GnarleeDude

Was on Ascent the week of March 24th with the kiddos and had a great time. Heard there were around 400 kids on the ship, and noticed a wide age range from infants to high-school aged kids. We were on Beyond last year and Ascent is virtually the same. The food on Ascent seemed better. Oceanview buffet was great, and only really seemed crowded on the last day for lunch with the seafood buffet. We ate at Le Petit Chef, Eden, and Rooftop Garden Grill. The kids liked the animations of Petit Chef and ate the food, but I wouldn't say it was kid friendly. Eden was good but the music from the bar (a solo guitar player) kind of killed the vibe. Rooftop Grill was the best, plenty of food, you could order as much as you wanted - the steak was the best. We ate in all four of the main dining rooms. We had 6 PM reservations for each night but showed up between 5:45 and 6 and never had a wait. Dinner in the dining rooms did take long and averaged over 90 minutes, but lots of down time between courses (especially desert). We had the classic drink package and stuck with beer, wine, frozen drinks and coffees and never received an up charge. Entertainment was good, this was the first cruise after Luigi (Cruise Director) left for vacation. We didn't attend any of the large production shows, but the comedian and magician were a hit. The kids club was crowded (as expected), but unlike we experienced on RCCL a few months ago, they did not have a capacity limit. The staff there was great and would take the kids to the boarding area on deck 2 to play games and run around. We had two adjoining IV cabins on deck 8. On the second to last night we were apparently moving fast to get around some weather and the creaking and moving of the cabin was very loud and woke us up. Other than that, no issues.

We were on Freedom this past President's Day weekend for a 3 night out of Miami. On the first night, we went to Adventure Ocean just before 8 PM and there was a long line to check-in (typical for Freedom). After waiting for about 10 minutes, a staff member came out saying they were at their capacity of 75 kids and they could only accept more kids as others left. We later heard there were "1,000 kids" on this sailing, but not sure how accurate that number is. We've been on Freedom (and other ships) over holiday weekends and Spring Break and never had this issue before. The next two nights we were in line before 7:30 PM and didn't have a problem getting in. Has anyone else heard of this capacity issue on other ships? Could there be a change in the capacity limits or staffing in Adventure Ocean? Just trying to see if this is a new issue going forward or something specific to that sailing.

The menus in the main dining room were: Welcome Aboard the first night, Italian the second night, and Caribbean the third night. You can go on the App and pull up the menus for each night too.

Show times were 7:45 and 9:45 PM. We had the early traditional dining time (5:45) and didn't have any problem making it to the 7:45 show.

For the 3 night, the shows were: Ice Show on Night 1, Headliner/Comedian on Night 2, and a Production Show on night 3. We only made it to the Comedian, but he was good. There was also lots of games, trivia, and music happening each night throughout the ship.

We walked around Nassau for around 2 hours, and it's not bad and nobody bothered us. But while the new port area is new, everything else is the same. Not a shot at Nassau though. I will note that it seemed like we were docked at the farther end of the pier, and it is a bit of a walk to get to the shopping area. I heard several people asking for wheelchairs or carts to help with the journey. Something to consider if you have little kids or have trouble getting around. My 9 year old was hot and complaining by the time we walked back...

My daughter did the kids club a couple times and she always enjoyed it. I did notice that the Zoom Wi-Fi worked great throughout the ship. It cut out a few times when we were going through bad weather, and it was a little spotty on CoCo Cay, but in general it worked really well and was very fast. Overall, it was a great trip. I did always hear that these 3-nighter’s were more of a party crowd. While the pool deck was always hopping, I didn’t notice anymore craziness or drinking than on a regular 7 night cruise. I wouldn’t hesitate to do another 3-nighter if it fits the schedule.

