Cap_D

Huge bummer. I'm sure you'll follow-up, but would let HD Christophe know and use the QR code form. I'm presuming the maitre'd was MIA, which doesn't make sense. In other news, @kwokpot reported on Ascent that Eden Cafe is now open on port days. Is that the case on Beyond, too?

The steaks and fish look good. Expanded days for Eden Cafe should be big news. The food is fresh, whole grains, proteins, etc.

Following along, and we have the March 22 sailing booked (and repriced after a surprising dip for a day in pricing or the SS over the summer). But, like most of the regulars here am concerned / apprehensive given everything. Looking forward to your report, and appreciate your time. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the time with family and friends ahead of writing on here.

With regard to speciality restaurants, those menus tend to be stable and reservations can be hard to get on board. FWIW, the general menus always follow the same order, and the sea days will have Eden Cafe open for lunch.

Great topic. I noticed a sound issue on Apex in March 2023 from the back of the balcony, but am not technical enough to describe it as it was done so above. Appreciate the thread.

There's a long list of bullet points and other statements about what the Butler will do used by Celebrity to this day. The expectations and promises were not made by paying customers. Rather, they were made by Celebrity.

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but the games being played by LBH are what I think the typical Celebrity cruiser wants to avoid during their trip.

It may make sense to be proactive about seeing if the games can be on the big screen. Last Sunday the Cruise Dorks (a YouTube couple originally from Philly) seemed to suggest the Eagles were not on the big screen in the Rooftop Garden and during the sailaway soccer could be seen in the background. (I have no idea what game would have been on around that time). I've streamed live Peacock events to my phone off the coast of Florida on Apex with Starlink and the premium package with no problem.

Thank you. You seem to bring very generous considering the creaking and malfunction with the folding doors.

Based on what I've seen - The Retreat Room Service menu featured in the app for this week's sailings has the same Premium Breakfast menu as is featured in the "Room Service" section. Nothing about it being from Luminae and no similarity to the Luminae breakfast menu also available on the app.

Just FYI - The current face of the butler team is the housekeeper that cleans and has no method to communicate or coordinate with the rest of the team... that's not a butler and a lot closer to every sky suite passenger is on their own, schedule dependent, to interface with any other service or product on the ship, e.g., by waiting in lines, waiting on hold, retrieving VM messages, having to use a corded phone and not being on the balcony, retreat sundeck or anywhere except bedside or in the toilet room (but the retreat team attendant may be available to keep it clean). Setting aside the fired butler and their services, also missing seems to be the "Luminae room service breakfast menu" that is promoted with the Retreat as a stateroom amenity at time of booking a sky suite (including for the Xcel sailings in 2025-26). Breakfast may be worth around $25-40 / per passenger, per day if it's a Luminae multi course and dish meal made to order.

Thank you for sharing.

Not sure if posters here have all the realistic info, so if anyone is reading this and thinking there's a butler team that is wowing customers the reports are the team doesn't match up with what was provided pre cutbacks. The butler team is in practice a head butler that may say hello once or so, and the overworked housekeeper / room attendant who cleans the room and other rooms that may or may not be in the Retreat. There are many threads and first hand accounts that substantiate this regardless of title or what Celebrity says about the services continuing to be the same. Those services included items that appear in bullet points and various other claims made by Celebrity in various places. Those services also included the ability of the butler person to access the ships services, and use their discretion to serve the customer. Whether the butler had provided all the services pre cutback is not relevant, but there are many reports of them being useful and available. By and large the room attendant is not providing all or any of the services, and the head butler is at best placing a room service order for coffee and often missing, according to many first hand reports. Not commenting on the merits of a bait and switch or deceptive advertising claim.

Yuksel was on Apex last Spring, and stellar.

The issue with doors latching that I had read about on the other other message board seemed to be about the hallway and bathroom doors, magnets, and not the balcony door. I think it was a different commenter that said the IV windown open a bit eliminated whatever noise that person had in their cabin. My thinking is there's a few different issues being experienced by passengers depending on the room type, but that there is undoubtedly a wall and ceiling issue that some rooms have and those can't be avoided through self help. One upshot of the much criticized Retreat Lounge is seems like a good place to exchange info among passengers and confirm issues. Has anyone overlayed the rooms with issues with a deck map to determine if there is proximity to the stretch part of the ship?

