Celebrity Beyond The Retreat Review: Hit or Miss?

there's just something missing and when you're expecting a luxury stay that's what you want hi this is Cathy from T itinerary I'm here to talk to you today about our experience on The Retreat on the celebrity [Music] Beyond we booked this Cruise many months ago originally I had booked the Norwegian Viva we had to change it due to work schedule not working out so we found the itinerary on Celebrity Beyond and I was ecstatic it's new ship everybody's talking about it I usually do not chase the new cruise ships although they I really do like to stay in brand new ships but I'm all about the itinerary first ship second I booked one of the best balconies I wanted a complete view I knew it was in infinite Veranda I was okay with checking it out um but then a couple a few months before our cruise The Retreat started to sound pretty good we've cruised The Sweet Life on uh Norwegian before on in the Haven and I fig The Retreat couldn't be that far off from that it's also our 21st anniversary and I figured why not let's upgrade so we did we upgraded from the balony we had to a sky site which was super exciting so let's get into what are the benefits of the retreat The Retreat is like a hotel within a hotel or let's say hotel within a ship you get access to the retreat lounge access to the retreat private Sund deck breakfast lunch and dinner at the Lum lunch is only on Cay but what's nice about their menu is that it's not the same every day um you get priority embarcation and dis embarcation get priority tender which is great a retreat concierge Retreat host and team for the sky sues um anything above the sky suets the celebrity sweets and above those get a dedicated Butler you get also premium beverage package included and and the premium Wi-Fi package included with your retreat um Cruise fair so if you booked before October 4th 2023 The Retreat also got prepaid gratuities and then um a significant amount of onboard credit for us it was $11,000 of onboard credit anything booked October 4th and on no longer gets prepaid gratuiti or any onboard credits I mean unless you know your travel agent they have some sort of promotion um that doesn't Auto automatically come now with your retreat stay which is a bummer let's dive in to the retreat so first I'm going to start off with embarcation day we were embarking in civia and embarcation on the retreat was easy there was a separate Lounge you went up it was like a VIP room you checked in at the front meaning like they wanted to check your name on their iPad to make sure that you're listed then they had you take a seat and they they came by and that's and they checked you in while you just relaxed they had a beautiful bar with beautiful snacks laid out we weren't escorted on like I said we we weren't escorted on and not that I need to be escorted on but past luxury stays on a cruise we were escorted on you got to bypass all the lines I just remember going well it's nice we have a great view as you got out of the VIP lounge we had a great view of the ship and you can see that fur down that's where everybody else was going through but you ended up merging with the same people when it came to priority embarcation and dis embarcation that was great m is not being escorted the other days at Port there was no priority lines for the Retreats and we did have a tender Port which I believe you know would have been great cuz they do priority do priority tender how however we never got to use it because our stop in Montenegro was cancelled due to weather and and windy it was not a nice day so Captain Kate made the call and it was the right call you know let's talk a little bit about our Sky site cabin if you haven't watched our tour I suggest you watch it I loved that cabin I mean we loved it my husband and I loved this cabin and the layout is just amazing and it was so spacious for both of us maybe a little bit too much space from what we're used to in a balcony cabin but we just loved it and for 10 nights we just felt right at home in our Sky suite bed was comfortable and it faced the balcony and you had this beautiful view of the ocean every morning and I think it's just the layout it's really the layout um and of of course the bathroom was big and it was beautiful and it was just nice um and for us it's a treat because we live in a small home and we're climbing over dog beds in our bedroom and our bathroom was not it's half that size of the sky Suite so this was a very nice um treat for us we would absolutely book the cabin again but the retreat I'm not sure but we can't book it without the retreat I mean the sky Suite is part of the retreat The Retreat host and its team you know the team consists of your retreat host which is your cabin attendant who now has the name the title name Retreat host and the butler the butler did come by and introduce himself on day one and basically said yeah I am the butler for 10 to decks 10 to 12 great um he doesn't do much but office work he didn't do he doesn't do what dedicated Butlers would do their responsibilities have changed we have to ask our Retreat host for anything we want they make it sound special Retreat host and team but in reality and then part of your team is concierge which you already get and the concierge was great every time we went to them they were very nice