Just back from B2B on Apex - thoughts and review

[Shiba_Lover]

Just back from a B2B on Apex - here are my thoughts and review.  

 

We had a 12 night Norway Arctic Circle followed by a 7 night Norway Fjord.  Yes - lots of Norway.  The only repeat was Flam.

 

We set sail from Southampton, so decided to spend 2 nights there pre-cruise since we had never been.  Why not London?  Well, I spent 7 years there for work, so have been there, done that.  We arrived at Heathrow and hired a company called Gunwharf Executive Travel to pick us up and drive us to Southampton to our hotel - the Leonardo Grand Harbor.  Hotel was pretty good.  Nothing super fancy, but convenient and had a nice breakfast, a bar and the room had a view of the harbor.

 

We had arrived a in the afternoon, so we went for a beer at a pub, walked around a bit, then went back to the hotel to unpack a bit.  Had a drink then went for Indian food for dinner.

 

On Sunday, we visited the Sea City museum, which is focused on the crew of the Titanic and their ties to Southampton.  Then we did a recommended self-walking tour from the museum around town which has hotels and pubs, rooming houses, etc with ties to crew for the Titanic.  Check out this museum if you are in Southampton.  We had a Sunday roast at a pub called Platform Tavern, which was very good.  More walking along the waterfront, drinks at the hotel and dinner at an Italian restaurant. 

 

Monday - boarding day!!!  You can easily walk to the port - maybe a 10 minute walk.  But we had luggage and did not feel like doing the walk with the luggage, so we pre-booked a taxi through the hotel.  We were at the Horizon terminal.  For those wondering, yes, there is a separate Retreat entrance and a small lounge where they had coffee/juice and pastry - but really no need to wait in the lounge.  We just walked in without a wait and boarded.  Keys were on the doors and we dropped our carry-on item in the room and off we went.  

 

We are in a sky suite on the 10th floor for the first leg.  We met our butler almost immediately - he stopped by and introduced himself.  He gave a card with a QR code to scan and we could text him via whatsapp if we needed anything.  I did text him - in all the pre-sailing emails (for some reason I got about 6) that ask pillow, wine, coat hanger preference - I always put feather pillow but we did not have feather pillows.  I sent a text about that.

 

The stocked mini-bar had 6 cokes, 2 heiniken, 2 evian.  After day 1 - they will replace water and nothing else. 

 

I'll just summarize the thoughts on the ship so this is not so long. 

The butler came by a few times throughout the cruise to check on us.  We really did not ask for anything other than the pillows.  We ordered coffee and some continental breakfast on one day.  We got the coffee and the continental breakfast never showed up.  Our stateroom attendant was named Melody.  She was the best - she was very sweet, always smiling and asking if we needed anything and we saw her often.  

 

Luminae - food was good - there were usually 4 -5 options in the evening including one vegetarian option.  You could also order the usual classics.  The only real miss was the spaghetti carbonara.  I am not sure what their idea of carbonara is - but it seemed to be some type of cream sauce (like an alfredo sauce) with a bunch of herbs and a fried egg on top - really weird.  The wine selection was better this time than last time we were on (February).

Lunch - I do wish they had a little better lunch items - we typically skipped lunch here.

 

One night we did the Taj X dinner - that was really good.  Recommend this if it is available.

 

 

 

 

 

We did the World Wine Tour - 15 people were there at the beginning, and after 15 minutes, most of us left.  If you have done this in the past, on an M or S class where they have it set up in Cellar Masters and know the format - you will be disappointed in this.  They had it in one of the MDRs, and just pushed some of the dining tables back to make a little room.  It was not enough room.  It was very crowded, It is also now handled by Shore Excursions instead of the Beverage team, so it is just not a great experience.  I left to go play music trivia because it was just not good, and my husband tried to stay.  He left 10 minutes later and said there was only 1 other person still there.  So basically, after 25 minutes only 1 person was there.  We cancelled the booking we had for the 2nd leg of the B2B based on this.

 

Retreat Lounge / Sundeck - never too busy/ crowded most of the time.  The only time the lounge was really crowded was during the officer's soiree.  Other than that, you could always find a place to sit.  The concierge team and bartenders were great.  They had a good selection of gin, whiskey, wines.