I took a gander at that other FB site linked by the poster on the Beyond Creaking thread on this site. I find FB hard to navigate, but could confirm there were reports and secondhand reports of creaking consistent with ones that have been reported for Beyond since it launched. I did not see 100s or even dozens of individual reports but would no more question the reports provided than anything on here (except here often people post proof, or such longtime posters they come with credibility, and I know some of you have met each other over the years). It also seems the other site has some posters that seem surprised by the ship potentially having issues, etc. Interestingly there was a theory provided that seemed plausible. It went... Even when and if the issues can be resolved in one room, if any of the adjoining rooms, including above and below have creaks they may be heard. It was also stated that the doors were often not fully closed, which sounds to me like a contributing factor but not the main issue that's been a cause of the continued issues plaguing the Beyond (and seemingly the Ascent). Something like the doors not easily latching is a step above the hangers and bathroom door slam issue, but not something anyone trying to find noise wouldn't identify rain or shine, fear seas or otherwise. My view is Celebrity and Royal (again) dropped the ball in working to resolve the issue regardless of the cause, until demonstrates otherwise. The passenger experience falls on Celebrity. At this point there should be an in room video explainer and mitigation process that doesn't involve foam earplugs.

Wow. RCL and Celebrity had plenty of time to address the noise issue. All the LHB PR, Captains Club webinars, trivia with captain, a hip cruise director, fake art by Peter Max, and a seafood extravaganza doesn't make up for noisy cabins.

With regard to the CocoCay itineraries, there's only 8 Beyond stops (I think that is what "cool" Andrea said) and the others are on the older ship in need of a refresh. Considering there are 3-4 ships that are new, I'm not sure this is a big drain on availability of other ititinaries or ships being used elsewhere. If it wasn't CocoCay the ships would be stopping somewhere like one of the usual ports in Mexico, Nassau, or worse like Jamaica all ports where one is likely to be with ships that are Royal, NCL, Carnival, MSC etc. CocoCay at least offers a superior beach day with water one can drink, some included food that is edible, and a clean restroom. What's being lost, a bus ride to ruins or walk through the port maze of questionable vendors with trinkets that are actually made somewhere else, Effy and Diamond International stores? Those are still available at other stops, onboard, or a different cruise. Also, the ship won't require one to use a tender from a shady beach club and it won't capsize, like the one leading to the death of a passenger. And, fwiw the CocoCay dates aren't ones of major US holidays. Presumably Royal has those dates fully booked with their ships. One unrelated observation, the lack of actual knowledge of brand awareness by those on the webinar, the starkness of the backgrounds make some of the YouTubers like pros. Also, for the most part, the webinar was very similar to the one that was given to the trade and available in the celebrity commitment website about a week or so ago prior to the deployment schedule being released. That had less interstitial pictures of the destinations. Fully realize that every point and discount matters at some point, especially given the various ways celebrity and royal are jacking up prices. But I'm really at a loss to understand how one even realizes or knows if any of the promoted discounts are actually going to be applied at the time of use, or make the experience better. For example, there are sometimes discounts on the crease planner for laundry but then depending on the level of status one can get a discount on laundry. I have to imagine that it's all sort of a crapshoot. But, every potential bit helps.

Please report back. Thanks.

Thumbs up to Americas Test Kitchen's techniques and recipes. I'd also put a plug in for the Serious Eats website, which has a number of recipes from alums of ATK like Kenji Lopez-Alt, and any other source for a Kenji recipe (NYT, social, and cookbooks). Not to turn this into a recipe thread, but those are first look sources for techniques and recipes in our household. One other source, Brian Lagerstrom on YT, and he could be a Celebrity Cruiser (he at least posed for a pic with the Lawn Club in the background).

Hopefully they are not adding a sea pass card reader or, even noting room number, when placing an order for bar service in the Retreat Lounge. The time from ordering to service is already lengthy on E-class ships due to the lounge design, and even worse on the Edge with no bar. All have limited space and paths for the server(s) or require a guest to stand in a walkway area while waiting for a drink. Btw, on the Retreat Sundeck my experience has been the bartenders will often take down room numbers and name to avoid having to run the cards, and then manually enter later on similar to how service is done on carts or in OVC at the temp drink stands. Somehow the pool bar always seems faster.

