Is The Food On Celebrity Cruises Really That Good? | Celebrity Apex

celebrity cruises has a long-standing reputation in the cruise industry for having elevated food and dining we just spent a week aboard celebrity apex does the food and dining really live up to that reputation well let's find out [Music] hello cruisers and welcome to another cruise report food and dining review in this video we're going to give you our honest opinion of the food and dining on celebrity apex we spent seven days and nights on apex exploring as many dining venues as our time and our stomachs would allow even though we were hosted by celebrity cruises on this sailing celebrity is not sponsoring this video and no money has exchanged hands also with only one exception all of the specialty dining venues that we experienced on board we paid for i will tell you what we liked about the food and what we didn't like so let's get started when watching reviews on youtube it's helpful to know and understand the background of the reviewer we see and review things from the perspective of an adult couple traveling alone we usually try to dine as a couple rarely joining a group unless we're invited to do so and when it comes to food i'm much more adventurous than ricky is i enjoy a variety of exotic cuisines whereas ricky's tastes are more simple for example i love indian food and the hotter and the spicier the better by comparison ricky would much rather have meatloaf and mashed potatoes and neither of us is really big on seafood but we will try it on occasion we rarely eat breakfast together ricky is not usually an early riser and the mornings are when i get the majority of my work done so i usually just drink coffee our sailing on celebrity apex was our 134th cruise in the past 20 years so having dined on more than a hundred different ships across 39 different cruise lines and i'm talking about everything from six star luxury cruise ships to river cruises and even small ships with only 18 guests we have a pretty good sense of what cruise ship dining can and should be i always preface our food and dining reviews by stating that food reviews are extremely subjective everyone has different tastes with different likes and dislikes so if there's something that we don't like you can bet there are probably others out there who will say they loved it now with that in mind let's start our personal food tour of celebrity apex also i want to encourage you to watch this video to the very end where i'm going to reveal the single best dish i ate during the week on celebrity apex and i think you're going to be pretty surprised at my number one pick ocean view cafe is celebrities lido buffet the port side of the ocean view with the tall floor-to-ceiling windows is our favorite place to sit if you enjoy dining al fresco you can take your meal all the way to the back of ocean view where you'll find some outdoor seating the serving stations at ocean view are set up as individual islands so rather than everyone lining up in one long serving line cafeteria style if you're interested in say a salad you simply walk up to the salad island if you want a sandwich there's a sandwich island and so forth we prefer this style of buffet dining also all of the food is served by crew members so guests are not grabbing utensils and serving themselves which we always found to be a little gross we avoid self-serve buffets altogether ocean view cafe is open for breakfast lunch and dinner every day our breakfast and lunch selections are pretty massive you can get anything you could ever want from breakfast made to order eggs omelettes sausages hash browns potatoes waffles pancakes fruit and some incredible pastries now i'm not a big breakfast eater but i did take a walk through ocean view cafe one morning and i was quite impressed i did have the coffee there early one morning while i was working on my blog and i found the coffee to be quite good there are coffee and drink stations on both the port and starboard sides of ocean view cafe as well as in the aft area and we did have lunch here on two occasions and the selections for lunch were as good or better than we've seen on any cruise ship the bakery has some of the best baguettes and other specialty breads you'll find anywhere seafood lovers are going to love the huge paella and there's a station with asian specialties from india china thailand indonesia almost every day in fact i think it is every day i tried the lamb rogan ghost which was very flavorful but it kind of lacked the heat that i like in indian food still it was very good if you want pizza celebrity makes you walk all the way to the back you'll find the pizza at the back side of ocean view cafe in its own little area now the pies are made fresh throughout the day or you can order one custom made and while i don't think it's the best pizza i've had on a cruise ship i will say they have the best selection of toppings and they offer some really creative combinations most cruise ships will offer maybe a cheese pizza pepperoni maybe a mushroom but celebrity offers a wide variety of meat and vegetable toppings they also have a calzone that looks really good waiters are in hand throughout ocean view cafe to take drink orders and it should be noted that celebrity is on team coke with coke products on offer yes ricky and i don't drink pepsi are you on team coke or team