Beyond LIVE Med Review 10/20-10/30: Tales from our Suite Roman Holiday

[helen haywood]

Did I miss Charla’s comments about the Suite/Butler experience?  She mentioned at one point that she was going to wait and give it some more time before she gave her impressions…

[DaKahuna]

29 minutes ago, helen haywood said:

Did I miss Charla’s comments about the Suite/Butler experience?  She mentioned at one point that she was going to wait and give it some more time before she gave her impressions…

 I do not believe she’s did a thorough review on that point. She made a few comments but nothing extensive.

 

[mchell810]

36 minutes ago, helen haywood said:

Did I miss Charla’s comments about the Suite/Butler experience?  She mentioned at one point that she was going to wait and give it some more time before she gave her impressions…

 

Charla is always very good about coming back to fill in the missing pieces after she's settled at home and cleared a few things at work.  I am sure she will update this review in a few days.

Edited November 4, 2023 by mchell810

[zitsky]

On 11/4/2023 at 2:33 PM, mchell810 said:

 

Charla is always very good about coming back to fill in the missing pieces after she's settled at home and cleared a few things at work.  I am sure she will update this review in a few days.

I hope she comes back to say the butler got her bubble bath ready every day and packed her suitcase at the end and got room service and…

 

Some of those I haven’t asked for but some are promoted by Celebrity.

 

Here’s hoping!

[wineoclock]

I was on the same sailing but unfortunately didn’t meet Charla or her husband. 
 

I can confirm that the retreat host is not a butler and none of those things promised by X materialised, for us anyway. It wasn’t the same butler experience and if I’d paid full price I’d be miffed. 
 

Charla May have a different view so am looking forward to hearing her viewpoint. 

[Missusdubbya]

Lovely review, thank you Charla

[catgirl411]

Just wanted to thank you for your great report and in particular, bringing the pistachio danishes in Luminae to my attention. Just got off 14 nights on Reflection and i am missing them (and the dulche de leche croissants) seriously!

 

[Von & John]

Charla  --  Thanks for sharing your Fantabulous cruise & journey w/ Jeremy!!!
I made a number of notes for the next time we are in Italy/Greece...

Looking forward to your final thoughts & hope life hasn't been too overwhelming upon your return 🙂

Mine certainly impacted my ability to finish your review live - I started off great, but then life intervened & I've just finished now...

Cheers  --  Von

[GenerationX]

Hello CC!

 

Jeremy and I are finally all settled in back at home and it gives me great pleasure to start going back in my mind to Italy and Beyond to finish up my live review.

 

Let’s start with our wonderful last day of cruise.  

 

Our last port was Livorno.  The docking point for excursions to Florence and Pisa.  This is one of those ports where you can’t just hop off the ship and walk up the pier in search of adventure in town.  In fact, there were announcements in the morning (as my eyes were rolling back in my head as I ate my peach cobbler French toast) that passengers would not be allowed to walk on the pier at all and would have to take a free shuttle, 20 minutes each way, to get into Livorno.  

 

This didn’t cause us any worry though because on the advice of a few well traveled friends that the leaning tower of Pisa is “overrated”, I booked us a small group pasta experience through Celebrity that would take us back out into the Tuscan countrysides that I fell hard for on our pre-cruise day trip (catch up report on that coming too, stay tuned!).

 

This was one of the lower cost excursions we booked (I think it was about $90 per person during excursion sale) and at the start I was a little worried I’d stumbled into a “get what you pay for” situation.  

 

It  was one of those times where the term “small group” was used somewhat loosely as we were a group of about 24.  The tour description said we would go to a small town and take a tour of a family owned pasta factory, then go to visit a family farm and winery were we would be served lunch and have a “tasting” of the farm’s olive oils, truffles and wines.

 

When we boarded the bus to drive to the factory, our guide (who was super sweet and did an amazing job for us throughout the day) informed us that because we were in port on Sunday, the pasta factory was closed and there would be no tour.  Instead we would just have 20 minutes to walk around the village and visit the handful of shops and gelato bars open on Sunday morning.  

