I am looking at two possible cruises in 2025 both on Celebrity Apex a 12 night in June or a 14 night in August both Norwegian Fjords and Arctic circle.
We last cruised Celebrity in 2019 on Celebrity Eclipse in Aqua class, before that we had mostly cruised Disney. Celebrity was amazing especially as my wife was going through Chemotherapy for brain cancer at the time, and the service level they provided her was out of this world.
We've barely started cruising again. At first we were going to just get another Aqua class, but I am contemplating upgrading to a Sky Suite and would love to hear from those who have recently sailed on Apex in Aqua or Sky Suite both positive and negative.
Here are my thoughts.
This is a once in a lifetime bucket list trip for us. I doubt we will ever make another trip like this, and I want to make it perfect for my wife (and me)
Either trip has 4 sea/cruising days and then either 6 or 8 port days.
We are big fans of nature and are excited about being able to sit back and really enjoy watching the fjords, and ny other scenic cruising.
I am concerned about how well we will be able to see and enjoy sitting and watching the fjords on the IV, which is a big part of what we want.
On the other hand my wife gets cold very easily, so perhaps she would be able to enjoy sitting and watching it more on the IV than on a regular Verandah.
I have hear that on Apex the only place you can really sit and watch with a forward view is in the retreat sundeck. Again we are very much on this for the scenic views/nature.
However if the sundeck is always freezing we wouldn't make a lot of use out of that.
The price of the Sky Suite is about 50% more than Aqua so I want to make sure that we are able to get our money worth.
The location and verandah were the main reason I started looking into the sky suite, however.
We usually consider ourselves to be low-key guests (we ask our cabin steward to please give us ice 1-2x a day depending on the cruise line)
Due to the affects of my wifes cancer she spends about 50% of her time in a wheelchair, and needs a nap daily. Crusing can be difficult navigating some of life with the after affects of her cancer. Having upgraded service even if just having an actual decent room service menu that doesn't cost every time you order so that when she is too exhausted to go to dinner she can still have decent food, or having someone who is willing to deliver a specialty coffee, or her favorite treat for when she has had a really bad day, and can't leave the room, but also needs my help so doesn't want me to leave would be a true godsend. So yes for a 1 time bucket list cruise having a butler who I can say can you help rearrange dining reservations or order coffee because she can't get out of bed today would turn bad days into amazing ones. (And we're used to bad days) but some of the reviews I am reading about all of the changes (getting rid of butlers, maybe they came back) say that not only will they not bring you coffee, you struggle to even get ice any more.
We are both gluten free, so I don't know how that would affect things like food in luminae, or at the afternoon tea.
Anyway I would love any insight, recommendations, advice, thoughts about sailing sky suite vs aqua class.
On a side note, I know the ships are sailing much closer to full, does anyone know if the same is true for the longer cruises like the ones I am looking at?