We did the main dining room for dinner the first two nights, and the Menu was the Welcome Aboard menu the first night, Italian the second night, and Caribbean third night. The new menu/food was all fine, I didn’t notice any drop in food quality. Everything was edible, but nothing was really outstanding. I know some people complained about long wait times, but dinner only took around an hour for us each night. We did Izumi for the last night and it was great, the Chefs put on a great hibachi show and the food was good. We did breakfast the first day in the main dining room and for some reason the service was horrible and slow, I had to flag down multiple people to just get coffee. We did Wind Jammer for both breakfast and lunch and El Loco Fresh – all were good and had plenty of options. This itinerary mirrors Independence which leaves out of Port Canaveral. I debated between the two ships but stuck with Freedom because it had the amplification and left out of Miami. At Coco Cay with both ships, there was still tons of space and chairs all around the pool and beach throughout the day. At Nassau, the new port entrance and market were open. It was nice and clean, but Nassau is still Nassau once you get out of the gate. We did notice that Independence left significantly earlier from Nassau than we did, and I assume that’s because they have a longer trip to get back to Orlando? So, if you are deciding between the two and want more time in port, that’s something to consider.

Took this 3 night Freedom Cruise on June 16th with my oldest daughter (9 years old). This was the standard Coco Cay and Nassau itinerary. We’ve been on Freedom a couple times before, but this was our first 3-nighter. There are many Freedom Reviews – so I won’t go crazy on what’s been discussed. The cabins are looking a little dated and worn, and the bathrooms are where this really shows. Everything was clean, but just looking worn out. I recommend brining some kind of multi-plug/USB outlet device, since there’s only a couple outlets in the room. We did an interior cabin for the first time on Deck 9, and it was good for the two of us with plenty of space. We usually do a Balcony and I did miss being able to go outside, but for such a short cruise we were seldom in the cabin, so not a big issue. Leaving out of Miami was great, we had an 1130 Port Arrival time and we got there around 1045. There was no line and nobody checking arrival times. We were on the ship in about 10 minutes, which was the fastest and smoothest check-in I’ve ever had. We hit the Wind Jammer first thing and it was wide-open, not crowds, plenty of tables, lots of food….it’ was great. The ship itself is in good shape and well maintained, but seemed like they need more staff on trash patrol. On the upper decks in the evening there was trash, cups, and empty beer bottles everywhere. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed this much trash before, and did not seem like there was any staff around trying to keep up with it.

A few surprises: It never felt that crowded, and never had to wait more than a few minutes for anything All the design elements…it seemed like the ship was made for Instagram photos And finally, that my kids liked this ship better than RCCL, even though this ship is much less kid focused.

As promised, below is my 9 year old’s review (unedited): GOOD 🙂Let’s start with the good of the cruise.The food at the main restaurant’s were the best on the cruise, in my opinion the French restaurant was the best,I got the tortellini & a burger 🍔. The restrooms were clean & nice, they had actual towels that you could get from the tops of the shelves on the bottom you could get paper towels. To get in & out of the restroom’s they had a thing that you put your hand in front of it & the door would open.The Camp at sea (aka kids club) was very fun & it was so clean, the things to do were play on a play station, make a fort or play a game with a friend. The pool had lots of events such as dance lessons, volleyball, basketball & much more. The gangway was beautiful it had all these pretty lights & it had a gorgeous statue.The room was clean and the room service put chocolate on top of my pillow each night that I was there. BAD 😞Ok we talked about the good & now we haft to do the bad, but the good thing is that we have just a little bit of the bad stuff! So let’s talk about Raw on 5, almost all of the things we ordered was spicy 🌶 for example the beyond roll was pretty spicy but it wasn’t supposed to be that spicy 🥵! In the restrooms on the sides they were hard to get out of, I got stuck in one and so did my mom in the bathroom she went in to there was no door handle, so I had to save her.The only bad part of the kids club was that there was only 40 kids on the boat & I only got to meet 10 of them at kids club. The pool was the only pool that they did events at and if you wanted to chill it wasn’t a good idea to go there. I am a weird kid I … don’t like…SWEETS! (well just not cake, chocolate,cupcakes or brownie’s) so them putting dark chocolate oh did I mention it as dark chocolate on my pillow is not ok, I tried it once but I spit it out in the sink it was terrible I would rather eat cake. CONCLUSIONI think that Celebrity Beyond is better then all the Royal Caribbean in the world 🌎. So if you are thinking about going on Celebrity Beyond I hope you love it !!!My rating is ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!

Facial recognition is being used and it’s a quick process. For us, there was just a line of people to get to that point from the baggage pickup area. Also, for little kids, the software doesn’t detect their face and you have to see a customs officer with their passports.

