GenerationX

Good morning and happy embarkation day! My dear CC friends, this morning was a very special moment for me as a mom and cruise/travel addict. This morning I gave Gen Z the surprise I ordered and had hidden in my closet ever since the day when, a couple of days after we got back from her first cruise, she looked at me and said “mama it just hurts my heart that we aren’t on the X ship anymore.” Today I began preparations for the inevitable day when I shall pass the torch to the next generation of cruise loving women world explorers, by presenting Gen Z with her official embarkation day uniform! In less thrilling news, last night we had plans to head out for a nice dinner, but when we got back to the room from the pool and Gen Z finally sat down on the couch in our room, her extremely long day and the 2 hour time difference caught up with her. Hard. She curled herself into a little ball under a blanket and begged not to have to move for “at least several hours”. I knew better than to try and drag an exhausted child through a formal dinner (parenting pro tip: NO ONE will end up enjoying themselves if you do this, not the kid, not you and not your fellow diners and waitstaff) and it was important to me that she be well rested for our big first day onboard today, so I canceled our reservation and just ordered some doordash Chinese food. Poor thing was snoring and down for the night within minutes of finishing her fortune cookie. Normally I don’t have a full breakfast on embarkation day, to save room for Luminae lunch but Gen Z is in a growth spurt and requires full sustenance every 2-3 hours right now (may Poseidon be with the culinary staff on Solstice as they take this burden from my shoulders this week). I was determined to get us at least a little glimpse of the area food scene so we we’ve just finished a very cool Mexican weekend brunch at Solita, a taco bar I found on Yelp that’s about 3 blocks from the hotel. First of all, any restaurant that serves me fresh made tortilla chips and salsa at 9am is gonna win me over from the jump off. They also have a “rainbow mimosa bar” where you can combine your champagne with any of several fresh made juices (including some more exotic options like guava). I went with mango and if I wasn’t going to be spending the rest of the day surrounded by people offering me drinks, I would’ve had 3. Gen Z had the berry bread pudding and I took our Mexico-native server’s recommendation to have the Machaca and eggs. Both of us were sad that we didn’t have the stomach capacity to clean our plates. Now I have to go on the hunt for a Mexican brunch in STL. We’re off to the hotel to check out and meet our driver. Next report from onboard Solstice! m

What’s up from Long Beach! Oooh I feel like Dr. Dre saying that. It’s not even 70 degrees but that’s not stopping Gen Z from spending our afternoon post-aquarium in the hotel’s heated pool. About our day so far: When we landed at LAX our bags were some of the first off the plane. For transfers, I decided to book car service from the airport and to the cruise port tomorrow with Crown Limousine. I remembered from a business trip to LA that Uber pick ups at LAX are a bit of a process. You have either a decent walk from baggage claim or take a shuttle with your bags to a separate part of the airport to get your ride. I’m all for that when it’s just me and my carryon and briefcase but not something I wanted to deal with with a child and 5 suitcases in tow. Considering tip was included in the limo rate I probably paid about $60 total more than I would’ve by using Uber Black (which can pick up curbside at LAX), but the extra little bit of luxury is worth it to me for this special trip. I’ve also heard stories of truly horrific surge pricing in LA and going to/from the cruise port during prime times and I figured this way at least I know exactly what I’m paying and that I’ll get value for the spend. Our driver met us right outside of baggage claim in a spotless SUV and loaded all of our luggage and had cold waters waiting for us in the back seat. When we got to the hotel after a 30 minute ride, he also had us wait in the air conditioned car while he lugged all of our bags all the way inside and up to the check in desk for us. Our pre-cruise hotel is Hyatt Centric The Pike on Long Beach. I used a reward night to book so I’m not sure what rates are typically like but so far it seems like a great hotel. Check in and bell staff have been friendly and helpful. The hotel and room decor pays homage in a very cool way to the maritime history of the area. The pool area looks like it has a bar area that’s closed right now (probably too early in the season). I bet it’s a great place to lounge during summer. It was about a 5 minute walk from the hotel to the aquarium and several restaurant options (albeit mostly chains). Gen Z loved the aquarium. It was at least 3 times the size of our aquarium in St. Louis (which is admittedly small). I bought us tickets for a 2:15 entry in case baggage claim or traffic took a while, but we were ready to go by 1:30 and had no problem at all getting in early. I’m going to pull Gen Z out of the pool now so we can at least get an hour of rest before our 6pm (8pm our bodies’ time) dinner reservation.

