Moby Jones

What we have experienced is that service in Luminae always seems to be slower on the E class ships than the older vessels. The suite restaurant may be larger on the newer ships but I would have expected more staff to maintain pace with customer orders. The choice of Scotch, Irish and bourbon was simply terrible on Beyond last week. I'm not going to sugar coat anything, they had some of the cheapest, nastiest brands out there. I don't expect 18 year old Glendronach or Pappy, but the choices were a bit of a bad joke.

Obviously you can always order more if you want. It just shows a little bit of desperation with the cut backs going too far. I'm pleased you noticed it also though. The crème brûlée is certainly thinner than it used to be! 🙂

A downgrade in quality and service standards. For example I've just got off Beyond. The menu in Luminae was a disappointment. Clearly they are using cheaper ingredients in their menu. Our party who are all seasoned E+ Captains Club members also thought portions looked just a little smaller and that service was a lot slower than what we are used to. Bars also had smaller selections of beverages available compared to previous sailings. So if you lower your expectations compared to what they were previously, you might enjoy your cruise more.

They've never been 'free'. They're included in your cruise fare. Nothing is 'free' on your cruise.

Hmmmmm, doesn't seem it to me, especially if you sail different lines. I'm typing that this from our sky suite where our FB sailing group have made many comments about the cutbacks really impacting the food, beverage and service quality. The itinerary is pretty lame too IMHO.

Am I missing something? Our regular TA has the March 17th 2024 sailing at $2897 + port fees and taxes for an entry level suite.

A cruise is ultimately what you make of it. Regular cruisers just need to step onboard with realistic expectations these days.

I just want to highlight why I think Celebrity suite pricing is absolutely ludicrous by comparing fares from Celebrity with their six star luxury sister line Silversea. Whilst it's not possible to compare everything exactly, I've deliberately picked ships from each line sailing in the same region over the same month and over the same duration with comparable entry level suites. Though the Silversea rooms are larger. Celebrity Summit built in 2001 Max passengers 2218, crew size 1027, gross tonnage 90,940. Sky Suite 2 prices from $5080 includes :- Premium beverage package Internet access vs Silversea Silver Nova built in 2023. Max passengers 728, crew size 556, gross tonnage 54,700. Classic verandah suite from $5150 includes :- Beverage package Internet access Gratuities Shore excursions. For people who don't want a larger ship as the destination it's hard to see why anyone would book an old M class ship for a higher fare when you add in the overall value.

I sailed on Anthem of the seas and Apex in quick succession. There were more similarities than differences. It's obvious that Edge class has stolen a number of ideas from the RCL Quantum class such as 4 dining rooms, washing stations in the buffet, Eden is Celebrity's interpretation of Cafe 270 and whilst Quantum class ships have the gimmicky Northstar, Edge class has the Magic Carpet etc. Dining wise our group of four thought that service on Anthem beat Apex (Retreat). The only real difference was the addition of sommeliers on X whereas RCL didn't have any. There were several identical dishes onboard both ships and dare I say that we found the buffet better than on X in terms of variety and flavour. The reality is Celebrity has lost its identity these days. And whilst it's marketing department are working extremely hard to convince the public that it's a luxury line the reality is it's simply more RCL without the water slides and kids.

All costs for beverages and everything else are in US$ onboard.

No leaving of the bottle here on Beyond. But then again I wouldn't expect them to. No issues with our glasses being refilled with Haslinger though.

If you sat down with a blank piece of paper and described in detail what your perfect cruise line would be I think it's safe to say it wouldn't exist! 🙂 All we can do is find the line or more likely, cruise lines with the best fit. We love Azamara, but they're all about the destination. Those who see the ship as the destination wouldn't enjoy their R class ships IMHO.

We had no noise issues onboard either of our Apex sailings. I've only ever seen one post on Facebook claiming that Apex suffers the same issues as the two newer ships and I wasn't really convinced by that at all.

No issues with the crew onboard. With few exceptions we have always found them to be delightful. It's the accountants and bean counters in Miami who may or may not have cruised before that trash the onboard experience. I'm not going to sugar coat anything as we sail multiple lines and are cheerleaders of none. But Celebrity have gone too far with the cutbacks. Newbies will know no better, but those who've sailed with them for years will notice the obvious and less obvious changes they have implemented. Last nights Luminae menu was really quite disappointing. You can see that they're focussed on less costly ingredients. The deserts in Luminae are good though. But foodies will likely be disappointed with the overall experience. Oceania is a line we are familiar with so will be looking there. We had a look at the cost per person per night in a sky suite which is our usual cabin of choice and at £450 to £600 you certainly have a lot of options with other lines with some more upscale lines coming out considerably less! And they have more inclusions such as gratuities, OBC, specialty dining and in some instances, shore excursions! So as an RCL stockholder we're happy to see the share price increase, but as X passengers we've lost interest with booking again. But you can't have it both ways! 🙂 If X keep filling their cabins at current pricing then fair play to them. Well done! But as someone who books vacations based on value as opposed to price, they're just no longer for us.