Pools The main pool was great and had plenty of room. We never had a problem finding a chair and even on seadays there seemed to be plenty of space available at any time. I did think it was odd that the hot tubs are located two decks up from the main pool. Which meant you had to walk up stairs and burn your feet to go between the two. Photo Shoot My wife wanted to get some nice family pictures, so we booked a photo shoot in the studio on the formal night. We thought this would be the same price and process as using the normal photographers, but we were very wrong. Photo packages were very expensive (5 digital photos for $550). We thought this was ridiculous and didn’t buy any, but did get a picture taken by one of the “normal” photographers and got the digital copy for around $25. Costa Maya In costa maya, like many others, we booked access to a private beach club a short distance away. The club warned us, but know that taxi cabs will try and take you to another beach spot. You must be persistent about where you want to go, and know what it’s called, otherwise you’ll easily end up somewhere else. Cabs are $4 per person each way (bring exact change). Disembarkation We walked off with our own luggage after we got breakfast and it only took around 5 minutes to walk off the ship and get to customs. Customs took a little time because of all the people, but clearly not Celebrity’s fault. The pickup area for Uber/Lyft at Terminal 25 was chaos, and there are no markings or other way to tell the driver where you are at. This could definitely be better laid out by just painting some numbers on the wall. Lastly, we talked up this cruise a lot beforehand with the kids and they were really looking forward to seeing Captain Kate. We know she’s vacationing on the boat and some people had some sightings, but no luck for us. While the entire crew was great, it would have been awesome to have a meet and greet with the famous captain it seemed like many others were hoping to see her too. My daughter is working on her own review, so I'll post that as an update when she's done!

We tried all of the 4 main dining room restaurants, and they were all good. As others mentioned, the left side of the menu is specific to that restaurant, and the right side is the same at all the restaurants. With a new restaurant each night, it did feel like we were eating at a specialty place and something new each night. The kids menu is the same at all the restaurants. We wanted to try some actual specialty restaurants but they booked up very quickly before the cruise, we kept looking online and even checked in on board but had no luck. Make sure you make your reservations ASAP if that’s what you want. We did eat the last night at Raw on 5. The food was good and the menu had lots of non-sushi items too. I recommend the Beyond Roll, it was the best one we got. One area that was underwhelming was the Oceanview Cafe (the buffet). I read all the reviews of how large and great it was, but I felt it was lacking. It was big and well laid out, and there was always plenty of seating, but there didn’t seem to be as many selections as other places and the food that was out looked limited. Not sure if this was supply chain or staffing related, but it always looked like they had just run out of items and no one was around to restock it. It also seemed like there were not as many desert options as other buffets. We had breakfast and lunch here several times, and walked through around dinner time as well. The pizza in the back was good, but after lunch time it seemed like it was forgotten about and looked like the pizza sat out for a while. The ice cream/gelato counter at the front of the buffet was good and all was available without any additional charge. The coffee shop on deck 4 made the best Lattes, according to my wife. And seemed to be the only place that had oat milk. The one odd thing was they didn’t have regular coffee….even though it’s the coffee shop. So coffee was only available at one of the dining rooms, the spa cafe or the buffet. We went to the mast grill for burgers/dogs a few times. The food was great and they seemed to have all the toppings you could want. It did get busy on the sea days at lunch time.

Dining As others have said, the set dining times (early and late seating) are in fact gone. When we booked, we had the early seating (6 PM) and the celebrity app said we would get a card in our room with our dining location. When we arrived, the card in the room said our dining time was 8:15-9 PM, but that we could go to any restaurant at any time. We spoke to some of the restaurant staff and they confirmed that it’s all open seating, and to just show up wherever and whenever. We went to all four of the main dining rooms and never waited more than a couple minutes to get a table. We arrived between 5:30-6 and always saw open tables and no lines when we left. We were told there was about 2,700 people on the cruise, so much less than full capacity. One thing to note, the hostess essentially said that if you come around 6PM and there’s a wait, you probably won’t be seated until after 7, since everyone at a table sat down no earlier than 5:30 when the restaurants opened. We heard people who went to the same restaurant around the same time each night got the same table and servers, so it sounds like that’s still an option.