I had an Edge class ship on my wishlist. I found the Celebrity Beyond on Dec 14th for a reasonable price (a lot more affordable than the Ascent for some reason). It was also near Christmas to get to see the Christmas decorations. We had a flight the day before, but it was later in the day, so I'm not sure that it afforded us much protection from missing the cruise. We did get to Miami and home, even during the busy Christmas season on the 22nd, with no issues.
Our plane had a long push back since we were in a "U" terminal area and could only be reversed -- weird. After we were pushed out of the terminal area, we, from our last row seats, started smelling fuel, which brought up concerns about our plane. Then I saw some firetrucks heading our way and then saw this from my seat. I have never seen anything like that before. Sunset from the flight.
We stayed at the La Quinta northwest of the airport and specifically pick hotels for the complimentary shuttle. They had a shuttle available until 9:30 pm. When we found it, we saw it fill with a family who was trying to put a child in the front in the lap of the Dad. The driver said no. They had more luggage and people that did not make it on. I called the hotel, but we decided not to wait for it and Ubered. Before, we went back into the airport, outside of security and each got an empanada for dinner. For our Ubers on the trip, I have to say that I'm tried of the price going up one or more times before we book it and after we get to a good spot to wait for an Uber. Is this a known tactic of theirs that I should know about and not pre-price a ride?
The La Quinta was fine; it was funny because the room was almost identical to one that we stayed in in College Station, except with the desk turned toward the TV instead of against the wall. I did discovery that they/Wyndham have a very nice scent for their body wash, shampoo, conditioner, and soap. It was brand Old Town Woodbury&Co Apothecary; it reminded me of MSC's scent that I loved. We had the hotel breakfast. It was advertised as grab and go, but they had more and tables to sit and eat. It was fairly crowded.
We caught a bus and then a train to Publix to get some soda to take on board. The Publix only had buy one, get one free. We did not have enough time to drink two cases and did not want to carry two cases. So, we went across the street to Target to look there. We found a case of Pepsi Max.
We then walked to catch the Coral Way trolley route to the Port of Miami. Again, there was a large group with tons of luggage in front of us. He said they were full and did not let anyone on. We decided to walk. Celebrity had moved us from terminal E to terminal C, so this was a further walk. It was hot and up a hill until on top of the bridge. We were still faster than the cars for most of the walk. Traffic was moving very slowly. Miami is too crowded, with only one road in. There were seven ships in port -- Carvinal Celebration and Horizon, Virgin Voyages, Symphony of the Seas and another RCL, and NCL Aqua. It was cool to see NCL's newest ship when we sailed away ahead of it.
During check-in, the earliest available arrival time and that we could pick was 12:30-1pm. After our long walk, we arrived right on time, a couple of minutes after 12:30pm. Embarkation was quick -- we went through security first. We carried our on own luggage on since it was documented that we would be allowed to immediately put in room. We were also close to the normal allowed in your room time. So, we had our roll-aboard bags through security too but did not spend the time to drop them off with the porters. The sodas just went through the X-ray machine, no issues, no ripping the box apart like Carnival does.
Next, we checked in with our boarding passes and passports. This was quick, but annoying (to me) because they retook our pictures -- we both did pictures in the app in the 3 weeks before check in. I redid mine a couple of times with the right hair and makeup on, but they did not use it. So instead, I had a "lovely" sweaty, after walking over the bridge picture, with a ponytail and sweated off makeup -- boo! After check, we were allowed to walk onboard immediately with one more scan of our boarding passes. Keycards were at the room door; they did not pass them out in the terminal.
Onboard, our muster station was right where we entered -- the steakhouse -- so, we completed that. We had watched the safety video on the train with train wi-fi.
Then, we went to restaurant to try to change from late dining to early dining, but learned that we had anytime, which is good, but not expected since I only saw early full and no anytime option when booking and online before the cruise. They advised not eating between 6-7pm since it is busier. We are early eaters, so this was fine. We never had a wait. There was later confusion about anytime dining where a hostess (I believe was the same hostess twice) came back with a tablet asking about our reservation and disappointed that we did not have on. Since the app had the reservation button grayed out, I asked at another restaurant during the day, the next day, and he said that it was crazy that she expected us to have a reservation for anytime dining. I should back up an explain that this ship has four MDR rooms with a set of the same common dishes and a set of exclusive to that restaurant dishes. The four were Cosmopolitan (American), Tuscan (Italian), Normandie (French), and Cyrus (Mediterranean). Cyrus and Normandie were our favorites. Anytime dining let us pick from any of the four, and we tried all. You could supposedly get an exclusive from another restaurant to which ever you were in since they shared the same galley. We did not try this, but we saw someone beside us do it.
This was at Cyrus, a rock "painting".
Finally, we went to our room to drop off the luggage, and it was already ready. The safety video was on, so we watched it again. Then we headed up to the buffet with two of our sodas. We finished up texting with our family before sailaway. Our oldest son, 20, had signed up for his first marathon, while we were gone... We confirmed that he survived, so we were ready to set sail.
Some views of Miami from the buffet outdoor eating area in the aft.
After lunch, we did some ship exploration and then unpacked.
