Chanbre

As our July cruise on Apex was out first E class cruise, we did the spa tour on the first day. Clearly it was a sales event, but no pushy selling. It was more about showing us the facilities and letting a few of the specialist spa people explain their offerings. The most pushy part was from the barber wanting to give me the closest shave possible and leave my face softer and smoother than my wife had ever known. We left with a price list and a couple of information pages.

Later in the cruise my wife had some spa treatment. I forwent the shave.

Celebrity Apex. The daily for boarding day has a 2pm "New to Celebrity ship tour", meeting in "The Club". We did not bother.

We did a similarly titled tour on a non-Celebrity ship. It was just a quick walk around the ship to point out a few places. I think they included: the buffet, the main dining room, the theatre and the spa. Plus, a mention of anything we passed on the way. The whole tour was about 30 minutes.

Date of Cruise: 8 to 20 July 2024

Ship: Celebrity Apex

Cabin #: 8212

Deck #: 8

Cabin Category: E3 - Edge Stateroom with Infinite Veranda (Partial View)

Cabin Location: Midship, starboard

Bed Position: Near windows

Balcony Type: Infinite

Balcony/Window Size: Full height and width of cabin

Balcony/Window View/Obstruction: Big obstruction, full height on left when looking out.

Balcony Overhang?: Magic carpet can be seen above, but normally not an issue

Magic Carpet Issues?: Occasionally moves up or down past this cabin.

Noise Issues?: None.

Wind Issues?: None

Connecting Cabin? Where Does it Connect?: Door in cabin to connect to cabin 8210.

Suite Details: Not applicable

Advantages/Problems/Comments: Standard cabin, much the same as most others. The problem is the badly obstructed view and the balcony windows of cabin 8210 that can see into this cabin. From 8212 only a small part of 8212's balcony can be seen.

Note the cabins above and below are 6196, 7206, 9206 and 10178 and they will have similar obstructions and views in from their adjacent cabin.

Would You Book It Again?: No, due to the obstructed view and lack of privacy.

Photos or Photo Links:
www.cruisedeckplans.com has a photo from the centre of cabin 8210 looking across the bed to the window where the obstruction cab be clearly seen. See https://www.cruisedeckplans.com/ships/slideshow-cabin-members.php?ship=Celebrity-Apex&cabin=8212

On 7/10/2024 at 9:19 PM, jelayne said:

Where is a library on the Apex?  We have been on all 4 E class ships and never saw a library.  There was a cart by Guest Services on the Edge & Apex where you could drop off books.  On the Beyond and Ascent there was s shelf in Eden where some dropped off of picked up books to read.

 

There is a small collection of books on the Apex. Across the ship from Guest Services on deck 3 there is a bookcase and some glass-fronted cabinets with jewelery and Celebrity branded items. Today there were about 100 books plus several magazines. It looked as if previous guests had left books and magazines there. I would not call it a library.

I have just had email offering up to 30% off of drink packages and smaller discounts on Wifi and Spa. This applies to our July cruise on Apex from Southampton. Last month they were offering about 30% (I forget the details) on drink packages and excursions.

The buffet drink stations have milk. We have taken cups of milk to our cabin for our tea. I think we found small milk jugs on one cruse. We prefer real milk in tea and coffee rather than the stuff supplied in the little plastic pots, plus I like a lot of milk in my drinks.

4 minutes ago, rivercross said:

Were you notified of this by Celebrity? How?

My email arrived about 90 minutes ago (at 19:02 UK time).

2 hours ago, snohorules said:

 

I'm planning on asking for a kettle as well, but past CC searches give mixed signals on whether kettles are available on North America cruises. I found some people having success, and others being told there aren't any.

We cruised on the Equinox out of Fort Lauderdale in September 2023 and our cabin attendant found a kettle for us.

6 hours ago, wrk2cruise said:

 

The 75% off the second passenger was the current promo when you booked and had nothing to do with booking onboard.

 

Whenever you move a reservation you are rebooking at the current prevailing rate and promo for the new sailing.   The only perk you maintain is the onboard booking bonus which is adjusted for the new sailing length and cabin category.

Yes exactly, and that is what I tried to explain in my post.

We booked while on the Equinox then some months later learned that the dates clashed with an important family event. The Ts&Cs of our booking allowed us to rebook without charge, although our UK TA thought there was a £75 per person fee and so they had to check that with Celebrity.

Our on ship booking benefitted from the 75% reduction for the second person. Unfortunately we lost that reduction when we rebooked. Maybe that was not properly explained when we initially booked, but it was clearly stated in the paperwork.

A little web searching finds:

https://www.whatsinport.com/Queensferry-Edinburgh-Scotland.htm gives some details of the cruise terminal and general info on travel options.

https://www.cruiseforth.com/content/ship/1265-celebrity-silhouette/ which is about Celebrity Silhouette Tendering to South Queensferry on July 2, 2024. The page has several links to other useful details.

4 hours ago, PTC DAWG said:

The youngsters are going to be bored stiff. 

