Mimiya11

Lots of pages to go through so thought I would just ask to save me lots of reading time. A large family trip is planned for this summer including 7 children ages 3 - 12. Do you think there is enough to see, do and eat 🙂 by just wandering town near the port and having lunch? I suspect beaches will be packed in August. Thank you

Planning a large family trip which includes 7 children ranging in age from 3 - 12. Looking for some suggestions as to whether there is enough interesting things to see just near the port area or better to book a tour? Thank you.

Well if our recent November TA on the Apex was any indication, you will love The Retreat! Other than the weather making the outdoor area too windy and cold most days (we did spend two mornings outside), we spent many hours in the retreat. Loved the morning breakfast offerings, afternoon snacks, pre-dinner drinks and found the staff outstanding. The ship was full, so having a place to go without searching for seats was great. We booked a SS well before the prices became insane.

Thanks for this. Looks lovely!

Wait! Were you on the Apex TA in November? If so, so were we!! And yes the breakfast!!!! And yes early check in!! And staff were outstanding.

I recently read that Blu on the Ascent offers outdoor seating. For those that have recently sailed on Ascent, how was the outdoor dining experience?

Loved the Iberostar Selection Paseo de Gracia! Fabulous central location, close to HOHO bus, wonderful breakfast, great rooms and service, beautiful rooftop terrace, and tons of restaurants and stores all around. But as someone else said, lots of opinions.

Great to hear about the additional seating. How about enough staff to clear tables? Our experience on the Apex last month was terrible as dirty tables were often left untouched due to what seemed to be a shortage of staff. At more than one lunch we pushed the dirty dishes from to the side just to have a seat. No-one came the entire time we ate.

Eden restaurant is not the same as the Eden Cafe. Having said that the Eden Cafe is fantastic for breakfast and lunch. As more people find this little gem (which is not open ever day) it gets very busy and often hard to find a place to sit. Definitely a must try. As far as dinner at Eden, we used OBC and had a fantastic meal on the Apex last month. But not sure I would want to pay for any specialty restaurants if I didn't have OBC.

We were on this cruise in March and did the Flora and Fauna excursion in Panama City which was great.

Barcelona is a wonderful city and while we did the HOHO, we were there for 4 days. If it only a port of call, as others have said, it is not a suggested way to see all the wonderful quarters. Get a cab, go to the Gothic Quarter, La Rambla, and walk to as many places as you can (including Parc Guell if you can). Traffic in Barcelona is so very busy, that we found that we were able to reach places faster by foot than by cab. And yes, go for tapas for lunch! Also, even though we had booked Sagrada Familia tickets and a guided tour in advance, it was so very packed, I would have been happy just to see the grandness of the outside. That's just me.

I am not sure which ship you are sailing on but we were in a Sky Suite on the Apex a few weeks ago and really enjoyed the suite experience, taking full advantage of the Retreat area (both lounge and outdoor spaces). So instead of having daily canapes (that were pretty eh anyway) delivered to your cabin at a given time, you can go to the Retreat Lounge, where they have a nice small self serve area set up for continental breakfast (including breads, cheese, meats, muffins, yogurts, fruit for example) in the morning (if you choose not to go to Luminae or the Oceanview Cafe), afternoon tea (anywhere from small sandwiches, scones, cheeses) and evening pre-dinner snacks (charcuterie, chips, nuts). There is also a full bar, coffee, and drink fridge. Having access to the Retreat, which we spent a lot of time in, for us was way better than the old product.

To clarify, they do empty the bar. And you can bring in any items from the fridge in the Retreat Lounge to your cabin. Suite guests do not pay room service fees and those canapes were awful so wouldn't want them for free. LOL We were happy to go to get snacks in the lounge which were way better than those ridiculous canapes

Canapes are no longer routinely delivered daily as before. But they were not good so for us not missed at all. You can call room service but apparently you need to arrange that daily. But - between 3 - 5 the Retreat Lounge had a really nice set up with little sandwiches, one day they had small empanadas, scones, jam etc. We often just took them back to our cabin or there is plenty of spots to enjoy them in the lounge. Later around 5 I think, they set up charcuterie items, cheese, meats, nuts, chips. Oh and in the mornings, if you choose not to go to Luminae or the buffet, they set up continental breakfast with cheese, muffins, yogurt, muesli, fruit etc.

That is why we stuck to the Retreat Lounge on our recent cruise on the Apex. Impossible to find seats or servers in most bars and lounges. Service and drinks were first rate in the Retreat.

