GenerationX

Hello from a beautiful sail away from Tortola! Our day so far: This morning we once again had an early tour assembly time so went with room service breakfast ordered the night before. I had some work to do early morning and Wi-Fi speeds were terrible. My connection kept dropping and I was very worried I wouldn’t be able to finish my noon deadline project in time and would have to skip our tour. It reminded me that a similar issue with Wi-Fi happened early morning on my last cruise that ported in Tortola pre-starlink, and I did have to miss going to port to take care of it later in the day when internet was better. Fortunately I finished just in time as Albert arrived with breakfast. Once again everything we ordered was some of the better quality Celebrity room service I’ve had in a while. After breakfast we headed out on our excursion to Virgin Gorda for snorkeling and beach time at the Virgin Gorda baths. The catamaran boarded right next to the ship and it was about a 30 minute sail over to the Baths. Unlike our excursion in St. Thomas (I swear I’m going to catch up writing tomorrow) the boat wasn’t crowded at all even with a sold out tour and the crew kept the music on the sail out at a low conversation friendly level. If I remember correctly, the tour advisories for this excursion included a weight limit as well as a warning that it is only suitable for very strong swimmers and those without any kind of mobility issues. Those advisories are very well heeded. We initially moored off of Devil’s Bay beach where we snorkeled about 300 yards in from the boat to the beach. The boat captain told us we were very lucky as it was the first yellow flag day after weeks of red flag waves and undertow. Even on a yellow flag day, our guide was very right in telling us that the ocean there “is NOT a swimming pool”. To get to the beach you had to swim through about a 6 ft wide gap between massive boulders and the end of the line of buoys marking off the snorkeling area. Fighting a current pushing you towards the boulders. You have to take anything you may want from the boat for the beach with you on the swim. I suggest strapping water shoes through the strap of your snorkel float vest (our guides told us they “wouldn’t be necessary” but that hike through the baths definitely would have been more comfortable if I’d had water shoes on) and maybe bringing a dry case for your phone/money and strapping it to you as well if you think you’ll want it for the beach. The guide did have a dry bag that he offered to carry people’s phones, medications and glasses/shades in, but said he would not accept towels, money/wallets or cameras, so if you want to bring any of those things, you’ll have to have your own floating dry bag. The snorkeling on the way in wasn’t very good. We saw a few fish but that’s it. Lots of sand bottom and no real coral. Once we got to land, we hiked a trail for about 45 minutes through the Baths. I think about 10-15 minutes of that was our group standing in line and waiting for the guides to try and assist a mobility impaired passenger (who I guess didn’t take the booking warnings seriously) through the more technical parts of the caves. There are areas where you climb up and down some steep, narrow wooden ladders and wade through about knee deep water assisted only by anchored tow ropes. There were also a few passages where at 5’5, I still had to almost crawl to go through. If you’re up for it though, it really is a fun experience and with such cool scenery. When we got to the main beach on the other side of the caves, there was an area with vendors and a small restaurant. We were given about an hour to swim and hang out. The waves and currents there were decent as well, but swimable with some effort. In fact it had to be swimable because after beach time, we had to swim about another 200 yards back to our boat which had moved over to meet us on the other side of the baths. Jeremy and I decided to snorkel our way back a little early and the snorkeling out to the boat from the main beach was much better than the snorkeling in had been. We saw lots more fish and a ray almost the size of me! I think if we were to do an trip to the baths again, we’d probably book one that is just a trip to the Baths and beach and bring our own snorkel equipment to hit the good spots if we feel like it. Rather than deal with the swims back and forth to/from the boats. On the sail back to the ship, the crew offered complimentary (stiff) rum punch and water and turned up the music a bit. When we got back to port, we tried to stop at a small bar in port for conch fritters and more rum punch, but after sitting at a table for almost a half hour without a server stopping to take our order, we decided to head back to the ship and have a late lunch in the buffet. I am pleased to report that the food options, even on a port day a half hour before lunch was set to end, were plentiful. To match our destination there was a Caribbean theme to the chef’s specialties. We had some very good jerk pork, jerk chicken and barramundi (one of my favorite fish) and I even got adventurous and tried goat curry for the first time (I’m a fan). I also couldn’t pass up a piece of leg of lamb and one of the thin steaks from the grill which are a buffet favorite of mine and were just as good on Apex as I recall from other ships. Drink service was a little weird at first, a drunk server walked by our table, flipped down the little menu (the sign to other servers that we’ve been given drink service) but then just walked away without saying a word to us. Fortunately a couple of minutes later, a nice young lady who’d served us the day before when we went for a pizza snack came by and greeted us by name and even remembered our drink orders. After lunch Jeremy headed to the pool and I came back to the room to do some work and found our butler had left us a nice note and a treat, which I thoroughly enjoyed while forced to do my day job. Now it’s time for me to tear myself away from this beautiful sunset to shower and dress and head to the second production show before dinner in Luminae.