pepsi let me know in the comments down below one day at lunch while perusing what was available at the different stations i happened to see this huge serving pan of braised oxtail and it was the most tender delicious succulent fall apart meat i think i've ever eaten now you have to work your way through a lot of fat and bone to get to the meat but it was well worth the effort i had to go back for seconds and thirds and i don't know maybe even fourths honestly i don't remember it was that good i have no doubt that you could dine at ocean view for lunch every day of the cruise and never get tired of it i would venture to say ocean view cafe is in the top three cruise ship buffets we've ever experienced in 134 cruises and don't forget to stop by scoops on your way out of ocean view cafe for some hand-dipped ice cream gelato sorbet or cookies ricky spent quite a bit of quality time each day at scoops main dining is made up of four distinct restaurants each with its own decor theme and menu on deck 3 aft is tuscan which is an italian-themed restaurant situated right next door to normandy which is a french-inspired restaurant if you walk up one deck to deck four you'll find cosmopolitan an american style restaurant which happens to be right next door to cyprus a greek themed restaurant and each of these four restaurants share a menu of celebrity classics along with menu items that change each evening and on days at sea one of the four main dining restaurants was open for breakfast and lunch and all four are open for dinner each evening i think about 5 45 to 9 p.m now we only dined in main dining on the last night of our cruise and we chose cyprus our waiter christian and his assistant abdul were excellent we started our meal with one of the celebrity signature offerings cream of wild forest mushroom soup which was as good as we've had anywhere in fact i mentioned in my blog that if this soup had been served in a bread bowl i would have mistaken it for the cream of mushroom soup served at prego on crystal cruises which is very high praise i also ordered a crispy thai beef spring roll which was a little greasy and overall just okay i probably wouldn't order that again but ricky and i shared an order of the hot melted cheese saganaki it's kind of a cypress exclusive dish and basically this is a dish of melted cheese i'd say about the consistency of mozzarella but with more flavor and you basically just dip out this melted cheese with a crostini and i found it to be delicious ricky wasn't as big a fan of it as i was but i love melted cheese but now for our main courses ricky ordered the greek style grilled sea bass from the cypress menu which was beautifully prepared and presented i on the other hand had something a little more exotic in mind and this is where our main dining story gets interesting a couple of days earlier i mentioned to our butler anand that i would really enjoy a hot and spicy indian meal and asked if it would be possible to have something made special on our last evening he said he'd get back to me and later that afternoon he said that they would be preparing an indian dish for me the last night of the cruise now when they brought out my special order i was pretty impressed on one plate i had a bowl of pork vindaloo and another bowl there was chicken tikka masala and a third bold held this beautiful basmati rice they also delivered a plate of vegetable pakora which consists of a spicy battered deep fried potato with some excellent mint chutney now both the pork and the chicken dishes had beads of sweat forming on my forehead after just a few bites i should mention that they have indian dishes every day at ocean view cafe and while they're very good they really kind of tame down the spice level to typical wimpy american taste buds in fact the chef asked our butler if he was sure i wanted it to be hot and spicy i guess cruise ships must get complaints from guests if dishes are too spicy that's a complaint they're never going to get from me the pacora the chicken tikka and the pork vindaloo were all excellent however it was way more food than any one person could finish i was pretty impressed with how celebrity was able to deal with a special request on such a large ship the mast grill is the ship's pool grill located on deck 14 just forward of the pool and next to the magic carpet this is the spot where you can grab a hamburger cheeseburger turkey burger or a hot dog with or without fries they have all the condiments you could ever want to have on your burger or hot dog there are tables where you can sit and enjoy your lunch or you can carry your plates into magic carpet which is what we did so let's rate the cheeseburger here and compare it to other cruise line burgers well first of all the bun was fresh and toasted the tomato and onions were also fresh and very crisp the meat patty was thick nicely cooked and flavorful although maybe a little bit overcooked for my liking they did not cook the burger to order but they did melt the cheese on top all in all i'd say it's in the top three burgers i've had on a cruise ship and i would definitely have another one the fries were served hot and fresh and crisp and were very good and ricky seemed to enjoy her hot dog too but was not a fan of the sauerkraut so in our opinion mast grill will get two thumbs up now i'm just getting started on my review of