Apex Wester Caribbean - Nov 12-19 - Live

[carolina_yankee]

Since I am a new cruiser to Celebrity after five cruises on Disney, I want to share a first-timer’s impressions in the context of having a Disney baseline.  I will add my voice to the endless debates of Edge Class, Infinite Verandahs, and “declining standards.” We are very pleased and impressed, so far!

 

I hope this is “live” from here to Saturday, now that I have time to catch up! I’ll answer what questions I have, but vacation does take a top priority!

 

Why this cruise?

 

Our best friends are celebrating their 10th anniversary and we were their sponsors at their wedding so they asked us to join them. I have looked at Celebrity for years and had already decided it would be my first post-Disney ocean cruise, then Pandemic. Then this opportunity came up. Our friends chose the Apex and wanted a Caribbean itinerary. They wanted to enjoy the ship so didn’t really care about the ports. We had done the Western itinerary on the Disney Magic, but this one added Belize City, Costa Maya, and George Town to Cozumel so we decided to give it a shot.

 

Our friends really wanted the Beyond, but the timing didn’t work. So, Apex it is. They wanted Infinite Verandahs, and we both wanted Aqua Class. We chose connecting rooms, 12171 and 12169. We booked late, so those were our only connecting options. 

 

First learning: In the future I don’t think connecting cabins matter for an Infinite Verandah. It kind of made sense on the Magic since the balconies could be joined. Not so much here. That would have given us the flexibility to both have beds closer to the bath than the IV.  More on learnings later. On to the “live report.”

 

Pre-Boarding:

 

We flew into FLL from EWR on Friday. Instead of being delayed by Nicole remnants, we were delayed by a flat tire on the plane. So, as soon as we boarded, we deplaned and hung at the gate for an hour while the changed the tire pretty much the same way they would on a car.

 

Then we re-boarded and were off. We landed only about 50 minutes late.  As we boarded, I said to DH, “Therapy and meds are great. I’m not the least bit stressed!” Woman in front of us turned and said, “Tried that, didn’t work.” She was arriving two days early for the Constellation. After years of being in the in the 1+ day early club, I’m thinking about upgrading to the 2+ day early arrival club.  

 

We stayed at Riverside on Las Olas. Our friends live in Fort Lauderdale and took us out to a wonderful dinner at Blue Moon on the Intercoastal Waterway. The meal and service were great.

 

Riverside is a nice location, and we got a great price, but we essentially just slept there and had a great breakfast. I would probably look for some place a little less expensive if we weren’t going to take full advantage of the area. Taxi from airport got lost on way to Riverside due to Las Olas construction. Lyft from Riverside to the port knew exactly what to do.

 

Port Everglades & Embarkation

 

First, Terminal 25 is WAY away from everybody else! There was a huge backup at security to get into the port. We had an 11 am arrival time. Celebrity emailed us to say that due to clearances they were asking everybody to arrive an hour later. Since checkout time was 11, that’s when we left the hotel. We finally got to Terminal 25 and handed over the luggage at 11:40. Boarding had already begun and we were on the ship by Noon.

 

Board was way more efficient and pleasant than any Disney embarkation we have ever had (Port Canaveral, New York, Miami).  

 

As soon as we boarded we we to our muster station and checked in since we had done the videos in the app that morning. There were no health checks of any kind. We had even completed our health clearances weeks earlier (uploaded vaccine information) and did not have to answer any last minute questions. Our friends could not complete the health questionnaire until that morning. Interesting.

 

We like Disney’s embarkation day buffet so we headed to OceanView expecting shrimp and crab legs galore. Not a one in sight! Just the same lunch buffet as the following days. We did appreciate the diversity of options otherwise, but there was much disappointment about the lack of shellfish. OceanView is a little less chaotic than Disney’s Cabanas buffet and the pizza is significantly better.

 

After exploring the ship a bit to get our bearings, we did sail away on our IV. As a photographer, I really dislike the inability to get a good forward view in the Edge-class design, and the outdoor aft views were full.  