Thank you for sharing Jim. This is so weird. Your menu is definitely different from the menu in our room. The other side of the hang tag just has the space for stateroom info and selecting delivery time. All of the specialties have been removed. They don’t show up in the room service booklet either. Like you I’m not able to see the retreat room service menu in the app, even connected to ship wifi. I wonder if they’re tested a more limited Retreat room service breakfast on this ship/sailing? If we do room service again this sailing I may try writing in an order for steak and eggs and a mimosa just to see what happens…solely for research purposes of course.

If you aren’t spending happy hour sipping bubbly at dusk off the USVI’s I feel bad for you, son… I’ll fill you guys in on our day shortly, but while Atish brings me another glass of Chandon, a report on dinner last night at Rooftop Grill. I purposely scheduled this dinner for our late night in Puerto Rico to avoid the wind issues that I experienced at the restaurant on Edge. We started with the smoked dry rub chicken wings and oh so excessive but delicious trainwreck fries. The wings had some decent heat on them so I don’t recommend if you aren’t a spice person, but Jeremy and I loved them. For mains Jeremy had the dry rub ribs and I had the lamb chops I’d been longing to eat again ever since I stepped off Edge. Those lamb chops are so tender and juicy and flavorful. If we hadn’t had such big appetizers, I probably would have ordered two servings. Jeremy must have really enjoyed his ribs because he barely came up for air to say 5 words to me while he ate them, other than to offer me a bite of his (very good) jalapeño cornbread…talking with his mouth full of rib meat. 🤦🏾‍♀️ I drank Shiraz to pair with my lamb and Jeremy checked another drink off his list and had the steakhouse margarita made with (brace for gag reflex) steak sauce. I wondered if he’d taken leave of his senses but I did try a sip for review purposes and it was surprisingly better than expected. Not what I’d usually go for but Jeremy liked it enough to have 3 of them. We split the dirty rice as a side which Jeremy really liked but I didn’t think was that great. Honestly just my personal opinion based on my 2 visits, I think the sides at Rooftop Grill just take up prime stomach real estate. Going forward I’ll just focus on the meats. For dessert we had the warm chocolate chip cookie and comically had the opposite issue as with dessert at Fine Cut the night before. The cookie was served oh so wonderfully warm. The problem is that someone clearly put the scoop of vanilla gelato on top of the warm cookie LONG before our server delivered it to our table, so by the time we got it we basically had a cookie with warm vanilla soup on top. The restaurant was getting busy by the time the dessert course came so we didn’t want to risk waiting a bunch of time to have it remade. The cookie part was still as good as I remembered from Edge. Our server Satish seemed like he was newer to Celebrity and still learning the ropes, but he was very nice and responsive. Jeremy said this was his favorite dinner on the ship so far (I, an Eden loyalist, hissed under my breath at this) and was so into it that he booked us lunch there for the last sea day. I was kind of looking forward to Luminae that day, but I’m not one to argue with a man who’s buying me jewelry this week!

