First time celebrity from NCL

[KKB]

12 hours ago, Jldevlin said:

I am an NCL kinda girl and we just got off Celebrity to Alaska and this was an issue for me......I love going to O Shehans for late night munchies and the bits of stuff in the casino at 11 at night. But also just for a change of pace...We are Sapphire on NCL so we also get our specialty dinners and the Asian place is great too.   We enjoyed the dinning room and the wine pairings but after 7 days I was wanting something different.  It was not bad ...just felt same old same old.  I did not want to be excited about going to the buffet but I was lol ....There was a few options in the buffet at night but not much...although I have to say the meatballs were amazing !!!!!   We are back on Celebrity for Hawaii in September and I will enjoy it with my family but its back to NCL for us.   I also found the entertainment was a little quiet... I am 62 and I think it was geared to the 85 crowd

Curious what ship you were on.

I don't understand the dining boredom--the menu changes nightly.

E-class is very different than M-class & S-class, imo, in both dining options & entertainment.

I'm 56. Have done all classes on Celebrity & have NEVER found the entertainment geared older than me.

Did I love ever show or musical group? Nope.

Didn't on NCL either.

DH & I are youthful 50s--we like to go all day doing lots of activities. 

Never had a problem on ANY line!

[KKB]

12 hours ago, marktwothousand said:

Oh my oh my oh my. Do others agree?

Nope, not at all,

ESPECIALLY on E-class ships.

 

[kwokpot]

I've done 16 on NCL (not recently, though) and 22 on Celebrity. Young 60 here (Enjoy dance and music festivals)Celebrity's nightlife is most assuredly more tame than NCL. The E Class is my favorite cruiseship design and agree there's a wider demographic than other Celebrity ships but the nightlife is tame. The Silent Disco usually is the most attended nighttime party. Deck parties are sparsely attended, very sparsely. The Club on E-Class can get an OK crowd but nothing like Bliss on NCL. Agreed that late night eats is not a thing on Celebrity. Celebrity is a make your own fun cruiseline. Poolside activities consists of trivia, corn hole tossing, golf putting, volleyball, pinpong, dance lessons.

 

If the OP is looking for a new cruiseline that's young and fun I would highly recommend Virgin. Just finished my first Virgin, a four nighter, and loved it. The deck party was the best put on by any mainstream cruiseline. And no kids! The Manor Nightclub is a copy of Studio 54 and it was a great club. Virgin spent big bucks outfitting every inch of their ships with nightclub quality sound and light systems. Check out the video (sorry for the quality at the beginning) of the deck party. 

[Jldevlin]

3 hours ago, KKB said:

Curious what ship you were on.

I don't understand the dining boredom--the menu changes nightly.

E-class is very different than M-class & S-class, imo, in both dining options & entertainment.

I'm 56. Have done all classes on Celebrity & have NEVER found the entertainment geared older than me.

Did I love ever show or musical group? Nope.

Didn't on NCL either.

DH & I are youthful 50s--we like to go all day doing lots of activities. 

Never had a problem on ANY line!

We were on Eclipse   yes the menu changes daily but the venue does not. I love the dining room and the same wait staff every night... This was our 5th Celebrity after doing 10 ncl and we just like the vibe better on ncl and the ncl dining options that we get as perks ....and yes we can buy a package on Celebrity but for a 7 day we were okay with what we had for a short cruise. Actually my favorite Celebrity ship was the Mercury lol.. The entertainment around the ship was a two piece violin group in the atrium and they had a guitar player who was very good in Ensemble but again it was more mellow than I would have liked...does not make it bad just not to my taste.   And there have been many on NCL that were not to my taste either. This trip just felt geared to an older audience from my view...does not make it right or wrong ,,,just my viewpoint 

[TomTN]

33 minutes ago, Jldevlin said:

We were on Eclipse   yes the menu changes daily but the venue does not. I love the dining room and the same wait staff every night... This was our 5th Celebrity after doing 10 ncl and we just like the vibe better on ncl and the ncl dining options that we get as perks ....and yes we can buy a package on Celebrity but for a 7 day we were okay with what we had for a short cruise. Actually my favorite Celebrity ship was the Mercury lol.. The entertainment around the ship was a two piece violin group in the atrium and they had a guitar player who was very good in Ensemble but again it was more mellow than I would have liked...does not make it bad just not to my taste.   And there have been many on NCL that were not to my taste either. This trip just felt geared to an older audience from my view...does not make it right or wrong ,,,just my viewpoint 

Do you recall Mercury's sister ship's name?

Ha , tip of my tounge. My favorite.

