Nov 6 Apex B2B East-West Caribbean Cruise

[judebarsto]

We tried talking to the host last night. I’m afraid he was very snotty to us and suggested we couldn’t get a reservation because we booked through a travel agent not celebrity directly. Which sounds pretty ridiculous!

[Ken the cruiser]

Tuesday, November 16, Belize

 

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by Ken the cruiser

[Ken the cruiser]

20 minutes ago, judebarsto said:

We tried talking to the host last night. I’m afraid he was very snotty to us and suggested we couldn’t get a reservation because we booked through a travel agent not celebrity directly. Which sounds pretty ridiculous!

Wow! I have no answer for that. I know we book our cruises directly through our Celebrity VP, but that shouldn’t make a difference. 

[ETHTrader]

1 hour ago, judebarsto said:

We tried talking to the host last night. I’m afraid he was very snotty to us and suggested we couldn’t get a reservation because we booked through a travel agent not celebrity directly. Which sounds pretty ridiculous!

Booked my cruise through a TA as well. My host did not make any comment like that. He simply explained that there's some disconnect between the Corporate office and the people operating the specialty restaurants on the ship. Corporate is selling these specialty dining packages without actually consulting availability or the employees on the ship. And by the time these passengers are on board and want to make reservations for these packages that they have paid for, they are told that there's no availability and it's the employees on the ship who has to deal with the tricky balance between dealing with unhappy passengers and the Corporate office.

 

Additionally, I dined at the Eden tonight. It looked like they were operating only 6 tables at a given time (and the restaurant was completely sold out but plenty of empty tables in between seated diners), so there's some capacity restrictions that's causing all these issues with specialty restaurant reservations

Edited November 16, 2021 by ETHTrader

[like2cruise]

23 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

No problem. I’ll keep posting them as soon as we get them in the cabin the previous evening. 😎

You are super kind Ken the cruiser!  I appreciate you sooooo much!!

 

[brontravel]

15 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Just talked with one of the assistant CDs and he said Celebrity is capping their booking capacity at 70% right now. No estimate as to when it will go higher. That means the Apex maximum capacity right now is about 2037 passengers.

Interesting. I spoke with Retreat land concierge yesterday and was told they are still capped at 50%. I told her I had heard otherwise and she even double checked with her manager. 

[little britain]

16 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Just talked with one of the assistant CDs and he said Celebrity is capping their booking capacity at 70% right now. No estimate as to when it will go higher. That means the Apex maximum capacity right now is about 2037 passengers.

We had 900 on board in September… just the right amount! We will have been spoiled with the huge cruise lines almost to ourselves when they get back to capacity. Fingers crossed that January is still around 70% … 

[SueCan'tWait]

On 11/14/2021 at 5:22 PM, kwokpot said:

Can you confirm that the Thermal Suite in the spa doesn't need reservations?  In other words if you're in Aquaclass you have access to the Thermal Suite without needing reservations?

You do not need reservations.  Due to the “liquid sunshine” on this cruise it is quite busy. 

[Valentin53]

Thank you very much for the information you post. Wishing you many more pleasant emotions, I would like to ask you if you can post information about excursions in Belize (Xunantunich) and Cozumel - (Tulum, Chichenitsa). Were there any excursions to these Mayan sites.

[prish]

3 hours ago, brontravel said:

Interesting. I spoke with Retreat land concierge yesterday and was told they are still capped at 50%. I told her I had heard otherwise and she even double checked with her manager. 

 

When we booked our December 11 Apex cruise the Celebrity rep told us December capacity would be 70%, that was mid September. 

[Ken the cruiser]

5 hours ago, brontravel said:

Interesting. I spoke with Retreat land concierge yesterday and was told they are still capped at 50%. I told her I had heard otherwise and she even double checked with her manager. 

That’s ok. Let’s do the math. Our first leg was around 1850, this leg has 1794 and the next leg is estimated at around 1700. The capacity of the Apex at double occupancy is 2910. Even if I take the smallest number, the next leg will be at 58% capacity.

[Ken the cruiser]

3 hours ago, Valentin53 said:

Thank you very much for the information you post. Wishing you many more pleasant emotions, I would like to ask you if you can post information about excursions in Belize (Xunantunich) and Cozumel - (Tulum, Chichenitsa). Were there any excursions to these Mayan sites.

If you go to posts #158 and 160, Jim gave some great guidelines on using the Celebrity App to find the information you’re looking for. You can also go to the Celebrity website, go all the way down to the bottom and click on Shore Excursions, and then go all the way down where it gives you the option to list excursions. Hope this helps.

[dazey]

We are on Deck 6 for the 11/20 Apex sailing and asked about sharing the deck with crew and you all from CC advised I should not be concerned about safety.  When we get back I will let anyone who wants to know how the blocking of corridors, etc. worked out.

 

Regarding the reservations for specialty dining package, I decided early on to just pay for the convenience of getting the time and restaurant we wanted instead of a package to avoid running around when first on board.  It did cost a few more dollars($18) a person but after waiting forever to get sail again I thought $36 was worth it.  I am so glad I did!