Checking in from somewhere over New Mexico. It’s really saying something about just how bad the flight issues have been for me with AA that right now I’m surprised and elated at two consecutive flights actually getting in the air as scheduled. Our flight into DFW actually got in about 20 minutes early so we killed some time in the kids room in the Terminal A Admirals Club at DFW. The toys and books they used to have in the kids spaces in some clubs never came back after COVID but I still like the AC kids rooms as a nice space to let little ones run around/decompress from the stress of air travel. We knew we’d be served breakfast on our next flight so weren’t going to visit the buffet but one of the lounge servers popped her head in the kids room and offered to bring a mimosa for me and a cheese streusel muffin for Gen Z and neither of us were going to refuse that offer. The southwest enchilada for breakfast on our DFW to LAX leg surprisingly tastes a lot better than it looked. The sauce on it definitely has a little kick to it though. When flying first class on AA I put a reminder on my calendar for 30 days out from my return flight to go online and pre-reserve my meal selection for my flight so that I know they won’t run out of the option I want before they get to me. You can also pre-order meals to accommodate special dietary needs (kosher, vegetarian, gluten free, diabetic, etc.). We’ve got one of those rare first class flight attendants who I would really love to see hired as a butler or Retreat manager for Celebrity. We are in a 16 passenger first class cabin and she knew all our names and greeted us personally when we took our seats and offered pre-flight beverages (I was still sticking to water at that point). When breakfast was served and I ordered a vodka cranberry, she became a cocktail genie where each time my glass has gotten down to a quarter full or started to look watered down, she just appears with a fresh one and a smile without me asking for anything. We’re due to land in LA in about an hour. Given our early start I had planned for us to just head to our hotel in Long Beach and rest/nap for the afternoon, but Gen Z was playing with her iPad on the drive to the airport in STL and figured out that our hotel is just minutes away from the Aquarium of the Pacific (these kids today have better Google skills at 10 than I do at 40) and has been begging since sunrise (literally) to go. The 2 breakfast cocktails washed away whatever was left of my resolve so I got online just a few minutes ago and bought us tickets for an entry slot this afternoon. Guess I’ll be hitting the Red Bull and rallying! I’m getting too old for this.

I loved cruising Alaska too! I was actually hoping to take Gen Z on an Alaska cruise this summer. She is obsessed with whales, wildlife and all things nature and environment related and I know she’d enjoy it even more than Jeremy and I did. Unfortunately airfare and cruise fares for this coming summer put it way out of budget. It was going to cost almost double to cruise aqua class on Solstice to Alaska out of Seattle compared to what it cost to do a week in the Caribbean in the yacht club on MSC Seascape. Im looking at booking an Edge Alaska sailing for next summer though depending on how crazy we go with the spend for Mediterranean cruise this October…St. Louis to Rome is a lot of flight time and much to my husband’s angst I’ve got a wild hare to fly Flagship First. 😂

Good morning and happy St. Patrick’s Day from STL! I was completely shocked at how easy it was to get Gen Z out of bed at 2am. Far easier than getting her up 4 hours later for morning chores and school. 🤔 The STL airport was already packed at 3:45am with way more family travelers than I’m used to seeing at such an ungodly hour. Gen Z actually had several playmates in the indoor playground in the gate area. The spring break travel season has officially begun! I really prefer to fly nonstop but when I booked our the only nonstop flight to LA today didn’t leave STL until 6pm and that was cutting it way too close for me to get halfway across the country if anything went awry with that flight. Instead we’re taking a redeye with a connection in DFW that should put us in LA a little before 11am local time if all goes according to plan. Thus far it’s looking like an on time departure so fingers crossed the luck of the Irish is with us all the way through to LA. Almost time for wheels up!

