BeeMinor

Hello from the Apex! I always enjoy reading live cruise reports, but also I enjoy not spending vacation on my phone. But since my husband, who shall be known as BeeMajor, fell asleep early and I've had a lot of Diet Coke today, let's give this a whirl. TL;DR: Ship is beautiful, food is good, service is solid, the ship appears to be full, we don't have any symptoms of Covid, I've seen about 50 kids, but even as a person who isn't especially price sensitive it's unlikely we'll book another X cruise at current fares. (We're enjoying our cruise and this will all in all be a positive review, at least to date, but I'm also going to be upfront about costs.) Day -700 to -1: This cruise started life as an onboard booking in 2019 for a 2021 sailing. For obvious reasons it got bumped out and we were able to book a Sky Suite for the relative bargain price of about $6000 all in, down from an original booking fare of about $8000. I've been looking forward to this cruise for a looooong time (BeeMajor is less into cruising but whatever I book our trips 😝). My work has been just a lot lately and I made a very short turnaround trip to Chicago for personal reasons right before we left, so I started out this adventure more than ready for some down time. Day 0: We flew in to FLL from CVG on Friday morning, a bit delayed for a "light bulb problem" but luckily nothing major. We booked flights through Celebrity Air (about $900 each for Delta Comfort) and I had no problems with customer service. After arrival, we met a local friend for lunch at Shooters (pretty good) and then checked into the Oasis Motel. Was the Oasis fancy? No. Was it clean, convenient, and $168 including taxes? Yes. I wouldn't go out of my way to stay there again, but for one night it was fine and super affordable. Which was good, because we met another local friend for dinner at the Boatyard. That meal was expensive and just okay. And so slow. Nothing makes you notice slow like waking up at 5 am to catch flights three days in a row.

UGH. When we were on the Edge in a Sky Suite a few years ago our little toilet enclosure was pretty whiffy in a stagnant main drain kind of way. We picked up a gel air freshener at our first port which basically fixed the smell issue, but I was hoping that it was a fluke. Sounds like it's a design problem though. I will remember to pack an air freshener for our Apex cruise in a couple weeks just in case.

What time is your ceremony? I wouldn't count on anyone being able to do quick turnaround onboard on embarkation day. You might not even meet your butler until late afternoon. It seems safer to me to take care of any steaming before you board and then transport in a garment bag/dry cleaning sleeve. I'd go to the Retreat concierges or the Eden maitre'd (or both) for Eden.

When we sailed Silversea they seemed to care much more about the jacket for men than the specifics of pants. I'm pretty sure my husband, who isn't much for dressing up, wore non-denim jeans-style pants most nights--basically what he'd wear to Luminae but with a sports coat, which they politely but firmly enforced throughout the ship.

This is exactly why I find it confusing and stressful . . . and I am American! If tips are automatically charged, but people are still broadly tipping over and above, then are auto grats adequate? I hate to undertip and seem cheap, but also, if something is included then it should just be included IMO. We sailed once on Silversea, which doesn't do auto tips but covers tips in the fare. Then if you want to do something extra, you give to a general crew fund, which seems to me more civilized.

I think the point is that fares have already increased to cover increased costs, but there is a perception that higher fares aren't maintaining the same level of quality. I haven't cruised since 2019 (looking forward to sailing next month) so I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that perception but asking people to spend considerably more on their fare and also to directly subsidize salaries on the ship at a higher level is going to rub some people the wrong way, no matter how small the absolute increase. Even with prepaid grats I find tipping expectations on a ship confusing and stressful, so I wish they'd truly roll it up in fares and eliminate the practice altogether.

This is a real risk with a small ship. We sailed on the Silver Whisper back in 2018 . . . along with two charter groups. One was smaller and ignorable, the other comprised at least half the ship's passenger count and was, let's say, boisterous. We loved the ports and also found the food, especially in the Italian restaurant, superior to X, but were extremely unhappy about trying to share a small space with a large charter. However, we were on the Summit in a pre-Revolution suite about six months later and really noticed the constant upselling of dining, drinks, photography, etc. and not in a good way. Very much appreciated that this practice wasn't visible in the Retreat on Edge when we sailed in Feb 2019, and hoping it hasn't come back to the Apex for our sailing in November! We also found the food on Edge to be on par with what we had on Silversea, and I'm really hoping that's still true of Apex too. We have tried to give Silversea another try, but one cruise was canceled due to the elimination of Cuba cruising and the other was a victim of the shutdown. Depending on how this next Apex cruise goes we might consider making another SIlversea attempt. IMO the steep price increases on X for the Retreat make them directly competitive at the Sky/Celebrity Suite-equivalent level that we would book.