 

We met our stateroom attendant - he was very good at introducing himself and seeing if we had special requests. I like that he gave us a number to reach him if we need him. Disney does not do that. He has paid attention to our schedule and generally services the room the second we are out.

 

Specialty Dining - Rooftop Terrace Grill

 

Our friends really wanted to dine there. We all agreed the setting was lovely and the food was passible to awful. Well, I say we all agreed. When discussing our opinions this AM, our friend’s wife said, “I like my food!” She had the ribs and was very happy. The burger was bland and whole uninteresting for an up charge. The filet was OK, but not great.

 

So, the reviews are right, it seems. Some hate Rooftop, some love it. I wish we had done the Steakhouse instead. Our friend said reviewers thought it wasn’t that great. Well, I convinced her she must have confused the two locations as I’ve read good reviews about the steakhouse!

 

DH and I saw the Aretha Franklin Tribute show with Charity Lockheart in the Theater and loved it. Our friends hung out in Eden and saw the aerialists and loved them.

 

Before bed, we notice one of Disney’s trips shadowing us - probably asking where we were.

 

It was morning, and it was evening, thus endeth the first day.

 

Next Day - Breakfast Buffet, Art Tour, General Relaxation, Dinner at Normandie.

 

I like to drop photos inline with the text. If that’s possible here, I welcome the instructions!

 

 

 

 

[mafig]

Looking forward to more......💘

[carolina_yankee]

Day 2 - Sea Day

 

We were up surprisingly early and at the buffet around 8:30. OceanView’s breakfast is set up nicely - we like the English Breakfast section, and found the poached egg station to be phenomenally well done. Eggs to order are good, too. What Celebrity calls “Corned Beef Hash,” I would call Bolognese leftovers with itty bitty potato chunks. Tasted fine, but wasn’t Corned Beef Hash!

 

We mastered the art of stocking up in the room with our beverages of choice - primarily San Benedetto still water, Perrier sparkling, and Coke Zeros. They still have the European stash of Coke Zero - so we enjoyed the ease of storing the taller, narrower cans in the fridge. The fridge, by the way, does a fairly good job of keeping things chilled! Did not expect that.

 

Today’s big event was the Art Tour. It’s a little pricey, but we did get a choice between a book detailing each piece or a printed collection of postcards. Since we both took the tour, we took one of each. We had done a similar tour on the Disney Magic when we first sailed her in 2006. The guide was an art major and had also worked on three different cruise lines so was very passionate about the ship’s design and art. In comparison, our guide on the Apex seemed to appreciate and care about the art but felt more like a trained docent. Nevertheless, we are truly impressed with the ship’s design features and some of the art scattered around. I do recommend the tour as there are some unique features that were fun to learn about.  I particularly appreciated Foucoult’s pendulum outside of Normandie and the tribute to the SS Normandie inside the restaurant with its collection of artifacts form the ship. Since the Normandie was an inspiration for the Disney Magic, it was nice to see how all of this merged into our new cruising preferences.

 

We were full from breakfast so waited until after the art tour to have lunch. Unfortunately, this got us to the buffet at 3 pm.  I figured “late lunch” would include salads and sandwiches and maybe one hot dish.  Nope, salad fixings only with a little bit of grilled chicken left over, plus one baked pasta dish that had been out for awhile. The sauce was good, though!  I did wander back to the Pizza station, and even they were completely out!!

 

After lunch (a healthy one of salad and a dab of pasta), we hung out in the Solarium for awhile before an acupuncture appointment in the spa. We joined our friends for the LGBTQ+ meet-up in Eden. While there were clearly plenty of associated couples, there was essentially no meet-up. Well, we met up with friends, so that was enough. After a sparkling beverage, we headed off to dinner Normandie.

 

Dinner took 2 1/2 hours. It was a little disappointing because it meant we missed the night’s show in the Theater, which was one of the production shows. Our friends did pop in late and felt that it was good, not great - music was OK and aerialists were fun. 

