mtempelaar

Just got off the Beyond yesterday, and wanted to provide my own high level review of the ship. For background, while this is my 18th cruise overall, I've only sailed Celebrity 3 times previously - Constellation, Summit and Century. My last Celebrity cruise was in 2004. Overall it was a great cruise and we are looking forward to sailing her again in 2024, but with a bit more wisdom to eat some places more often, skip others and take advantage of things we didn't get to until too late in the cruise. Checkin: Seriously disappointed. We were among the first for suite passengers to enter the lounge. We sat, as instructed, and waited for someone to come over to check us in. We were there for at least 40 minutes waiting. Everyone around us got checked in and was able to board. People just walking in were getting checked in immediately (escorted to a seat and check right in). After 20 minutes of watching everyone around us going onboard I asked for help. I was told someone would be right over and no one came. Did that again, and then again. Incredibly frustrating. Ship: Beautiful ship, IMO visually designed for 20/30 somethings. That South Beach vibe they went for is wonderful. The resort deck in the evening, as well as the Sunset Bar, is a ghost town at night except for the Sunset Bar smoking area. It is a perfect design and location for nighttime deck activities. IMO they should move the Silent Disco up there. There's not enough space in the Martini Bar for it but PLENTY of space on the resort deck. Especially during a time where Covid, flu and RSV are running rampant. The dark mirrored hallway to get Eden is a menace for those with visibility issues, tall people, and mobility impaired, whether unstable on feet or on scooters, can struggle. You can skip it by going outside and walking around it. Elevator button panels have a bug in the computer system that causes them to unselect floors or skip them. They need a firmware upgrade 😉 For smokers - this was the best smoking setup I have seen on a ship since we were banned from smoking on balconies. Even my non-smoking husband loved it and would sit with me there. I heard non-smokers comment they weren't even aware of two of the three areas as they couldn't smell it. We had an S2 Sky Suite. We have an S1 in 2024. Nice size, and our butler did bring us a lounger for the balcony. Nice bathroom. Good storage. That being said, I'm not convinced for us that a retreat is overall worth the cost, or at least not for some itineraries. We discussed downgrading 2024 to a sunset verandah or aquaclass but in price checks, it's kinda too late for that. While not required, I did find that I missed having an elevator nearer to the center of the ship. My fitness app, however, was quite impressed with my exercise and kept telling me so since I kept having to go end to end. And I can't believe I'm saying that I miss something from NCL, but turns out that the carpet with the fish swimming towards the bow is kinda useful at times. Food: Retreat lounge is smaller than we expected. Pretty but only went there once for snacks. Found some food there wasn't fully thawed and had ice crystals on top. The other stuff was tasty. Luminae was not impressive (except the lobster). In fact the sirloin I had there was thin, tough and tasted like it had marinated in Liquid Smoke for a week (which was same issue with Rooftop Grill). We tried it for breakfast, which was better but the egg yolks in fried eggs and eggs benedict were inconsistent (same for Blu BTW). Eden food was fantastic. Service in both of those places, and the premium drink package glasses of wine were great. How good was Eden? So good that my husband, who HATES seafood, asked for another entree while he was eating his short ribs - Chilean Sea Bass. He ate the whole thing. He hummed his way through the meal. Le Petit Chef was fun, and they swapped out my husband's 2nd course for a Caesar Salad upon request since he didn't want either of the options for that course. We REALLY appreciated the swap. Grand Bistro for lunch - we loved this. We will be back! Honestly that steak was the best I had on the ship and the escargot was top notch. The lobster bisque had big chunks of lobster in it. Normandie - Great service, great food on formal night. Traditional, yummy. even though we have 2024 as a sky suite, Normandie will be our MDR on non-specialty nights (though we want to try Cyprus). Blu: Good breakfast but just like Luminae - they don't know how to cook eggs 😞 Still we kept going back as we did enjoy it. Buffet: Dinner has less selection than other meals. Some things are staples like the Indian and nacho/taco bar. Breakfast and Lunch are good and we loved the Indian food most. Entertainment: Theater: We didn't see Stage Door. Arte was fantastic and we loved every minute. We intended to see Elements but there was a big accident in the 7pm show and the 9pm was cancelled, replaced by the comedian was fun. One of the dancers fell into the stage pit and her arm got caught in the pit elevator. I think she broke her arm. Passengers there and saw/heard it seemed to be quite traumatized by the event. There was a matinee later for Elements but we couldn't attend. Not sure how it was. My heart does go out to that poor girl who was injured. We enjoyed some musical entertainment but not all. A few cover songs made us wince. Music on the Resort Desk was rightfully peppy but the retreat lounge - for us it was blah and boring. Silent Disco was great (but move to a bigger open area Celebrity!) The Liars Club was hilarious and I've added some new words to my vocabulary. Highly recommend this event, which was held in the Theater later in the evening. Note: For whomever is in 9182 in the future, sorry about stains on the carpet by the balcony door. In the words of Taylor Shift, "It's me! Hi! I'm the problem, it's me!" I tripped and spilled a cappuchino. Immediately got someone to clean the carpet but you could still see some spots.