 

I called this one a facepalm on my part for not even thinking to check on it and shrugged it off. But I heard several groans of frustration from around me.  When we got  off the bus to walk around and started chatting with fellow cruisers, I found out that those groans were because even if I’d done my proper due diligence, it may not have done any good.  One lady said she called Celebrity a few weeks before the cruise because she was interested in the excursion but was wondering about the closed factory and she was told by a representative that the factory would be opening just for our excursion and that there would still be a tour and presentation.  Pasta just wouldn’t be actively being manufactured.  

 

Another couple booked at the shore excursion desk onboard and asked about it and were told “yes that small family factory will be closed but there is another pasta factory nearby that is open on Sunday that you’ll be going to instead”.

 

Jeremy and I had no stomach room for gelato right after such a big breakfast, so we amused ourselves by walking to the top of a fort in the middle of town.  It was pretty cool to be up there looking at the countryside as all the church bells of the little towns around were ringing and you could even smell the Sunday ragu simmering in some of the apartments nearby.

 

When we reboarded the bus, we had a 20 minute drive to the family farm where we were greeted by one of my favorite sights: horses!  Two of the family had 2-horse hitch wagons waiting at the farm gate to take us on a carriage ride through the orchards up to the main house.  Jeremy and I were seated near our driver (who was the granddaughter of the farm founder) and as she drove and pointed out where different crops are grown we got to pepper her a little bit with our small farmer agriculture nerd questions.  

 

As we rode along, our carriage was escorted on the ground by one of my other favorite sights: farm dogs!  On asking our driver we were informed these goodest pups were an Italian breed called Lagotto Romagnolo. They are specially bred and trained for truffle hunting.  A bit of googling informed me that the puppies from the best truffle hunter bloodlines sell for as much as $5K.  Much later in the day, when I was full of wine, truffle products and grappa, I pitched the idea to Jeremy that we start truffle hunting on our property.  Of course this would require us investing wisely in a Lagotto Romagnolo puppy, which I would take a solo trip to Tuscany to pick up and bring home and as long as I’m going to Italy I may as well stay a week or so in a nice B&B and sample some local wines to make the flight worth it…my grappa glass was promptly removed from my hand.

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  When we arrived at the farmhouse, there were tables set out on the terrace for us with full carafes of red and white wine and bottles of water.  Once we were seated the farm staff encouraged us to help ourselves to as much wine as we like and out came platters of local cheese drizzled in honey, salami and prosciutto.  Then came the bread baskets along with the farm’s signature black truffle spread.  After the appetizer course came family sized platters of 2 different pastas. One was a bolognese and the other was a marinara made with tomatoes and herbs grown on the farm.  Our table emptied platters and were about to lean back and put our napkins on the table when the server came out and replaced our empty platters with two more full ones!

 

The wine carafes had a similar fate. When they’d get nearly empty they were promptly replaced by full ones.  That is until the main course was done and the current owner of the farm came out and put smaller glasses in front of us all and started pouring his family recipe grappa and passing out biscotti made by the family matriarch.

 

We spent about an hour and a half sitting out in the beautiful weather eating, drinking and laughing with our fellow cruisers with the gorgeous scenery all around us and the whole time I felt like I was living an episode of a travel food show.

 

Sorry, I didn’t get pics of the food because I was too busy, well, enjoying the food and company.

 

After all the food and wine, our bus was VERY quiet during the 50 minute drive back to the ship as we all napped off our lunch.

 

When we got back to the ship we were right behind a couple in their late 50’s we made friends with on our excursion (who were basically living in the retreat for fall since they had been on the cruise before ours and were staying on for the crossing as well) as they got back onboard.  Jeremy saw their seapass cards and said “oh BLACK sea passes? What room class is that for? The penthouse suite?”
 I explained that it’s the zenith level seapass and Jeremy said “oh, well you gotta be close to zenith with all the cruising you’ve done the past 2 years, right?”  I’m pretty sure the security officer who scanned me onto the ship thought I was hysterical because I was laughing so hard.

 

It was then my duty to inform Jeremy that to get to zenith we would need to spend at least one month sailing in an Edge villa…for the next 4 years. 😂

 

When we got back to the ship we did some packing and put our luggage out then headed to our last dinner in Luminae.