 

Thanks for sharing your cruise with us.  So helpful and entertaining.

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

4 hours ago, Valentin53 said:

Thank you very much for the information you post. Wishing you many more pleasant emotions, I would like to ask you if you can post information about excursions in Belize (Xunantunich) and Cozumel - (Tulum, Chichenitsa). Were there any excursions to these Mayan sites.

I just checked and the only Mayan ruin excursions I saw on the app were to Ancient Ruins of Altun Ha (Belize) and Mayan Ruins of San Gervasio (Cozumel). 
 

 

[graphicguy]

@Ken the cruiser....So happy to see you enjoyed EDEN.

 

Two of my favorite dining experiences on any cruise line came at the Chef's Table on the Carnival Vista 3 years ago.

 

The other one was EDEN on the EDGE this past summer.  It was exemplary, from the time I was taken to my table, until the final after dinner drink was finished.

[little britain]

4 hours ago, Valentin53 said:

Thank you very much for the information you post. Wishing you many more pleasant emotions, I would like to ask you if you can post information about excursions in Belize (Xunantunich) and Cozumel - (Tulum, Chichenitsa). Were there any excursions to these Mayan sites.

In January we have booked Lamanai with X in Belize $107pp and a private tour in CM to Kohanlich $75pp

They offered Xunantunich & Marimba Lunch $80pp

[floridababa]

Can someone find out when they will be decorating the Apex for Christmas

Thanks

[Ken the cruiser]

Today we’re in Belize and once again we stayed onboard. Not only did we not have extra OBC to burn through this leg, but there really weren’t any excursions that looked all that exciting to us. After breakfast we did our laps around the ship and saw for the first time on an Edge class ship, the crew using the Magic Carpet to load/unload passengers from the Belize-supplied tenders. As a side note, the tender ride to Belize was estimated at around 40 minutes. 

I have a couple of related pictures to upload that I’ll have to post later as the Internet is having issues doing that this morning as it’s been pretty slow. 

[Ken the cruiser]

20 minutes ago, floridababa said:

Can someone find out when they will be decorating the Apex for Christmas

Thanks

Just talked with customer service. They said the usual time is around 2 weeks before Christmas. However, this year on the Apex they are going to start putting them up on Dec 5th.

[Ken the cruiser]

49 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

@Ken the cruiser....So happy to see you enjoyed EDEN.

 

Two of my favorite dining experiences on any cruise line came at the Chef's Table on the Carnival Vista 3 years ago.

 

The other one was EDEN on the EDGE this past summer.  It was exemplary, from the time I was taken to my table, until the final after dinner drink was finished.

Well, if you enjoyed Eden on your July Edge cruise, you’re going to LOVE the Eden menu on the Apex! We were definitely not impressed with the very limited Eden evening menu on the Edge back on our August cruises. But then that was right in the middle of the Delta variant surge, so I’m sure the supply of ingredients were limited at best. 😎

[39august]

Valentin53- Do not take the San Gervasio Mayan ruin Celebrity tour in Cozumel. It is mostly just a pile of rocks! We stopped by there when we drove around the island a few years ago. Altun Ha is much better. 

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, dazey said:

We are on Deck 6 for the 11/20 Apex sailing and asked about sharing the deck with crew and you all from CC advised I should not be concerned about safety.  When we get back I will let anyone who wants to know how the blocking of corridors, etc. worked out.

 

Regarding the reservations for specialty dining package, I decided early on to just pay for the convenience of getting the time and restaurant we wanted instead of a package to avoid running around when first on board.  It did cost a few more dollars($18) a person but after waiting forever to get sail again I thought $36 was worth it.  I am so glad I did!

 

Thanks for sharing your cruise with us.  So helpful and entertaining.

 

My unofficial guess based on what happened when @judebarsto embarked on this cruise, you’re going to be put in a different cabin on a higher deck as I just can’t see them opening up deck 6 when they have plenty of similar category cabins to put you in higher up. But then, that’s just me sitting over in the peanut gallery offering my uninformed opinion. 😎

[mahdnc]

We are planning on doing a W Carib sailing on Apex in March.  We are planning on signing up for the ship's 2-tank diving shore excursion during the stop at Belize.  Can you see (or find out) if the dive boat actually picks up the passengers directly from Apex and then goes directly to the dive spots with a direct return to Apex afterwards?

[Ken the cruiser]

8 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

We are planning on doing a W Carib sailing on Apex in March.  We are planning on signing up for the ship's 2-tank diving shore excursion during the stop at Belize.  Can you see (or find out) if the dive boat actually picks up the passengers directly from Apex and then goes directly to the dive spots with a direct return to Apex afterwards?

We don’t see any reference to any scuba diving excursions on this port call in Belize. We saw one or snorkeling excursions listed, but no scuba excursions.

[dazey]

Ken, we are in an even cabin on Deck 6 and "judebarsto" was assigned an odd cabin which, as I understand, is the side the crew is staying in.  Could be why they were reassigned. I would not mind being moved as we have an obstructed view.  Maybe I will call and see if we can be switched.  Since it was a complimentary cruise I kind of feel I should be happy with what they gave us.