Curious on this one. We got off Beyond at 8:15 and there was nothing going on except the usual disembarkation lines and such.

Quick update on this - we did reserve this placeholder for our cruise (currently on Beyond). It was supposed to be on Day 5 when we were at St Maarten however it was can elled due to high winds. And it really was high winds that day. They brought magic carpet down to deck 5 and left it there closed for the night. When we had boarded we asked our butler to find out when it was. She had never even heard of it. I had to show her my app and then she called us back later about it.

We are on Beyond right now. We just booked an A1 Prime Aquaclass Sunset verandah on Solstice for 2025 at the future cruise desk. The manager there told us we were getting “class beverage and basic wifi”, which is not the same All Included we have right now. If you look at the website right now, or our booking form it says All Included. We will call when we get off the ship to get some clarifications. Not even sure how much onboard credit we are getting.

Just me changing hotels and driving routes after every hurricane advisory.....

So it's a placeholder basically?

I am so confused by this. Dinner on the Edge is available to book online but it's 10am on day of boarding in Fort Lauderdale. Is this a placeholder type of thing and you find out day and time later? Or a mistake?

I totally agree. Honestly the 30 second TikToks were more worthwhile than the show. Disappointing.

It's not just phones. It's the site. I cannot log in with Safari or Chrome, on phone or laptop. I got a locked account message via email but cannot reset my password. I managed to get in on my laptop with MS Edge, but even then I cannot do a password reset. Note that the website itself was throwing out server error messages an hour or so ago if you tried to get into a thread. I have no idea if this response will post but here....we....go.... 🤞

That is what I am saying. The thing is, when I go to the Move Up page, I cannot finding wording anywhere about multipliers. Not in the FAQs, the Terms and Conditions, not on the pages there. Maybe I missed it. But I do think there should be wording about that somewhere in the Move Up section.

Maybe the program guide is out of date? Took a screenshot of the tiktok.

Interesting question about spam. For me going direct into move up from Celebrity website sometimes throws out an error initially but also immediately after the offer is submitted. The vendor has some kind of server config issue. The email links don’t work for me at all and never did. It throws out the exact same error messages from the vendor. I can even type in my name and booking number from the email. So all of this is going via the Celebrity website.

My last post got lost, so given that I am the one that posted the outbid email pic and there seems to be a desire to collect more data points I feel I can give a better view of my experiece. Facts going into this: 1) I am a Captains Club member with Classic level, just shy of Select. Bid Multiplier is 1. 2) I have not sailed Celebrity since 2003. 3) I have an s2 sky suite booked for Beyond for Nov 13. This was booked when Beyond showed up for reservations in 2020 and I applied Apex FCCs from pandemic. All in $7100 (this was refundable fare prior to final payment date). 4) We are perfectly happy with our cabin so if no upgrade, we are fine. 5) We are booked on Beyond again in 2024 in an S1, again at a steal of a price. When we got initial Move Up email we reviewed the prices and said no thanks. A few weeks later I decided, without telling my husband, to bid $400 pp for AQ Sky Suite. We aren’t doing shore excursions so the thermal spa was enticing me as well as Blu. This bid held for about 4 days and then I got the first outbid email. By then my husband knew I had bid and the rationale. I went in and did a $500 bid. I IMMEDIATELY got an outbid email. After a few minutes calculating cost of thermal spa and whether value of that and Blu was worth it, I decided $600 was my max bid. I submitted. Again IMMEDIATELY got an outbid notification. Note this was considered a strong bid. I texted my husband. I told him I was curious here. Said I was going to roll the dice to see what happens at $700 pp but I was likely going to cancel after. Kind of a test, but if it got accepted, I was kind of ok with it. There were 6 AQ SS showing available at this time. $700 was a very high strong big. It stuck for a day. Now I could have stood on that bid, knowing there were still cabins available and maybe only 1 person was ahead of me. But I did more calculations and did cancel it. This was a couple of weeks ago. 2 Days ago I bid, without telling my husband, as a lark $2k pp on a Royal Suite. No outbid notification. I texted my husband and told him. He literally said “Cool go for it”. So its still sitting there in pending. There are no RS available. The chances are likely nil. It was the minimum bid required. So weak weak weak. Given he said “Cool go for it”, I then went back in and put the same exact $2k pp bid on a Penthouse. There is none available, its too big for us, but if we are submitting that for RS we might as well for PS since same minimum. This has also NOT triggered an outbid email. Yet. Chances here likely nil. But no outbid? Really? At 2 weeks out? so I sit here with RS and PS both in pending status. If we get one, great. If not, what my husband doesn’t know is I am going to like take that same money and bump up our category on the 2024 cruise. I have a suspicion that outbid notifications are only going out for lower suites and not upper suites due to popularity. Hope this helps people trying to figure it all out. If I do pull off a surprise and get an upgrade, with let you all know.