and helpful but we didn't really use them much besides a few errors that we had um with our account and to ask them a couple questions the Lumin that is the restaurant a dedicated restaurant to uh passengers breakfast lunch and dinner at the Lumin but let me clarify lunch is only on Cay um but what's nice about their menu is that it's not the same every day um every day it's a different menu in the Lumin that's when we felt the most taken care of of the service in the Lum Lumin was by far the best that we've had in a long time and they really took care of you except the back of the house you can't blame the errors of the back of the house to the front of the house and I have to say the back of the house needs work food came out most of the time warm or cold or not cold I shouldn't say cold like tepid and the food wasn't all that I felt like a lot of the dishes they were just trying too hard to make something look or make it a you know bring it into another level of what is expected from the retreat but yet what you tasted was just not it just didn't compute and so I didn't care for the food on Lumin that much except for a few things in general the food wasn't something that I came back and went oh my God I need to be back there to eat the best meal we had was at Eden on Celebrity beyond that was a speci restaurant also part of the retreat is the retreat lounge and it's just another area of the ship like a lounge it's a lounge area with its own bar and snacks that they put out throughout the day morning afternoon and some at night and a place you can go you know have a conversation grab some cocktails or speak to the concierge an only Retreat guest has access and I believe Zenith members of celebrity it is a nice quiet area um very pretty with beautiful views has a nice clean bathroom and the bartender there was great however we didn't spend much time there as we rather have spent it elsewhere on Celebrity Beyond is a beautiful ship and we just loved areas like um the Eden Bar and the martini bar in the retreat Lounge there are these fridges that you go in and you can grab pelo sodas and things like that and bring them up to your room and we used to always stopped by to grab some pelina go now the retreat Sund deck is was one of our favorites we didn't get to enjoy it as much as we like cuz the weather was kind of iffy on some days but we did have a couple of SE days and one of the SE days we had some beautiful weather and we spent the whole morning there just relaxing and it was quiet there was always a plenty of seating it's nice because if you have a packed ship you can get away at the Sund deck find a little spot you did have service there a waiter would come around take your drink orders and bring that to you and they' come around with fruit plates um fruits on a stick and there was also the bar they also there was a couple hot tubs a nice pool that you could take a dip in so didn't enjoy the fact that it was all kind of just connected in its own way but also disconnect it's a separate area of the ship but at the same time it's not one deck you had to go in for the lounge another deck for the for the Sund deck and then the Lumin and it it was like different ways to access it which is fine but I just didn't feel like it was like inclusive to the retreat in a way I guess it's because I'm in my head comparing it to another Cruise Line and their luxury uh with Hotel within a ship which I think they do really well besides going to Lumin I didn't understand what I was paying $10,000 for yes those extra amenities like the onboard credits the prepaid gratuities I take that all into account and I think that's a great value that was all included I've been looking at rates for certain sailings on the retreat and they are way more than1 $1,000 for similar or even Caribbean cruises and what are you getting rates have gone up I'm not sure if it's the values there and it's nothing that they did wrong they didn't upset me in any way they didn't like I didn't leave their feeling oh this is a terrible Cruise cuz we had a great cruise I loved our creu but I also didn't feel wow this is amazing I would absolutely pay for this again that is extra money that we have to put together to make it happen I love the I love that we experience it but I'm not sure if I'm going to rush to do another Retreat stay if I had to do another sweet stay wouldn't probably be on the celebrity unless I was getting a great deal it has to be a great deal and the stars have to align but I just didn't see the value there's just something missing that personalize touch those little small details and you know when you're expecting a luxury stay that's what you want and apparently you do get some of that if you stay on the higher Suites but $20,000 or more I don't think so I hope you found this video helpful in any way um like I said this is our experience and I just wanted to share but if I missed anything and you have any questions just leave leave it in the comments below or you can join my tasty Cruz's Facebook group um and ask me there

Channel: Tasty Itinerary

Views: 3,342

Keywords: celebrity cruise line, cruise cruise, celebrity beyond, cruise vlog, celebrity the retreat, celebrity beyond retreat, The Retreat, Cruising

Id: RsdS_4Hnysw

Length: 11min 14sec (674 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 17 2024