I’m not 100% sure. On our last couple of cruises Jeremy‘s express pass had his lower cc status and when we got in the room there was schedules and info in my name for elite and his name for select. But we started cruising together before we were married and I’ve never gotten around to calling and officially designating him as my spouse. If I remember correctly though, on our last cruise together, Gen Z was invited to all of the elite captains club events with me even though she had never cruised celebrity before. I’m not sure if her being a minor changed anything about how they handle it though.

That’s what the captains club desk told me on her first cruise last year as well. I was kind of surprised to see her number and status but thought maybe I was misremembering what I was told. I wonder if there’s been a recent policy change.

I’m another ribeye fan, with a couple of the lamb chops on the side. And yes, I’d skip the salad bar and flatbread to save room for that cookie dessert!

Welcome aboard! I will definitely hold onto her seapass cards. She was quite excited that for this cruise, when I pulled up our booking and xpress pass, she’s been assigned a captains club number and her xpress pass shows her as classic status. She says she now has a “personal goal” to become the youngest zenith in Celebrity Cruises history. I told her if that’s what she’s striving for, she’d better find herself a job, immediately.

I am so sorry for the loss of your husband. You are so right about the value of family time and memories. Cruising is so much about the life experiences and time with family for me as well. I sometimes look at what I spend on my travels (both solo and with Jeremy and Gen Z) and think about how many designer bags, what a nice luxury car or what a gorgeous kitchen remodel I could have instead. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to think that at the end of the day, things are just things and wonderful memories of the places and people we love are really the most valuable things we can ever own. Gen Z is growing like a weed and I know it won’t be long now before she’s a teenager and may not want to spend as much of her time with me (and definitely won’t be begging to wear matching outfits anymore). Between my professional commitments and Gen Z’s school and extracurriculars it’s so hard for us to find quality time together on a daily basis. I feel like our mother daughter trips are a priceless investment in making the kind of memories that I hope Gen Z will have forever and be telling her grandkids about someday.

Thank you so much for sharing and for your supportive words! Your family sounds absolutely beautiful. I’m loving that your mom gets a kick out of virtually sailing along and is already in vacation mode 😀 I hope that you all catch the cruising bug next April and I get to sail with you sometime!

She does have some challenges with sound volume. We have noise reduction headphones that I bring along for her to shows and concerts and we try to get seats on the aisle and further back in the audience in case we need to slip out without disturbing people too much. We’ll likely do that for the shows on this cruise. On our last cruise they didn’t have a production show (it was while things were still coming back up to full steam post-COVID), just a magician act so I didn’t really get a chance to test how she’ll do with the sound level in the theater.

Gen Z loves the theater! Her favorite shows are The Secret Garden, Hairspray, Les Mis and Hamilton. We sometimes do weekend road trips up to Chicago when the St. Louis theater scene is lacking in options. Nope, no worries on her wearing diapers in a hot tub at all. I do my best not to judge others’ parenting choices, but I really do struggle to find a legit reason why a child young enough to be in diapers would even want to be in water that warm, or why parents would want to put their kids in it. Even at 10, I only let Gen Z in our private hot tub at home. I’ve seen enough suspect practice by adults in the hotel and cruise ship hot tubs to not want to risk exposing a junior immune system to it.