 

The last 2 days of the cruise Luminae was very busy at both breakfast and dinner and you could tell it was putting more of a strain on the crew.  They were doing their best to keep up but the kitchen even at breakfast was much more like European dining speed.  Eko our server apologized multiple times but we kept telling him he had nothing to apologize for.  He can’t control how many suites there and when people decide to eat.  Besides it didn’t really bother us as this was our last couple of days of getting to not rush through our meals to get back to the obligations of real life.

 

The dinner menu the last night was one of the best of the cruise. Jeremy is STILL talking about the beef tartare and the octopus. We tend to be wary of octopus made in volume because it tends to end up overcooked and chewy.  Eko assured us though that it was excellent that night and he was right!  For dinner, in addition to the delicious short ribs we split the chef’s off menu special of the night: Indian butter chicken with house made warm garlic naan. If it’s offered on your cruise and you’re an Indian food fan, it’s definitely worth a try!  After splitting a piece of raspberry cheesecake for dessert we decided to make the last night a chill one, so we stopped by the Martini Bar for one last show and to say goodbye to Maelyn then headed back to the room to enjoy what will probably be our last sky suite for a good long while (spoiler for final thoughts of cruise post, sorry).  

 

Possible TMI WARNING:  BTW, we discovered that night that if you are both 5’8 or shorter, 2 people can TOTALLY fit in the E Class sky suite tub together.  Just be sure to account for the displacement when filling. 

 

Catch up posts to come:

 

-All about our pre-cruise Tuscany Day Trip

 

-A report on dinner at Le Voyage

 

-Final Thoughts on the Cruise and the New Sky Suite “Experience” and Future Cruise plans

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cinderellen]

Thanks for sharing another wonderful trip review. About a month ago, I thought to myself that maybe I missed your fall cruise. Then I got busy preparing for our first TA and didn’t look again until tonight. Looking forward to your final thoughts. 

[DaKahuna]

Another beautiful story told by a beautifyl lady.  Can hardly wait for the upcoming follow up post, especially the one on the sky suite experience (noted the comment about no SS in the furture). 

 

[Norwaylady]

Charla, looking forward to the rest💙⚓️

You are a great live reporter🤩

 

I do bite notices in the comment: SS in the future….

I’m shaking my pants🫣 since we will try out the suite life in a SS for the first time in only a few days time🙄🫣🫣🫣🙄

[Jazzbo]

On 10/17/2023 at 2:00 PM, lola2013 said:

Would you be willing to share info about the Rome apartment?  I have a TA booked Barcelona to Ft. Lauderdale but plan to spend three days in Rome before taking the quick flight to Barcelona.  I’ve been researching Trastavere since you mentioned it a few pages ago.  As soon as I saw you mention two bathrooms and a washer, I was hooked!

Thanks

Sore to hijack this fabulous review! We were in Rome for 2 nights last month at the end of our Barcelona to Rome French & Italian riviera cruise with my cousin and her husband. We stayed in Parione House Apartment through VRBO. Although it isn’t nearly as swanky as Charla & Jeremy’s, we loved it! 2 br, 2 ba, and superb location. Within a few minutes walk of Piazza Navona, Campo di Fiori, the Pantheon, Trastevere, etc. 

[lola2013]

I just did a quick search of that apartment and it looks great.  We don’t sail until 2025 but will definitely look into it this time next year when we would be able to book it.

Thanks.

[cruisebeachgirl703]

Glorious pics and story!!!

[countess5]

On 10/26/2023 at 6:32 AM, hcat said:

thanks

.I won't wear  slippery or good shoes that might get ruined .Hoping for dry skies ... but we'll be ready..just in case.! 

 

 A few of our friends have had falls recently  so we try to be careful! 

 

Looking forward to some of those yummy looking dishes you featured..esp  the lamb chops

Just catching up on this thread, 

We were on Apex enjoying the Rooftop Grill when the sky opened up with rain. All ran back to the kitchen area where in a while the maitre d took us down the inside stairs to not have to walk outside.

