Celebrity Edge February 3-10

[baxterbean]

Celebrity Edge Review Feb 3-10 Western Carribean

 

My husband and I sailed on the Edge February 3-10. We were in an aft Sky suite (8310). I was a little hesitant with all the negative reviews. But, I have to say we absolutely loved it! The ship is beautiful and the food was outstanding. This was our first time cruising without the kids. We have been on about 9 Celebrity cruises all on the Solstice class ships. This was our 4th Caribbean and I think we have done 5 to Europe. 

 

Check-in was a breeze and were were able to drop off our stuff in our room right away, which was nice. You get your keys in your room.

 

Room: The sky suite room layout was really nice and there is a lot of space. The bathroom appeared to have more space than the other Sky suites we have been on and there was a separate toilet area and an electrical outlet in the bathroom. The aft balcony had plenty of space. The table out there is quite small. We had 2 small chairs and a lounger. They did get rid of the rocking chairs in the rooms as well. The store is decent for 2 people. With more than 2 people, I think it may be tight. There was not any storage over the bed. The couch was really uncomfortable and hard. Our room attendant and butler were both terrific.

 

Ship: We really liked the layout of the ship and the new spaces. The Retreat area is lovely and we really enjoyed it. It was occasionally hard to find a shady spot. One day it was quite windy, so we went to the Solarium area which is similar to the Solstice class solarium. The Eden area is really pretty and a lot of people hung out there pre-dinner. We went to the Eden bar a lot as we knew some of the bartenders from previous cruises. The rooftop area is really pretty and interestingly designed. Unfortunately it is a smoking area, so we didn’t use it much. I did miss the more open areas of the ship that are on the Solstice class ships. It felt very enclosed on the floors with just cabins. The high end stores IMO were wasted space. We didn’t really see many people in any of them.

 

Food: We found the food to be terrific and better than other Celebrity cruises. We ate at Luminae most of the time which was very good. We also ate at La Petite Chef, which was good and fun to see. I  probably wound’t do it again unless we took our kids to it. It was cute, but I wouldn’t feel the need to go again. We also ate at Eden for dinner. The food was really good there, but it was slow. The eden show performers did entertain in the dinner area, which I didn’t mind and thought they fit in well in that area. We also had lunch at Le Grand Bistro twice. Was really good and I highly recommend. You can also get the pastries there for free daily. They were much better than the Cafe al Baccio pastries. The Fine Cut seemed to be really popular and a lot of peopler were raving about it. We didn’t go as we didn’t want top spend a lot of money on meals. I was supposedly booked up on day one of the cruise. We also talked to a lot of fellow passengers and they were raving about the main dining rooms as well. We did a walk through of Ocean view cafe and it looked really nice. We heard good reviews of the food, but never ate there.  The Magic Carpet we were told will not be doing dinner as it has been too windy. We went on the last day for a drink and it was a cool space/concept, but I don’t think the execution went as planned.

 

Entertainment: The only show we saw was Eden. I went into it with an open mind, but I found not really strange and not interesting. I usually like different shows and thought I would like it, but I thought it was really bad. And it is long! We ended up leaving after watching from 10-11 pm as the bartenders said it was going to continue for another 30 minutes. I liked the eden characters in the dinning room, but the show was another story. We heard mixed reviews about the other shows. We didn’t care for the main band, but some of the other musicians were good. They had music in the Retreat at least one night pre dinner.

 

Activities: I felt the activities were pretty limited. Most involved the art auctions, spa, alcohol tastings, or other stuff you had to pay for. There was no bingo and not many activities that interested me at all. They had a daily movie in the Club space which is a nice space as well. My husband played Craps a few times in the Casino which he always enjoys.

 

Gym: The gym area is really nice. They have 5 Peloton bikes which we used a few times. You can ask someone to help you set them up. There were plenty of treadmills and other equipment to use.

 

Ports: We have been to all of them before, but had a good time in each one.

Key West: did the trolley, Hemingway House, Kermits for Key Lime pie, Sloppy Joes for music.

Costa Maya: My least favorite port. We took the shuttle into town for a few dollars and walked up and down the beach area. We were probably asked out getting a massage at least 100 times. It was really annoying, so we left. We looked around some of the shops in the port area and we went back to the ship. There isn’t a whole lot to do there.

Cozumel: Went to Nochi Cocum where we had been before. It is nice and clean and the food is decent.

Grand Cayman: took the ship’s snorkeling tour which was really well run by a local company. It run was much better than a previous ship Stingray City tour we did a few years ago. We stopped at 2 sites which were both pretty good for snorkeling. We ate lunch in town which was really good and did a little shopping.

 

All and all, we really loved the Edge! It is a beautiful ship. We talked to a lot of other passengers and heard really good reviews as well overall. I would definitely sail on the Edge again, but I would probably stick with a Sky Suite given the reviews of the infinite veranda cabins.

 

I will try to post a few pictures soon. 

 

[dazey]

We were on the same cruise! I wrote a few comments under  "few thoughts".  We differ in some areas but liked the Edge very much.  Although the Magic Carpet ended up not being a big part of the cruise.

 

Loved Fine Cut and would do that an Eden again but not Petit Chef.  Also the MDR really does rush dinner which is okay if only two people but if we were with others it becomes annoying.

 

Thanks for your comments.  Fun to compare.

 

PS:  LeBistro was good for lunch - wish I knew the pastries were no charge - I would have at least tried a taste after lunch.  They look fabulous. 

[hcat]

Thanks for the review and other comments!  Helps jog the memories.

 

Seems ages ago that we were on her,..but it was just 1/27 for the Eastern Carib  itin,.sounds like we had better ports and bingo.

 

..Did you find certain areas of the ship to be a bit noisy..like Grand Plaza area?  

 

.Our next cruise is  not til Nov 2019..also on EDGE,

[vtcruising]

Thanks for the review. Glad you enjoyed the Edge. I'm sure it was nice to be on a cruise without kids. 🙂

 

I had a couple of questions/comments:

1) You mentioned smoking on the rooftop area - did you mean just the starboard side of the Sunset Bar? That's the only smoking area that was up there on our cruises. The Rooftop Garden/Grill and port side of Sunset Bar were all smoke-free. Hope that has stayed the same.

 

2) They had entertainment in the Retreat? That's an improvement (must have read my comment card, evaluation and review 😉).

 

3) Glad the LGB pastries are free. The croissants were definitely the best on the ship, IMO.

 

Looking forward to your pictures!

 

[mmp13]

We were on the same cruise.  Felt the ship was beautiful but not really laid out well.  I am a smoker and no you could not smoke in the roof top area only on one side of the sunset bar. Plenty of room there.  I do wonder about the furniture in the sunset bar.  Cushions are already soot stained and look terrible.  I guess a case of form over function.  To Celebrities credit they do seem to be listening and fixing what they can.  The magic carpet is a real letdown.  Half of the time it was non functional!  We did back to back and it was rarely open.  We had an infinite balcony and the cabin itself was beautiful.  Calling it a balcony cabin is a bit of a joke though.  We loved the storage space and the bathroom.  I think they should call it an ocean view cabin upgrade.  Food was good.  Music good and plentiful around the ship.  Feel like they could have used another lounge like Ensemble for people to gather for drinks.  Seems like there is a fair amount of dead space on the ship.  We are regular Celebrity cruisers but I don't think we will booking an Edge class ship until they figure out how to iron out the growing pains. For now we will stick to Solstice and Millenium class ships!  I think the Edge class will be great soon but for now it is just OK!