It’s a beautiful morning in St. Thomas! Luminae didn’t open until 7:30 this morning and we have to be on the pier for our excursion at 8:15, so we ordered room service from the hang tag last night for delivery between 6:30 and 7. Albert called at exactly 6:32 to say it was ready and he was on the way with it. I’m so confused by the suite room service menu differences from ship to ship. Or maybe it’s an upper suites vs sky suites thing. On silhouette and millennium I remember having steak and eggs as a room service option. And the silhouette menu also had an option to have mimosas and bloody marys delivered complimentary. But again, those were a celebrity suite and a royal suite, so maybe that’s why. I will say, the quality of this room service is far better. The fruit plate is nicer than the ones I’ve gotten in Luminae. My toasted bagel was still warm, orange juice was ice cold and Jeremy said his omelette was hot and tasted great. I wonder if the upcharge for non-continental breakfast room service (for non-suite staterooms) has reduced the volume of breakfast room service orders and, as a result, has given the kitchen and delivery teams more time to focus on quality of the output? When I was going through my beach supplies to pack for shore, my “thanks for trying us” goodbye gift from the yacht club concierge team on the Divina fell out of a zipper compartment in my suitcase that I must’ve forgotten to unpack on the last cruise. I think I’ve already done enough damage on the MSC cross-sell front, so I promptly buried it back where I found it and grabbed my margaritaville clips instead. 😂 Later this afternoon after our day of snorkeling, beach time and conch fritters, I’ll report on last night’s dinner and go back in time to talk Eden. Have a great day friends!

This sounds amazing! First thing when I get home I’m going on a Pinterest quest for a recipe for raspberry soufflé. My very first Celebrity cruise almost a decade ago was on Constellation when she still had the French restaurant. I think it was called Oceanliners? We also ended up eating there 3 of the 4 nights because it was so good and service was so outstanding. I particularly remember an outstanding roast duck that was rolled out on a cart and carved table side. Our next couple of cruises after that were on Royal Caribbean or S class ships and I remember being so sad when we sailed again a few years later and that restaurant was gone.

Hola from Puerto Rico and a special hello to Apex’s older sister Connie in port with us! Our day so far: This morning after my workout we had a little breakfast at Luminae. I feel like I remember the charcuterie and cheese plate on Beyond having much more exciting meats on it, albeit in Blu for aqua class, but the Gouda cheese was yummy at least. After breakfast we headed up to the retreat pool deck for swimming and relaxing. I had a wine event at 12:30 so we had a light early lunch of shrimp cocktail and Caesar salads on the pool deck before I headed to the Blendtique event. I’ve never done this one before but it was a lot of fun. We were seated at tables of 4 and each group was tasked with tasting 4 different wine types and mixing them in certain percentages (with some help from suggested recipes) to create a red blend wine that the ship’s sommeliers would taste and judge. The table with the best blend won a couple of bottles of bubbly. Unfortunately my table’s blend didn’t win, but I still thought we produced a decent product. I took note of our blend so that I can go on the blendtique website when I get home and order bottles of it with my own custom made label. Everybody on my list gets wine by Charla for Christmas this year! After wine antics I was on my way back through the grand plaza to the forward elevators and spotted Kadek starting his day at the martini bar and he waived me over for an espresso pick me up. Jeremy joined me after the casino closed and we had another round together before heading up to our veranda to read for a while. We went to the Retreat lounge for afternoon tea and really enjoyed the mini empanadas and salmon salad sandwiches. Tonight is the ship’s pride party at 11pm, but we have an early excursion meeting time in St. Thomas tomorrow, so after our 8pm dinner at rooftop grill we may just stop by Eden for a cocktail and the art showcase then head to bed.

Yes the casino was open this morning, I’m not sure how early they opened but they closed about an hour before our scheduled arrival time in port. Jeremy said he was there right before they closed and they were doing announcements on the PA saying that they would be reopening the casino at midnight tonight (we leave PR at 9:30). Interesting considering tomorrow is a port day too.

I agree on missing Murano! That’s my favorite specialty restaurant and something I look forward to every time we book S class. Remind me, have you and Iain sailed Beyond yet? Le Voyage reminded a little of a more contemporary version of Murano. Not a replacement for me, but it was my favorite E class specialty dining experience thus far.