First of all, the ship and room were both so beautiful! The room had a lot of storage. I used the 3 big drawers by the fridge (under the lamp on the left hand side of the picture), and Travis used the 3 of the 4 drawers in the closet. The desk in front of the lighted mirror would slide in above the fridge to create a full length mirror. I slid it in most of the time to not run into it at night. I would then slide it out a little to set makeup or my curling iron while getting ready. The TV was a concern for running into it, especially at night, and I did a couple of times but tried to remember.
Travis's nightstand had the two USB As and one US plug. We knew beforehand that only one side had outlets by the bedside. He did not end up using them. My nightstand was oriented the other way making it narrow, so I kept pushing things off (and I do have too many bedtime things on mine). On the desk, we had 2 USB As, 2 US plugs, and a European plug.
I liked the piece of coral though it is washed out in the picture. It had the room steward's card, and Travis had set his there after I mentioned someone on the internet saying that they always kept the keycard there. All of those doors were the closet and then storage space. The room came with an umbrella and beach bag for ports. The steward always had two towels for ports on the sofa for us. There were different towels at the pools to keep on the ship. The thermostat had settings for different lighting modes -- day, sleep, and movie. There was an all lights off and on button to not have to go around and turn them all off or on, which was nice once we figured out how to use it. We also heard from someone at dinner that you can turn the lights on or off and adjust the thermostat from the app from anywhere on the ship. We did not find a lot of use for that but was cool in concept.
The TV had on demand movies that were complimentary, which was nice. The TV crashed once and started in a menu that let Travis turn the new smoothing technology feature off. However, it seemed to come back on after turning the TV off and back on -- boo. See the Panama Canal cruise -- this feature drove us crazy! We did not watch any action movies on this cruise, so it was bearable. There was also a channel that switched between the current location map and the bow webcam. This channel and also daily program and app did not provide us the weather forecast to plan better for the ports. Celebrity could do better at that. There was also a LiveTV.
The bathroom was roomy and with good storage -- don't miss the draw under the sink, it has a hair dryer in it. They provided lotion, which was nice. In the shower was body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. I read from someone that the shampoo and conditioner was drying, so I used what I brought. However, what I buy may very well be drying too. We brought some bar soap. I used some body wash. It smelled good. The strange thing was that our hand soap was a bar, so they provided that bar. I have heard youtubers note that they bring their own liquid hand soap because they don't like bar soap at the sink. I agree; it gets soggy and takes longer to get soap on your hands. But, when they mentioned it, I thought that I have never had bar soap at the sink on any cruise line before. It must be a RCL thing. I took the bar soap to the shower some to use it there too.
The shower had no shower curtain and was nice and roomy. It had two hooks inside. One downfall and struggle that we had with the bathroom and cabin was there was not good place to dry anything. The shower had no clothes line and my suction cup clothes line did not want to stay up. With Travis's gym clothes and wet swimwear, drying clothes was a challenge.
Travis found this funny to not flush anything but a reasonable amount of paper -- "Excuse me".
We were provided four bath towels everyday without me having to ask for an extra hair towel. There was also a nightlight under the sink in the bathroom, which was handy at night.
Also like classy or traditional cruises, we received a tasty chocolate each night on the bed with our "Celebrity Today" daily program. They provide twice a day service with a morning cleaning and turn down at night.
Christmas decorations! The plastic trees outside The Club turned different colors; I did not get the picture on a very exciting color. The martini bar had the big tree and garland. Decoration in the buffet, and a tray of Christmas cakes that just rolled in and left out one day.
The fancy show screen in the theater. It wrapped around a stage in the round, but I did not feel like it was hard to see ever. Though we only sat in the back on the lower level section. The stadium seating stagger was very good that I did not run into a tall head blocking my view. Port side was less crowded. For the production shows, lines would form, longer on the starboard side, because they would not open the doors until maybe 15 minutes before showtime, which seemed crazy.
This picture is the comedians show the first night. He was pretty good. This was the family show; he had an adult show later in the cruise. Someone at dinner said it was really the same jokes with curse words added. Jerry Seinfeld says that cursing is just lazy.
After the show, we went to the True and False game show. It was fun. Everyone stood on the dance floor, they showed a question, and we had to split down the middle based on if we thought the statement was True or False. The losing side sat down and the winning side played the next round. This was held in The Club; this is also where we played trivia many days at 4pm before dinner and on sea days at 10am too.
The Stage Door production show on the second night with the diamond shaped acrobat frame. Officers showed up before to introduce themselves before the show started. I did not hear them announce to not film or take pictures during the show, but I did not see a lot of people doing it, maybe some. On MSC, a ton did, and I was annoyed because I would catch myself watching people's phones instead of the actual show. The show was good; the Moulin Rouge dress scene very cool.
Officers' Q&A with the Executive Chef, Hotel Director, Captain Costas, and the Chief Engineer. Here the screen was a nice ocean camera. I enjoyed this Q&A; I have seen on some ships where they dodge the questions. The questions were also very good and thoughtful, so they also got fewer complaints to need to respond to like I have seen on other lines.
This chair is outside the theater.
The trip start and ship post is getting long, so I'm going to continue in a part 2. The ship post includes two sea days after embarkation and one sea day after three port days returning to Miami. See you in the next post.