Semi-live on the Edge, Barcelona-Rome

[Kteacher]

  In addition to the large buffet offerings you can also order eggs and crepes. 

   We’re getting picked up around 10:30 from the hotel, and so I may not be posting “live” as much. Tonight we have the Chef’s Table reserved, and tomorrow we have a long tour in Valencia with a private tour company. 

     There have been many discussions on using a TA versus booking on your own. We use a TA who is not only excellent at what she does, but is also a dear friend. She surprised us today with a gift of additional obc, a celebration package, and reservations for Le Petit Chef. 

  More photos of breakfast offerings:

   

[Kteacher]

Some more photos from breakfast at the hotel ( there is also an entire area of pastries and cakes, but I knew if I got too close to them I’d lose all self control):

[Kteacher]

First impression of the Edge- amazing! We arrived to the pier via a private town car as part of the CityStay at around 10:45. It took 5-10 minutes at the most to go from security screening to the gangway.

    Our cards were by the stateroom door, and we were able to drop off our hand luggage. Luminae opened at 11:30 for lunch. 

    We spent a few hours after lunch at the Retreat pool, which started to get more crowded as the afternoon went on. Dinner was in Luminae, where the sommelier told us about a special Veuve Cliquot dinner later in the week. I let him know he had me at Veuve 😉

     The cocktail menu at Eden is interesting, and we’ve decided to drink our way through it. I don’t have photos of entertainment, but the show in the main theater was great as was the music in Eden.

    A few notes about CS 11104-

the bathroom will take getting used to as there’s not much storage in there, the infamous rocking chair is still there, and we definitely are missing having a lounge chair. The location is great, however. One flight up to Luminae, and very quiet.

   Some photos of the Retreat:

[Kteacher]

Amazing tour in Valencia! Thank you to our fellow cruisers for making the excursion so much fun. I’ll post a full review later, but here’s a few photos:

[Kteacher]

Some of the delicious dishes from the tour

[crz4all]

On 7/8/2019 at 10:58 AM, crz4all said:

We have used the Leonardo Express train directly into Termini station. Plenty of room for luggage. Cost is 14 euro pp. 

 

On 8/2/2019 at 7:45 AM, Kteacher said:

The name is Cachitas, it is about one block from our hotel. There is also an excellent tapas restaurant going in the other direction, Ciudad Contal, but be prepared to wait for a table.

    Today we slept in, had another excellent breakfast (drat, forgot to take photos again!), walked a bit, and then lounged by the rooftop pool. We have an evening tour scheduled for tonight.

   Some more photos of the hotel:

Enjoying your review. We sail on Edge next April on a Transatlantic that will stop in Barcelona. Love Barcelona, such a beautiful  city with great food and art. We ate at Ciudad Condal last November and I highly recommend it. But as Kteacher mentioned, be prepared to wait. We waited about 20 minutes, not too bad. It was worth the wait. I would also recommend a visit to LaBoqueria market on Las Ramblas. Unbelievable market that also has small restaurants that serve great tapas.

[hcat]

1 hour ago, Kteacher said:

Amazing tour in Valencia! Thank you to our fellow cruisers for making the excursion so much fun. I’ll post a full review later, but here’s a few photos:

Valencia is one of the best ports!

Something special about the mix of old and new.   Thanks for sharing

[pd7277]

On 8/3/2019 at 2:24 AM, h20cruzer said:

Could someone tell me how to follow.

At the top right of the thread there is a box that says "Follow."  Click that and fill in your preference for notification.  It will then say "Following," like this.

[h20cruzer]

3 hours ago, pd7277 said:

At the top right of the thread there is a box that says "Follow."  Click that and fill in your preference for notification.  It will then say "Following," like this.

ty, I finally found it, i have followed others, not sure why it was so difficult to find this time.

Norma

[Jim_Iain]

On 8/2/2019 at 11:24 PM, h20cruzer said:

Could someone tell me how to follow.

