A SPECTACULAR SHIP COMES TO SAN JUAN
A.W. Maldonado

In the doom and gloom of the economic news, its good news that six cruise ships will visit San Juan for the first time in the coming months. One of them was the Celebrity Solstice this Tuesday. In fact, San Juan was its first port-of-call in its first voyage.

USA Today travel writer, Gene Sloan, wrote that Solstice is “the most innovative, stylish, beautiful ship in the seas.” This is the kind of reviews the 2,850 passenger, 122,000 ton ship has received when the media was invited to preview it this past weekend.

But first the good news about the cruise industry in Puerto Rico. The head of the Ports Authority, Fernando Bonilla, and Tourism Company head Terestela González Denton, announced that this past fiscal year, 2007-2008, there was an 8.9 increase in cruise passengers arriving in San Juan: a total of 1,496,853, 118,116 more than the previous year. What is impressive, they pointed out, is that this is significantly higher than the worldwide growth of 5 percent, the 2 percent increase in the U.S. , the 1.7 percent in the East Caribbean.

In addition to the Solstice, also making first visits to San Juan this winter season are the 2,044 passenger Holland American Eurodam and the 1,800 passenger Statedam, the 3,000 passenger Carnival Spendor and the Carnival Pride, the 3,600 passenger Royal Caribbean Independence of the Seas, and the Artemio of P&O Cruises.

Bonilla and González also announced that two other big ships, the 3100 passenger Caribbean Princess and the Carnival Victory have made San Juan their winter season home port.

Now, why the rave reviews for Solstice?

A group of journalists and travel writers were seated at one of the ten restaurants on this ship. Yes, ten: each one different where you will find from exotic Asian fusion to Italian to classic and modern continental cuisine. We were at the main dinning room, the spacious Grand Epernay that features a two-story tall glass wine tower.

I was curious to get the reaction of the veteran travel writer, Dr. Laurence Miller, who told me that he has made “well over 300 cruises.” What do you think, I asked? He answered with a thumbs-up gesture. Since Celebrity has the reputation for outstanding food, Miller wondered if Solstice will be able to improve on it. Everyone seemed to agree with Gene Sloan: this is a “beautiful ship.” There are, of course, differences between cruise ships: between, say, the Queen Mary II, the Crystal Symphony, the new Caribbean Princess. I must say that I have found every ship I’ve been in one way or another “beautiful.”

But the moment one walks into this ship, and looks up at the 15-story atrium and see a real, full-grown tree, up there half way up, you know this is indeed different. Or when you go up to what is called the “Lawn Club Desk” because there is a real lawn there: to be exact, over a half acre of real grass. As you walk around, there seems to be live music everywhere – from a classical string quartet, four pretty young women, to a full dance orchestra. And one keeps coming up to a work of art, some of them exquisite, or coming up to still another bar, some of them half hidden so they will surprise you.

Up on the Lawn Deck one will come across several furnaces were a number of Corning master glassblowers demonstrate how they make beautiful glass objects. This too, I must believe, is different.

We spent two nights on the ship and saw two shows in the huge Solstice Theater, built especially for European style theatrical circus shows, with acrobats flying all over the place. I sat up in the balcony and suddenly where was this acrobat dress as a ram flying by, inches away from my nose. Yes, this is different.

The media had an opportunity to meet and question the Chairman of Royal Caribbean, the parent of Celebrity, Richard Fain, the President of Royal Caribbean International, Adam Goldstein and the President of Celebrity Dan Hanrahan. Yes, they said, the company as the entire cruise industry has been hit by the world-wide economic and financial crisis. But it will weather the storm because cruising, they said, is still such a “big bargain.” Hanrahan several times compared the price of a cruise, with food, entertainment and a lot more included, to “spending $300 a night for a hotel room in San Juan.”

Fain and Hanrahan demonstrated their optimism pointing out that there are four other “Solstice class” ships on line to be inaugurated in the next four years. Asked if the economic crisis may force them to change their plans, Hanrahan answered with a firm “no.”

The “naming ceremony” (once called the “christening”) of the ship, at the home port in Ft. Lauderdale last Saturday, was also “different.” It was held inside the Solstice Theater. We were told that for the first time a scientist is Godmother: marine biologist Dr. Sharon Smith, who has spent her life around the globe studying the ocean food chain, mostly the minute zooplankton. A moving video of her life work was projected, including her battle, twice, with cancer. Then a live video was projected of a Champaign bottle sliding down a cable and crashing into the hull.

The Celebrity Solstice, arrived at San Juan at two pm Tuesday, from the outside looked pretty much like the other new big ships. But from the moment I walked inside, the word that kept coming to mind was: “spectacular.”