Beyond - 11/8 Western Caribbean with kids

[GnarleeDude]

I haven’t seen many reviews that talk about the kids perspective on Beyond, and we had a lot of people come up to us on the boat to ask about it, so hopefully I can answer any questions. We had our two daughters (6 and 9) with us. 

 

Boarding 
We had the 11 AM boarding time and it did seem like they were enforcing boarding times, but heard others talking about how they just lied about their time when they got there and didn’t have any issues. It took about 5 minutes to make it through security and check in, and then we stayed in the waiting area. They boarded the first group around 11:10 and we got on a little after 11:30. We made our way to the buffet which wasn’t too crowded and had plenty of seating. After lunch we went to our rooms, which were ready.

 

Staterooms
We had connecting IV rooms on deck 8. There’s lots of opinions on the IV, and I found both good and bad. My wife really liked it, and it did make the room feel bigger. When the window is open, it does feel like a regular balcony. However, as others have mentioned, it gets hot in the afternoon with the sun beating down, even when the window was closed. When it’s open, the room heats up quick with the AC off. I feel like I used it much less than I would have a regular balcony. I would book an IV again, but would prefer the traditional balcony. 

 

 

For anyone doing adjoining rooms, the doors to go between the rooms is right by the cabin entrance and bathroom door. So there is no way to prop these doors open and have a free flow between the two rooms. While not a big deal, it meant that you’d have to keep both doors ajar, and try not to slam them when moving between.

 

Other than that, the rooms were great, and having all the lighting and AC controls integrated into one display was really good and easy to use.

 

 

[GnarleeDude]

Kids Club
We checked in on the kids club on the first day and our kids went to the nightly activities. The times are staggered, so it’s not open continuously throughout the day. We had booked a date night for dinner, but quickly learned that kids camp didn’t open till 7. Keep this in mind if trying to plan a night out.

 

The kids camp was on deck 3 for kids from 6-12, and there was a teens area on deck 2 that we did not see. The area is smaller than on other ships, but it had all the normal activities (table games, video games, TVs, and activity space). We were told there was around 40 kids on the boat, with 10 of them being babies. The staff told us every kid registered with the kids club. Our kids had a great time, and all the staff working in the club was great. Since there was so few kids, they told us they combined some of the areas, which made sense.  The picture below is of the "little kids" side, the "big kids" side is opposite this, and is the same size but with the video games and other stuff.

 

 

Many other passengers asked us about the kids activities and our kids spoke very highly of them. I’m not sure if it would be rough during spring break or summertime when kids are out of school and there’s less space for them, but I wouldn’t hesitate to go back.

[GnarleeDude]

Dining
As others have said, the set dining times (early and late seating) are in fact gone. When we booked, we had the early seating (6 PM) and the celebrity app said we would get a card in our room with our dining
location. When we arrived, the card in the room said our dining time was 8:15-9 PM, but that we could go to any restaurant at any time. We spoke to some of the restaurant staff and they confirmed that it’s all open seating, and to just show up wherever and whenever. We went to all four of the main dining rooms and never waited more than a couple minutes to get a table. We arrived between 5:30-6 and always saw open tables and no lines when we left. We were told there was about 2,700 people on the cruise, so much less than full capacity. One thing to note, the hostess essentially said that if you come around 6PM and there’s a wait, you probably won’t be seated until after 7, since everyone at a table sat down no earlier than 5:30 when the restaurants opened. We heard people who went to the same restaurant around the same time each night got the same table and servers, so it sounds like that’s still an option.

 

[GnarleeDude]

We tried all of the 4 main dining room restaurants, and they were all good. As others mentioned, the left side of the menu is specific to that restaurant, and the right side is the same at all the restaurants. With a new restaurant each night, it did feel like we were eating at a specialty place and something new each night.  The kids menu is the same at all the restaurants.

 

We wanted to try some actual specialty restaurants but they booked up very quickly before the cruise, we kept looking online and even checked in on board but had no luck. Make sure you make your reservations ASAP if that’s what you want. 

We did eat the last night at Raw on 5. The food was good and the menu had lots of non-sushi items too. I recommend the Beyond Roll, it was the best one we got.

