mauimary

We have done three sailings on the Beyond. Two in SV and one in an IV. We always love the SV. To our surprise we even enjoyed the IV on a transatlantic last April. We love the Beyond. We too are on the Ascent the same cruise with PTCDAWG & Jelayne.

I went on a little hunt to find your video. I agree that room was a little gross. Luckily it has not been our experience. What was interesting was the four bottles of wine they managed to get by security!

I’m not sure what a vlog is but I know what a blog is. Is this some kind of utube video? One room on one ship is certainly not a statement of what is found company wide. Of course that would not be anybody’s experience on a newer ship. The Equinox is a 15 yr old ship.

We just got off the Eclipse a few weeks ago. It is definitely not dirty. Staff were out cleaning constantly and polishing. Tables were rapidly cleaned in Oceanview and out on the veranda behind the Oceanview. It was not worn or shabby either. Yes in places the carpets were a little more worn in the hallways but by no means threadbare. We have done 5 cruises on the Eclipse this past year. We have also recently been on the Solstice. Twice in Alaska. It was very clean and well polished and cared for. Furniture was not worn. Staff on both were excellent. Very friendly helpful and took pride in their jobs. Our Stateroom attendants in both maintained our rooms beautifully. We WERE NOT in a suite either. We have been very impressed with staff on both. Maybe they place one of their top top cruise directors on the newest ASCENT. Even he was moved over from the BEYOND Please don’t take as an example of the brand by what you read from a few blogs. Those are obviously disenchanted folks who are probably not happy on anything they are on. They will go out of their way to put the ship down. If what you want is new and shiny and bigger you should choose the E you probably will be happier. But there is plenty of negative there too. We have cruised several times on the Beyond. Yes she’s new and shiny and had a fun staff. We actually met several who were on their first contract. They do not place their better staff on the E. In order for any of them to survive they need good ratings and reviews otherwise they are gone. Capt Kate even said she did not have anything to do with picking the staff.

Why?

We love the Solstice. We have mostly been in a regular stateroom. Always a veranda. We have only been in the retreat once and that was because we took our two grandchildren with us. Agree it was very nice. Since we normally cruise in a regular stateroom we still have a wonderful time. We love the Ensemble Lounge with its traditional wood paneling for enjoying the music and drinks in its comfortable furniture. We usually dine in the dining room at the same table in My Time Dining. We have found the food to be very good. Never have not found something we like. Love Al Bacio. But we love the most is the staff. As far as the Edge Class you can’t beat tendering from the Magic Carpet. So much easier.

We prefer the SV verandas. Definitely get our steps in. We have had a corner Sky Suite but prefer to be one over as the corner has a pole in it. We just finished a cruise and we’re on the hump for the third segment. We really enjoyed that balcony as well. It was shady with the overhang.

We have been on both. We love the Solstice. We have done anytime dining on both but mostly show up the same time and once the hostess gets to know us we are seated many times at the same table. We have cruised in the SV veranda last time we did a transpacific and loved it. We really love this class of ship. On the Edge we have booked early enough to score a Sunset veranda. We also did a transatlantic last May in an IV stateroom and found we really liked it for the extra space in the stateroom. We will be on the Edge transpacific to Australia this Oct. Since we wanted to continue on to New Zealand we chose the Edge to stay on the same ship.

Out of our 16 Celebrity Cruises so far this is the first time that we are not eating in the Main Dining Room for dinner as we are also first time AquaClass passengers. This means we are having a Blu Christmas. We have only eaten in Blu twice. I think I am still partial to the MDR dining experience which puts me in the minority as far as this forum is concerned. But that opinion could change by the time the cruise is over. On the other hand, my wife definitely favors Blu as she likes the smaller venue and the quiet that comes with it. More importantly she likes the menu better whereas I have ordered at least one item off the MDR menu for both meals so far. I figured that my wife would like Blu and that was the main reason that I decided to put in for a move up bid from our V1 cabin. (Quoted from mahdnc) —————————————————————————— On our last cruise on the Eclipse B2B2B our third segment was in Aqua. We did enjoy breakfast in Blue there every day as long as we were not in a table right next to others. We found that to be too crowded. Breakfast was hot individualized and servers were attentive. We were also not fond of the dinner menu in Blue so we did eat in the MDR select. The hostess got to know us so she was able to seat us at the same table every night which was perfect. We could not make reservations on the app so did it day by day. . We mostly had part of the same staff. We were quite happy there. . We liked the menu much better than Blue since we do not like fish dishes and there were a lot of them. From what I’ve seen there does not seem to be very many of US who are not lovers of eating in Blue! But there are a few!!!

We have stayed at the Queen Victoria Hotel twice now for four nights each time. The latest was Dec 2022. We love the hotel and the staff. Can’t beat it for location. It’s very close to all the shops and restaurants at the V&A Waterfront.

Love all your beautiful photos of Napier. We will be there in Nov on our 45 day cruise that begins in Honolulu and concludes with a 12 day New Zealand. Very excited to see more of New Zealand on this cruise so enjoying all your photos.

This description does not sound like the one we were on. We were not near a shopping complex or a beach bar. Sounds like something different.

We have taken this excursion to Nevis. We did it on a Solstice Class ship. It was a fun hour long catamaran ride over with a really nice picnic spread for lunch on arrival. A very beautiful and fun ride. Matter of fact we e joyed it so much that we have it booked again in Feb on the Beyond.

Better grab it quickly as it will not be there for long! Plan on getting some exercise cause it’s a nice walking getting back and forth.

Loved everything and all the time you put into writing and keeping us updated. It was so fun to follow along. . We will miss you when you leave.

We just booked a B2B Scandinavia(11night) and Norway(12night) for June/July of 2025 on Apex.

We’re waiting to jump on it as soon as we can to combine with a Europe Cruise. We’re looking for the April/ May TA.

We’re waiting to jump on it as soon as we can to combine with a Europe Cruise.

We missed this stop on our Transatlantic on the Beyond last April heading east. The wind was too high for us to safely come into Port. So it was another couple of sea days until we would experience land.

We are getting ready to book another stateroom for our adult children. Our son is elite and our daughter is not. How does this work regarding benefits? Ex Elite breakfast — elite socials — happy hour? Can she attend?

Oops I meant to add on the Beyond deck 9

We are two couples traveling together and both have SV on deck 9. Can the partition between our verandas be opened up. We have done this on the Solstice class in the past.

Ok. We are already booked on a Beyond 2025 cruise. Since we are cruising later this month we were hoping to do an onboard booking for our son and daughter to join us. Would we be able to do a booking for them since we are already booked. We’re also planning to book yet another cruise for ourselves.

We have been on both decks 8&11 on the Beyond. Loved them both. Since it was so hot in the Med in July we really didn’t get much use out of it. We did get more use out of it May in the Med. I don’t think you can go wrong in either one.