Live from Celebrity Apex Sept 25th & Oct 3rd B2B!

[Jim_Iain]

Just found your Blog and just bing read though all 8 pages.    Happy you are posting as I need a fix before our next cruise

 

Your pictures bring back such fond memories.

[cruiz10525]

40 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

Just found your Blog and just bing read though all 8 pages.    Happy you are posting as I need a fix before our next cruise

 

Your pictures bring back such fond memories.

Hi Jim...I want to thank you for the posting you did from the Equinox.  We head onto it on 10/29 in RS.  For this cruise we had relatives on-board, so all the posts were very helpful.  Next ship after Equinox will be the Beyond (as in bigger).

Rich

[Jim_Iain]

6 minutes ago, cruiz10525 said:

Hi Jim...I want to thank you for the posting you did from the Equinox.  We head onto it on 10/29 in RS.  For this cruise we had relatives on-board, so all the posts were very helpful.  Next ship after Equinox will be the Beyond (as in bigger).

Rich

We have only sailed on Edge in the E class and look forward to the new ships   Equinox was a great cruise   We are doing a B2B on Millennium on 10/11 and  anxiously getting things together for a late booking.  

 

 

[MR_T]

6 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

Just found your Blog and just bing read though all 8 pages.    Happy you are posting as I need a fix before our next cruise

 

Your pictures bring back such fond memories.

Thanks Jim 😊 

 

ive been following yours too and wow what an experience you had with the cruises & upgrades, sounds amazing 😊

[MR_T]

Aft staircase Art! 

[MR_T]

[MR_T]

[MR_T]

Fwd Stairs Art 

 

[MR_T]

[MR_T]

[MR_T]

Final count of this new cruise is around 800, I guess a lot of people booked in the last week... anyway if we were told 800 a week ago we’d still be over the moon... and just to confirm we are still excited to be onboard for another week 😊

[MR_T]

So... what can I say today finally took a turn in the right direction... I’ll explain! 

 

I didnt mention it before just in case I jinxed it... but on embarkation I asked about upgrading to a suite as I’ve heard of people doing that and thought if we are going to try it this would be a great time due to the low occupancy, but unfortunately they said due to limits they were not offering the opportunity to upgrade to the retreat as they had  reached their max number already from existing bookings... bummer! “However Mr Hodgson as you are B2B there would be availability on the next cruise (this one) let me tell you this is where the rollercoaster began 😱😂 

 

I was advised to come back on the 3rd (today) to sort it out... easy right 🤔wrong! As it happened I went a few times during last weeks cruise to ask if I could get it sorted sooner as I didn’t want to miss out, but I was always told it can’t be done until the beginning of the cruise once they have their final numbers... makes sense I guess, and I was told don’t worry there will be availability 👍🏼 

 

As the week went on the bookings have gone from 500 to 800 so I was getting worried so I went to speak to them again (same Lady every time) so she new me quite well by this time 😜 anyway, last night she told me that unfortunately a group had upgraded and there was no availability left but the retreat manager said he would put me on the wait list and I would be the first one on it 🤞🏻 

 

Moving onto today and I lost count of all the times I went to guest relations and was told give me an hour, give me 2 hours etc etc... finally on my last visit around 5pm I was told they had a suite for us and my first thought was I bet it’s either under the restaurant or right at the front but no a lovely S1 mid ship 🥳😊 

 

So at the end of the day we are delighted as this is our first time in a suite and as we originally booked an inside, did the minimum bid to move up to a balcony (infinite) and then the cost to upgrade on the ship resulted in getting a suite for what we consider a very good price, considering also we don’t plan on leaving the ship much so we will enjoy it as much as we can! 

 

I’ll continue the blog and obviously it’ll contain our thoughts on suite life for beginners 😂

[MR_T]

Dinner night 1 - Luminae 

 

first impressions was what a beautiful restaurant, the colours were great and it looks very nice, we ate around 8pm and it was pretty busy considering the reduced capacity, I’ll try and find out how many pax they consider the max for these reduced sailings. 

[maggie.1008]

Good for you. Enjoy the suite life. I will be on the Apex a month from now. We have sunset veranda and plenty OBC so not sure to bid up to a suite ?

[Cruise a holic]

On 9/30/2021 at 12:39 AM, MR_T said:

Yeah all them extra cushions/pillows really do take up space and it’s hard to put them out the way...