Easiest way is to "follow" the thread.  It will then be in your subscribed threads and you can choose to be notified when new posts or on a daily or weekly basis.    You can do this by clicking the "Follow" button at the very top right corner of the page.   Most people when they say they are following mean they intend to follow the thread as long as it is active.   

Edited August 5, 2019 by Jim_Iain

[Jax129]

Thanks for your review. I've only sailed Royal but Celebrity has a Mediterranean itinerary that really appeals to me. I kind of prefer older "traditional" ships so I'm excited to hear how people are liking The Edge

[Jim_Iain]

Wonderful review and will definitely be following along.   Would really enjoy seeing pictures of the CS if you have the time.   We will be sailing Edge on a B2B in Oct-Nov in CS 11102  -   Can't wait as I follow along vicariously.

[Kteacher]

On 8/5/2019 at 2:11 AM, Jim_Iain said:

Wonderful review and will definitely be following along.   Would really enjoy seeing pictures of the CS if you have the time.   We will be sailing Edge on a B2B in Oct-Nov in CS 11102  -   Can't wait as I follow along vicariously.

 

[Kteacher]

The cabin location is perfect. I’ll be adding more photos and reviews later. I’ve been staying off internet on the ship as I wanted to spend the time relaxing with my husband 😊

[Kteacher]

We’ve been pleasantly surprised by the tours we’ve booked through Celebrity. I don’t usually book so many tours through the cruise line, but had a crazy schedule this spring.

   I’ll do a full review of our excursions at the end, but so far they’ve been great. Valencia was a private tour through SeaSaffron, Ibiza was a Celebrity tour to Can Saymo Winery, and today we did a tour to Arles, Le Beaux, with a side trip to an olive grove. 

[jzad]

On 8/1/2019 at 2:12 AM, Kteacher said:

My handbags of choice while I’m traveling- Travelon , both have metal cords in the straps, locking zippers, and are lined in material to protect ccs from being scanned.

   The hotel breakfast buffet is amazing. I’ll remember to take photos tomorrow! We are off early on a tour that’s part of the Celebrity CityStay package- Montserrat and lunch.

    

And I have the same one as yours on the left.  Great bag!

[Kteacher]

Current situation, enjoying a cappuccino in the passenger lounge before our flight home. I’ll need to upload photos to my iPad, but it is much easier than typing on my phone. In the meantime, here are some observations of the cruise:

 

CityStay Package, pre-cruise in Barcelona: This exceeded our expectations. The hotel was wonderful, the tours we received were private guided tours in a town car with a knowledgeable guide and driver, excellent meals included in the package, and the transfers provided by Celebrity were perfect. I would not hesitate to book a CityStay Package again based on what we received. Well done Celebrity.

 

Cabin, CS 11104: Things we loved- the color scheme, and the location. Things that we scratched our heads over- the rocking chair we had to keep moving around in an attempt to get it out of the way, the lack of comfortable furniture on the balcony, the lack of storage in the bathroom, the half door in the shower, the ridiculous trash bins in the WC and the bathroom. We will be interested in seeing if anything will be tweaked for the other ships in the Edge class.

 

Specialty Dining: We were assigned Luminae, which was wonderful as always. We also dined at Le Petit Chef, which was really enjoyable. I was not expecting the food to be as great as it was, and would not hesitate to book this. We also did a Veuve Cliquot pairing dinner that was held in Fine Cut. The meal was very good, the staff involved were excellent, but the noise from the martini bar area below made it difficult to hear the sommelier explaining the pairings. Remember I’m a Star Wars fan, right? Hearing the Imperial March being played at high volume could be considered an amusing juxtaposition with a champagne dinner, but I missed out on a lot of the information the sommelier was saying because I couldn’t hear her. We also did the Chef’s Table, which is also held in Fine Cut. The food was excellent, the staff and chef were great, but again, it was hard to hear. I had read on these boards that the wine pairings were not included. Our experience was we were initially told there would be an upcharge from the premium package if we wanted to do the chosen pairings, or the sommelier would choose wines for us that were included in the premium package. We chose the pairings, but were not charged anything additional. You also get a brief galley tour as well as a very nice, but very large and very heavy book. We were offered two, but only took one as the weight of the two books combined would have put a strain on our luggage. The Veuve Cliquot dinner was pricey, but we had a lot of OBC to use. I’m not sure I would book this based on the price. The Chef’s Table was not as expensive, but still pricey. I would book this again based on the quality of the food and the wine pairings.