 

One area that was underwhelming was the Oceanview Cafe (the buffet). I read all the reviews of how large and great it was, but I felt it was lacking. It was big and well laid out, and there was always plenty of seating, but there didn’t seem to be as many selections as other places and the food that was out looked limited. Not sure if this was supply chain or staffing related, but it always looked like they had just run out of items and no one was around to restock it. It also seemed like there were not as many desert options as other buffets. We had breakfast and lunch here several times, and walked through around dinner time as well.

 

The pizza in the back was good, but after lunch time it seemed like it was forgotten about and looked like the pizza sat out for a while. The ice cream/gelato counter at the front of the buffet was good and all was available without any additional charge. 

The coffee shop on deck 4 made the best Lattes, according to my wife. And seemed to be the only place that had oat milk. The one odd thing was they didn’t have regular coffee….even though it’s the coffee shop. So coffee was only available at one of the dining rooms, the spa cafe or the buffet. 

 

We went to the mast grill for burgers/dogs a few times. The food was great and they seemed to have all the toppings you could want. It did get busy on the sea days at lunch time.

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by GnarleeDude

[GnarleeDude]

Pools

The main pool was great and had plenty of room. We never had a problem finding a chair and even on seadays there seemed to be plenty of space available at any time. I did think it was odd that the hot tubs are located two decks up from the main pool. Which meant you had to walk up stairs and burn your feet to go between the two. 

Photo Shoot

My wife wanted to get some nice family pictures, so we booked a photo shoot in the studio on the formal night. We thought this would be the same price and process as using the normal photographers, but we were very wrong. Photo packages were very expensive (5 digital photos for $550). We thought this was ridiculous and didn’t buy any, but did get a picture taken by one of the “normal” photographers and got the digital copy for around $25. 

 

Costa Maya 
In costa maya, like many others, we booked access to a private beach club a short distance away. The club warned us, but know that taxi cabs will try and take you to another beach spot. You must be persistent about where you want to go, and know what it’s called, otherwise you’ll easily end up somewhere else. Cabs are $4 per person each way (bring exact change).   

Disembarkation 
We walked off with our own luggage after we got breakfast and it only took around 5 minutes to walk off the ship and get to customs. Customs took a little time because of all the people, but clearly not Celebrity’s fault.

 

The pickup area for Uber/Lyft at Terminal 25 was chaos, and there are no markings or other way to tell the driver where you are at. This could definitely be better laid out by just painting some numbers on the wall. 

 

Lastly, we talked up this cruise a lot beforehand with the kids and they were really looking forward to seeing Captain Kate. We know she’s vacationing on the boat and some people had some sightings, but no luck for us. While the entire crew was great, it would have been awesome to have a meet and greet with the famous captain it seemed like many others were hoping to see her too.

 

My daughter is working on her own review, so I'll post that as an update when she's done!

[RobertoF]

Great posts and pictures.  Please keep them coming!  We will be on Beyond starting on Sunday with two teenagers so your experiences are much appreciated.

[skatie]

Thank you for the review.  Can you explain a little more about disembarking and customs?  I keep hearing that you just have to go to a camera for facial recognition and once it turns green you walk out.  Is this not used for Beyond cruises?  We have an 11 am flight so just want to be prepared for what we have to do and how long that might take!  Thanks

[kwokpot]

6 minutes ago, skatie said:

Thank you for the review.  Can you explain a little more about disembarking and customs?  I keep hearing that you just have to go to a camera for facial recognition and once it turns green you walk out.  Is this not used for Beyond cruises?  We have an 11 am flight so just want to be prepared for what we have to do and how long that might take!  Thanks

Yes facial recognition is being used, and the process is exactly as you describe.

[GnarleeDude]

Facial recognition is being used and it’s a quick process. For us, there was just a line of people to get to that point from the baggage pickup area. Also, for little kids, the software doesn’t detect their face and you have to see a customs officer with their passports. 

[mahdnc]

I look forward to seeing your daughter's review, @GnarleeDude.

[GnarleeDude]

As promised, below is my 9 year old’s review (unedited):

 

GOOD 🙂
Let’s start with the good of the cruise.The food at the main restaurant’s were the best on the cruise, in my opinion the French restaurant was the best,I got the tortellini & a burger 🍔. The restrooms were clean & nice, they had actual towels that you could get from the tops of the shelves on the bottom you could get paper towels. To get in & out of the restroom’s they had a thing that you put your hand in front of it & the door would open.The Camp at sea (aka kids club) was very fun & it was so clean, the things to do were play on a play station, make a fort or play a game with a friend. The pool had lots of events such as dance lessons, volleyball, basketball & much more. The gangway was beautiful it had all these pretty lights & it had a gorgeous statue.The room was clean and the room service put chocolate on top of my pillow each night that I was there.