celebrity apex food and dining i still have six specialty dining venues to tell you about and more but before i get too far along i would like to ask you a favor if you're enjoying this video so far and you're passionate about cruise travel please join our international family of cruise enthusiasts by clicking the subscribe button and that little notification bell it costs absolutely nothing to subscribe to this channel and youtube will notify you when we come out with other informative videos like this one okay let's get back to the show the first specialty dining venue that we visited was eden restaurant on deck 4 aft well now we had pre-booked our reservation at eden the week before the cruise and the only reservation available was the evening of embarkation we booked the reservation through the celebrity website which by the way is very easy to use and very well designed we arrived at eden just before sunset and were seated at an aft table with this amazing view of the sunset and the wake of the ship the menu at eden is very eclectic with a variety of creative dishes from all over the world the three-course meal begins with a choice of an appetizer and a main course there are eight appetizers from which to choose and eight main courses ricky chose the bizarre bowl as her appetizer and i chose the mulgatani soup after having watched a video where another youtuber raved about how good it was we were also visited by the wine steward who was able to find us the perfect german riesling to go with our meal a wine we would come to enjoy throughout the week ricky's bizarre bowl was a mix of beets cucumber and almonds on top of chilled yogurt and my mulgatani soup was a rich fragrant broth but it again lacked that heat that you expect from an indian inspired dish nevertheless it was very good very soothing now this is a soup that should definitely be enjoyed during cold weather sailings but when our plates were cleared our waiter mohammed asked me how i liked the soup and i told him it was delicious but that i had hoped it would have more spice and more heat a few moments later he returned to our table with a small dish of thinly sliced thai chilies floating in like a sweet vinegar sauce for me to enjoy with my main course he had mentioned this to the chef that i enjoyed spicy food and the chef prepared the condiment just for me now that's an impressive attention to detail for our main courses ricky ordered the pan seared corvina which is a sea bass that was served to top vegetables with a seasoned lemon olive oil and sea salt i almost ordered the nova scotia lobster casserole which has received rave reviews online but instead i opted for the filet mignon with the mini short rib wellington and it was an excellent choice the filet was perfectly cooked medium as i ordered but the mini short rib wellington a small pastry filled with delicious tender braised short rib was really the star of the plate and of course in between every bite i'm partaking of these super hot sweet thai chilies we were already stuffed when the dessert menu came but we felt it was necessary to you know soldier on power through and we both tried the s tekka chocolate pie this super rich dark chocolate pie was served with a quinnell of horchata ice cream on top of a cookie crumble the dessert was delicious and it was the perfect ending to a great meal so is eden really worth 55 dollars per person for that additional cost well personally i would rate the food as an 8 out of 10 to service a 10 out of 10 and the atmosphere also 10 out of 10 especially if you can snag one of the aft tables by the window now fifty dollar five dollars does put eden at the top of the cruise line specialty dining prices but i would say yeah it's definitely worth the price also you might consider purchasing one of the celebrities specialty dining packages will give you a discount on those restaurant prices and there's also an eden cafe which is open for lunch but we didn't have the opportunity to try in fact we didn't know it was there until after we got home so if you've dined at eden cafe please put your thoughts in the comments below the second specialty restaurant that we had the opportunity to try was la petite chef and friends which also comes with a 55 dollar per person up charge and this was one specialty dining that ricky really wanted to experience so we reserved it for my birthday dinner la petite chef and friends is offered each evening inside the legrand bistro on deck five the table tops have been changed to completely white and they sort of become screens for these overhead projectors the four course meal is divided into the four seasons spring is the soup course summer is a pasta course fall is an entree and winter is dessert and even though the menu is a set menu they do have an option alternate choice for each of the different seasons or courses before each course is served the table just comes alive with an animated story of how the course is being prepared even your dinner plate becomes part of the show and at just the right time when the course appears in cartoon form on your plate your waiter arrives with the exact same course it's a very clever way to combine technology with a culinary journey and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience and highly recommend it again i would rate the food an 8 out of 10. service 10 out of 10 and a