Sorta live on Beyond January 29th

[Mcgeneseo]

I've followed other live reviews, which always make me happy and feel that it is my turn to return the favor. Hope I can live up to the big shoes to fill. We are in a Celebrity Suite, doing a back to back and won a move up bid to a Royal Suite for the second cruise. Stayed at Margaritaville Hollywood Beach for two nights (review in Florida departures) and got an Uber to the port. Cost $42 before tip, but I think I reserved the bigger vehicle. He was 10 minutes early and the trip was quick. Check in downstairs was fast but had to seek out someone to check us in at the lounge. No worries. Got on board quickly and started exploring. Beautiful ship, happy crew. Lunch at Luminae was good but service was a bit slow - they were packed. I don't care, the wine glass and water glass was filled and I'm not going anywhere. Now hanging out on Retreat Lounge, in the shade,  enjoying a cocktail. Captain Kate is scolding the 69 people that haven't finished the safety drill. Hopefully we'll be underway on time!

[Mcgeneseo]

PS...no lobster roll for lunch but burger was available.

[cinderellen]

Enjoy! Looking forward to reading more. 

[Mrs. Nic]

Watched your sailaway on the webcam today. SO jealous. I have to wait til March. Also, we loved Margaritaville so much that we booked a five day stay and enjoyed every minute. Great choice for more than a one-nighter. Have a great cruise....love following along.

[Cruisegirl6]

Hello, if you can copy/post the menus that be appreciated.  I been checking the app daily and they always changing the items and this is causing us difficulty in choosing what night to dine at specialty restaurants.

[Michele035]

9 hours ago, Cruisegirl6 said:

Hello, if you can copy/post the menus that be appreciated.  I been checking the app daily and they always changing the items and this is causing us difficulty in choosing what night to dine at specialty restaurants.

Yes!  this!  we are trying to decide which nights to go to specialty resturants and knowing what they are having night to night at the Luminae would help.  Also I would love to see the daily "event"s if possible!  TYIA

[Mcgeneseo]

2 hours ago, Michele035 said:

Yes!  this!  we are trying to decide which nights to go to specialty resturants and knowing what they are having night to night at the Luminae would help.  Also I would love to see the daily "event"s if possible!  TYIA

There is a live review being posted by @mac_tlcand he posted the daily. I'll try to remember to snap the photos, but I think @mac_tlc has that under control! We ate in Luminae last night and I didn't care for the menu but got the salmon off the standard menu and it was delicious. My DH got the NY strip and he said it was perfect. The staff is amazing as usual. And the ship is breathtaking. Too many "things" in the stateroom thanks to the designer, but I guess that's her style. We are off to an excursion of Nassau, "best of," then back to try Fine Cut tonight.

[Mcgeneseo]

The Retreat lounge is wonderful and was quiet this morning but I think lots of people were already off the ship. The crew trip over themselves to wait on you.

[mac_tlc]

11 minutes ago, Mcgeneseo said:

There is a live review being posted by @mac_tlcand he posted the daily. I'll try to remember to snap the photos, but I think @mac_tlc has that under control! We ate in Luminae last night and I didn't care for the menu but got the salmon off the standard menu and it was delicious. My DH got the NY strip and he said it was perfect. The staff is amazing as usual. And the ship is breathtaking. Too many "things" in the stateroom thanks to the designer, but I guess that's her style. We are off to an excursion of Nassau, "best of," then back to try Fine Cut tonight.

Hey! We are also at Fine Cut tonight, but pretty early at 5:30.

 

mac_tlc

[Mcgeneseo]

4 hours ago, mac_tlc said:

Hey! We are also at Fine Cut tonight, but pretty early at 5:30.

 

mac_tlc

We're there at 6:30. Maybe bump into you at the Lounge later!

[Mcgeneseo]

We went on the Best of Nassau tour and it was horrendous. I think everyone on the bus will be seek a refund of some sort. They dropped us off at Altantis for 40 minutes but we couldn't go to the casino. Only had VERY high end stores and we weren't supposed to go there in the first place. He gave us 10 minutes at the Queen's steps which wasn't enough to go up and down. And he told us we weren't going yo the fort, but stopping at a different one. Sure, we went to a different one that was closed but there tee shirt vendors in the parking lot, selling cheap stuff. Last stop was the rum distillery which was the nicest stop but we could only stay for 25 minutes. I expect the excursions desk is going to hear about this. Came to OVC and had great pizza. But the service at the Oceanview bar was terrible. No waiters stopped. I asked one to place an order and said he'd be back but he never did. Ended up going up to the bar to order. Definitely not like prior service on Celebrity. And the waiters were chatting more than working.