[deliver42]

Century.

[techteach]

I keep reading about the Silent Disco. What is it?

[marktwothousand]

20 hours ago, zackarykeef said:

So I’m 💯 an NCL guy also (early 30s, “party” guy, love late night dancing/food and good drinks, etc) and just got off my first X cruise (Equinox) 3 weeks ago. We had a blast! There happened to be a lot of young people on our sailing, which definitely depends on the time of year you’re going. I do agree the overall crowd and vibe was older, but we had no problem dancing in the Sky Obs Lounge until 1am each night, plenty of people and drinks.

 

The only late-night food is at the buffet until about 1am, which is basically pizza and pasta…but it was fine. No O’Sheehans/Local, but it sufficed. It was one thing I wish was better, but I understand, as it’s not technically a late-night party line.

 

From what you’ve said, I HIGHLY recommend you upgrade to the premium drink package. The basic covers your standard base+mixer drinks (vodka soda, gin tonic, rum coke, etc) and the standard “boat drinks” (pina colada, daiquiri, bahama mama, etc). All of the craft cocktails and specials on the menus were over the basic package price but all included in the premium. It was the best decision.

 

Not to mention, this was all on the Equinox (an older but beautiful ship). Given you’re going on Apex, I’m sure you’ll be fine.

 

I’m not some die-hard Xer or complete convert like many on these boards, but I will sail X again, along with NCL. I enjoy both, as well as MSC for the YC. Looking forward to trying an E-class soon!

I appreciate the advice on the drinks pack. LUCKILY my sailing includes a $100 OBC so between occasional room service which is I think $5? And some occasional up charges on wine or a “nicer” drink, the $100 should MOSTLY cover what it would have cost for the extra drinks pack…which if I am not mistaken is not cheap to buy daily!

[kwokpot]

26 minutes ago, techteach said:

I keep reading about the Silent Disco. What is it?

The Silent disco is a dance party where you wear headphones to listen to the music you'll be dancing to. On the headphones there's a switch to change the music to 3 different channels, with each channel having its' own color that the headphone displays. When you go to the party you won't hear any music, but see people with headphones on with different color lights dancing and singing with the music they hear. It's fun to see people reacting to the different music channels and if you see some other people enjoying a particular song you'll notice what color channel they're listening to and switch your headphone to match what they're listening too. 

[techteach]

@kwokpot Who in the world thought up this idea? Imagine taking off your headphones to hear 3 different songs all being sung at the same time! As a former musician I couldn’t handle it. Thank you so much for giving me a clue.

[NutsAboutGolf]

49 minutes ago, techteach said:

@kwokpot Who in the world thought up this idea? Imagine taking off your headphones to hear 3 different songs all being sung at the same time! As a former musician I couldn’t handle it. Thank you so much for giving me a clue.

 

Often they're used in places where they can't have much noise; they are also cheaper than a nightclub-level sound system.  While they're usually fun, it's tame and nothing like the Bliss on NCL like @kwokpot stated.  

[TomTN]

14 hours ago, deliver42 said:

Century.

Ha, we have sailed on Century more than any other ship.

I had Mercury confused with older ships, Horizon and Zenith.   

We sailed Zenith around(Cape horn) South America in 2003 and Horizon to Bermuda in 2004.

[shipgeeks]

On 8/2/2022 at 10:43 PM, marktwothousand said:

CelebrityX! Also it’s never been clear what the X stands for. Methinks the X is some legacy branding they forgot to take away because I never hear anyone actually calling it CelebrityX these days. 

Not CelebrityX.  Just Celebrity, or X.

X is the Greek relating to Chandris, the family that started what is now Celebrity.

While I'm here, I'd like to offer a suggestion re a difference.  As NCL is Anytime Dining, and I expect you are used to that, don't think you can walk in to a set dining restaurant on Celebrity, sit wherever you want, walk around, invite friends to join you at the table, and otherwise disrupt the meal of the people assigned to that table.  It happened to us on our last X cruise, with a number of NCL cruisers, and it was not a happy experience.  There are some differences.

[shipgeeks]

16 hours ago, TomBeckCruise said:

Do you recall Mercury's sister ship's name?

Ha , tip of my tounge. My favorite.

Galaxy.

[hcat]

1 hour ago, shipgeeks said:

Galaxy.

Horizon  too but i think Mercury and Century were more alike

 

[hcat]

On 8/2/2022 at 10:12 PM, marktwothousand said:

as long as there’s always party people to be found on board, I’m down. You know, that loud crowd with austentacious outfits that break into conga lines and sing along with “sweet caroline” every time it comes on, shoulder to shoulder whilst their beer sloshes  from their mugs…

No no no! Must be joking us..

