MR_T

5 hours ago, JRR44 said:

Hi, Mr_T. My wife & I have been on 17 cruises but none since 2018. We were holding out until 2022 for safety’s sake but could not resist the Four Night Caribbean out of Ft. Lauderdale on October 24. One reason is that Port Everglades is a 2-hour drive from our home in East Naples and, second, we’ve never been on Celebrity. When we mentioned the Apex to our TA, she raved about it. So, we booked it. We’re really looking forward to your posts. Everything will be new to us. Thank you in advance. Toni & John.

Welcome to celebrity, I think this is my 17th celebrity cruise +-... we loved every one we’ve done but this ship is fabulous, it really is a great design and looks amazing inside & out, we are really enjoying the new main dining room experience as it feels like you have so much more choice vs the S/Class ships, and we love the S/Class experience as well, I guess with any new experiences the latest one is always planned to be bigger & better and the Apex doesn’t disappoint 😊  

if you you have any specific questions please feel free to ask, if I don’t know the answer I’m sure others will help out 🍸😎 

7 hours ago, AlohaCathy said:

We’ll be joining you on 3 October and Can’t wait! Thank you so much for all these fabulous updates. We only booked it two weeks ago and are flying London to Athens this Friday. Very excited! Our bid for an upgrade just got accepted today too £100pp from Concierge to Aqua! Didn’t expect it to be honest. Im

interested in knowing any updates on how many passengers for our 3 Oct cruise - I wonder if it’s gone up much from the 500 you mentioned previously.

We also had our bid accepted from an inside to a infinite balcony so we are very happy with that, saved us over $1000 overall as we was going to pay for an upgrade anyway if we wasn’t successful so worked out great for both of us 👍🏼

11 hours ago, CAVE MAN said:

Thank you so much for all that you are sharing with us!!!! We board on the 10th for the transatlantic and the pictures are just making us even more excited.

Enjoy every moment!!

I’m sure even at 50-60% the TA will be an amazing cruise, we are really disappointed we can’t do it as well 😔 

14 hours ago, jagoffee said:

Thank you.  
According to the Celebrity App, the MDR opens at 6 PM and the Specialty restaurants at 6:30 PM. I know Europeans typically dine later.  Does this jive with what is shown in the daily Today?

I am trying to do some rough planning for the TA, I am guessing that it will be the same.

 

Sorry to hear that the included base internet is so poor.  A little surprising with the low number of passengers.  I will have the streaming level for sure.

 

The food looks amazing.

The daily actually lists all the restaurants as 6pm to 9pm (except the buffet) I will try to find out if it’s going to be the same on the TA, also, not sure if it’ll be the same on the TA but on this cruise I believe there’s only select dining 

8 hours ago, BigTorino said:

What occupancy does Royal Caribbean Group need on its ships to be at a break even point for cashflow?

Somewhere between 35 and 50 percent, depending on the ship, according to Jason Liberty, executive vice president and CFO.

“The ships are accretive to us around that 35% to 50% mark,” he said, on the company’s second quarter earnings call.

“And obviously, the newer, larger ships are closer to 35%. And older, smaller ships are closer to that 50%.”

 

According to Cruise industry news, Aug 6, 2021

I saw an interview with royals ceo and he said their average was around 40% to break even so you’re reports sounds about right

I am currently on the Apex and although it looked like the retreat was sold out online guest relations said it’s not but they are limited to how many people can be in there as it’s a smaller area so I guess they are just holding suites back so they can’t be full in there! I guess the same system they are using on the rest of the ship when cruises get to near the capacity levels they want as a maximum.

this week there’s just over 1000 onboard and next week it’s around 500 and I was told the transatlantic that follows next weeks cruise is around 1800 which I believe is where celebrity want to max out currently... 

My current view at Elli beach 😎 

Just to let everyone know I will definitely post more pics of everything but Julie is the photographer and I’ll wait to still hers once done & uploaded... 

We plan to take a load of pics on the switchover day of the ship so for anyone wondering or hoping for more they will come, I promise 👍🏼 

A couple of Rhodes pics to get by for now😂 

Last nights show was the first production show which is apparently new to this ship, we are not generally show people but we we’re intrigued as the new theatre looked interesting and it didn’t disappoint, it was very good and we may also go again next week as well.. we’ll worth a visit if you are on the ship 😊   

4 minutes ago, Gitte said:

Thank you for sharing the pics and keep us updating. We fly to Athens on Friday. We look forward to sail again. Are Captain Skylogiannis  and Christophe Belaubre still there?