[KKB]

43 minutes ago, Mcgeneseo said:

We went on the Best of Nassau tour and it was horrendous. I think everyone on the bus will be seek a refund of some sort. They dropped us off at Altantis for 40 minutes but we couldn't go to the casino. Only had VERY high end stores and we weren't supposed to go there in the first place. He gave us 10 minutes at the Queen's steps which wasn't enough to go up and down. And he told us we weren't going yo the fort, but stopping at a different one. Sure, we went to a different one that was closed but there tee shirt vendors in the parking lot, selling cheap stuff. Last stop was the rum distillery which was the nicest stop but we could only stay for 25 minutes. I expect the excursions desk is going to hear about this. Came to OVC and had great pizza. But the service at the Oceanview bar was terrible. No waiters stopped. I asked one to place an order and said he'd be back but he never did. Ended up going up to the bar to order. Definitely not like prior service on Celebrity. And the waiters were chatting more than working.

I think DM & I took this same excursion Aug. 2021.

Atlantis wouldn't let us in...Queen's steps wouldn't let us in...

Ended up at a winery...near a tiny chocolate shop (that wanted $20 for "tour"--HUH?) & a historic hotel. 

He did drive all over & give good info about the island.

I think we all got refunded...surprised they are still using this one.

Edited January 30, 2023 by KKB

[Jim_Iain]

Thanks for your Live Post.    Looking forward to following along.

 

[CruisinBanka]

Thanks for doing this review! Will be following along with great interest as our Beyond cruise is in 2 weeks. Enjoy your cruise!

[Mcgeneseo]

We met the lovely @gotta cruise againtonight in the Retreat lounge. So much fun to put people to their "handles"!

[Mcgeneseo]

I was afraid this would happen...I got so caught up in the cruise, I forgot to come here and post! We had dinner in Fine Cut steakhouse on Monday. It was delicious. All the food has been fantastic everywhere. It's the service that seems a bit off. I truly think they are under staffed. We tried one of the MDR last night, Tuscan. Again delicious but a bit off. Salads came and they were wrong. Had to ask for more water. Entrees came and we still hadn't had anyone stop to take a drink order. But the poor somelier was literally running. Really. Had to run upstairs to get more wine almost every 5 minutes. So to me that means management hasn't figured out how to stock things. I watched him trot through the dinning room the whole time we were there. Yet, there were some employees just walking at a leisurely pace, including our assistant waiter. Very interesting. We had similar service in Luminae so we asked for a different location this morning and the service was back to what we expect with the suite class. I love Celebrity and don't want to cruise with any other company. I also don't want to be a negative Nancy. But when you spend this kind of money and you KNOW how nice it can be, it can be a bit disappointing. There are so many lovely, upbeat and happy employees on this ship, it's sad that a few less dedicated employees can bring the experience down.

[Mcgeneseo]

We took the Behind the Scenes tour yesterday to see the inside workings of this cruise. That was fascinating but two hours of walking, so be warned. The Shore Excursions staff reached out to us about our complaints of the Nassau tour, so we will see how that gets handled. She was very apologetic but we told here that was not a Celebrity issue, but the local tour operator. We just wanted them to know.

[Jeremiah1212]

Thanks for the observations. We get on Sunday on what appears to be a sold out sailing. The 12th is also heavily booked and the 19th is also nearly sold out. It's probably been a while since anyone on board is used to consecutive heavily booked cruises. They will find their groove again. 

[randomcruise]

I also appreciate the report of your cruise. We are also boarding the sold out Beyond cruise this Sunday and I will be interested to see if the service on the ship is adequate to handle a sold out cruise.  We are with a group of 18 and several of us cruised together in January of last year on the Apex when it was at about 1/2 capacity.  We experienced slow service and mixups a couple of nights in the MDR’s on that cruise despite the low capacity, but I wrote it off as the staff being out of practice due to the covid shutdowns.  Really enjoyed the Apex, but suspect that enjoyment had a lot to do with the ship being at half capacity. None of the MDR’s were ever close to being full and there was absolutely no rush to finish a meal to free up a table, which was a good thing on the nights we experienced slow service and other mixups at dinner.