This was interesting amid the cutbacks, up charges, etc..... https://www.thestreet.com/travel/royal-caribbeans-celebrity-makes-an-impressive-dining-change. "Bethge then jumped in and explained that this wasn't an accident. Celebrity had actually been working for years on a new steak broiler designed to be hotter than previous options available on cruise ships, she told the group of us. Celebrity Ascent is the first ship to add the new broiler, but plans are underway to change that."

@Jim_Iain Have you and Iain had any meals in your Royal Suite (I think that was the room type) this leg? Since there's often talk of specialty dining being included in the upper suite fares, I figure I'd ask, although it seems you've had most meals in Luminae.

Not to make work for anyone, but different threads on food categories like burgers, fries, steaks, and pizza may be useful for people to monitor, report, and comment on the quality of each, and allow for some QC. It may also help to understand what the intended baseline is vs troubleshooting due to provisioning or bad cook. Jim's and other trip reports (especially Jim due to breadth), and posting of menus definitely helps in this regard, and is very much appreciated - thank you. With regard to fries, on Edge Spring 2022, Apex Spring 2023 each out of FLL, for example, we've only had at multiple venues, the same coated french fry (bright yellow) from frozen bags with multiple languages, which had the truffle oil spritz on the Retreat Sundeck and Luminae, but were plain at Mast Grill. We also saw the same base frozen fry at Rooftop and in the OVC. In videos, the same fry appears to be present at the Bistro (although I think they are marketed as fresh cut). On the same trips as above, we had the same "thick" probably 8 oz burger patty at Luminae and the Sundeck.

Did anyone read of any reports from Australia when LHB and team were on Edge? I haven't seen any detailed reports. In any event, LHB is less than impressive except in her ability to ignore the reality of what she is operating and the issues she is causing. The irony is LLP is over on Instagram hawking a book on leadership, using ones time to the fullest, and other leadership principles often with imagery from when she was CEO. The messages are open to interpretation, but its almost as if there is a bit of trolling going on. Although both are presumably only interested in the bottom line even if they took different paths to get there. Most on here have heard this or experienced this already, but since there's some new commenters: The Retreat was designed to include butlers as glue; without the butler service the Retreat experience is veering into being useless except for a larger room and a source of frustration. In practice, the butler may sometimes be underused or make mistakes (we didn't get a breakfast order one day and it entirely messed up the excursion, and took a lot self-help to resolve (e.g., after the order arrived, having to go to Luminae to get utensils, condiments). But, in the Celebrity system, especially because the alternative is 1:1 waiting in line or using a wired phone, the butler was an essential part of leveling the experience with the service that any comparably priced (or less as is often the case) resort, hotel, boutique hotel experience would deliver on as a baseline and most likely to be a source of "wow," which now just leaves the Luminae team for most suite guests, along with a cast of crew that is spread more widely. Post cutbacks, its been established that the point of contact is the housekeeping staff, which is ridiculous. While important, the person cleaning (including the toilet) should not be the person responsible for morning coffee service or any food handling, let alone anything else. They also don't have any "authority" or "gravitas" to get anything done internally on the ship. Even a desk clerk at a hotel has more "power" than a Celebrity housekeeper. (I'm using housekeeper because that is the function of the room attendant, host, etc. regardless of fancy title). Many of the services a butler can or would handle don't require a butler on land, but because the way shipboard operations work a butler can made the difference. For example, on Celebrity the Butler would be the primary point of repeat contact and have some ability to follow-up on anything and everything, integral to overall QC for the room, room service, room service QC (ensuring right items for each order, right amount of utensils, etc.), pre-packaged drinks / minibar, troubleshooting seamstress, laundry, etc., answering basic questions without waiting in a line with 20 or more other people and then getting solicited by hawkers offering insoles, restaurant packages, cork screws, liasoning with overworked other crewmembers, departments, etc, some who don't have phones / computer / Ipad that are used by crew to communicate, etc.