got really good food and free drinks all night!
The ports of call are amazing. We loved Santorini and Istanbul especially. We only did one ship-sponsored excursion, choosing to do the rest by arranging cabs with our friends which is more cost-effective and flexible. The excursion we did do and which I'd recommend is Kusadassi. Turkish ruins aren't like American sites where everything is nicely labelled. It helps to have a knowledgeable guide really give you the true history and color to what you are seeing.
The crew on the Solaris is wonderful. Because there were 8 of us who always did everything together, they got to recognize and know us. They told us where they always went for nightlife in Istanbul and we went with them and had a blast.
We loved the food. The meals are civilized - sit down and order. The breakfast is a buffet, and I think there is a midnight buffet, but everything else is restaurant style. We enjoyed this because it kept us from over-eating and we felt pampered. The meals were delicious. I am American (my husband is Australian) and I must say there were a fair number of Americans who were complaining about the meals, how there wasn't enough food throughout the day, how come there weren't more buffets, etc but we found this complaining to be tiresome. We had absolutely no complaints about the food.
At our dinner table, there was a family with 2 kids who got quickly bored, because there aren't many activities geared towards children. If you have kids, I would go on a cruise that has special child and teen programs.
To sum it up, we found the Stella Solaris to be an amazing experience. The ship has that stately look that made me feel like I was a heroine from the turn of the century making a long voyage on one of those old Titanic-like vessels. The Greek Islands are breathtaking and so are the ports of call in Turkey. I would wholeheartedly recommend this trip!
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Couples
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Epinions.com ID:
amason
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Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 0 members
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