Edited February 1, 2023 by randomcruise

[mitchtech]

1 hour ago, Mcgeneseo said:

I was afraid this would happen...I got so caught up in the cruise, I forgot to come here and post! We had dinner in Fine Cut steakhouse on Monday. It was delicious. All the food has been fantastic everywhere. It's the service that seems a bit off. I truly think they are under staffed. We tried one of the MDR last night, Tuscan. Again delicious but a bit off. Salads came and they were wrong. Had to ask for more water. Entrees came and we still hadn't had anyone stop to take a drink order. But the poor somelier was literally running. Really. Had to run upstairs to get more wine almost every 5 minutes. So to me that means management hasn't figured out how to stock things. I watched him trot through the dinning room the whole time we were there. Yet, there were some employees just walking at a leisurely pace, including our assistant waiter. Very interesting. We had similar service in Luminae so we asked for a different location this morning and the service was back to what we expect with the suite class. I love Celebrity and don't want to cruise with any other company. I also don't want to be a negative Nancy. But when you spend this kind of money and you KNOW how nice it can be, it can be a bit disappointing. There are so many lovely, upbeat and happy employees on this ship, it's sad that a few less dedicated employees can bring the experience down.

We sailed on Beyond in December and found the service to be the worst at Tuscan. Went there once and never went back. Our server was so unaccomodating that we had to call over the manager so I could get a side of polenta as my entree without the meat since I'm  a vegetarian. Our server said it couldn't  be done. Also he was the sommelier since the sommelier could not be found. We had exceptional  service in Cyprus and Normandie though so I would say stick to those restaurants.  We didn't  try Cosmopolitan 

[KKB]

1 hour ago, randomcruise said:

I also appreciate the report of your cruise. We are also boarding the sold out Beyond cruise this Sunday and I will be interested to see if the service on the ship is adequate to handle a sold out cruise.  We are with a group of 18 and several of us cruised together in January of last year on the Apex when it was at about 1/2 capacity.  We experienced slow service and mixups a couple of nights in the MDR’s on that cruise despite the low capacity, but I wrote it off as the staff being out of practice due to the covid shutdowns.  Really enjoyed the Apex, but suspect that enjoyment had a lot to do with the ship being at half capacity. None of the MDR’s were ever close to being full and there was absolutely no rush to finish a meal to free up a table, which was a good thing on the nights we experienced slow service and other mixups at dinner.

We sailed Apex in March; I think we were about 2/3 full. 

We did not encounter any service issues so they must have resolved it.

(1/3 full Edge in July/Aug 2021 was AMAZING--tough to go back to full ships)

Equinox in Nov was fantastic too. 

 

Captain Kate usually prides herself on a tight run ship; I do suspect labor supply issues are to blame. (I just pray it isn't another cost cutting measure. Don't get me wrong, I GET the cutting back of the buffet at dinner. Any time we have gone, there are VERY few people there)

[Mcgeneseo]

We will be on next week's cruise as the 2nd of our back to back. It will be interesting to see if there is a difference.  DH wants to try Cosmopolitan so we'll see how that compares. I'm having lunch at Le Grand Bistro on this port day. It's empty. The onion soup wasn't super hot, which is nice. I'm trying the Brie & Turkey sandwich. Will let you know.

[Mcgeneseo]

I'm not sure Le Grand Cafe is worth the extra charge. It was good, but so are the other eating venues. We went to Eden last night and it was amazing. Food and service were fabulous. Trying to get several reservations for next week's cruise. Today is Cozumel so we are staying onboard and using the thermal spa again. Tonight is Rooftop Grill. 

[gotta cruise again]

On 2/1/2023 at 10:10 AM, Jeremiah1212 said:

Thanks for the observations. We get on Sunday on what appears to be a sold out sailing. The 12th is also heavily booked and the 19th is also nearly sold out. It's probably been a while since anyone on board is used to consecutive heavily booked cruises. They will find their groove again. 

I’m on this current sailing and spoke to another passenger this morning who was trying to stay on for next week. She was told the 2/5 cruise was sold out, except for one very expensive suite.

(If someone has already stated this, my apologies…trying to catch up reading CC and afraid I’d forget to come back to add this response)

[gotta cruise again]

DH and I also took the Behind the Scenes tour: guide said 2400 on this week’s cruise.