 

If you get caught ask about the back passageway! 

 

Cheers! 

[hcat]

10 minutes ago, countess5 said:

Just catching up on this thread, 

We were on Apex enjoying the Rooftop Grill when the sky opened up with rain. All ran back to the kitchen area where in a while the maitre d took us down the inside stairs to not have to walk outside.

 

If you get caught ask about the back passageway! 

 

Cheers! 

good to know about that stairway!

hope we won't get any rain but you never know!

[Jazzbo]

16 hours ago, GenerationX said:

 

When we reboarded the bus, we had a 20 minute drive to the family farm where we were greeted by one of my favorite sights: horses!  Two of the family had 2-horse hitch wagons waiting at the farm gate to take us on a carriage ride through the orchards up to the main house.  Jeremy and I were seated near our driver (who was the granddaughter of the farm founder) and as she drove and pointed out where different crops are grown we got to pepper her a little bit with our small farmer agriculture nerd questions.  

 

As we rode along, our carriage was escorted on the ground by one of my other favorite sights: farm dogs!  On asking our driver we were informed these goodest pups were an Italian breed called Lagotto Romagnolo. They are specially bred and trained for truffle hunting.  A bit of googling informed me that the puppies from the best truffle hunter bloodlines sell for as much as $5K.  Much later in the day, when I was full of wine, truffle products and grappa, I pitched the idea to Jeremy that we start truffle hunting on our property.  Of course this would require us investing wisely in a Lagotto Romagnolo puppy, which I would take a solo trip to Tuscany to pick up and bring home and as long as I’m going to Italy I may as well stay a week or so in a nice B&B and sample some local wines to make the flight worth it…my grappa glass was promptly removed from my hand.

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  When we arrived at the farmhouse, there were tables set out on the terrace for us with full carafes of red and white wine and bottles of water.  Once we were seated the farm staff encouraged us to help ourselves to as much wine as we like and out came platters of local cheese drizzled in honey, salami and prosciutto.  Then came the bread baskets along with the farm’s signature black truffle spread.  After the appetizer course came family sized platters of 2 different pastas. One was a bolognese and the other was a marinara made with tomatoes and herbs grown on the farm.  Our table emptied platters and were about to lean back and put our napkins on the table when the server came out and replaced our empty platters with two more full ones!

@GenerationX 

I am loving your review (as usual)! We did this same excursion (without the pasta factory) last month. We enjoyed it so much! I haven’t opened the honey or the grappa we bought there yet. When you go back to Italy for a land vacation (which I’m sure you will), you may want to consider renting a villa and use it as your base. We rented villas outside of Lucca for a group of family and friends — 12 the first week and 10 the second. We couldn’t get the size we needed for 2 weeks in a row, so we moved to a different one the second week. We took the train to Florence a couple of times; hubby & I drove to Cinque Terre; and most of us took the train to Venice and stayed a couple of nights. I would love to read a Charla report for a trip like that!

[cruisebeachgirl703]

Charla, please keep the post cruise commentary coming. We miss you and your stories!!!!!

[countess5]

Looks like Beyond made it to Bermuda this morning!

 

On its way for a Caribbean Winter! Boarding for a B2B on February 19th! 

 

Charla you got me excited about sailing on her again! 

 

Cheers! 🍸

 

[hmcrn]

On 11/8/2023 at 5:21 AM, Jazzbo said:

Sore to hijack this fabulous review! We were in Rome for 2 nights last month at the end of our Barcelona to Rome French & Italian riviera cruise with my cousin and her husband. We stayed in Parione House Apartment through VRBO. Although it isn’t nearly as swanky as Charla & Jeremy’s, we loved it! 2 br, 2 ba, and superb location. Within a few minutes walk of Piazza Navona, Campo di Fiori, the Pantheon, Trastevere, etc. 

 

Hi @Jazzbo!

  Curious if you or anyone on your cruise did a review of your cruise?  I have been looking for one as we are taking this next September. 

Thank you!