solid 10 for creativity and uniqueness le petit chef and friends is one of the most unique and enjoyable dining experiences i think we've ever had on a cruise ship or anywhere for that matter it is a must try and it's definitely worth the 55 charge we debated whether or not to dine at raw on five since neither one of us is really big on seafood however we do like sushi and since that's on the menu we decided to see if our butler anand could maybe get us a table at raw on five once again anon came through for us god is a table in fact he even came to our suite before dinner the night of our reservation and escorted us to the restaurant raw on five is an a la carte restaurant with pricing shown on the menu and the prices are i'd say comparable to what you'd find at a local sushi restaurant and after we placed our order our waiter brought over a tempura battered and fried calamari a moose bouche for us to share which was the most interesting preparation of calamari i've ever seen and honestly neither ricky nor i would ever order calamari it's just not our thing but when i tried this it was nothing like calamari i've had in the past instead of the rubbery and chewy little rubber bands this culinary was tender and light and absolutely delicious especially with the thai sweet chili dipping sauce we ordered the edamame appetizer to share between us which was also very good i also ordered the pork belly skewers which came slathered in this sweet honey mustard glaze they were good ricky had a california roll which she quickly devoured i had the spicy tuna roll which was excellent but the real surprise of the meal was the spicy shrimp stir-fry that ricky ordered the menu says nothing about pasta being in this dish but this was a huge bowl filled with thick udon noodles in one of the best spicy savory and slightly sweet sauces we've ever had the shrimp were perfectly cooked and the pasta i mean it was just it was out of this world it was one of the best dishes of the entire cruise now our total bill at raw on five came out to about forty dollars plus we added a ten dollar tip our dinner here was the biggest surprise of the cruise and a pleasant one we would definitely return to raw on five and we can highly recommend it if the idea of being transported from a cruise ship to a small intimate french cafe interests you then you need to plan at least one lunch at le grand bistro on deck 4. on our visit there were only two other tables of diners so it was peaceful and very nice now lunch here will add twenty dollars per person to your shipboard account but i can honestly say it is well worth it the menu is filled with french delicacies i would warn you that the portions here are substantial ricky ordered the frise lardon salad i'm not sure if i'm saying that right in case you're like us and you have no idea what lardon is it's bacon or on this salad actually was these big chunks of smoked pork belly the salad was topped with a perfectly poached egg she also ordered a soup with a french name i cannot pronounce but basically it was french onion soup and for her main course she ordered a ham and cheese baguette sandwich i mean that sounds like a reasonable lunch doesn't it i ordered a crepe from the starter menu filled with roasted garlic cream a bowl of lobster bisque and for my main i ordered the steak frites ricky's salad is a thumbs up my garlic cream-filled crepe was sort of meh i wouldn't order it again didn't have much flavor ricky's soup it was a huge bowl of piping hot broth crusted on top with tons of cheese a crouton and packed with big sweet onions big thumbs up from ricky on that one my lobster bisque came with this huge puff pastry on top the size of my head and you ought to see my head you should order this just for the pastry the bisque was one of the best lobster bisques i've ever had certainly in the top three had there just been a few more chunks of lobster meat in the broth it would have easily been number one all-time favorite best lobster bisque you know what now i'm just sitting here thinking and remembering how good that soup really was and with that puff pastry on top yeah i guess i'm just going to have to go ahead and say it might be the best lobster bisque i've ever had unfortunately by the time ricky and i had finished our soup course we were both feeling full what i'm leaving out is that our waiter kept bringing us pieces of fresh baguette which as any texan would do we slathered in butter put a little salt on it and we consumed it as fast as he could bring it the breads they serve here are insanely delicious the problem is all that bread along with the soups and the salad and the crepe were starting to take their toll on our appetite so by the time our main courses arrived we knew this was going to be a struggle ricky was only able to get halfway through her ham and cheese sandwich and likewise i was only able to make it halfway through my steak which was topped with herb butter which by the way was perfectly cooked and delicious and again the french fries were hot and crispy a thumbs up on both main courses needless to say the dessert was out of the question which is a shame because i really had my eye on that almond croissant it was this big damn gotta go back celebrity you owe me a dessert at le grand bistro in our opinion le grand bistro is a real treasure and well worth that twenty dollar