                       BAD 😞
Ok we talked about the good & now we haft to do the bad, but the good thing is that we have just a little bit of the bad stuff! So let’s talk about Raw on 5, almost all of the things we ordered was spicy 🌶 for example the beyond roll was pretty spicy but it wasn’t supposed to be that spicy 🥵! In the restrooms on the sides they were hard to get out of, I got stuck in one and so did my mom in the bathroom she went in to there was no door handle, so I had to save her.The only bad part of the kids club was that there was only 40 kids on the boat & I only got to meet 10 of them at kids club. The pool was the only pool that they did events at and if you wanted to chill it wasn’t a good idea to go there. I am a weird kid I … don’t like…SWEETS! (well just not cake, chocolate,cupcakes or brownie’s) so them putting dark chocolate oh did I   
mention it as dark chocolate on my pillow is not ok, I tried it once but I spit it out in the sink it was terrible I would rather eat cake.

                CONCLUSION
I think that Celebrity Beyond is better then all the Royal Caribbean in the world 🌎. So if you are thinking about going on Celebrity Beyond I hope you love it !!!
My rating is ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!

[mahdnc]

1 hour ago, GnarleeDude said:

As promised, below is my 9 year old’s review (unedited):

 

GOOD 🙂
Let’s start with the good of the cruise.The food at the main restaurant’s were the best on the cruise, in my opinion the French restaurant was the best,I got the tortellini & a burger 🍔. The restrooms were clean & nice, they had actual towels that you could get from the tops of the shelves on the bottom you could get paper towels. To get in & out of the restroom’s they had a thing that you put your hand in front of it & the door would open.The Camp at sea (aka kids club) was very fun & it was so clean, the things to do were play on a play station, make a fort or play a game with a friend. The pool had lots of events such as dance lessons, volleyball, basketball & much more. The gangway was beautiful it had all these pretty lights & it had a gorgeous statue.The room was clean and the room service put chocolate on top of my pillow each night that I was there.

                       BAD 😞
Ok we talked about the good & now we haft to do the bad, but the good thing is that we have just a little bit of the bad stuff! So let’s talk about Raw on 5, almost all of the things we ordered was spicy 🌶 for example the beyond roll was pretty spicy but it wasn’t supposed to be that spicy 🥵! In the restrooms on the sides they were hard to get out of, I got stuck in one and so did my mom in the bathroom she went in to there was no door handle, so I had to save her.The only bad part of the kids club was that there was only 40 kids on the boat & I only got to meet 10 of them at kids club. The pool was the only pool that they did events at and if you wanted to chill it wasn’t a good idea to go there. I am a weird kid I … don’t like…SWEETS! (well just not cake, chocolate,cupcakes or brownie’s) so them putting dark chocolate oh did I   
mention it as dark chocolate on my pillow is not ok, I tried it once but I spit it out in the sink it was terrible I would rather eat cake.

                CONCLUSION
I think that Celebrity Beyond is better then all the Royal Caribbean in the world 🌎. So if you are thinking about going on Celebrity Beyond I hope you love it !!!
My rating is ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!

 

Nice review. Perhaps we will hear from the six year old? You may have to take dictation!

[FourNines]

Loved both reviews.

Thank you for sharing. 

Is there anything in particular that surprised you about the Beyond (service, food, the ship)?

We'll be on her next week.

[GnarleeDude]

A few surprises:

It never felt that crowded, and never had to wait more than a few minutes for anything

All the design elements…it seemed like the ship was made for Instagram photos

 

And finally, that my kids liked this ship better than RCCL, even though this ship is much less kid focused. 

[JFontaine]

Very observant on the bathroom.  Stalls should not be hard to get out of. Interesting what made an impression on her. Thanks to you both. 

[hcat]

Loved the combined review..hope to post my review  in a few days.

[Reel Love]

Thoroughly enjoyed your review GnarleeDude......both yours and your nine year old's  😊   Thank you both so much for sharing!  

Edited November 20, 2022 by Reel Love