Greetings and salutations fellow cruisers! Well, that was quick. It feels like just yesterday that my husband Jeremy and I were stepping off the Apex and now it’s almost time to head out to the west coast to board the Solstice! If it wasn’t for the very different weather forecast between the Pacific coast and the Caribbean, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered fully unpacking. I’m looking forward to seeing Solstice again for the first time since Jeremy and I sailed on her to Alaska for our honeymoon in 2018. I’m also looking forward to trying a new itinerary that will take me to a part of Mexico that I’ve never experienced before. I think what I’m most looking forward to though, is getting to spend a week of uninterrupted mommy and me fun time with my cabinmate, who we shall call Mini Me or Gen Z, who will be sailing on her first S-class ship! A quick about us for those who haven’t followed before: I’m Charla, 40 (and fabulous, thank you) and an attorney from the St. Louis, MO area. Gen Z is 10, is neurodiverse, and has a love of the arts, food and travel that is surpassed only by her love of all things ocean and animal-related. This will be my 20th Celebrity Cruise and Gen Z’s second. We tested the Celebrity cruising waters for Gen Z on a short 4 night sail in the Retreat on Millennium last year (just in case she found cruising or Celebrity to be boring or not a good fit). At the end, she sulked off of the ship bitter that I didn’t book us a full week cruise. In a few days, her wish will be granted, sailing again in the Retreat in a Celebrity Suite, and this time on an even bigger ship with more to explore! Before we get too far into the review, I’ll address the elephant in the room (and I don’t mean the one doing crow pose on a half naked guy’s back at the end of the pool on Beyond)…. I respectfully request that the review not be hijacked for debate/commentary about the appropriateness of kids sailing on Celebrity. To reiterate from the start of my review of Gen Z’s first Celebrity cruise, every kid is different and what makes a “good cruise line” for one family may be a terrible fit for another. Celebrity may not offer all the kid “bells and whistles” that some other lines do, but it’s also not Viking or Virgin Voyages (the latter of whom went so far as to do a whole marketing campaign around the many charms of its guaranteed kid-free cruise experience…And I promise I’m not being sarcastic, as a busy mom I do find MANY charms in guaranteed kid free vacations, and I usually book an adults-only resort trip each year in addition to our cruises for just that reason). Celebrity is definitely NOT a kid FOCUSED cruise line. However, based upon my experiences over my many cruises, one with my own child in tow, Celebrity can be kid FRIENDLY. Perhaps even more so since they started targeting a young professional (and thus more likely to have small children) demographic. There is a kids club, the restaurants have kids menus and kids pricing (for specialties), there are family hours at the indoor pool especially during inclement and cooler weather sailings (apparently another hot button issue that I’d also prefer we not revisit debate on here) and there are family activities on the daily schedule. I’ll be sure to report on the quality of all of the above on Solstice as we experience them. That said, parents following and considering Celebrity, ye be warned. On Celebrity there are no water slides, go carts, carousels, roller coasters, laser tag arenas, etc. The vibe all around is relaxed and upscale. If your child needs lots of high stimulation and to burn lots of energy daily, Celebrity is probably not the best fit. However, if your kids are used to more upscale restaurants and resorts, enjoy them and can handle the behavior expectations that come along with those environments, Celebrity may be a good fit for you. Especially with Gen Z’s sensory condition, many of the things the other “kid friendly” lines offer (e.g., nonstop loud music/announcements everywhere, character parades/meals with people in huge masks, hundreds of other running, screaming children) would be too much for her. If I’m honest, it probably would be too much for me as well. It’d be like a race to which one of us has an anxiety attack first. An anxiety attack I would have spent twice as much as sailing on Celebrity to trigger, at that. (Seriously, check out what Disney charges for their suites and what it costs to sail Star Class for a week on those Royal ships that hold more people than my entire Big 10 college did. Makes the Retreat and what’s included in the fare look like a real bargain!) Anyway that’s enough on that issue and now let’s move on to talking all things fun at sea! Soon to come: a report on our plans for our week in the Mexican Riviera! Looking forward to taking everyone along on another cruise!

Yes, in fact I’m working on my intro post as we speak!

I’m used to turning up fashionably late to a party but this time I find myself not arriving till it’s already over! Ms. Georgia Peaches thank you so much for this wonderful review!!! I think I sprained my thumb anxious reading through the first few pages of your travel strife! I loved the story of your first night onboard. You’ll get no judgment from me on your memory of the events of the night being blurry. If I’d gone through what you did to barely make it, there’d probably be not a bottle of veuve left on the ship by sunrise. I hope your trip home was much smoother! Your review has me even more excited to board Solstice with my mini me in a few days! I think we’ll try to check out the restaurant in Cabo that you mentioned. Thank you again and I hope you have some great future cruise plans that we can look forward to reading along on!