 

Activities on the ship - I enjoy going to music trivia and the general knowledge trivia - I think they phoned this in.  The first leg was 12 nights.  So there were multiple times to go to trivia.  They repeated the SAME trivia quiz over and over.  The exact same one!  At one point, the activities person even said - for those you of you who have heard this before - sorry - and proceeded to do the SAME quiz again.  Why?  with so many songs - why repeat the same ones?  I've been on 12 and 14 night cruises before and they did not do this.

 

Ports - We visited Stavanger, Olden, Flam, Tromso, Honningsvag, Kristiansand.  We were given a certificate that says we crossed the Arctic Circle.

 

I used an app on my phone called GPSMyCity, which has walking tours and articles/information for walking tours - it gives directions and history about different cities.  You can download in advance in case you will be offline or not have service.  I used this for walking tours in some cities where we would do walking tours on our own.  I could then download walks and use GPS on my phone to do the walking routes and see information about different places we would be seeing.

 

We got really lucky with weather.  Pretty much perfect everywhere.

 

In Stavanger, we just did a walking tour on our own

 

 

 

 

In Olden, We took a shuttle bus to Briksdal glacier.  This was arranged through a company called Olden Adventure.  The bus took us from the port to the bottom of the start of the glacier.  We then did a 3.5 mile hike, which was beautiful.  

 

 

 

 

In Flam, we booked a ship excursion to do sea kayaking.  This was probably my favorite thing.  We took a bus to the sea kayaking shop and passed through 2 very long tunnels, then arrived at a small town where we would kayak in Naerøyfjord, which means narrow fjord.  We kayaked for about 6 miles total.  At the halfway point, we had an amazing lunch.  We pulled up on a beach, and the kayak guides started setting up a barbecue on the beach.  They made grilled barbecue pork chops, pasta and broccoli salad and had a pre-lunch set up of coffee/tea and cookies.  It was truly amazing!  We had thought we were getting a simple sandwich for lunch.

 

Tromso - another walking tour on our own with my GPSMyCityapp

If you happen to go to Tromso - there is a truly spectacular garden just outside the port - be sure to visit there.

 

 

Honningsvag - we did a North Cape tour + King Crab meal with a company called Blue Puffin.  It was pretty much the same as a ship tour, but only 14 people and less expensive.  I would recommend this company - the guide was very good and I liked the small size of the tour.

 

 

 

 

In Kristiansand - we did a walk - we just walked through town and then visited a park called Ravnedalen.  It was a really beautiful park, then we stopped by the fish market for lunch.

 

Next up is a sea day followed by turnaround day. 

 

Turnaround day - we have packed up since we are moving cabins.  We are only moving a 3 cabins down the hall, but we will have a new stateroom attendant and a new butler.  For Southampton - we can stay on the ship or we can leave and reboard.  We will leave and reboard.  We must leave by 9 and can reboard after 11.

 

We re-board about noon and we go drop off a backpack in our room.  The new butler stops by and introduces himself.  This is the ONLY time we ever see or hear him on this second trip. We did not ask for anything on this trip either.  But compared to the first leg, where the butler still occasionally checked in - it is just a difference. 

 

Stateroom attendant is named Jayson - he is friendly and helpful too.

 

Luminae meals - we think that some of the dishes we had on the first leg are not quite as good as on this second leg.  Not sure why, but there is a slight dip in quality.  Some things are exactly the same, but others a bit not as good.  Like a dish that is called Pork Sugo Rosa - it was basically some pasta with a pork/tomato sauce.  first leg - very good, second leg - super oily - could not even eat it.  They made some special Indian food for us on this leg when they found out the Taj X dinner was cancelled.  That was a nice touch.  They did have even more wines on this cruise, so lots of options.

 

Trivia games - they had the SAME songs in music trivia and some of the general knowledge trivia were the same quizzes again.  Is it really that hard to come up with different songs and different quiz questions?  I don't mean a few of the same questions - I mean literally the SAME quiz.  20 questions - all the same.  Like if you went to trivia on Sea day 1 and again on Sea day 2 - same exact quiz. 

 

This one went to Brugges, Flam, Geiranger, Bergen

 

Brugges - So we were in Brugges not only on a Sunday, but their National Day (like July 4 in the US).  So pretty much everything other than very tourist shops would be closed.  So I figured we would do a tour.  I got really good price on a Brugges walking tour on one of the many sales X has.  So we did that.  The guide was really good, but the biggest issue was it had some listening devices that were not the best.  We all were given little electronic things with earpieces.  We could only hear her if she was not walking and if we were in about 2 - 3 feet of her.  Otherwise there was too much static.  We kept telling her and she would try to stop and we would huddle around, but it was difficult with the 40 people on the tour.   After the walking tour part, there was free time.  We used the free time for lunch.