Well, we're currently sailing from Curacao to the Bahamas. After a couple of quiet nights the creaking noises started around 3am. It's all very simple as soon as the ship travels at speed or you hit high seas the creaking starts. This all ties in with the description from the ships officer when they claimed the ship was 'fragile'. The reality is it's just poorly built. What ever work the shore side engineering team did they haven't fixed the problem. In Celebrity's defence they did ask us to call when we experienced the creaking noise, but we didn't want a bunch of engineers in the cabin at 3 am when trying to sleep! No one knows how the seas will be when they first set foot on the ship to start a cruise, so packing ear plugs would be my recommendation.

My first impression was that the lounge, sundeck and Luminae are big. We thought this on Apex, but Beyond is even bigger. Luminae is very large and has lost some of the personal touch we enjoyed on M and S class ships. I'm not going to lie here, service onboard is slow. The staff themselves are incredibly hared working, courteous and professional as you'd expect. There simply isn't enough of them. Food quality has been a bit of a disappointment. Cutbacks are evident. A friend who is sailing with us ordered the ravioli as his entree and received just three pieces in a bowl! Wines in the premium package are a huge disappointment but that subject has been covered widely elsewhere. Right now I'd award the suite restaurant 7 out of 10. There's a lot of room for improvement. We haven't had the maitre 'd come around and introduce himself either which is a first for Luminae or even Blu. We've sailed with X many times and they have always done this previously. The lounge and sundeck are very nice and there's always room for those looking for a lounger etc. Again, service could be a little quicker in the lounge or on the sundeck, The staff here are all friendly and helpful. They could just do with a few more. I don't want to sound negative but we won't be visiting the future cruise team. It's impossible for me to justify Retreat fares these days for the pretty ordinary restaurant and service you receive. In fact I've just been looking at three lines with much smaller ships largely due to them having better itineraries, pricing and with the hope that we'll fins a more personal experience elsewhere. On the plus side the ship is impeccably clean. The noise seems to have disappeared for now, though we have a two day sail to the Bahamas, so we'll see how that goes. We've enjoyed both the Eden cafe and restaurant. The former still appears to be the ships biggest secret as very few people head there for breakfast. The Captains Club breakfast event was poor. The staff were miserable and the service also slow! And I'm staggered how the Ocean Cafe chef manages to produce such a great looking display of colourful and attractive deserts, with all different textures and shapes with such an incredible lack of flavour|! Honestly some of them have to be tried to appreciate how flavourless they actually are!!! 🙂

In the real world, nothing. I just want a salty old seadog that's been sailing for years who can get us to the destination on time and without sinking!

I sent a pretty scathing email to the presidents office voicing my disappointment with recent changes and explained how they impacted us. We're getting the usual shrimp plate / cheese plate delivered on an afternoon, but also daily treats too and we found a signed note from the hotel director wishing us a happy new year with a bottle of champagne in addition to the usual bottle of fizz. I suspect that is why we got the escort also. I've been very critical of their changes recently, but it's very nice to know that they are listening and they are trying.

We have 4 pairs in an SS1 too. Could it be because they can accommodate 4 people with the sofa bed?

Their word not ours!!!!

People need to see beyond the RCL group. Other lines also carry 6500+ at full capacity. It's one reason why we've lost a lot of interest in sailing in the Caribbean. The ships have gotten more numerous and larger whilst the islands remain the same size!

No offence to Captain Kate McCue but I'd much, much rather sail with Captain Hook.....

To be fair the choice of alcohol available in the Retreat really is disappointing on our current cruise. There really is nothing 'top shelf' about it at all.

So we're currently on Beyond. We've ordered a couple of glasses on wine attracting an upcharge. Be aware we're being charged per glass. So a glass of Decoy and a refill will be $4.80 etc.

We are on Beyond now. We have lip balm in the bathroom and pillow chocolates every night. We are in an S1 sky suite. In Fort Lauderdale we went to the Retreat boarding area where we were met by a lovely Retreat host who escorted us onboard. We briefly met the Retreat manager and was then taken to our room by the head butler. Is this normal for sky suite guests these days? This has never happened to us before when sailing in sky suites.