Final Thoughts on our Apex Cruise: Overall, Jeremy and I had a wonderful trip and made some amazing new memories together. While there were a few misses here and there, for the most part the food, drinks and service all week were very good. In spite of the wifi difficulties that I’ve now had when docked in the area on two different ships and wifi platforms, I think the Virgin Islands are fast becoming my favorite Caribbean ports. Incredible scenery, friendly, welcoming locals and stiff rum cocktails seem to abound. As we were coming down the gangway at the end of the cruise, I asked Jeremy what he thought of his first E-class cruise and he said he thinks he likes it best of all of the Celebrity ships. For me, having sailed on all 3 E-class ships now, I still feel like S-class and E-class are apples and oranges. Each have pros and cons and features the other doesn’t that make me excited to sail on them. I still think Beyond is my favorite of the E- class ships from a ship design and features perspective. However service on Apex was definitely a bit better. To be fair though, I was in Aqua class on Beyond, so it’s not exactly comparing apples to apples (sorry lots of fruit references in this post). I WILL have a chance to check out the service in suite class on Beyond very soon though, which brings me to future cruise plans. Disclaimer: In the next few months, you guys may get tired of the sound of my voice. It’s a good thing that I finally finished the last of my unpacking and post-cruise laundry over the weekend, because in just 4 days, Gen Z and I will be flying to LA to spend her spring break on a 7 night Cabo cruise on Solstice! After that, I was supposed to be staying on land till mid-summer, but as mentioned earlier, I grabbed a too good to pass up deal on a solo sky suite sailing on Beyond at the beginning of April. Next up, in early July, I’ll be switching lines (and CC boards for review posting) as Gen Z and I sail for 7 nights in the Yacht Club on MSC Seascape. Once we return, the rest of summer and early fall will be spent saving up spending money and practicing my Italian in preparation for Jeremy and I’s big bucket list trip to spend 10 nights exploring the Mediterranean on Beyond. As always thank you to everyone who followed along and who shared their own tips and info. I have a couple of busy days left at the office but then for anyone interested keep an eye out for the start of a live review of Pacific coast sailing on Solstice!

Oh you can definitely order as many desserts as you like! We were just getting full by the time we got to dessert and had agreed to just split one dessert so as not to waste food. Since it was his first time at Eden, I gave Jeremy the honor of choosing.

Hmmm, I know we were docked right next to the US district court building (sorry these are the types of landmarks I notice). I’m pretty sure the bar was still within the port area. It was only about a 5 minute walk from where the catamaran dropped us back off next to the ship. Maybe it’s fairly new?

Unfortunately he won’t be joining in April. He decided he wanted to save the vacation time in case we want to spend some extra time before/after October cruise in Rome. As much as I’ll miss him in April, I can’t fault that judgement call one bit!

Yes! Even when sailing in a suite I do try to get a cabana for one sea day on E class if I’ve got the OBC to spend. The main pool deck and retreat deck tend to be really packed on sea days and it can be hard to find a seat, especially in shade if you get there later in the morning, so the cabana gives me a guaranteed shady spot with quick drink service from the cabana butlers. I also know I won’t lose my seat if I head off to a wine tasting or the spa for an hour and want to come back to poolside lounging afterwards. Also, the cabana comes with a complimentary bottle of Veuve, which I usually end up buying at some point in the cruise anyway (and pay not much less for than the cost of the split cabana). This past cruise we just drank the beers included with the cabana and had the butlers bring us cocktails (we had the beverage package so no charge) then we took our champagne bottle back to the room unopened and had it as our bottle with dinner that night.

