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Like Jason Leppard, editor of Popularcruising.com.

Just returned from a seven-night top chef sailing aboard celebrity solstice out of Seattle. Jason, welcome to the show, my friend. Hello, I'm happy to be back. Yeah, I got to say, dude, we've spoke three times in the past month and a half, and every time we spoke, it's been about Alaska. What's going on out there in California? California, man, staying warm, but I'm getting away to Alaska where it's cooler. Well, I can see that because it's hot in here in Florida as well. So you just got back from your seven-night Alaska sailing on Celebrity Solstice. It was a top chef cruise. So let's back up before you went on the cruise. And what made you want to do this top chef cruise? You know, Celebrity Cruises has always been known for their great dining, and the fact that they partnered up with the dining television show is intriguing, and I thought it would be really cool to check that out and see what they had gone for. Now, did you go by yourself? I went to my cousin, who was actually a chef and culinary instructor also in San Diego, so we had a go together together and she gave me some context, which was great.

So Jason, you fly in from California, you make your way to Seattle, you get to the cruise port. How is embarkation out there in Seattle?

So, embarkation was nice. Yeah, I think Seattle's more convenient than Vancouver, just because if you're a U.S. citizen, it's usually a little easier to fly there than Vancouver. In our case, from San Diego, we had had a direct flight, nonstop actually. And that's always great. And the ship, you know,

I've always been a fan of the Celebrity Solstice in particular. I've been on that one before in the Mediterranean. Glad I'd go back on it again. Really great. Did you spend any pre- or post-cruz

time in Seattle? No, I wish I did, but I've done that before, and it's a great town.

Yeah, totally. So you make your way on to Celebrity Solstice for the second time? What were your

impressions this go around? You know, basically the same sort of thing, everything that we loved

about the ship was still there. I think they had the best, you know, the Fay area. It's very

convenient, easy to navigate. Just a great ship. You know to navigate just a great ship you know it's a

bigger ship which gives it a little bit more room to kind of spread things out and it just has a really nice vibe it's very modern kind of feels like a boutique hotel on board i really enjoy it you know you just took the words out of my mouth it felt like you're walking into a like a contemporary new york city hotel when you walk on board celebrity solicitors especially with that dramatic atrium with the tree that kind of suspended.

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