Gitte

Yes they are 👍🏼

Martini bar action 🍸👍🏼

Day 3 dinner - Cyprus main dining room 

Again we really enjoyed our food, service was a little slower/disjointed but it was chic night so maybe being a little busier in the dining room contributed to this... 

A few pics from yesterday on the ship while everyone else was off 😎 

as an Englishman I've been lucky enough to have travelled to Europe soooo many times, for me it’s like Americans going to the Caribbean so I’m more than happy to have a ship day 😊

So just wanted to explain my absence the last day or so... the free WiFi has not been cooperating at all 😂 in Rhodes today so finally back online... 🤞🏻 

I plan to upgrade the wifi on the ship later as it’s really poor, this is the first time not taking the upgrade so now I know for future cruises to not bother with the free (included) package! 

Chat later everyone! 😎

15 hours ago, jagoffee said:

Mr. T, great to hear that you are both having a great cruise.

1.  Are you finding that the menu showed in the Celebrity AP match what in being served in their respective restaurants?  (The ones that you experienced)

2.  Are the Production shows times, the typical 7 PM and 9PM?

 

Thanks

For the menus Yes, so far anyway 👍🏼 

The shows the first 2 nights we’re 9.30pm only, last night & tonight it’s 7.30pm & 9.30pm, I’ll update as we go... 

Night 2 Dinner - Tuscan Restaurant 

We again enjoyed our dinner in another one of the 4 main dining rooms, Julie really liked her appetiser (octopus carpaccio) and is already looking forward to having it again on the next cruise... you may see there’s a trend in my dessert choice as we go on as apple pie is one of my favourites, my gran used to make it every Sunday for our dessert and as the favourite grandchild I always got extra 😋 

21 minutes ago, joetop2467 said:

Enjoying your photos. They are beautiful.  We are on the transatlantic when you get off the Apex.  Is lunch still complimentary in the Eden?  We were on the Edge just before the pandemic and loved eating lunch there.  

We haven’t been yet but I believe it is free breakfast & lunch, I will check to confirm though... we may go there for breakfast tomorrow... 

5 hours ago, otownfins said:

Glad you won in the casino. 
Curious about the bottles of wine in the Drinks & More package. Is it only the Reservado wine available or do you have a choice of wines to choose from. Enjoy the Apex & more good luck in the casino.  

To be honest I’ve not asked but I believe they are set... maybe you could change 🤷🏼‍♂️ I'll ask and get back to you 👍🏼

3 hours ago, MMG3 said:

Hi Mr_T,

 

Fellow Canadian here and am so happy you are doing another Live on APEX. We were on the inaugural sailing in June and loved it so much we decided to stay on an additional week. It was a great decision and we even upgraded from IV to a sky suite so we had even more new stuff to experience in week 2 with Luminae and the retreat - such an amazing 2 weeks of my life. And now I’m just living vicariously through those who are sailing and generously posting. Thanks in advance!!!!
 

It’s such a great ship and we had such a fabulous time. 

Enjoy! 

 

We are considering doing the upgrade on the second ship also so we will see what they want for the sky suite... 🤞🏻

3 hours ago, vickykay said:

Thank you for your review and photos.  We will be in a similar cabin on the Apex end of January so nice to see picture.   Will be interested in your opinions of the of the four dining rooms.  The first night looked delicious.

SO far so good 👍🏼 Whereas tonight’s wasn’t as good as last nights it was still tasty. 

one thing we have noticed is the food seems to be presented much nicer vs the s/class main dining room, maybe it’s because we haven’t cruised in a while but we think there’s a difference.  

A few pics from today... 

Santorini day! 

So after a little lay in this morning after the fun night at the martini bar we headed to the empty pool deck for a relaxing start to the day, we stayed for a couple of hours before heading to the island to have a walk around, the tender service was good and we really like the new system of tendering from the magic carpet and the whole area down there is so much nicer vs the other ships where it feels like you are going through the staff entrance... they really have made the new space a much nicer experience. 

As mentioned we are are on the following cruise and again our first stop will be Santorini again and it actually falls on our wedding anniversary (3 whole years) so we looked for a nice restaurant to book a table for dinner next week to celebrate our special day, we are thinking it will be pretty special drinking champagne & eating a nice meal while watching the sunset on Santorini from a great spot... 

We are now back on the ship for a little rest before we get ready for the night ahead... not sure where we will eat but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be tasty 😋