Celebrity is not for the beer and pretzels crowd!

[PTC DAWG]

On 8/3/2022 at 12:19 AM, marktwothousand said:

Oh my oh my oh my. Do others agree?

Not at all…

[PTC DAWG]

15 hours ago, techteach said:

@kwokpot Who in the world thought up this idea? Imagine taking off your headphones to hear 3 different songs all being sung at the same time! As a former musician I couldn’t handle it. Thank you so much for giving me a clue.

It’s a blast..I especially like that Celebrity uses live DJ’s and not a pre recorded canned bunch of songs. 

Edited August 4, 2022 by PTC DAWG

[Tyler414]

2 hours ago, hcat said:

No no no! Must be joking us..

Celebrity is not for the beer and pretzels crowd!

Do I need to cancel my 2 cruises booked with Celebrity?  I like beer and pretzels.

[Cruise a holic]

On 7/31/2022 at 6:26 PM, islabahia said:

We find the food (which is subjective) much better on Celebrity.  We enjoy the less frenetic atmosphere of Celebrity.  We are Sapphire on NCL and moved to Celebrity when I decided I no longer wanted to walk through cigarette smoke to get to a specialty restaurant.  The crew on Celebrity ships are helpful, whereas we found many of the crew(s) on NCL couldn’t care less.  JMHO

Having sailed on NCL and Celebrity (others also) You will truly enjoy celebrity.  We found NCL to be like steerage, unless you are in the Haven which is so expensive.  You can sail in a sky suite on celebrity for so much less and get great perks.  We really hated the crowds and poor ship layout on NCL  And as you mention the smoke was awful.  I enjoyed NCL jazz club on the breakaway and the comedy show- but found the food lacking.  We even dined in specialty restaurants.  Was on par with the olive garden.

[kelib]

Having sailed both and have an NCL trip planned for January, this is what I love on Celebrity: (have only sailed Eclass)

*Embarkation out of Port Everglades…no waiting in line for sea pass, they scan you in just before boarding with tablets, you go straight to your room…sea pass is outside your door. Drop off luggage, put stuff in safe then go explore until rooms are finished. Love not lugging carry on luggage around

* Cafe Al Bacio coffee bar. Most coffees are free and the free pastries, deserts are wonderful. Grab a few for cabin.

* Flair shows at Martini Bar… lots of fun, silent disco just as funny to watch as it is to do

* Lobster and Prime Rib night in MDR’s, came around with trays of lobster for extra helpings.

* The warm chocolate cookie desert at the Rooftop Grill

* Water included with the drink package

* Getting your bill on the last day with NO ADDITIONAL SERVICE CHARGE

 

Apex will have 4 MDRs with different themes, like having specialty restaurants.

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by kelib

[TomTN]

On 8/3/2022 at 10:52 AM, KKB said:

Curious what ship you were on.

I don't understand the dining boredom--the menu changes nightly.

E-class is very different than M-class & S-class, imo, in both dining options & entertainment.

I'm 56. Have done all classes on Celebrity & have NEVER found the entertainment geared older than me.

Did I love ever show or musical group? Nope.

Didn't on NCL either.

 

 

 

We sailed on Regent last March/April.  The one area where Regent excelled was food.  Easily the best food we have had on a cruise ship.  10/10

But as days went by all the food just had something in common.  A 10 or 11 night cruise. I think it might be compared to eating in the same restaurant night after night. 

We like the food on X, and you can get some variety by going to the specialty restaurants. Still I suspect I will get a little tired of the "cruise ship food" on our Summit cruise later next month.

 

[shipgeeks]

6 hours ago, hcat said:

Horizon  too but i think Mercury and Century were more alike

 

Horizon and Zenith were fleetmates.  They sailed prior to Century, Galaxy and Mercury, which were fleetmates.

Those were all preceded by Britanis, and then Meridian.

[kwokpot]

4 hours ago, kelib said:

Cafe Al Bacio coffee bar. Most coffees are free and the free pastries, deserts are wonderful. Grab a few for cabin.

That's assuming you have a Beverage Package or high enough loyalty status. Otherwise all the beverages there have an additional charge. The food choices are indeed complimentary.  

[shipgeeks]

1 hour ago, shipgeeks said:

Horizon and Zenith were fleetmates.  They sailed prior to Century, Galaxy and Mercury, which were fleetmates.

Those were all preceded by Britanis, and then Meridian.

Oops, I should have said "sister ships" re the two groupings.  All, of course, were fleetmates.