 

Flam - this time in Flam, we took a bus to Stegastein viewpoint, then we rented bikes and rode up to Otternes farm.  I reserved both of this through Norway's Best.

 

 

 

Geiranger - we did a RIB boat ride to see all the waterfalls.  I reserved this through Viator - a company called Fjord Safari.  It was a lot of fun and we were able to see all the waterfalls up close.  It really felt like we were in the fjord.  The company provides you with a suit and life jacket then puts you on the RIB boat.  It is about 1 hour long.  After, we walked through town and had a beer.

 

 

 

 

 

Bergen - We used the GPSMyCity app to do a walking tour, and we took the cable car up to the top of the mountain and walked down.

 

 

 

 

 

We had one more sea day after that, then we flew home.

 

 

We enjoyed listening to music in Eden.  We did not go to any shows in the theater, so can't comment on those.

 

We have 2 other cruises on X coming up -- Mumbai to Singapore and Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles Panama Canal.  I think I may prefer the smaller ships because we like the smaller versus for music rather than the "grand plaza" design of the edge class ships.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rzyjzq]

Thanks for sharing!  Looks like you had a great time.

Susan

[montythecat]

Interesting. Norway is such a spectacular destination. A

B2B is a good way to make the most of it.

Your experience of the entertainment staff and their lazy

approach to trivia quizzes is exactly the same as we 

found on our last two X cruises on Apex and Silhouette. It

is one of the contributory factors which has led to us

booking with Holland America. We are Elite Plus but I

doubt very much whether we will return.

 

[Scottishclover]

Really enjoyed reading your thoughts on the cruise. We were on the first leg with you. At one point we thought about a B2B and looking at your weather that would have been a good idea! Last time we were in Geiranger in 2016 we also did a RIB tour. I totally agree that to get the best viewpoint of the fjord you need to be right down on the water. Your sea kayaking tour looked great. The calm fjords are a great place to kayak. 
 

Regarding the trivia - there has not been a cruise we have been on where we haven’t had the question about the national animal of Scotland. Shock horror, first time round we got it wrong🤦‍♀️ There were so many people playing trivia on the 12 nighter, you would hope they would make a decent job of it. Mind you, it is all for a bit of fun. I did enjoy the cruise director’s Jukebox Hero music quiz. He had put a bit of thought into that. 
 

Glad you enjoyed Norway. You definitely got to see Norway at its best with sunny skies.

[Norwaylady]

SO happy for you😍

You hit a good jackpot på weather🤩

 

Really great choices of activities.

So glad you did kayak one day, it's one of my favourite to do in the fjords😎

[hcat]

Enjoyable review.. Good summaries ... Lovely photos.

 

Was the Suite class worth the fare?

[39august]

Scottishclover: So what is the national animal of Scotland?

[Scottishclover]

The unicorn🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ Do not ask me why - I mean it’s not even a real animal😂

[Lena11033]

4 minutes ago, Scottishclover said:

The unicorn🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ Do not ask me why - I mean it’s not even a real animal😂

 

Don't worry my Feb cruise a Scot got it wrong also

[gordylad]

enjoyed your review...the music trivia organisers need to get a grip and at least put the effort in...

[txtechmk]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.  Enjoyed reading your review.

[JDPCruisers]

Appreciate the balanced review as were on a Scandinavia/Norwegian fjords B2B next May/June for the first time so this is helpful. Have been on Apex before and, so far, is one of our favorite X E-ships and find the lack of effort for trivia disappointing to hear as we, too, enjoy that activity. Hopefully, the entertainment director will fix that going forward. 

Edited July 30 by JDPCruisers

[Shiba_Lover]

5 hours ago, hcat said:

Enjoyable review.. Good summaries ... Lovely photos.

 

Was the Suite class worth the fare?

That's subjective.  For us, yes.  We enjoy the retreat lounge and luminae.  Others don't like luminae and do not care for the retreat lounge.  So if you would not be making use of those two amenities - then likely the cost is not worth it.  We were in a sky suite, so the room is not a true suite, just a little bigger than the standard cabin.  I do like the extra room in the bathroom though.

