The CEO has done some good things, but more needs to be addressed.

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Reviews: 3

Helpful Votes: 70

Review summary

Went on the Beyond on Dec 11, 2023 for the first time on this ship. The below is the review: The Good: 1) The ship itself is outstanding, to the point that it is the best ship I have been on, up to this time, as far as design and functionality. 2) A new Chief Executive took over the cruise line, I think in May of this year, and she has improved the food to a point where there is nothing bad that can be said. The buffet is perfect, like the hot food is hot and the cold food is cold, which before was a problem. Even the muffins and bread are moist and have a taste now, whereas before there was no taste and things were dry. The four main restaurants, although I only tried the Italian, were great. I did not visit any of the high-end restaurants. To Laura, the new Chief Executive, touché and thank you for listening to the customers. 3) The Martini bar on Beyond is much better than that bar on the Apex and Edge. Someone messed up, with the design on the APEX and Edge and it was fixed for the Beyond and I hope the Ascent. It is bigger and has a much better design. It’s still not frozen, like the older ships. 4) The overall layout of the ship is brilliant and love the running track. The Bad: 1) This is a big deal, and Celebrity should put this on their website as the customers deserve to know this new un-written rule. Customers cannot drink at the pool, including water, even if in a plastic container, on all the ships in the Celebrity fleet. I verified this with Customer Relations after the main bartender at the pool, Mark, told me that if they catch me with a drink in the pool that I would be thrown out. I went down to Customer Relations and questioned the girl and she was surprised, so she made a call and sure enough she came back to me and indicated for the entire fleet there was no drinking at the pool or on the pool edge. The sign at the pool, labeled a few rules, indicates that there is no food or glass allowed, but nothing about drinks, so this is an unpublished rule, and it sucks, as Royal Caribbean, the parent of Celebrity, is releasing a new ship this month with a pool bar in the pool. Just no logic to this, except maybe laziness. Everyone, take notice of this. 2) Most of the upper-level staff on this ship were not friendly at all. This was the second time I’ve run into this on Celebrity, with the first being on Apex. 3) The DJ’s as a whole suck. I witnessed on two different nights at the Martini bar where the DJ cleared the bar, as he was so bad. They need to bring on Professional DJ’s, who know how to read a crowd. 4) The cruise line is too cheap to buy copy rights so they can play Music Video’s. They’ve got this great disco, with huge video monitors in it and they will not play Music Video’s. For an upper end cruise line, this is absurd. 5) When the music plays at the pool, it sucks. 6) Need more activities at the pool. I was happy the cruise director let us play water volleyball for three hours. 7) For the Verandas, the windows need to be cleaned, as they were dirty the entire time. In closing, I hope the Chief Executive reads this and addresses the bad and feels good about herself for the good.

Embarkation

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Ft. Lauderdale (Port Everglades), Florida

Cartagena, Colombia

Oranjestad, Aruba

Disembarkation

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