Thoughts on our first Celebrity Cruise

[Kenhel]

Just returned from our first Celebrity cruise on the Beyond Feb 19^th sailing. Have previously cruised several times on Princess, NCL and many years ago 1 Costa and 1 Royal Caribbean cruise. Have cruised short 4-day cruises and to date our longest has been a 16-day Panama Canal. We usually book a balcony.

 

First off, Beyond is a beautiful ship with unique and refreshing layout and design. It stands apart from other ships we have sailed on. It is designed in a way that promotes unique areas that keep noise separate from the serene quieter areas.

Loved the aft seating by the Sunset Bar. Unfortunately, the location and design of the smoking area on the starboard side (deck 15?) resulted in the smoke smell to drift quite a distance and impacted the enjoyment of the plunge pools and surrounding non smoking seating areas. Did not see many people using the smoking area but still managed to disrupt the enjoyment of so many.  IMHO, I look forward to a day where Celebrity is completely smoke free.

Really loved the walking/jogging track layout and the incline.  Used it daily.

 

Cabin: Concierge Deck 11, Infinite Verandah

Would not bother with concierge again as we did not see much benefit other than the cabin location. Did not need the concierge boarding, embarkation lunch or the afternoon canapes. We were unsure if we would like the infinite verandah but we did. We wish it was a bit bigger. Otherwise, we appreciated the additional privacy vs. a traditional balcony and the option to open and close it.

Did experience the noise/banging others have noted. After a few calls back and forth with customer service, it was partially resolved but did not go away completely. They came into the cabin, took some panels off and made some “adjustments”.

 

Itinerary:

St. Maarten – Walked to Great Bay beach and booked chairs – very nice but lots of vendors pushing hats, coverups and aloe vera massages. Not our thing but the water was lovely. We were there pre hurricane Irma and COVID and noticed the lingering impact to the island and its people. It is beautiful and we hope with time it will fully recover.

St. Thomas – Ship Tour - Fast Cat Snorkel tour (Buck Island) and Beach Break (Water Island) – excellent!

Puerto Plata – Walked to old town to visit fort, cathedral and umbrella street – returned to ship for lunch and then went off again to spend a couple of hours in Taino Bay enjoying the lazy river and pool. Beautiful port area.

 

Staff:

Excellent! Friendly and professional.

Food:

Ate dinner in the MDR except for one night at the Rooftop Garden Grill (specialty dining) and last night at the buffet. Our favourite MDR was Cypress.

Breakfast – Usually in the Cosmopolitan. Great service, attentive staff. No complaints.

Lunch – Buffet – lots of choice and variety.

El Bacio – some hiccups/confusion when ordering customized specialty coffee drinks but overall delicious!

Overall food was very good to excellent. No complaints and much better quality and variety than Princess and NCL.  

We did notice fewer dinner buffet options then we have seen on other cruise lines but we have always felt there was too much waste so we understand the need to streamline offerings. We could not do the dinner buffet every night though.

 

Entertainment:

Musicians, Rock the Boat and Magic shows were excellent

 

Overall:

Well done Celebrity! We have booked with Celebrity for next year.   

[Texed]

Kenhel,

Thanks for posting your short review.  😊

[Georgia_Peaches]

Appreciate the review. Glad you enjoyed your cruise. The banging noises that seem to be Beyond’s signature is enough to keep us away but we won’t rule out other E class ships. Question:  did you take advantage of the embarkation lunch?  That would be my main reason for booking a concierge class cabin. 

[mahdnc]

Nice review.  So did you book your next cruise in a non-concierge class IV balcony cabin on an Edge class ship?

[Cruisegirl6]

18 hours ago, Kenhel said:

Just returned from our first Celebrity cruise on the Beyond Feb 19^th sailing. Have previously cruised several times on Princess, NCL and many years ago 1 Costa and 1 Royal Caribbean cruise. Have cruised short 4-day cruises and to date our longest has been a 16-day Panama Canal. We usually book a balcony.

 

First off, Beyond is a beautiful ship with unique and refreshing layout and design. It stands apart from other ships we have sailed on. It is designed in a way that promotes unique areas that keep noise separate from the serene quieter areas.

Loved the aft seating by the Sunset Bar. Unfortunately, the location and design of the smoking area on the starboard side (deck 15?) resulted in the smoke smell to drift quite a distance and impacted the enjoyment of the plunge pools and surrounding non smoking seating areas. Did not see many people using the smoking area but still managed to disrupt the enjoyment of so many.  IMHO, I look forward to a day where Celebrity is completely smoke free.

Really loved the walking/jogging track layout and the incline.  Used it daily.

 

Cabin: Concierge Deck 11, Infinite Verandah

Would not bother with concierge again as we did not see much benefit other than the cabin location. Did not need the concierge boarding, embarkation lunch or the afternoon canapes. We were unsure if we would like the infinite verandah but we did. We wish it was a bit bigger. Otherwise, we appreciated the additional privacy vs. a traditional balcony and the option to open and close it.

Did experience the noise/banging others have noted. After a few calls back and forth with customer service, it was partially resolved but did not go away completely. They came into the cabin, took some panels off and made some “adjustments”.

 

Itinerary:

St. Maarten – Walked to Great Bay beach and booked chairs – very nice but lots of vendors pushing hats, coverups and aloe vera massages. Not our thing but the water was lovely. We were there pre hurricane Irma and COVID and noticed the lingering impact to the island and its people. It is beautiful and we hope with time it will fully recover.

St. Thomas – Ship Tour - Fast Cat Snorkel tour (Buck Island) and Beach Break (Water Island) – excellent!

Puerto Plata – Walked to old town to visit fort, cathedral and umbrella street – returned to ship for lunch and then went off again to spend a couple of hours in Taino Bay enjoying the lazy river and pool. Beautiful port area.

 

Staff:

Excellent! Friendly and professional.

Food:

Ate dinner in the MDR except for one night at the Rooftop Garden Grill (specialty dining) and last night at the buffet. Our favourite MDR was Cypress.

Breakfast – Usually in the Cosmopolitan. Great service, attentive staff. No complaints.

Lunch – Buffet – lots of choice and variety.

El Bacio – some hiccups/confusion when ordering customized specialty coffee drinks but overall delicious!

Overall food was very good to excellent. No complaints and much better quality and variety than Princess and NCL.  

We did notice fewer dinner buffet options then we have seen on other cruise lines but we have always felt there was too much waste so we understand the need to streamline offerings. We could not do the dinner buffet every night though.

 

Entertainment:

Musicians, Rock the Boat and Magic shows were excellent

 

Overall:

Well done Celebrity! We have booked with Celebrity for next year.   

Thanks what cabin were you in?

[industrious95]

Thanks for posting.  We are on the Beyond March 5th sailing and both my wife and I are getting pretty turned off by all the anti-Celebrity griping on this board.   It was nice to hear that someone found the infinity veranda nice, the food tasty, the service good and the entertainment enjoyable. 

[Kenhel]

We did not take advantage of the concierge embarkation lunch. Sorry I do not wish to share the exact cabin we were in.  We booked our next cruise on Beyond on deck 8 aft IV non concierge.