 

The Retreat: This itinerary is very port intensive, with only one sea day. We used the Retreat pool on embarkation day, and briefly one afternoon after an excursion. There’s plenty of lounges. Staff were great. We did not spend a lot of time in the Retreat lounge as we had long excursions every day we were in port, and had just enough time to take showers before dinner. The only thing we needed assistance with was getting our boarding passes printed.

 

Excursions: I’ll do full reviews when I have time to upload photos, but we had great experiences with all the excursions booked through Celebrity.

 

Future Cruise: Well... 

We looked over the prices for the Apex and the Edge. No thank you. We briefly considered the Reflection to Ireland, but also found the prices on those sailings high. We ended up with the Summit to Bermuda and Newport next summer in a RS, and are already excited about this upcoming cruise 😉

[Kteacher]

Here are some photos the bathroom in our cabin CS 11104, including the infamous trash receptacle:

 

 

[Kteacher]

Some more photos of the bathroom:

[Kteacher]

We’re fairly seasoned cruisers, so typically book tours on our own. Unfortunately I had a crazy spring that left me little time to research. The only tour I booked privately was in Valencia, through a company called SeaSaffron. The tour guide met us by the Mediterranea terminal (the ship provides a free shuttle to get there), and we were driven first to the old part of Valencia. We had a great walking tour, and were then driven to the new part of the city. The guide was very knowledgeable and also very friendly. At the end of the tour we were brought up to the penthouse of one of the highest skyscrapers in the city, and were served tapas and Valencian wines. The view was outstanding. I can’t say enough about how pleased we were with this tour.

[C&K2Cruise]

9 minutes ago, Kteacher said:

We’re fairly seasoned cruisers, so typically book tours on our own. Unfortunately I had a crazy spring that left me little time to research. The only tour I booked privately was in Valencia, through a company called SeaSaffron. The tour guide met us by the Mediterranea terminal (the ship provides a free shuttle to get there), and we were driven first to the old part of Valencia. We had a great walking tour, and were then driven to the new part of the city. The guide was very knowledgeable and also very friendly. At the end of the tour we were brought up to the penthouse of one of the highest skyscrapers in the city, and were served tapas and Valencian wines. The view was outstanding. I can’t say enough about how pleased we were with this tour.

So good to hear as we are booked with SeaSaffron on our upcoming October cruise! Thanks for the photos as well ... 

[Highpeaklad]

On 8/3/2019 at 7:24 AM, h20cruzer said:

Could someone tell me how to follow.

 

Write a reply, one word will do then select notify me of replies just above the submit button. 

[Kteacher]

Excursions and tours continued...

 

Ibiza: We did the Con Maymo Winery tour through Celebrity. There is a bus ride into the countryside where the winery is located. A guide translated, but I understand enough Spanish that I just listened to the owner speaking. The family who owns the winery is passionate about what they do and very friendly. After the tour we were given fairly large pours of three different wines along with cheeses, crackers, and sausages. The wines were great, and now I need to find a US distributer of Ibizan wines with thyme 😉. 

   You return from this tour with plenty of time to go to the beach if you want. 

[Kteacher]

Photos from Con Maymo Winery excursion in Ibiza

[Presto2]

Thanks for the information - looking forward to the rest of the review :-)