My guess is the Andy Cohen special airing on Bravo on 11/1 at 10pm. All captains from the “Below Deck” show are on Beyond right now with Captain Kate and they will all be filming and possibly broadcasting show live. Captain Kate will be part of that show. if you follow Captain Kate on TikTok there’s a rather humourous ad for it where all the captains are on the bridge at once.

I sincerely doubt it was/is fair, otherwise there wouldn’t be multipliers based on status.

I am Classic. Should be select after our cruise in Nov.

That is exactly what I was thinking.

This is what I got for AQ SkySuite bid.

Have to say I'm sad about the disappearance of true formal nights on ships. My husband as well. So if you spot us on Beyond in a few weeks, him in a tux and me in a gown....that's just me being all nostalgic for cruises in the 2000's and earlier.... But I won't tsk tsk about others being a bit more casual (as long as not shorts in the dining room)

Yes to free data and texting, but take another look at the calls. Whether you have free calls depends on your plan and where you are. I can do free TMobile to TMobile calls in Mexico, but if I'm in Europe I have to pay .25 per minute even with their top tier. They changed the details of the plans.

I keep seeing this pic and wanting to hand you a power cord 😂

My husband would love this option.

How fun that they decorated for Halloween there 👻 Makes me wonder if any Christmas decorations will be up when we are there in a few weeks. Thanks so much for the review. We always tend to not do excursions (at least for Caribbean) and wander off and on the ship when we want. Some questions: Did you try any of the restaurants? Were there any pharmacies at Taino Bay? We always like to have a list as precaution before we go on a cruise just in case. I saw an old Google StreetView pic that showed a Walgreens but I think it was torn down in favor of the new welcome center circular building. How busy was the port (and hand in hand, how many ships were docked)? I've read this is like how Costa Maya was and last time I was at Costa Maya it was PACKED. This place seems a bit low key and a nice wandering location as it's a work in progress. Did it seem safe to walk around outside the port?

Want to respond to this comment as well as OP question and the tipping one. Wedding first then the other two. 1) Hi there! First, congratulations on your upcoming nuptials. I wish you a fantastic day, honeymoon and life together! As someone who married on a ship on embarkation day, I have a few suggestions. You cannot bring a steamer. My recommendation is to steam it out the night before in your hotel room. You can put back in the bag after (carefully) but don't zip it up until you are ready to leave for the ship. Have a stretch limo bring you to the ship and lay out the dress (do not fold!) on the floor of the limo. Have 2 people carry the gown (one has the top, one the bottom). When you get to your cabin, IMMEDIATELY take it out of the bag and fluff it. I am hoping that you have a dress that can withstand wrinkles or, if ball gown, the bridal shop provided a LOT of tissue. Either way, your wedding will be fantastic whether completely flawless or with glitches. For my wedding the cruise director got on the PA mid-ceremony to announce where the smoking areas were. I made a joke of it, all the attendees laughed, the attendees chimed in a bit, then we carried on. It was unexpected, it was funny, it was memorable and I am so grateful we captured that on video for posterity. Just go with the flow and enjoy the moment. It doesn't matter if you have some wrinkles. You will be beautiful no matter what! From the gown and the glow. Don't sweat the small stuff. 2) As for butlers in general, for the original poster, I went on Constellation for a 2 week Baltic a long time ago. We were in the Royal Suite. During the course of the trip I injured myself in a fall. Nothing broken but I was limping and in pain. My butler helped me to the sofa, asked me if anything was broken or not. We talked for a minute and then he went down and raided the infirmary for me. He told me if it was just a bad sprain he would save me time and money. He came back 15 minutes later with pain meds (prescription ones BTW), bandages, cold packs to last for a few days. He said if I needed anything else, he would go do another raid, or get a wheelchair and bring me down there himself. This wonderful man also overheard me tell my husband how much I love caviar. He showed up at the door later that day with a huge jar of caviar and all the accompaniments. Told me to keep the jar in the fridge and he would bring the side items to us daily with our afternoon tea time. 3) Tipping - What I do here depends on the cruiseline and level of service. On our cruise in November, we will have a butler and while I'm not a nuisance, I will have a couple of random asks. We plan to give extra $100 on top of what was included.

I am curious about this. Why was the thermal suite one of the best perks? We have struggled with whether or not we would even use it at all. Was there something in particular that made this perk specifically more appealing? Just the quiet of it?