Is it getting fully dark? We were there in July and it never got much beyond "sort of dusk-ish" so no chance but seeing the Northern Lights would be phenomenal! Sorry you had such bad weather to be out whale watching. We lucked into a beautiful clear 80 degree (really!) day when we did a similar whale watching cruise out of Husavik, just around the bend from Akureyri. So don't give up hope! Wishing you great weather and many photo opportunities in the Westfjords!

Yes, we could stay as long as we liked. The timing is for an entry slot but once you're in, you're in. We did the pool in the morning and then had lunch at Lava, which was excellent. It's probably worth mentioning for anyone who hasn't been to an Icelandic pool that there is a very firm expectation that you will take a shower without your swimwear before entering the pool. The bigger/more touristy pools like Blue Lagoon have private showers available but you still change in what is basically a communal gym locker room. It looks like Sky Lagoon (which I haven't actually been to) offers private changing rooms. Smaller pools like Secret Lagoon near the Golden Circle route have fully shared facilities, that is, you're showering with the Icelanders . . . who really couldn't care less. Best wishes for your B2B testing! If you get kicked off the ship, Iceland doesn't have any quarantine rules and there's plenty to see outside far away from other people so there are worse places for it to happen I suppose. I'm looking forward to photos of your stop in the Westfjords! We didn't make that side trip so it's on our "next time" list.

We visited there last summer during a two-week road trip around Iceland. Looks like we spent about 10000 ISK per person, or ~$75-$80, for the premium package, which was admission, a few extra amenities like flip flops, all the face masks, and a couple drink tickets if I remember correctly. I imagine the price is a bit higher now, but still! There are cheaper (and IMO better) pools in Iceland, but they'd be somewhat challenging to access without a car.

More than $300 per person to take a round-trip bus ride to Blue Lagoon? That's highway robbery, even for a ship excursion. If anyone is considering this option, you can just get a cab to Sky Lagoon which is in Reykjavik--Blue Lagoon is a solid 45 minutes out of town--and save yourself a ton of time and money.

We make it a point to stop at the Greengo's in San Juan for those nachos whenever we're there! Haven't been to the location in St. Thomas because we like Tickles but now that I see those nachos . . . Speaking of San Juan, you might like to visit La Taberna Lupolo if you go back sometime. It's not far up the hill from the port in OSJ and they have an excellent selection of local and regional craft beers.

We've sailed over Thanksgiving a couple times in the past. The 10-day cruise we took on Equinox had basically no visible children, but the 7-night cruise on Summit had lots of families, especially with teens. If you're trying to minimize kids and could take just a little PTO, I'd go for the 9-night Infinity sailing that comes in the Monday after Thanksgiving. It's also usually way cheaper to fly on the Monday after the holiday than on the Saturday/Sunday.

In the United States, the ABV needed to get the "non-alcoholic" label is up to 0.5%. That's why so many NA beers have the 0.5% on the label, although the actual alcohol content might be lower. It's such a small amount that the producers are covering the possibility of variation. I'd love to see Celebrity offer some of the NA craft options--Athletic is a big one, and Brew Dog has some decent choices--and some Seedlip cocktails but I'm not sure they'd be either adequate supply or demand for something like that on a ship.

I actually just did a status match from Elite to MGM Rewards a couple of weeks ago on site at the Park MGM. The rep there seemed to be completely unaware of the match tiers, and after much discussion with her manager matched me with Pearl. When I pushed back she told me there was something flagged in the system and to come back later. I'm not really a gambler and had booked our room through Amex so had a different set of perks anyway and I didn't follow up, but in practice this whole situation seems to be up in the air.

It's been a couple years since I've WW-ed, but assuming the program is still similar you could adjust your settings a bit to give you some flexibility. 1. I believe you can change your account from "lose" to "maintain" since you aren't trying to lose on a cruise anyway. That should give you some additional points or at least a sense of how much more you can eat without going way over budget. 2. If there's still a plan with a bunch of zero point foods, you could probably hop over to that and work the buffet to your advantage. Two hard boiled eggs + plate of fresh fruit = breakfast with zero points. For lunch maybe ask the grill station for chicken breast or fish cooked with minimal oil and assemble a green salad or look for prepared whole grains. Personally, if I kept breakfast and lunch sensible, I'd eat whatever sounded good for dinner . . . which would also help me stay avoid becoming resentful of my diet and hitting the pizza station at 9 pm! I think sparkling wine and vodka are your lowest-point alcohol choices. Just stay away from drinks with lots of sugary mixers--all those extra points in the old fashioned are probably more from the simple syrup then the bourbon. Most importantly, remember if you have gained five pounds when you get home, most of it is water and will drop away within a few days. Eating baked Alaska one time doesn't really matter in the overall process of losing a significant amount of weight. And have a great cruise!