A couple of quick tips from the Apex Retreat sundeck: 1) The restroom doors on the deck are operated by hand sensors. When you go in the restroom and the automatic door closes behind you, there’s this button on the wall that says “Door Lock”. As your attorney in this matter, it is my duty to advise you that this claim is often false and misleading. Do NOT act in reliance on this button’s claim that it has locked the door, that is unless you want to risk suddenly becoming much more intimately acquainted with a fellow suite guest in need of the facilities. Instead use the manual lock underneath the handle of the door itself and rotate clockwise until it won’t go any further to actually lock the door (and of course, wash your hands vigorously and use a paper towel when unlocking and exiting). 2) Do not consume Atish’s strawberry daiquiris on an empty stomach. He’s not stingy with the rum. Even with having had breakfast, after two I found myself swinging around in the pool chair singing show tunes from South Pacific. Bon Voyage.

The lounge chair was already on our veranda, but I don’t recall having one on Edge in a sky suite so I wonder if maybe a previous guest requested it and they just left it there. Enjoy your April cruise! Based on what I’ve experienced so far I think you’ll have a great time!

Good morning from our sail into San Juan! Today is one of those hybrid half port half sea days as we don’t dock in Puerto Rico until 2pm. I thought the European acrobat show last night might inspire my husband to join me for a workout this morning, but no such luck, so I was solo for my 2 mile run around the jogging track followed by a cool down walking around taking more photos of the ship. As I mentioned, last night after the Caravan show in the club ended we went to the production show, Tree of Life, in the theater. The cast have some really good voices and the show really shows off the new tech in the E class theatre. Once the show wrapped up we headed back to the martini bar for espresso martinis and the presentation of the ship’s officers then did a little slow dancing to live music provided by my favorite Celebrity house band, The Cardinals. Then we headed up to dinner at Fine Cut. Our reservation was for 8:30, but we didn’t get seated till around 8:45. The restaurant was completely packed and between that and the initial wait at the unmanned host stand, I was very worried that we were in for a somewhat painful service experience. Once we were seated that turned out not to be the case at all. Our server Mushi was amazing and gave great ordering recommendations. The sommelier came right over with the rest of our bottle of wine from Eden (I know, I still owe a report). For starters Jeremy had the tuna tartare which he proclaimed “outstanding” and I had the scallops that I remembered being so good in Fine Cut on Edge and I think they were even better this time. Jeremy and I are ribeye people, but Mushi was quite adamant that one of us should try the filet mignon so Jeremy gave it a go. I was shocked when Jeremy left not a crumb on his plate and said it was “one of the best steaks I’ve ever had”. Apparently Mushi is good, Mushi is wise. My ribeye was just as good as Tuscan Grille on S class and spreading the black truffle butter on top made it even better. We also split a decent Caesar salad and for sides we tried the Mac and cheese, tater tots and sautéed spinach. The only disappointment was the spinach. In fact I’ll go so far as to call it flat out bad. The texture was weird, it had almost no seasoning, and it was cold. Like not even room temperature, but cold. I guess though if something’s going to be terrible in a steakhouse meal you’re paying extra for, the spinach would be the best thing to flop. For dessert we split the brownie sundae…sigh…say it with me Celebrity: if you’re going to offer a brownie sundae, serve👏🏾 the 👏🏾 brownie👏🏾warm. It was a really good brownie and ok ice cream, but it needed that temp combo of warm brownie and cold ice cream to really make it. We were completely stuffed after dinner so decided to skip silent disco and make it an early night sipping a last martini on our veranda in our robes. More to come later today!

First scenes from Evening Chic night! We took inspiration from the movie’s 25th anniversary re-release for tonight’s look. We just left the Caravan circus show in the Club. When the acrobat duo act started my husband said “oh NOW I know why you made me come to this show.” We’ve just been escorted to our reserved seats in the theater by our butler for the Tree of Life production show. Cheers to making it count!

Thanks! The prevailing rate issue is what concerns me a little. I got such a good deal on that cruise and prices are much higher right now. We’re still waiting to hear if Jeremy can get the days off and our house sitter can cover, then I’m going to make an appointment to talk to future cruises. I’ll report back on the outcome and pricing!