 

I had high hopes for Normandie, which were dashed. Disney’s main dining, on the whole, was better than Normandie. I started with a crab cake that could have come from Mrs. Paul’s.  My Tenderloin en croute was fairly good. The dresser was just OK. The only wine options offered by Sommelier (wine steward?) were the two whites, two reds, and two roses on the menu. No separate wine list. We didn’t ask either, because we were a little surprised nothing more was offered. The steward was on his 3rd cruise with Celebrity , so that could have been a factor.

 

Our server was in his tenth year with Celebrity, and was very good. I would blame the pacing on the lack of staffing rather than on the quality of staff.

 

Our impressions so far - staff and customer service was generally very good. Dining was uneven with some disappointments and some fine but nothing yet “outstanding!”

 

That would change on Monday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2022 by carolina_yankee

[lola2013]

Following...and can't wait for the rest.  I have sailed twice on Edge and have an Apex sailing booked for December, 2023.  I am particularly interested to hear about acupuncture since I've considered it.  

Sorry you didn't enjoy Rooftop Garden Grill as that is my favorite and the first thing I booked after the cruise.  

 

[Scottishclover]

We sailed with Celebrity on the Apex after a few Disney cruises and loved it. Our girls had outgrown Disney and enjoyed the sophisticated feel of Celebrity, so much so that we booked to go on the Beyond next year.
 

Having allergies, we love the rotational dining concept on Disney, although to be fair to Celebrity, each time we revisited one of the 4 MDRs we got the same servers. We found the buffet on Celebrity to be much better than Cabanas too.

 

For us, there’s just a much better variety of daytime and nighttime entertainment on Celebrity and the shows on the Apex were just as wow as on Disney - with the exception of Tangled- not sure I will ever see anything on a ship as good as that show. 
 

Really interested to read more of your comparisons. For our family, late 40s with older teens, we feel Edge class is a good fit.

 

Enjoy the rest of your cruise.

[mac_tlc]

OOOH!  Love the last teaser sentence. I have my guess as to what dining experience was the game changer. I’ll wait for your next post t see if I am right !

mac_tlc

[ETHTrader]

Are they serving snacks at the Craft Social Bar yet? Will be on Apex on Saturday (right after you) for the third time in the past 13 months. In the app, Craft Social Bar has a snack menu but when I visited in the past (Sept 21 and Nov 21), they said they didn't serve snacks. Need to munch on something while drinking 😅

[blade3]

On Apex in Jan. so very interested in your review!

[Jim_Iain]

Enjoying your live post and have pulled up a chair. 

 

 

[nimiq]

Following and loving it ….was on Apex in April and now the Edge class is ma favorite so much so we are now going on Beyond this a Sunday coming up.

 

Thanks 

Sea ya 

‘Eric 

[mahdnc]

Like your review. Enjoy your comparison with Disney

[CruiseloverfromGA]

Also sailing this coming Saturday

[dlh015]

It's getting crowded in here! I think we're going to run out of popcorn!

 

Loving your review...thanks for taking the time to share your voyage!

[WKUTopperFan]

Enjoying the review! I sail on Apex Saturday for my first ever Celebrity cruise after 20+ sailings on other lines. I lived in Lauderdale for 5 years in the early 2000's and Blue Moon was/is my favorite restaurant in the city. Your friends made a good choice taking you there! I have reservations Friday after I fly in before I sail (The fire cracker oyesters and grouper is to die for).

Edited November 16, 2022 by WKUTopperFan

[carolina_yankee]

Thank you for the feedback!

 

I’ll have to check into Craft Social. I was very excited to see that Le Grand Bistro had pastries to go (at least I think they were), even if they were $2. Unfortunately , nobody was nearby to serve when I was salivating all over the glass, so I’ll check back for my Nutella Croissant another day.

 

I’ll see what I can find out about Craft Social.