Not when they know there is unlimited ice cream available in the OVC.

Those two Azipods on a trailer look much too small. This Youtube video has some details from one of the Edge class ships. The propellors alone are the size of a small car. Engineers inspect inside the Azipods monthly, Captain Kate "helped" them on one inspection and said it was cramped inside.

11 minutes ago, spearmint said:

The reason for going to the muster station before leaving port: that is what the notes we received from Celebrity said to do if one does not have a cell phone. One of our party is a total newbie to cruising, so we definitely need muster information. Even if we watch it on the stateroom TV, we will all be going to the muster location at some point early on, so we know exactly where it is. May I assume that there is no more checking to see that every passenger attends the muster drills?

There tend to be several public address announcements before leaving port, they encourage people to watch the safety videos and visit their muster stations (where their sea pass is scanned). They also say that these two things MUST be done by all passengers before the ship leaves port. As the departure time gets nearer the announcements get worded more stongly. I seem to recall on one cruise that, shortly before departure, the announcements included the names of people who still had to report.

One of the (many) pieces of paper in our Equinox cabin when we boarded on 30 Sept was a list of events for CC Elite passengers. One event was a backstage tour. The paper said there was limited space, so book early.

The tour was at 11am and took about 30 minutes. It started with a Q&A with 2 or 3 of the singers/dancers/acrobats. They then showed us around the dressing rooms and various storage rooms for costumes and stage props.

We did a Behind the Scenes tour on the last day of a Silhouette cruise last year. In the "dairy" storeroom, one of the cruisers asked what were all the tins of clotted cream for? The storeroom person replied about afternoon tea in the OVC. The person responded saying something on the lines of "What! No one told me there was afternoon tea with scones and jam and clotted cream every day.".

On the Equinox last week I had too much other food to want afternoon tea as well. So I do not know whether it was being served.

18 minutes ago, a1betpr said:

Man, that’s too bad, there’s nothing like that on our sailing.

We did have two sea days and a sea morning (i.e. a 2pm port arrival) that gave the opportunity to schedule the three lectures.

17 hours ago, funredhead said:

Wondering about the beyond the speaker series…Is there a speaker on your sailing, and if so what are the talks?

hope you are having a wonderful vacation!

Cannot say about this week, but the 30-Sept to 8-Oct cruise had Jim Kennedy a former director of Nasa. He gave three wonderful lectures about Nasa and related topics.

Bingo was happening in the Equinox theatre on 7 October. I heard the numbers being called as I walked near the theatre entrance. There was a shipwide public address earlier in the day encouraging the purchase of bingo tickets.

Some of the cruise articles that are emailed regularly are quite interesting, but occasionally there are issues that should be addressed. The bottom of the articles have feedback options but only giving a small set of options. I cannot see any way of giving real feedback. How and where should such feedback be given.

The article on page https://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/articles/top-10-items-we-will-never-cruise-without opens a page with title "8 Items We Will Never Cruise Without" and it contains "Updated February 18, 2020". Note that the link states 10 and the title states 8 but the article's index and content both have 10 items. Items 7 and 9 are both titled "Headphones" and their contents are similar. Items 8 and 10 are both about sweater and wrap, their contents are very similar.

I have a (UK) Post Office Travel money card and have used it successfully in a few countries. Their website says you can get a card by visiting a Post Office it also says "Please remember to take a valid passport, UK driving licence or a valid EEA card in order to obtain your card, and you can take it away the same day." The card supports many currencies including Norwegian Krone. I normally add money to my card before going away.

Yes. We had an upgraded from a Sunset Veranda to Aqua. It was easy to do. A few minutes after first seeing our cabin we spoke with the cabin attendant and then with guest services. They showed us a couple of available Aqua cabins. We chose one and said yes. They added a charge to our onboard account and it was done.

I must clarify that this was soon after cruising resumed after Covid so the ship was only about half occupied and so there were many spare cabins.

5 hours ago, the penguins said:

True but when faced with reality and, by the look of it, a monumental rejection of the idea by a huge percentage of passengers, change often happens.

Is there a monumental rejection? How many of Celebrities passengers, current and on the next several sailings, know anything about the experiment?

There are many words against allowing vaping from many contributors to this forum. But Celebrity ships can carry over 32000 passengers and only small portion of them post here. ( Wikipedia lists 15 ships and their capacities total 32377. ) There are about 450 posts so far in this topic, if all 450 were from different people then that represents only about 1.4% of the current passengers on ship.

I would much prefer that vaping and smoking be completely banned on ship. But the current rules allowing a them on a couple of outside places is a reasonable compromise.

In Blu we have given a tip to the maitre d, but requested that it be shared amoung the whole Blu team. The response was a thank you and being told that they pooled the tips. The tip was put into a drawer of the Blu reception desk. We did not ask for details. Maybe some tips are pooled and some are kept by the person receiving them.

Perhaps the envelopes seen passed to the Retreat Concierge were intended (by the giver) to be pooled among the Retreat team.

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a quay and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
It's rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
It's letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Poem by (I believe) Martha Snow