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A RETREAT BEYOND the stars July 7-13, 2024


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We’re docked in Bimini today. We thought about getting off but we really like it when everyone else gets off and we get to hang out on an emptier ship!  

We did the silent disco again last night at the martini bar and we finally vacated the bar at a little past 1am.

Our alarm went off this morning to get us to Luminae for the avocado toast but we couldn’t drag ourselves out of bed.  Pop thought breakfast was until 9:30 so he got up at 8:30 and opened the blinds to get ready for the day. When I told him breakfast ended today at 8:30 because we’re in port, he closed the blinds and we went back to sleep for another 2 hours!

Coffee and pastries were my breakfast at the cafe. Pop went and braved the buffet alone this morning to keep me from turning into miss cranky pants. 

Heading to the pool!

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Okay, one time being exposed with the magic carpet was fine, but just now there were window washers outside!!!  I yelled and ran away. Pop didn’t. 😳😳 No, he didn’t put on a show - he just grabbed a pillow.  

The timing is amazing (and terrible) for us. We love the curtains open because we have a beautiful view and it lets so much light in. If I had known they planned to do this today I would have taken precaution!!

I just looked and there is nothing in the cruise compass or any separate paper that warns of this.  If I remember correctly, Royal warns guests of this practice and when to expect it. Right?  Or am I imagining things?  I’m in trauma!

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On 7/11/2024 at 2:42 PM, CravingaCruise said:

Incidentally, when we told our butler we were planning to go to the show last night and requested seats, he made a point to tell us that there are no reserved seats for retreat. Instead, they only offered it for the magician the previous night.  Really?

Was magician night "formal" night? I remember on our Apex sailing there was only reserved Retreat seating for one evening in the main theater.

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Just now, CravingaCruise said:

Yes. Seems they would have coordinated that a little differently. 

That's the ticket then..they only do the reserved seating and escort on formal night. They walked us to seats that evening. We actually had one of their production shows though that night and not a variety act.  To be honest it was never needed any other night, even showing up late.  Eden was the only crowded venue for shows and no privilege there.

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3 hours ago, AshleyDillo said:

Eden was the only crowded venue for shows and no privilege there.

It feels like there isn’t enough privilege for the butlers across the ship. It felt like anything I might have wanted to request wasn’t available. We really didn’t use him other than refilling our fridge with water, and even had to remind him that Pop had requested he keep at least 3 cold Pellegrinos on hand when we met with him the first day. When we came back from CocoCay on day 2, there weren’t any available in the fridge and we had to request them.  We ultimately felt like an afterthought to him. 

We’re grown ups who live every day without a butler, so we did just fine without him. 

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It was a pretty chill day and we enjoyed every minute of it knowing we’re going to be in dry dock for a bit. 

Today, our last day, was at Bimini Bahamas. We originally were not going to get off the ship because it’s a pretty small, mostly undeveloped island. However, we had failed to get a pic of us with our ship when we were at CocoCay so we decided to venture out.  

After some time at the Retreat pool and lunch, served to us up at the pool deck (which was the Beyond veggie burger btw), we went back and showered off, then got off the ship for a short walk in the sauna they call the Bahamas. Once outside and I started melting, I questioned why we showered before going out. 🥵🥵

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The water in the Bahamas is some of the most beautiful blue we’ve ever seen and every time we come on a cruise we talk about how much we love it!

We stared at the water a bit and caught a few photos of things that made us very happy we didn’t go wading into the beautiful blue water.  😳 One was a shark and the other thing was a long pointy needle nose type fish.  Neither looked human friendly!

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After cooling off in our room where we keep it ice box temperature, we wandered the ship looking for a quiet space to relax a bit and ended up at Eden again.  A performer was singing and it wasn’t our cup of tea so after a minute, we left.  We ended up at these chairs just outside of Eden and they had sound playing on repeat just above them that made you feel like you were in a rain forest.  I was wishing we had found those earlier!  

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Dinner was once again amazing and Chef Pawan surprised us with some yummy new creations after chatting with us briefly last night. Pop got a curry stew that was spicy and he absolutely loved every bite of it!  We both got the grilled veggies and rice, and Victor followed these up by bringing out a dish that was to accompany the veggies and rice as a sauce with something extra that was so good. He admitted that he had no idea what it was but Chef followed him out a moment later and explained it to us. We couldn’t even tell you, but it was like candy!!!  I forgot to take a pic at first so it is missing about half of what was first delivered.  Btw - they don’t understand small portions! 🥹

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Our feelings about Celebrity not knowing how to do vegan have been completely erased at this point. 