cover charge this is another one of those restaurants i was a little hesitant to try but trust me on this have lunch here and you won't regret it but do it early in your cruise because you might want to do it again a second time before the end of the cruise and also as soon as you get on the ship check out the daily specials at le grand bistro on their menu because if i had done so we would have had lunch here on tuesday when they featured rack of lamb on our next to last evening on board apex we had a reservation to dine at rooftop garden grill which is located on deck 15 aft first of all this is one of the most beautiful spaces on any cruise ship with all this live foliage surrounding the restaurant the menu here sort of leans towards barbecue but there are some other offerings like burgers steaks seafood etc now it costs 45 dollars per person to dine here and you need to make your reservations early preferably online before you embark ricky ordered the caprese salad which was filled with cherry tomatoes buffalo mozzarella basil and drizzled with olive oil and balsamic glaze it looked and tasted delicious i've never seen a caprese salad done with cherry tomatoes and i think it's a great technique i ordered the caesar salad which consisted of perfectly dressed fresh romaine lettuce shaved parmesan and crustini croutons the caesar dressing applied to this salad is exactly as it should be tart and savory not sweet like you get on a lot of cruise ships i also ordered the smoked chicken wings which are offered wet or dry now i asked the waiter if i could get half and half so that way i could try both and he happily complied the wet wings come tossed in a hot spicy buffalo sauce which is usually not my favorite but the dry come with a spice rub that i absolutely loved i instantly gravitated toward the dry rub and for my main course i ordered a half rack of mesquite baby back ribs with the dry rub making sure to ask the waiter if it was the same dry rub used on the wings which he assured me that it was ricky ordered the pulled pork slider trio as her main course even though technically it's an appetizer we also each ordered a side order of the cream corn which i absolutely loved i wish now we'd tried the mac and cheese so what is our review of rooftop garden grill again two thumbs up i think the cost dying here might be a little high at forty five dollars per person i can't recall ever paying ninety dollars for ricky and i to eat barbecue of course you could order a ribeye steak or lamb chops and the ribs but that's a lot of food of course when i was in my 30s i probably could have eaten the 45 worth of food here come to think of it so unless you have a big appetite skip lunch the day you have a reservation at rooftop garden would we pay 45 to dine here again yeah we would the atmosphere alone is probably worth the price luminae is a restaurant reserved for guests of the retreat what is the retreat you ask well the retreat is an area of the ship reserved for sweet guests so if you book a sky suite or above you're automatically a guest of the retreat i'll go into more detail about the retreat and all the benefits in a future video but for now let's talk about luminae the restaurant is located on deck 12 forward and it's one of the most beautifully decorated spaces on the ship in fact you feel really special just when you walk into illuminae like you're entering a five-star restaurant luminaire was open for breakfast and dinner every day of our cruise and it was open for lunch on sea days we dined here for breakfast twice and lunch twice we did not dine here for dinner i'll explain why in a moment that we did not end up eating at luminae for dinner the breakfast menu here is the same each day and it offers anything you could want impeccable table service my typical breakfast is two eggs over meat pretty simple you know two eggs over medium english-backed bacon corned beef hash ricky's favorite is eggs benedict which they do offer three different ways on two of the days ricky and i shared a banana and strawberry belgian waffle which was actually two belgian waffles stacked on top of each other bananas on the first one strawberries on the second one served with this incredible whipped cream and maple syrup it's really good the lunch and dinner menus change here every day so in theory you could dine here for dinner every evening of the cruise the lunch and dinner menus are not extensive but for lunch you can always order the luminae signature burger which i did on both visits and what makes the signature burger so special in my opinion is the brioche bun and of course those truffle fries now on my first visit the fries were barely warm but on the second visit the fries were perfect and if you like the flavor of truffle you're gonna love these fries now ricky enjoyed the steak frites and the split pea soup basically everything we had at luminae was very good and it's a huge value add for guests of the retreat if you enjoy table service rather than buffet style and you're a retreat guest you'll find yourself dining here quite often the atmosphere is peaceful comfortable and the service is next level i mentioned that we never dined here for dinner and part of the reason was that with only seven nights we had a lot of specialty dining venues to cover for our blog and these videos however there were a couple of evenings