Quick Update from my Marriage on Apex: After pool time this morning, while I was showering and dressing for lunch in the bathroom, I heard Jeremy leave the room and not return for about 20 minutes. I prepared my best scolding voice thinking he’d snuck out to cheat and have a smoke. Then I went into the closet for something and noticed a new shopping bag sitting next to the safe. What do ya know, at lunch today I was surprised with an extra belated Valentine’s Day gift…this man is lobbying HARD to be invited onto Beyond in April. 🤣 I skipped dessert at lunch so I could have one of the highly addictive warm chocolate chip cookies from Eden cafe while I take care of a few work projects while watching the wake. So far, wifi is a little slower than yesterday, but still cooperating.

This is very true. There was a pillar with a sign for Retreat luggage, but there was a line of cars waiting to pull in there so we kept going down to general luggage drop. Our bags were all still delivered by the time we got done with lunch in Luminae.

Yes she is welcome in all Retreat areas. I’ve seen a handful of kids in Luminae this sailing. I’ve sailed with our 10 year old daughter in suites and she LOVES it. All the crew treated her like a little princess. You’ll be setting your granddaughter up for high cruising expectations!

Sharing some pics of our stateroom 9179, an S2 sky suite. I booked this stateroom as a suite guarantee. I’ve never done a guarantee booking before and was a little nervous about what we may be assigned. However when I looked at the suite availability for the cruise, the handful of suite cabins left were all S2’s in a decent location, so I figured odds were good we’d be satisfied. Plus, the guarantee booking price was over $2K cheaper than picking my own stateroom, so the cost savings were well worth the risk to me! Thus far it’s worked out well. No issues with noise from the hall or surrounding areas and it’s a quick walk to the forward elevators to get up and down to Luminae and the Retreat deck. We noticed that our pre-cruise preference sheet requests for welcome bottle, extra hangers and stateroom temperature were also honored. I think my favorite thing about the suites on E Class is the bathrooms. I love the lower but wider tub, toilet having its own enclosure and the mirrors that slide open so you can look out at the sea.

Good morning from our post-Luminae breakfast lazing on the Retreat Sundeck! It’s a beautiful morning at sea! It’s a little after 9:30 and it seems like there’s still a decent supply of at least partially shaded seating. While Jeremy heads down to do battle with a slot machine, a catch up post on our first day on Apex: As mentioned, embarkation was remarkably quick. We arrived at the terminal at 10:45 and when we were directed to the suite boarding area, the port worker by the security check point told us they expected to start suite boarding around 11:30. That seemed pretty late to me but I figured maybe there were technical issues or something. Sure enough, just as Jeremy and I had made ourselves a little plate of suite lounge snacks and were putting sugar in our coffees, they started suite boarding at about 10:55. When we went to our cabin to drop off carry on bags and grab our sea passes, we bumped into our very nice stateroom attendant I Made, who was just coming in to finish cleaning the room. After checking in at our muster station, we headed towards the Retreat lounge for the first cocktails and canapés of the cruise and to see if the concierge could help with modifying a couple of specialty reservations I made online pre-cruise. A couple of Apex Retreat lounge food and beverage hot tips: if you’re a tequila person, Patrick makes a wonderful The Retreat cocktail (which my husband promptly had 2 of). Also, don’t miss the duck prosciutto and mango salsa canapés! One of the down sides to booking last minute is that unless it’s a pretty empty sailing, prime specialty dining times can be hard to come by in the cruise planner. When I booked Fine Cut and Raw on 5 online, the only times available in the cruise planner were an absurdly late dinner of 9:30. Jat our concierge (who greeted us warmly with a smile and offered us another round of cocktails) connected us with the specialty dinning manager who was able to move our Raw on 5 reservations up to 6pm. For Fine Cut, she said the restaurant was almost fully booked for the whole cruise already but she’d see what she could do. By the time we got back to our room after dinner last night, we had a card saying our reservation had been moved up to 8:30! After a little exploring we headed to lunch in Luminae about 12:30. The restaurant was pretty busy but there wasn’t a wait for a table. I was a little worried with how crowded it was that service would be slow, but it turned out not to be the case at all. Start to finish I think we were in and out in less than 45 minutes skipping dessert. For lunch Jeremy had the ceviche and Luminae burger and I had the pea soup and steak frites. Jeremy said his ceviche wasn’t bad, but paled in comparison to the amazing one we had in FLL the day before. The Luminae burger rarely disappoints, but Jeremy said he wished they’d melted the cheese on better. My soup was served hot with lots of flavorful ham strips. The real surprise was how good the strip steak was. It was so tender it almost ate more like a ribeye than a strip and nice and garlicky. My pro tip: skip the potato wedge fries that come with the steak and ask for the truffle fries that come with the burger instead. Our lunch sommelier Arnold remembered me from one of Red and I’s cruises last year and as he refilled my Pinot noir, convinced me to sign up for the blendtique wine event (which I’ve never done before) and the premium wine tasting. I’m going to go for a swim and then maybe take a little sea breezes nap (it was a late night). Soon to come: a report on our Eden dinner and first night of partying on Apex. m

