Gracie115

Short, only 7days

Dinner was at 6PM on the Vista during our December cruise.

We found Fine Cuts to be poor in quality and service. As far as steakhouses are concened Chops on Royal ships far exceeds Fine Cuts. The noise coming from the Martini Bar area is also a big turn off, you can't hear your partner talk when the music/live or DJ are performing. Not a pleasant experience try the Rooftop Grill instead. Better food, better services, fun evening.

Good to hear we have friends on board, hope they are enjoying CK as much as you.

HAL does have some wonderful itiineraries.... would love that 42 night Ft. Lauderdale round trip one.

Great idea, X could start offering the kind of longer cruises that currently HAL has. Friends are boarding the HAL Koningsdam this weekend for a 39 day round trip San Diego trip to Hawaii and the Polynesian islands. It would be great if X went in that direction with the M class ships.

No. We did this on the Reflection and found it very lacking. Keep in mind that much can depend on the people around the table. We didn't have a very good mix and the ship's officer that joined us didn't seem to want to be there. The one thing that stands out was my husband's allergy to lobster...just lobster not all seafood. Lobster, at the time, was in the appetizer course and they substituted a single asparagus spear split in half for that course. It's laughable now but at the time not so much. This was back in 2016 and in a suite so we were dining in Luminae nightly, when it was at it's best. Luminae was far better than the Chef's dinner. Thankfully our dinner cost much less than the current one AND included wine. As one poster has said the Chef's dinner we did on Royal was actually far better and less expensive.

Have you been to the Suites only area (PH and above) that you access through the spa? It's a lovely area and we never had a problem finding lounge chairs. Nice whirlpool tube there too.

Bought my own inflatable foot stools for my Equinox trip this fall..... wonder if they will take them away too???. This is ridiculous. The chairs are already really uncomfortable, unlike the chairs that S class has/had(depending on whether renovated). So were people just more agile back then and only now have started tripping over foot stools? People are stupider now? I know they are more prone to sue, that's just the way of the world now, is that the fear from Celebrity corporate? Next thing you know there will be no furniture on a balcony, you'll be expected to sit on the floor. Maybe I should look into "inflatable" loungers too........

2 hips here, so understand completely. The chairs in many of the areas of the E class ships are just terribly uncomfortable and many of them seem to be built for young children they are so low to the ground.

Hopefully that will be included in this dry dock.

Hi thanks, we did pick a deck 8 one. I saw his post about it, very glad we opted for deck 8.

Did you like this suite? We have booked one on Equinox which apparently is when these rooms will be converted to Horizon Suites during the drydock in Mar/Apr.

Yes I'd be interested to know what ship this was on, S class ships sliding doors don't have locks that could do that, at least I don't remember any.

Nowhere near as nice as the padded lounge on the CS balcony on the S class ships that have NOT been renovated.

Agree completely...... most of the E class seating is so low to the ground you would think it was designed with small children in mind.

You are both correct. On E class the kitchens are at opposite ends of the ship. Also Luminae is on Deck 12 on E Class and the MDR's on decks 3 & 4, so about as far from apart as they could be on the ship.

Starlink improved Apex’s immensely. The TA before it internet was lousy, much, much better with Starlink. Are all X ships equipped with it now?

Yes, Viking Ocean & River both have the same final pay date requirements. Paying in full for a cruise more than 16 months out I think is crazy.

Interesting...... we sailed on Vista in December and had a MUCH different experience in many areas than you did. First.... Water... The Big Blue bottles are left in the room, we told our butler we drink a lot of water there was NEVER less than 5 of them in the room, usually more like 8 as we had 3 in the mini frig getting cold. I do wish I thought about drinking a Power Ade, rinsing it out and then using it for shore excursions, as I really didn't like the large metal containter they provide. We never had an issue with bar service. Yes, they were busy but we never waited more then 5 minutes for a server to come to us, get our order and deliver back to us within 5 minutes. We both commented on how much better this was than our experience on the Apex. Specialty Restaurants. We LOVED Toscano, the italian one, food was better than anything we had in Luminae or any restaurant on our last couple X cruises. We also loved Polo Grill. Ember was a miss for us. We did not have in room dining and you SHOULD have had course by course service, as it is advertised. I would have been unhappy too if they had just dumped the whole dinner at once. Something to speak to a Supervisor about for sure. Waves, their sandwich/pizza place outside the buffet area was great, and nothing like it offered on X. We LOVED our PH1 room, far better than any SS on Celebrity. Felt much roomier, elegantly furnished and our balcony on deck 11 was a partially extended one which had 2 chairs, table and one lounge. It was lovely. Something you didn't mention was the TV. The number of movies and shows available are at least 10 times what is offered on X.... with a LARGE variety of music choices, something X forgot completely about on the E class ships....no music available at all. Big fail for us. O falls short in the night time entertainment in many ways, especially in the theatre. The 4 person violinists though were superb and we enjoyed them every evening. We went on Vista knowing it was going to be a much different experience, but we found food and service across the ship far superior to our recent X trips. We loved the Vista, booked another O cruise before leaving. That doesn't mean we'll never sail X again, in fact I have been heartened by some positive things apparently that have happened recently according to what I am reading on these boards.

Because those 4 rooms are being "sold" as Horizon Suites on the X website and everywhere else after May 15, 2024.

Has anyone heard anymore about what will be done during the 3 week dry dock for Equinox? I know that the now "Ultimate Verandas" at the front of the ship will be renovated into "Horizon Suites" but are any other staterooms/suites also being renovated?

We actually liked it so much we booked the same room again on the Allura for a cruise in 2025. The balcony is actually only half extended, which we really liked. We had 2 chairs, a table and a lounge on it. The half extension gives you wonderful views forward that you don't get with the fully extended balconies (unless you hang your head over the railing). Great location. There is a staff work room across from the room but the amount of noise from it was minimal and never bothered us. I would book this room over a fully extended balcony every time.

It was not in ours. We were in PH1 11071.

Here: https://www.cruisemapper.com/ports