where we did look over the dinner menu at luminae and honestly we just didn't find anything on the menu that appealed to us as i said earlier the lunch and dinner menus are somewhat limited i'm sure they probably would have prepared a steak or a chicken dish for us or pasta but we you know we didn't put that to the test that's on us craft social is one of the venues that we did not have an opportunity to try in fact due to my lackluster research before we left for the ship i didn't even know they served pub food here in the evenings all i had to do was look on the celebrity app and i would have seen it craft social is a i call it a sports bar slash pub it has a variety of craft beers on tap and a nice pub food menu i learned later we will definitely try this in the future another specialty dining venue that we did not try was the prime cut steakhouse located on deck 5. during our cruise i heard overheard another guest one day who had dined there the night before claimed it was excellent the best steak she'd ever had so journalistic integrity demands another edge class cruise so we can put prime cut to the test based on our experience in the other specialty dining menus i can't imagine that prime cub would be anything less than excellent but i can't say for sure so you'll have to wait for our next celebrity review another restaurant we did not have the opportunity to try was blue this is a private dining room exclusive to aqua class guests now we did walk by blue a couple of evenings and i gotta say it's one of the most beautiful restaurants on the ship really really cool the last dining option i'm going to talk about is the room service celebrity actually offers a very nice in-room dining menu for sweet guests i'm not sure what they offer for the other guests but this was a pretty extensive menu a lot of stuff on that menu anything you want for breakfast lots of choices for lunch and dinner now we didn't have the chance to try room service but you can bet we will on our next edge class cruise you notice how i keep saying our next edge class cruise hint hint so overall how does the food and dining on celebrity apex compare to other cruise ships or cruise lines in the premium space well in the past two years i've sailed on holland america princess carnival msc viking ocean and silver sea and maybe region i don't know if it may be more than two years ago there are cruise lines that we always look forward to sailing with again primarily because we know the food and dining is going to be amazing now there's other cruise lines that we look forward to but for other reasons we know the food's going to be okay but it could be average but there's other things that we like about the cruise line or the ship well celebrity falls into the first category we know that when we sail on celebrity again that the food and dining are going to be one of the things we're really going to be looking forward to and that that food and dining experience is going to be excellent now i opened this video by stating that celebrity has a long-standing reputation for elevated food and dining and after our week on board celebrity apex i'm going to have to say that celebrity has earned that reputation one of the best buffets at sea an excellent choice of specialty dining venues luminae for guests of the retreat a pretty darn good cheeseburger hey it's important to get the little things right a very innovative concept for main dining and i'd have to say near perfect service in every single venue that we tried you wrap all that up and what you have is a cruise ship next level dining if you've sailed on celebrity apex or celebrity edge and depending on when you watch this video maybe even celebrity beyond please take a moment to share your thoughts on the food and dining in the comment section below we read every single comment and would love to read your thoughts oh wait a minute i told you that if you watched to the very end i would reveal the one single best dish that i enjoyed during the entire cruise well this one's gonna surprise you it was a pretty tough choice because i enjoyed so many excellent dishes during the cruise i mean the indian specialty meal that our butler arranged for me at cypress that spicy shrimp stir fry at raw on five the beef short rib wellington at eden restaurant the amazing lobster bisque at le grand bistro but i have to say my absolute favorite dish on celebrity apex was roll please it was the braised oxtail at ocean view cafe yes the buffet had my best dish of the week can you believe that i went back four times for more of the braised oxtail okay i'm finished thanks for watching don't forget to subscribe if you've not done so already more apex videos coming soon on the sky suite and the retreat and as always we wish you smooth sailing you

Channel: CruiseReport

Views: 52,551

Keywords: cruise review, cruisereport, chris dikmen, caribbean cruise, cruise, cruise travel, luxury cruise, cruise photography, travel, travel photography, cruise line, cruise ship, cruise ship review, cypress, cruise vlog, cruise blog, cruise blogger, cruise vlogger, cruise with ben and david, la lido loco, cruise with, celebrity cruises, celebrity apex, celebrity edge, celebrity beyond, celebrity cruises dining, celebrity cruises food

Id: oKs7dBKK3JM

Length: 40min 42sec (2442 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 12 2022