We are just back from a transatlantic on the beautiful Apex. There is much discussion regarding cost cutting changes to Celebrity as well as the Sky Suite experience. Just thought I would share a few comments and observations. We chose a SS for this cruise due to the length of the cruise, pretty good pricing when we booked over 1 1/2 years pre-sailing, wanting to try the retreat experience and having a larger cabin. As we booked so long ago, we did receive all the perks which have changed as we all know. Plus we had sailed on the Apex in March and the infinity balcony was a no for us and probably the reason for us not to cruise an Edge class again. The SS cabin did not disappoint. It is beautiful, with lots of space for clothes, a beautiful large bathroom and a nice sitting area within the cabin. But not having plugs for phone charges on both sides of the bed seemed a silly design flaw and the balcony, while larger, had two small chairs and a tiny table where there was plenty room for loungers and a large table, which detracted from trying room service on our balcony. Once again just silly design choices. We are not butler people, but it is clear with the new suite changes, that we had a cabin attendant with a fancy title only. He was very nice, introduced himself as soon as we were on board. But... his role was very restricted. Yes he could empty our fridge but said no, he cannot deliver daily fruit plates (that is now a daily room service request) . While the Head Butler introduced himself on day one, he was never to be seen again throughout the 13 nights on the ship and we had no idea what his role was, should have been other than maybe manage the cabin attendance with fancy titles? On the Apex, Blu (for AQ guests) is a much prettier room than Luminae, which is a very large, very noisy room where the food was either terrific, boring and even bad. Our waiter Nino and his assistant were fantastic and so was the sommelier. The menu clearly needs help as some of the items were not tempting at all (and we eat almost everything). portions were miniscule at times, and unless you ask, you would not know that you can order French onion soup, a Caesar salad or shrimp cocktail. Yes small things but we all know that food is a big part of cruising. But for us, the highlight of being in a suite was the Retreat. The lounge was large with lots of couches, chairs and tables to just hang out during rainy sea days. The outdoor area, while lovely, was not often used as weather was not great, was very windy and on rainy days, cushions were left out, resulting in chairs too wet to sit on the next day, The Retreat had a very committed team, who dealt with any issues instead of going to customer service, handled requests for reservations and there was even a dedicated person to book future cruises. (good marketing) For us, being on a long cruise with a full ship, which was very busy at all hours, the retreat area was our go to spot for morning breakfast, hanging out on the deck (for the very few days the sun shined) ), afternoon snacks and pre-dinner drinks. Having said all this, the pricing of suites has sky rocketed and may have priced us out of Sky suites in the future.

Agreed! Plus it was obvious that yesterday's leftover duck became today's duck salad or soup. And there must have been a sale on octopus as it was offered in various formats at least 4 times in Luminae in our 2 weeks on board.

Just off a TA on the Apex. Cutbacks were most obvious in the Oceanview Cafe where there were not enough staff to clean tables, often resulting in people moving dirty dishes aside to sit or just waiting and waiting to get the attention of a service person.

In March I dealt with Adela Mormeneo at ExecutiveOffice@celebrity.com Not only did I get a prompt email response but a direct phone call to discuss and resolve a customer service issue that I had. Good luck.

As soon as you board the ship, go directly to any of the restaurants and book. This has happened to us several times on fully booked ships and have been able to get reservations once on board. Now getting a table of 9 may be a problem. Good luck

Just off the Apex on Saturday. We liked him as he was not over the top as some cruise directors are.

We sailed Viking Ocean for a Panama Canal cruise in March. Our first Viking cruise. We boarded a couple of days after we finished one week on the Apex. As far as Viking, we loved the size, lovely indoor and outdoor spaces, service was top notch, food was ok to great (we actually ended up at the buffet more than the dining room as we ate outside and all the items on the buffet included what was served in the dining room including made to order items). We found days at sea and evenings were a bit snoozey, especially after all the shows and entertainment on the Apex, which were great. We did find one bar/lounge, which fit our demographic (late 60's/70), and had a wonderful guitarist/singer who sang lots of 70's, 80's and 90's music. But two weeks night after night? Not so much. Viking cruisers are a very loyal group. Our friends were just on Azamara and said no more Celebrity for them, only Azamara After our TA next month on the Apex, hoping to go smaller again.

Never been contacted in a Sky Suite.

Nice to read a recent review as I booked her months ago for a tour in November

Agreed. After sailing on the Apex in AQ this past March, we are done with AQ on any ship. The cost differential is not worth it for us as we found that the Blu menu is nothing special (we used to think otherwise) and the limited amenities in AQ would all be better spent on specialty dining. We are however looking forward to our second suite experience (first on Apex) next month.