In case anyone is wondering about Jeremy’s initial impressions of his first E-class cruise… Does anyone have experience with taking a cruise booking initially booked as a solo cruise (with full solo supplement) and trying to add a second passenger after final payment with whatever upcharge? For some reason my husband is now much less chill about me sailing Beyond in April without him.

I believe that it’s the plan! Hopefully I haven’t hijacked an official roll call meet up. 😂 @KKB hope to see you there! You already know how to find me: map dress, cocktail in hand, look of immense self satisfaction on my face.

O…M…G that is totally the Beyond April sailing that I’m on!!! I also got alerted to the deal through CC and couldn’t resist the pricing. It’s going to be a fun sailing!

Quick update: Full details on embarkation to come, but basically it took me longer to shampoo and condition my hair this morning than it did to get from our Uber pulling up at T25 to drinking kir royals in the Retreat Lounge. Sharing a few first photos from exploring Apex!

I love this so much. Thank you!

Good morning and happy embarkation day to all my fellow cruisers! I’ve just finished swimming a few laps and am taking in some sun and hydration poolside while waiting for Jeremy to emerge from his rum coma from last night. About dinner last night: For dinner I got dressed in a Havana Nights-inspired ensemble and we went to Cuba Libre on Las Olas. I got interested in trying the restaurant after watching their cocktail making videos on TikTok. It was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. We started with the plantain chips and a trio of dips (housemade hummus, salsa and pineapple guacamole) then did their dinner for two Gaucho platter which came with a little of every meat on the menu (all cooked on the open kitchen woodfire grill) served, of course, with the Cuban staples of rice, beans and plantains. Our shrimp was a little over cooked and lobster was kind of small, but other than that, everything was delicious! For dessert we split the pineapple upside down cake and we each had a Cuban coffee, offered with a shot of rum added for an additional $4. As you can see from the pics, that “shot” of rum is really more like 3 shots. When that coffee kicked in on top of the cocktails we’d had with dinner, my usually reserved husband was ready to be the life of every party in Broward County. Fortunately the restaurant atmosphere is conducive to such behavior. If you’re looking for a quiet, laid back dinner, this is not your spot. There was a DJ and light show going in the dining room starting at 7pm. Our server told us the restaurant turns into a full on night/dance club at 11pm and once the drinks hit we were VERY tempted to stay for the real party. But we made that mistake pre cruise a few years ago (ended up in a club on South Beach at 2am drinking Cristal and doing shots of patron with some Dolphins players, spent embarkation day praying for the sweet kiss of death) and are older and wise enough not to make it again. We had an awesome time at the restaurant though and will definitely go again. Well, I think it’s about time for me to head in and fish out the map dress and start putting on luggage tags. Next time you hear from me we’ll be on Apex!

Pre-starlink it was kind of a coin toss on how good wifi was. Especially on S and M-class ships. Some ships wifi was great, others it would be terrible for chunks of the day. On Beyond this past November and on my silhouette cruise last month (where starlink had been implemented) the premium wifi worked fine for me. I was able to use my vpn and remote into my desktop at the office. I also did a couple of Teams meetings without issues. I’ll be sure to report on how it is on Apex.