Lovetocruise2002

Does Batman never learn????? 🤣

And he can never find out! Or we will never hear from @SweetPea again 🤣

The Effectors is the show that I am most looking forward to next month. I didn't really think I would care for it, but after seeing Effectors 2 on Wonder in July, I am really looking forward to seeing what type of special effects are in the first one.
And we love Ricky Matthews! We cruised with him years ago, I cannot even remember which ship it was now, then we ran into him again on Wonder in July. I was so excited when I saw on his FB feed that he was headed to Odyssey until January. You are right, he is hilarious, has an awesome energy to him. Go watch the Love & Marriage show with him too, it's always funny.

The Effectors is the show that I am most looking forward to next month. I didn't really think I would care for it, but after seeing Effectors 2 on Wonder in July, I am really looking forward to seeing what type of special effects are in the first one.
And we love Ricky Matthews! We cruised with him years ago, I cannot even remember which ship it was now, then we ran into him again on Wonder in July. I was so excited when I saw on his FB feed that he was headed to Odyssey until January. You are right, he is hilarious, has an awesome energy to him. Go watch the Love & Marriage show with him too, it's always funny.

Last night after dinner went and saw Effectors. Special effects were pretty cool. After that it was to the 80’s party. Cruise director Ricky and his team did an awesome job. Energy was great. It was in music hall which I would say just makes it so not as many people can participate as can when it’s on the promenade on oasis class ships. 

Summary:  Worst Dinner all cruise and I paid for it
I have purchased a 4-specialty dining package for both of my cruises.  I have already used 3 of them and went to 3 out of the 6 restaurants.  I am sure I had dinner at the best one Le Voyage by Daniel Boulud but tonight I had dinner at the worst one including the free ones.  That dinner was at Le Petit Chef™.  I have done the restaurant Le Petit Chef™ on two other ships and loved it.  Le Petit Chef™ is as much for the show as for the food.  I do not expect 5-star food, but I expect good food.  The first issue I had was when I showed up and found out they have it one floor above the Martini bar that was playing live music and everyone was there to talk, be loud and get ready for their dinner.  The Martini bar is in the center of the ship where it goes up several floors.  I sat down at the table they assigned to me, and I could not hear the music inside the restaurant because of the noise outside.  After about 15 minutes someone came by to see if I wanted a drink.  About 15 minutes later the waiter came by to explain the menu to me and get my order without me having time to decide.  That was the last time I seen the waiter.  The drink person came back a few times but not the waiter except to drop the plate and run off without talking to me.  On the third course I had to wipe the crumbs off the table where it did not get in the way of the show (myself).  The seafood appetizer had been cooked to long and everything was tuff.  When I got to the desert the ice cream was iced up like it was in the freezer too long.  The surprising thing is the ship makes ice-cream every day and I have had lots of it during the cruise and have not seen this issue.  I know this review is going all over the place.  I am sorry but I am just confused about what happed tonight.
I tried to keep my expectations in check, but it did not work. The noise outside was too loud and did not allow us to enjoy our show / meal. The service was lacking. The food was subpar and part of that was caused by service of the food. Summary is do not eat at this restaurant on the Celebrity Beyond.  

Got all dressed up nice and fancy tonight for formal night. Dinner was in MDR. I had the French onion soup, my favorite. Still mad it isn’t available every night. Also tried the calamari. For Entree I had the beef tenderloin and the seafood linguini. And dessert had the apple cobbler.  The soup and dessert were really good. The beef was decent. Didn’t care for the linguini. Service was good and we were out of there in about 90 mins. Here are some food pictures. 

However…if you ever decide to try, we are going to photo or video evidence of that 😄

Just making sure @Lovetocruise2002 sees this. It's not out of context at all.

My situation is just the opposite; I could easily take Reyd on X but I am not so sure about Lindsay. Vacation Lindsay is high energy. 😆

this is live footage of me at the end of every cruise  🤣

Truer words have never been spoken. 😂 

😂😂😂 @Jax will not be able to self carry all her luggage 🤣🤣🤣

😂😂😂 @Jax will not be able to self carry all her luggage 🤣🤣🤣

😂😂😂 @Jax will not be able to self carry all her luggage 🤣🤣🤣

In reality if you're in a Retreat room and can get all your luggage to the Retreat Lounge on debarkation morning you can just take it with you off the ship when you go since you'll have the priority service elevator...but that's still potentially quite a haul depending on what suite you book.
The location of the Royal Suite on Apex was nice since it was right at the forward elevators, which were always less crowded than the aft elevators. We would have had no issues taking our bags up the elevators to the lounge if we had wanted to be the ones to drag them off the ship. I do agree the cart taking them from the room off the ship with Star Class is definitely a perk.
Booking the room category we did is definitely comparable to doing Star Class with Royal. What you are missing in lack of personal service is made up for in the more upscale touches. We had a lot of discussion onboard within our parties (and with Matt too) about the differences between the butler and the Genie. The biggest difference is that the Genie tends to be proactive, or at least they used to be. Our butler didn't do anything extra that we didn't ask for and did not go above and beyond, but he was willing and ready to do anything we asked for. You have to be comfortable with asking and communicating exactly what you want to get the most out of the butler.  Like I mentioned, we weren't able to get last minute reservations in a restaurant even through the Retreat concierge and the butler. A Genie would have probably been able to make it happen.
If you had to chose between this and Star Class and there are children involved, Star Class hands down just because the ships themselves have a lot more kid friendly activities. Otherwise I think for adults who enjoy relaxing and know exactly what they want/need to make the most of their vacation, the Royal Suite is a great fit.  
There are a couple of other rooms that have the same "all inclusive" benefits, but I don't want to mislead anyone on which rooms those specifically are..I think it's the Royal Suite, Penthouses, Iconic and Villa Suites but I'm not 100%.  Join some Facebook groups like @Lovetocruise2002 and do your research 😉