Our advice to anyone coming on a cruise who has any kind of dietary needs is to have a conversation with them as soon as you come on board to ensure your needs are met. They really want to do right by you!

We asked for our dessert to go since we had to pack. Victor happily obliged. 
 

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Coming back out room Felix hadn’t had time to do our room yet and caught us just after we came in. We left for about 10 minutes and found ourselves down in the casino. We put $20 in and suddenly we were at $69. Pop said cash out and take the winnings do we did. It felt pretty uneventful, but it was nice making up for the ATM fee we paid earlier because we forgot to stop and get more cash before we got on the ship. 

We got back to our room and Felix had made yet another beautiful towel animal.  ❤️❤️ I took a moment and gathered our zoo for a group photo. 
 

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We finished up our packing and we chose to put our bags out rather than walk off with them since the walk off is at 7:45. Victor and Chef Pawan wanted us back in the morning so they could feed us again. 🥰 They have more surprises for us up their sleeves!

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Our final meal on board was a special creation from Chef Pawan again. Pop got an Indian dish with fried bread. He said it was amazing and I took his word for it. Poor Pop doesn’t get to eat much Indian food at home because of the spice pallet used for most of the dishes. It’s not really my thing, and he prefers not to make something just for himself when he cooks.  

I got my preferred avocado toast. I’m pretty sure I was given the entire avocado, but It was perfect. 

We handed out our thank you cards, grabbed our carryon bags and we’re on our way. We have a long day to wait for our flight, so I’ll have to provide our final thoughts in a bit. 

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Final thoughts as we’re waiting an eternity for our flight. 

Room:  

We discovered 3 drawers in the bathroom yesterday!  That’s where the hairdryer lives!

There is only one US outlet at the bedside and it’s on the right side (looking at the bed)

The drapes and lights controlled by the wall panel or app were very easy and appreciated. 

The deck/window washing seemed to happen more than once on our cruise and it left our balcony totally soaked for hours and unusable. The one time they showed up and we had to quickly close the drapes due to indecent exposure, we were getting ready to go sit out there (once dressed, of course). We ended up not being able to use it for the rest of the day because the chair and deck were so wet. 

There seemed to be a lot of storage space:

-just inside the door is about 5’ of hanging space with the extra bar at the bottom. 

-On the other side of the bathroom door is a cabinet with 3 small drawers and 3 or 4 shelves, along with the safe. It’s about 1 1/2 - 2’ wide. 

-There are also three very large drawers next to the mini fridge. 

Pop and I unpacked into the closet and cabinet and then saw the three large drawers but didn’t bother moving anything. It worked for us. 

Ship:

The Beyond is really a beautiful ship but we kept feeling like we were missing the promenade with the pizza and cafe center stage. 

There are a ton of staff dedicated to cleaning this ship and they did a great job!!

Dining:

You all know our dining adventure, so I won’t get too deep here, but something that I think could be positioned a little better on board is the pizza. It’s all the way at the aft of the ship and you have to walk through the buffet to get to it. I think you all know how much I avoid that place  

Coffee:

They had the cafe onboard and this kind of had the feeling of a Starbucks. Which was okay but sometimes you just want to make your own coffee. There were a couple of mini coffee stations set up around the ship but they don’t have “other” creamer - just milk. 

Eden:  

This is a beautiful venue with gorgeous art views and we loved hanging out there.  We found it a little ironic that the one venue that seemed to have more of a healthy feeling was right next to one of the smoking sections on the ship. 

Another favorite spot was just discovered yesterday right by Eden. The swinging chairs in the rain forest (sounds)

Music:

Several of the live club singers were super pitchy and it was always very loud. We found ourselves trying to get away from it often. 

Martini Bar:

This was one of our favorite places on board  for meeting others and just hanging out!  The bartending team are a hoot and it’s an amazing people watching space. 

Staff

I was very impressed with the staff  I don’t think there was ever a staff member who wasn’t happy to be doing whatever they were doing.  They were a true joy!


Overall, we really enjoyed our cruise and the new friends we made along the way.  We also made great use of our drink package and don’t feel the need to drink again until next year.  🤪

Note to self for next time…book an earlier flight so we don’t have such a long, boring wait!