 

I’ll do a specific Acupuncture post.

 

Some random facts / observations:

 

The ship has about 2600 passengers based on two people I’ve asked, so I think that puts us around 80%? 

 

Our stateroom attendant has 12 rooms this cruise. He said next will be worse, last wasn’t too bad.

 

Everybody is happy about not having to wear masks. I’d say a few crew still are, but most aren’t. We’re on Day 5 now and I haven’t heard any coughing. I’m not feeling anything yet, and we’ve done two theater shows, one excursion with an hour on the van each way, and lots of elevators. I did freak with embarkation when I saw the crowds at the Aft elevators on Deck 5 and said to DH “We’ll walk (to deck 12). This is COVID waiting to happen!”. We did, and the couple behind us heard me, laughed, and joined us on the stairs! Since then, I haven’t really seen anything to make me think COVID.

 

The weather has been Out.Standing. I got a beautiful shot coming into Belize.

 

Today we are in Cozumel - most people left the ship and pool time in solarium (almost alone!) is about to come, so I’ll do Day 3 - Costa Maya later.

 

I will say two things about that, though:  The tour to the Chacchoben Mayan ruins through Native Choice was easily worth twice every penny we paid (and it was half the cost of the ship’s version). Our guide kept us away from the crowds and gave an excellent tour. Well cared for from start to finish. I’ll give full details later.

 

Best meal of the ship was Monday night at Eden. I’ll do a full rundown of that as well, but the service and the food were the best we have seen on Apex. We compared it with Palo on Disney - very different cuisines and experiences, but worth every penny of the up charge, with great care, menu, and preparation.

 

We ate at Raw on 5 last night - server fantastic. Food very enjoyable.  Sommelier flustered and chaotic - server very frustrated at the lack of proper timing. It took quite awhile to get the drinks going. Another table were frantically waving their menu in the air trying to get their server’s attention and were becoming very steamed. Our server took very good care of us and got the issues sorted out for us.

 

Overheard chatter suggested many cruisers were not Belize fans.  Today is Cozumel and ship is nearly empty.  Again, near perfect weather.

 

Tomorrow, there’s a chance of rain for George Town, Grand Cayman, but we’ll see. So far so good!

 

More to come, with a deeper run down of Day 3 and Day 4, and some photos.

 

 

[carolina_yankee]

3 hours ago, WKUTopperFan said:

Enjoying the review! I sail on Apex Saturday for my first ever Celebrity cruise after 20+ sailings on other lines. I lived in Lauderdale for 5 years in the early 2000's and Blue Moon was/is my favorite restaurant in the city. Your friends made a good choice taking you there! I have reservations Friday after I fly in before I sail (The fire cracker oyesters and grouper is to die for).

Our friends had the fire cracker oysters and loved them! I had an amazing stuff lobster tail for entree and crab cake for appetizer. Pics below.

 

Comparing their crab cake with Normandie’s just made Normandie feel like Long John Silver’s. DH absolutely loved Eden’s crab cake, though!

[dazey]

Your comments on Raw on 5 were what we experienced when we ate there twice when on Apex months ago.  Service for drinks during dinner was very slow and they had just one choice of Sake(bottle) to choose.  At lunch it was not full but the server was running around trying to serve everyone and was so frustrated that he commented "why do you all have to eat at the same time". First time we have ever heard a negative comment like that on Celebrity.   Drink service was similar to what we had at dinner.  

 

We are sailing next month on Equinox for Sushi on Five and hope staff is more plentiful as well as drink supply.

 

We do enjoy the restaurant and have dined there on many cruises.  However, I think there is an issue since returning to service since Covid. We understand and still enjoy dining there but hoping it gets better.

[blade3]

How long was the tender into Belize? Understand it's long and the shore excursion we're looking at is only 1hour . 

Don't want the tendering to be longer than the excursion.

Do you recall the complaints you heard about Belize?

[jwlane]

1 hour ago, carolina_yankee said:

 DH absolutely loved Eden’s crab cake, though!