[GenerationX]

I apologize for the long delay between posts! I’m working on finishing up this review in my bits of free time now that work and life are back in full swing.  But finish it I am determined to do (as much for selfish reasons because I want to be able to go back and read about every detail of this trip of a lifetime in the months and years to come)!

 

Next up, let’s talk about our dinner at Le Voyage.  I want to start by giving some context to my feelings. Overall, it was definitely still a very good meal and the atmosphere and experience of the restaurant was just as wonderful as in my 2 other visits.

 

Honestly, if this had been my first time going to Le Voyage, I probably wouldn’t have had anything negative to say at all (and I still think it along with Eden are the 2 specialties I’ll never miss when sailing on Beyond).

 

That said, this was one of the places outside of the Retreat where I totally noticed slips (albeit perhaps nitpicking ones) from when I sailed on Beyond previously.

 

From a service perspective, the maitre d and our waiters were all excellent as before. We were welcomed warmly with the complimentary glasses of veuve and a nice table.

 

On the flip side, my last 2 visits to Le Voyage, the sommeliers in the restaurant were some of the best on the ship. This time the experience wasn’t as impressive.  

 

I knew I wanted a bottle of the Au Bon Climat Pinot that Celebrity only has on the wine list in Le Voyage.  When the somm went to get it, she came back after some time and said it wasn’t available.  

 

In my experience, when this happens, the best Celebrity somms will come back and already be prepared suggest to me 1 or 2 other wines with a similar profile and price point that they think I would like instead (and the very best will also throw out a suggestion of somewhat nicer/more expensive bottle but offer an additional small discount on the price for the inconvenience of not having the wine I wanted in stock).

 

This time, the somm simply said (very politely) “Can I bring you something else? We have 2 other Pinot noirs. One from California and one from France .”

 

I then tried to softly pry an affirmative suggestion out by telling her what we planned to order for dinner and that we were open to other varietals that may be a better fit too (or at least get her thoughts on whether our food would go better with an old world or new world Pinot).  But she simply said that either one of the other Pinots “should be fine if you’d like one of those”.

 

In the past when I’ve ordered my meal at Le Voyage and been torn between multiple appetizers/entrees/desserts, my server never had an issue with accommodating an additional appetizer and/or smaller portion of a second entree.  This time our waiter was firm that the cover charge for the restaurant only covered one selection per person for each course, and if we wanted any more than that we would have to purchase the tasting experience (which includes most of the dishes on the menu, but our waiter said takes at least 4 hours and comes with an additional $135 per person up charge + gratuity).  No thank you. We’d never survive.

 

As far as the food, almost all of the dishes we ordered were favorites of mine from previous visits. We started with the Tuna Crudo and the Tamarind Prawns (which this time were more shrimp sized but still very tasty). Then we had the lamb chops and the lobster risotto and finished up with the Raspberry and Lime Paviova and Cafe Cardamom.

 

Flavor-wise everything tasted just as good as I remembered.  But I could tell protein sizes/portions had been reduced a little and the presentation, while still nice, wasn’t quite as “wow” as before.  Just to confirm my memory wasn’t playing tricks on me, I went back and found the photos I took of some of the same dishes when I had them last November and in March and compared them.  

 

Still, we didn’t leave any leftovers on our plates and those little warm madeleines that come out with the dessert course were still heavenly!  

 

As evidenced by my end of meal photo of Jeremy, even though the experience wasn’t QUITE as top notch as it had been for me in the past, we still had a beautiful evening and were satisfied with the meal.

 

Pics and comparison pics from prior Le Voyage dinners below for reference.

 

More to come so please hang in there!
 

LE VOYAGE OCTOBER 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LE VOYAGE NOVEMBER 2022 AND MARCH 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by GenerationX

[mchell810]

Thanks for continuing your review.  I am sue many agree: Better late than never!

 

I also appreciate your comparison pictures of the meals; and I agree with you the presentations, while nice, were a bit lacking on your latest cruise.

[theopup]

Thanks for yet another wonderful review. I appreciate how much time goes into these

[DingoMom]

Wow, Charla! A picture is worth a thousand words!! Thank you for sharing this, and for all the time you have taken for your review! Did your SS creak on the Beyond?