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The butler/concierge team intrigue me. I am curious what duties are assigned to your concierge team vs your butler. And how do you find out who does what.  For instance who makes dining and entertainment reservations. Who does the priority embarkation, disembarkation and at ports. Who schedules room service requests and in suite dining.  I know you mentioned your butler wasn’t available to escort you at ports but I kinda thought that would fall to the concierge team. I have heard a team reaches out to you prior to your cruise. Did this happen???  As much as I have a love/hate relationship with Royal the genie model is easy to figure out who does what. Lol 

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9 minutes ago, Jax said:

The butler/concierge team intrigue me. I am curious what duties are assigned to your concierge team vs your butler. And how do you find out who does what.  For instance who makes dining and entertainment reservations. Who does the priority embarkation, disembarkation and at ports. Who schedules room service requests and in suite dining.  I know you mentioned your butler wasn’t available to escort you at ports but I kinda thought that would fall to the concierge team. I have heard a team reaches out to you prior to your cruise. Did this happen???  As much as I have a love/hate relationship with Royal the genie model is easy to figure out who does what. Lol 

Great questions. We had a dedicated butler, if you want to call him that. The only thing he really did was refill our refrigerated water, but only after we had to remind him. Oh, and he brought our coffee order the first 2 days. Then we cancelled it. 

We told him the first day that we wanted priority disembarkation for Perfect Day and his response was to be on deck 2 aft at 7:45am. When we went down there they told us we weren’t supposed to be there and made us leave. He didn’t communicate to us what he could or couldn’t do, and gave us bad information. He was a terrible communicator and after a couple of days of asking for something and being told no, we stopped asking and behaved as though we didn’t have a butler. 

We also told him we were vegan and he didn’t help us navigate that at all. He didn’t steer us to the concierge team for anything, so I honestly don’t know what they could do for us. Oh, and they didn’t reach out in advance other than the questionnaire, which I believe wasn’t read because there wasn’t anything provided for POP’s CPAP machine as requested. 

I personally think the issue was Akash versus the services Celebrity provides though.   We made sure to put all of this in our review…along with how much we loved the Luminae staff!!

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It’s official!  We have just gone on our first cruise and lost weight!!!!!  Well, Pop did anyway!  He lost 2 pounds!  I, on the other hand gained 3…but I didn’t care. Those Luminae dinner rolls did me in for sure, but they were worth every one!  By the end of the cruise Victor had the bread guy trained to bring me a roll every time my bread plate was empty.  😂😂

This is Victor - our favorite person on board the Beyond!

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2 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

I'm sorry I've been MIA! But I'm catching up now, and I'm not quite sure I'm sold on the perks of the Retreat yet. Your butler has been more MIA than me!

@Lovetocruise2002 may have a different experience. It will be good to see the difference between basic retreat and upper retreat (Royal suite snd up). I’m kind of thinking they will end up more like Sky vs Star.  But Celebrity has their Aqua class that has their own restaurant similar to retreat with fewer add-ons. Kind of like a souped-up Sea. 

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17 minutes ago, CravingaCruise said:

@Lovetocruise2002 may have a different experience. It will be good to see the difference between basic retreat and upper retreat (Royal suite snd up). I’m kind of thinking they will end up more like Sky vs Star.  But Celebrity has their Aqua class that has their own restaurant similar to retreat with fewer add-ons. Kind of like a souped-up Sea. 

That will be interesting to read! Though i think i will still wait for Celebrity to send an Edge-class to our backyard before we try it. That's how we landed in both Star Class and the Haven. Sailing out of NJ and NYC.

It's hard to compare different lines and their perks. It all comes down to personal preference and what's important to you. I never see ourselves doing Sky Class on Royal, for instance. Because Haven suits us sooo much better than what we've seen Sky Class offer. From your blog, i don't see us booking a Sky Suite. Maybe after a few cruises and we know how to play the game. So i genuinely appreciate your candor here!

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Of course!  I wanted a real comparison to the amenities we get on Royal and had heard a lot about Retreat.  

I think the thing I learned in this endeavor is to do my homework in advance.  I had heard about the Retreat and thought it would be the same level as SC on Royal, so when we saw the Retreat guarantee, I jumped on it...and then I did the homework.  After we had booked and joined a Retreat Facebook group, I learned very quickly of the difference between the Retreat levels so I lowered my expectations.  The additional increase up to that level was more than what we paid for the initial booking and it wasn't in our budget this time around because of two of our daughters getting married within a year of each other.  😳  I'm sure the invention of the bank was created by a parent who had just married off a daughter!

My main objective was to be on a ship going to PDCC since that is one of my favorite places and they just opened up the new adult only space.  We didn't pay a fortune for this cruise and it met the primary objective, so we weren't super upset when our butler didn't really buttle.  I'm just glad we got the food thing figured out!  Of course the few days we had working out the food kinks probably saved me another 5 pounds!  🤣  All good in our minds...but we're probably going to stick to Royal SC in the future.

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