Probably my all-time favorite selection.

[toronto guys]

17 hours ago, ETHTrader said:

Are they serving snacks at the Craft Social Bar yet? Will be on Apex on Saturday (right after you) for the third time in the past 13 months. In the app, Craft Social Bar has a snack menu but when I visited in the past (Sept 21 and Nov 21), they said they didn't serve snacks. Need to munch on something while drinking 😅

We never saw snacks but they do have a food menu at certain times. Chicken wings, fries etc but at a charge. 

[carolina_yankee]

1 hour ago, blade3 said:

How long was the tender into Belize? Understand it's long and the shore excursion we're looking at is only 1hour . 

Don't want the tendering to be longer than the excursion.

Do you recall the complaints you heard about Belize?

That’s exactly what we heard. Tendering is 25 minutes unless they slow down for bad seas. It was a smooth day. Several guests we heard complained that either the excursion wasn’t what was described or it took too long to get there. Tender. Bus. Time at location. Bus. Tender back easy to spend 70% of the time in transit for the places further away. 
 

 

[carolina_yankee]

1 hour ago, dazey said:

Your comments on Raw on 5 were what we experienced when we ate there twice when on Apex months ago.  Service for drinks during dinner was very slow and they had just one choice of Sake(bottle) to choose.  At lunch it was not full but the server was running around trying to serve everyone and was so frustrated that he commented "why do you all have to eat at the same time". First time we have ever heard a negative comment like that on Celebrity.   Drink service was similar to what we had at dinner.  

 

We are sailing next month on Equinox for Sushi on Five and hope staff is more plentiful as well as drink supply.

 

We do enjoy the restaurant and have dined there on many cruises.  However, I think there is an issue since returning to service since Covid. We understand and still enjoy dining there but hoping it gets better.

I can definitely see how lower staffing is affecting the restaurants. We didn’t notice it the first night because they weren’t full and Rooftop Grill criticisms were more on the food. Eden was outstanding. Notmandie felt understaffed and Raw on 5 definitely was. We still have Le Petite Chef, Tuscan, and Cosmolpolitan to try out. 

Cafe Al Bacio, I’ll secondo baccio, and Mast Grill all moved quickly for counter and lounge service where available. 

[carolina_yankee]

Solarium when we arrived this morning.

 

we had lunch at Mast Grill. Moved quickly enough and burgers were definitely better than Disney. Real cutlery and napkins too! Burgers were probably 4-5 oz but smaller in diameter so thicker. They were fine. Cooked medium to medium well. They would do one to order but we didn’t want to  wait. They serve the hot toppings and fries, we handle the cold toppings and sauces. 
 

Tree of life is ready for tonight. 

 

Last nights show was Antonio Salci, a rather showy and extroverted pop pianist. He talked about how wonderful it was to be on the Edge. Many people shouted back Apex. Captain Nicholas was in the front row and kept his cool. 😊 

 

 

The Celebrity Orchestra is fantastic and the leader is from Ukraine. Lots of applause for him. It seems many of the performers are from Ukraine. I can’t imagine what they must be struggling with.
 

Solarium looks like  this now so time to find another spot! Oh wait. Drink service may be coming by! And he’s off in a different direction. Oh well. 

 

[davekathy]

1 hour ago, blade3 said:

How long was the tender into Belize? Understand it's long and the shore excursion we're looking at is only 1hour . 

Don't want the tendering to be longer than the excursion.

Do you recall the complaints you heard about Belize?

The tender ride is ~20 minutes. Our negative (others may feel differently) about Belize is if you aren't doing an excursion (private or ship) there is nothing to do. The gated port area is small. Like walking in a shopping mall. 👎 Walk out the gated area and it's as bad or even worse than Ocho Rio or Trinidad. In our opinion. 

Edited November 16, 2022 by davekathy

[leyland1989]

Greetings from the other side. 

 

See you again soon in Grand Cayman