 

and yes that fake fake coral thing was the first to go 😂

We liked the storage like on the S class ships with cabinets above the bed.  Kelly Hopkins should have included that cabinet on the E class ships also.  It was great for extra storage.  Glad you got the suite for the second leg of your cruise!  You will love it!  The suite deck, lounge and restaurant are wonderful!  Other perks great also.    Enjoy

Edited October 3, 2021 by Cruise a holic

[countess5]

you went to Fine Cut, but f I missed something never heard your review.

 

We were on Edge a few weeks ago and ate there twice, Best steak house on the sea! It rivaled anything in Philadelphia. 

The steaks were outstanding, nothing like Chops on RCCL. 

On another note, what suite were you upgraded to? Had a Sky suite on Edge and it was Fantastic! 

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

Chers! 

 

 

[jwlane]

On 9/29/2021 at 3:49 PM, Navymom2x said:

Can you reach Eden by going up the ramp here.

We were above Eden (7315) in July and sorry, ya gotta go to 5.

[Silkroad]

Thank you very much for continuing your live review. Lovely photos BTW. I hope you and your DW thoroughly enjoy your suite experience. Your first Luminae meals looked delicious! If you happen to wander past the Eden restaurant, would you take a look at the dinner menu? The app has an amazing number of courses listed on it, and some of us wonder if the app is correct. If you don’t have time, no worries. You may wander into the Retreat and never wish to leave😉 Cheers.

[MR_T]

4 hours ago, Silkroad said:

Thank you very much for continuing your live review. Lovely photos BTW. I hope you and your DW thoroughly enjoy your suite experience. Your first Luminae meals looked delicious! If you happen to wander past the Eden restaurant, would you take a look at the dinner menu? The app has an amazing number of courses listed on it, and some of us wonder if the app is correct. If you don’t have time, no worries. You may wander into the Retreat and never wish to leave😉 Cheers.

Funny enough we are booked in Eden tonight for dinner but not sure yes as we might change for another night… I’ll definitely get the menu info for you at so,e point 👍🏻

[MR_T]

9 hours ago, maggie.1008 said:

Good for you. Enjoy the suite life. I will be on the Apex a month from now. We have sunset veranda and plenty OBC so not sure to bid up to a suite ?

I guess it’s such a personal choice of cost vs worth, from first impressions I’d say if it’s within your budget then go for it… the retreat pool deck area looks amazing and we are heading up there right now so I’ll post later our thoughts… 😊

[MR_T]

Day 7 - Fine Cut dinner 

 

sorry i I missed this one I guess as I posted the special lunch buffet pics my mind thought I was done 😂

 

pretty much like all the food we've had on the ship it was another great night, first impressions of the restaurant was it was nicely set up and looked very nice, however due to it being somewhat open to the atrium on deck 3/4/5 area it was quite noisy at times, especially when the martini show was going on with all the flashing lights at the same time so I wouldn’t recommend it for a quiet romantic dinner... just my opinion obviously 😊 

 

The food was really good and we enjoyed everything we had, Julie’s steak was a little over cooked but still tasty, she ordered  medium/rare but it was the same as mine medium, we’ve found this to be a common problem on any ship we’ve been on as it just seems celebrity are afraid of serving anything close to rare as the steaks we’ve had are generally cooked a bit more than this cooking point. Maybe we need to ask for bleu and see what happens 🤔, but as I said it was tasty 😋  

 

pics to follow! 

[MR_T]

So hopefully this post will be a waste of time but we are currently confined to our suite/cabin as we woke up with a couple of symbols so we’ve had a pcr test and are waiting for the results 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻 They said a couple of hours (about 30 mins ago) so let’s see and hopefully by the time people wake up and login to cruise critic there will be another post from us with good news… we will be devastated should we find out we are COVID positive and have to say goodbye to the suite life so early on our first cruise but hopefully it’s just a summer cold and we can continue 🤞🏻
 

We are both triple vaccinated and pretty much avoid crowds at all times anyway so I really don’t see how we could have go it on a cruise withs9 much space around us, we wore our masks in the ports we got off at when around other people so don’t see what else we could do other then stay in the cabin 24/7. 
 

We both have similar symptoms, sore throat & some congestion… the nurse came to take the test and our vitals which all seems ok so fingers crossed it’s good news 😊🤞🏻

[MR_T]

Both negative so I guess a slightly annoying common cold 👍🏻 

[vickykay]

So glad to hear this. Enjoy your suiteexperience!

[Cruise a holic]

1 hour ago, MR_T said:

Both negative so I guess a slightly annoying common cold 👍🏻 

Still wise to stay masked indoors and wash often.  We also got our flu shot, but do not want any cold either.