During the transition from one cruise to another we kept the same waiter but changed to a round table of eight which we think is much better for chatting with everyone. The first night we had a full house but were down to just 4 last night. Despite the absentees we had a great time and got along famously with our new friends who are also part of the B2B club.
Prior to going into dinner we also bumped into some of our Cruise Critic friends from the first cruise and have arranged to go for dinner with them tonight in the Silk Harvest which is an Asian style speciality restaurant onboard the Solstice. We are really looking forward to trying it out as I believe there is only one other venue of this type across the fleet and that is on the Equinox which was our first Celebrity ship back in 2010. Back then we were totally against paying a surcharge for speciality dining so never entertained the idea of going. We have now relaxed our views and quite enjoy a little treat occasionally if we can bag a deal.
After feeding my Bellini addiction in the Tuscan Grille for breakfast we made our way up to deck 14 to sit outside on the beds for a while. It was pouring with rain first thing but by the time we had finished eating there were breaks in the clouds and it was nice and warm.
Things got even better and we actually had our best sea day so far. It was still very windy and our favourite location on the Solstice Deck was like a cyclone but down on 12 & 14 there was sufficient shelter to make it a pleasant place to sit out.
We braved the Oceanview Café for lunch which wasn’t as busy as we had anticipated and it meant Nicole could have a decent gluten free daytime meal for a change. We even managed to get a table out the back too which was a big surprise.
At 3:30 we called it a day and went in for some ice cream before heading back to the cabin to shower and relax before we head out for our dinner date.
It’s been a quiet day but really lovely to be able to get some sunshine at last and with 5 islands coming up over the next 6 days it could get busy again. Tomorrow we are in Nouméa and don’t have anything planned other than to find a nice beach but that could all change on the day.