Just realized that I forgot to get back to you on this, so sorry! I did show this picture to a bartender in Eden and he said that they “sometimes” have this bottle stocked in Eden, Craft Social and/or the Retreat lounge, but I got the impression that it’s not stocked generously or consistently. When I was in a royal suite on Silhouette I remember when the shoreside concierge reached out about the spirits bottles for our room she was quick to warn that supply issues were making spirits availability onboard somewhat random.

Hello CC! After a busy first few days back in reality, coming back to finish my review of our Apex sailing. If my notes are correct, what I had left to share was A Tale of Two Dinners: Eden and Raw on 5. I made our Eden reservation online pre-cruise and again was glad that I did because I heard that for our sailing, by the second day of the cruise Eden was completely booked up. This makes sense to me as on every E-class ship, Eden has consistently been one of my favorite dining experiences of the trip. We started with 2 of my favorite dishes from Eden on Beyond: the Bazaar Bowl and the Risotto. For dinner Jeremy had the lamb and I had the lobster casserole (made with fresh Canadian lobster and a sweet creamy corn puree) that I will never leave an E-class ship without eating at least once. Jeremy wasn’t feeling chocolate for dessert so we split the strawberry delight. It was good, but I really like the chocolate tart with cardamom ice cream so much better. Oh well, to be consumed on my next solo cruise (See? This is why we should also book solo trips, ladies.) Service and timing of courses was perfect. I noticed that while the restaurant was fully booked up, only about half the tables in the room were full. It seems like Eden is a venue where Celebrity is being very mindful of not allowing more guests to be seated than the current kitchen and front of house staffing can accommodate without lowering standards. Now, the latest chapter in my saga to try and get into Raw on 5… I was drinking wine that evening but Jeremy tried two of the cocktails on the menu and only drank a few sips of each. He said they were both way too heavy on the sake. Service was very good and after being seated we were given complimentary edamame which I didn’t receive on Edge or Beyond. I booked this dinner primarily because my husband is a sashimi addict and I really wanted him to try the imperial seafood tower that Red and I loved on Beyond. When it came time for dinner, my teammate completely bailed on me and said he was still a little full from tea time and didn’t think he could manage to help me eat enough of the seafood tower to justify the $90 cost, and asserted that we should get a few smaller things. (And they say marriage is for better or worse. Likely story. Almost a week later and I’m still salty about this. No amount of Effy jewelry buys forgiveness for coming between me and a seafood tower.) We ended up having the chicken gyoza which was pretty good and the calamari which was massively over cooked. Jeremy then got a plate of sashimi which he said was better than he’s had on Sushi on 5 on S and M class and I tried the curry udon soup. Just my personal opinion, a cruise line who makes soups as amazing as the pork ramen and shrimp tempura udon in Sushi on 5 should be embarrassed to be putting out that curry udon thing. I’m not sure how, but it managed to be both spicy and bland at the same time and the pieces of chicken at the ends of each side were like chewing rubber. I quickly decided that I wouldn’t be spending much more time with that soup and ordered a shrimp tempura roll which was really good and kept me from going away hungry. We may have just caught the chef on a bad night, but I don’t know that going forward Raw on 5 will be at the top of my specialty dining must do’s list, unless I want to just grab a quick sushi roll (or that awesome kakiage that they have in Raw on Beyond) for lunch. Now having said that, I have already made my husband sign a contract that I drafted up on the flight back to STL agreeing that when we are on Beyond in October, he will commit to full partnership on the endeavor of tackling the imperial seafood tower. I’ll accept no further regressions. We’re in this together for heaven’s sake. Soon to come, a quick post on final impressions of Apex and future cruise plans.

It was a bottle of Veuve yellow label that we got complimentary with our cabana rental. I too found the by the glass bubbly offerings a bit disappointing on this cruise. I miss the days when at least a decent Chandon was readily available.

I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one! I used to fly southwest direct to FLL to avoid all this, but since the pandemic they’ve drastically reduced the number of STL to FLL direct flights and jacked the prices so much that flying first class on AA sometimes is not that much more.