[Shiba_Lover]

6 hours ago, Norwaylady said:

SO happy for you😍

You hit a good jackpot på weather🤩

 

Really great choices of activities.

So glad you did kayak one day, it's one of my favourite to do in the fjords😎

I would like to go back and do one of the cruise lines that operate in winter and stop at all the small ports.  I would love to see the contrast in winter.  I heard someone talking about a trip like this they took previously, and it sounded really fantastic.

[Lastdance]

Excellent and concise review with wonderful blue-sky photos!  Thanks so much for sharing your excursions, as IMHO, you chose excellent ones!  We kayak a lot, but usually in Tahoe and surrounding lakes.  Great Job🥰

[hcat]

4 hours ago, Shiba_Lover said:

That's subjective.  For us, yes.  We enjoy the retreat lounge and luminae.  Others don't like luminae and do not care for the retreat lounge.  So if you would not be making use of those two amenities - then likely the cost is not worth it.  We were in a sky suite, so the room is not a true suite, just a little bigger than the standard cabin.  I do like the extra room in the bathroom though.

Guess that's us..AQ Class us our sweet spot

We disliked Luminae( Beyond) and thought the Retreat Lounge was sterile..NO views....We did enjoy the upper deck  pool, sun area on a port day...no crowds!   We enjoyed the larger room/ storage.. but never used our bigger balc and thought the big bath tub was a slippery slope!  Best perks were early boarding and disembarkation.. 

 

 Maybe we'd like suite class more on an S Class ship? Will look into that

[Shiba_Lover]

6 minutes ago, hcat said:

Guess that's us..AQ Class us our sweet spot

We disliked Luminae( Beyond) and thought the Retreat Lounge was sterile..NO views....We did enjoy the upper deck  pool, sun area on a port day...no crowds!   We enjoyed the larger room/ storage.. but never used our bigger balc and thought the big bath tub was a slippery slope!  Best perks were early boarding and disembarkation.. 

 

 Maybe we'd like suite class more on an S Class ship? Will look into that

The Apex has good views in the retreat lounge - an entire wall of glass, and a small bar area.  But - no music, which we miss.  On some of the S class ships, they did have music.  So that's one thing I didn't like about it.  I think a lot of people agree with you on Aqua being the sweet spot.

[mac_tlc]

Thanks for your review! We also used Blue Puffin in Honninsvag and would highly recommend them. Did you have Monika as the guide or her husband ???

 

mac_tlc

 

[mac_tlc]

13 minutes ago, hcat said:

Guess that's us..AQ Class us our sweet spot

We disliked Luminae( Beyond) and thought the Retreat Lounge was sterile..NO views....We did enjoy the upper deck  pool, sun area on a port day...no crowds!   We enjoyed the larger room/ storage.. but never used our bigger balc and thought the big bath tub was a slippery slope!  Best perks were early boarding and disembarkation.. 

 

 Maybe we'd like suite class more on an S Class ship? Will look into that

No views in the Retreat Lounge? None forward but there are floor to ceiling windows the whole width of the lounge on both sides ..

 

[Shiba_Lover]

3 minutes ago, mac_tlc said:

Thanks for your review! We also used Blue Puffin in Honninsvag and would highly recommend them. Did you have Monika as the guide or her husband ???

 

mac_tlc

 

Neither - I think his name was Michael and he was from maybe Germany, part time living in Norway.  He was really excellent.

[Shiba_Lover]

This is the link to Blue Puffin tours for North Cape if anyone is interested - Home - North Cape Sightseeing | Blue Puffin AS (blue-puffin.com)

 

and one of the people on our tour also used them for Tromso and said they were excellent there as well.

Edited July 30 by Shiba_Lover

[barneyboy]

11 hours ago, Shiba_Lover said:

This is the link to Blue Puffin tours for North Cape if anyone is interested - Home - North Cape Sightseeing | Blue Puffin AS (blue-puffin.com)

 

and one of the people on our tour also used them for Tromso and said they were excellent there as well.

Thanks we’re doing the Arctic  Circle cruise next year so I’ve checked their website. Tours aren’t available for our date yet but I’ll keep checking.  

[kr00t0n]

You lucked out with the weather!

I've done the fjords twice (2016 and 2022) and both times we only had good weather in Geiranger and Stavanger, Bergen/Alesund/Flam were always cloudy, wet and windy.