For those who didn't see, @Matt posted his review blog: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2023/11/27/i-took-my-first-celebrity-cruise

On disembarkation day we were asked to be out of the rooms by 7:30.  We talked to the Retreat concierge the afternoon before about the priority debarkation and they told us that they would escort anyone off from the Retreat Lounge as soon as the luggage tags started being called. We didn't end up leaving the ship until about 9:30 or so, with an escort. There wasn't any line to bypass and we just got a priority service elevator down and then off the ship with our sad, sad faces.
We drove, so parked in the parking garage. It was a couple blocks up from the Celebrity terminal and that whole cluster of terminals was a mess with three ships unloading at once and all the traffic to pick people up. We decided to just haul our luggage ourselves to the parking garage rather than make me fetch the car and drive back to pick everyone else up.  I much prefer Terminal 18 that Royal uses as you're only dealing with one ship in that area.
Our 7 hour drive home turned into a 10-hour drive thanks to holiday traffic.  If only Brightline went further north...

There wasn't much else going on that evening. They did Silent Disco again, but there was also packing to do. Bags were supposed to be out in the hallway by 10pm, but our Retreat host said that if we needed more time to get them out by midnight and call her and she would make sure they got picked up.  We had luggage tags of number 1.

We didn't have dinner plans. Tried to get a last minute reservation for Raw on 5 but no dice..even the butler wasn't able to get us in. However he was able to do a delivery for us.

Can't imagine paying the ala carte prices for thus place, though. Izumi is definitely the better ala carte value.

The last night was the last show called Rockumentary.
@Jax They didnt have the seating roped off this last night. I think they may only do the reserved area for the first formal night.  Despite this, I walked in 5 mins before the show and had rows and rows available to me.

They did an interactive bit with this where they announced the show earlier in the week and told everyone to go vote for the finale on the app.

The winning song was "We Are the Champions".
The theater and sets were great but the shows were the usual medley of cover songs with a loose theme with dancing and all that jazz.

Another sea day today. Tried some bingo and was 1 number away from winning the jackpot game. Then went to the casino and donated back my winnings from yesterday. 

Breakfast this morning in the MDR. 

Summary:  The Nightly Shows.  (I will finish reviews after I see them so check back on this post)
Day (1):  Jakub Trasak does known songs on the violin.  I made it though the second son before I left and found something else to do.  There were many people I heard talking about how good he was.  In my opinion he did songs that I was not interested in and he did not do them very well.  Both songs were boring to me.  When he talked to the audience it was in a monotone voice and put me to sleep.  This was not for me.
Day (2):  Production Cast “Stage Door”.   I was too tired to attend and went to bed.  I was told it was a good show.
Day (3):  Randy Cabral is a comedian that does juggling.  He was a good jugger but most of his show was his comedy.  I would not say he was great, but he was entertaining.  If I had not seen this type of show I would have said it was good but I have seen a few different people on cruises that do the same thing.
Day (4):  The group “Uptown” does Soul and R&B music.  It was three boys in their 20’s that were very good entertainers.  They did a good show with comedy throughout the show.  They worked the audience a lot and their signing was not bad.
Day (5):  Production Cast “Elements”.  This was a very good show and I wanted to watch it a second time.  It was singing, dancing, acrobatics and visual effects.  The show went though all the elements and made you feel you were part of each one.  During the water element they had video in the background of going up a river and it felt like the entire theater was moving down the river.  There was two performers on top of poles that came into the third row with their movements.  Do not miss this show.
Day 6:  Steve Caouette is a stand-up comedian.  He was very funny and relatable.  He worked the crowd and most of it was on the fly.  He talked to the crowed all night and was very funny.  I am going back to see his other shows while on the ship.
Day 7:  Savanna Smith is a singer.  Las Vegas type music.
Day 8:  Vinny Grosso is a comedian magician that has a headline show in Las Vegas.
Day 9:  Production Cast “Arte”
Note:  there was a Production Show “The Jazz Joint” held in “The Club”.   The club is a bar that they do all the trivia in.  It is not a big place.  The night they did this show it was packed including standing space.  The show was great and, but you need to get there really early.  The best seats are next to the main floor and then next on the upper floor on the rail.  If you are back from the main floor people showing up late will try to stand in front of you.  Do not miss this show.

Thanks L2C2002. This helps. I do recall the original flight departure/arrival times changed with AA (by <30 min), where all other details remained the same, but I was not aware this prompted a seat assignment reset. Now I do. I'll stay on top of these airline details much more closely and diligently going forward.