My Celebrity Apex Cruise Report

The Ship Overall
Apex is a mid-sized ship holding around 2900 guests which is typical of Premium Cruise Lines.  It has a beautiful modern and whimsical feel about it. When you first see Apex the thing you probably notice most is the bright orange rectangle shaped piece attached to one side of the ship.  This is the Magic Carpet which Celebrity introduced on the Edge Class ships.   It is a moving bar/dining area that will go up and down to be on different decks during your cruise.   Don't worry it doesn't move up and down while guests are on it.   It has all the typical things you would expect to find on a Premium Cruise ship - a couple pools (one outdoor and one indoor), hot tubs, multiple dining locations and bars, a theater, casino, and spa and fitness center.  Some other cool features onboard are Eden,  The Rooftop Garden, and the jogging track that spans 2 decks so you get to walk uphill and downhill.   Apex also has the Retreat which is Celebrity's version of the ship within a ship for guests booking suites.

Dining Onboard
There are so many wonderful dining and drink options onboard with 29 distinct restaurants, bars, and lounges to choose from.  There are 7 specialty restaurants but don't worry if you want to stick with the food that is included in your cruise cost there are 8 options. There are 4 main dining rooms each with their own theme along with a wonderful buffet that in my opinion serves the best pizza at sea.  The buffet of course serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I did try all 3 meal options at least once in there.    There are a lot of made to order food in the buffet which is great.   There was also a different theme in the buffet each day which even the pizza would offer something that went with the theme such as French Pizza on the French day.
  The 4 Main dining rooms have an interesting menu set up.   Each dining room has its own theme - Greek, French, Italian, and Contemporary American.   Each dining room has what is called their Exclusive menu items and those will be offered every night of your cruise in that dining room only.  Then there are the classic menu items which are also served every night but in all 4 dining rooms.  Lastly there are the Celebrity Signature items and these changed nightly but were offered in all 4 rooms.   So that means if you want French Onion Soup every night you could get that no matter which dining room you chose because that was a classic item.  I always looked at the Celebrity Signature items first since I knew those were only offered that night.   If I didn't like those I would then look at the ones that were exclusive to each dining room to see if that would help me decide which room to choose.  Besides the 4  Main Dining rooms and the buffet there are also 2 cafes and a burger spot that were available for free eats.  I really enjoyed all of the food I ate onboard and that says a lot since I am a pretty picky eater.  

Entertainment
  There was a lot of great entertainment onboard and not just in the main theater.   The shows in the theater were good but I enjoyed the shows in Eden more even if I didn't really care for the seating arrangements in there.   Eden is in the very back of the ship and spans a couple decks in a sort of sphere shaped room with a seating walkway that wraps around and up the outside of the room.   Since it was just random tables and chairs all around there was no easy way to get good seating for a show without arriving early.  When there isn't a show going on Eden is a bar/lounge/cafe area that is great for relaxing.   There is also a room called The Club which hosted a show and some other other activities when it wasn't a dance club.   The problem with seeing a show at the club is that it is a 2 story room and the seating is tucked into a lot of corners so you really couldn't watch a show unless you snagged one of the front of the room seating areas.  Some of the other entertainment onboard were the fun activities to choose from each day.   I really enjoyed the artist onboard that did a couple sessions where he walked you through step by step doing a sketch.  

Staterooms
  No ship review would be complete with a stateroom overview.   Since this was a regular guest cruise I did only get to experience my own stateroom firsthand.   I had a Concierge Class infinite verandah room.   The room was a good size with lots of great storage options.  The sheets and amenities were all premium and very nice.   I especially enjoyed the Lavender Mint soap, lotion, and bath products.  Concierge rooms come with some nice extra perks too like a pillow menu and other items in the room to use like an umbrella and binoculars.   Our room did have a slightly obstructed view as it was next to the room that the Magic Carpet went by which also bumps out from the ship so we really couldn't look towards the back of the ship at all.  I have heard some people do not like the infinite balcony rooms and I can see why after having one but to me it made the room feel bigger.   The way they are set up is that you do not have a sliding door to open to go out to your balcony but instead it is more like a french balcony like you find on a lot of river cruise ships.  So you have a floor to ceiling window that you can push a button and the top half of the window will go down so that you will feel like you now have a balcony.    There are folding doors you can close to section off the balcony from the rest of the room but we really never used those.   It can mean your room could get a bit breezy and the AC will shut off when the balcony window is down but we were OK with that.   There was a nice shade that you push a button for and it would go down over the window so your room would get plenty dark for sleeping.   The shade will not go down if the window is open though.   Also if it starts raining or window cleaning is happening or something else where your window should be closed it will automatically close so you don't have to worry if you left it down when not in the room.

I really enjoyed a lot about Apex and I do feel the Edge Class ships on Celebrity would make a nice romantic vacation for couples.