I’m getting close to the end (you’re welcome) of the photos from our cruise marathon this past February. I’ve posted three galleries on my Adobe Portfolio page for anyone who just has to see more.

I get a lot of comments about the size of cruise ships, especially from people who have never sailed on one, or sometimes have never even seen one. So I thought I would post some photos and make some comments about this particular ship plus show a brief comparison of ship sizes.

Celebrity Apex is the second ship in what is known as the Edge Class that was introduced in 2018. The first ship of course was Edge (2018), followed by Apex (2020), Beyond (2022) and later this year, Ascent. There may be more in the pipeline but I’m not sure. Edge Class is the latest of three classes of ship, with the exception of some smaller specialty ships that sail exclusively in the Galapagos (they are on our long-term list but are quite pricey).

Cruise ships are generally compared in terms of Gross Tonnage (a measure of volume, not weight), length and passenger count. I’m using Celebrity’s ships for comparison, although there are many other ships with different lines, both larger and smaller.

We don’t usually sail on ships when they are fairly new, because in general they are more pricey than ships that have been out a while. But in this case, we were already in Fort Lauderdale for our first two cruises, so by spreading the travel expenses over another cruise we were able to bring the average cost down. And we got a pretty good price for booking fairly late, and it gave us a chance to try out a ship sooner than we might otherwise.

One of the recent trends among some of the cruise lines is to make the ships larger and larger. Royal Caribbean has the largest ships afloat, and will soon be introducing Icon of the Seas, which will carry 7,600 passengers. I’m sorry, but that is stupid big. Not to say we’ll never sail on her, but when our preference is ships 1/3 of the size, we aren’t going to be standing in line!

What always surprises us is that for the most part, the ships don’t feel crowded. Exceptions are sea days by the pool, and “lobster night” in the main dining rooms. Sometimes there is a special event going on in the central atrium (called different things on different ships) and those can get crowded. Other than that, Kathy & I have developed some routines that get us out and about before the crowds arrive (we call them “the nooners” although I’m aware that term has several meanings. 😉 ). There are often out of the way places where it is quiet and uncrowded, although that also means we have to walk a way to the bathrooms and retrieve our own drinks. 🙂

The great thing about newer ships, however, is that the decor and architecture are beautiful. The layout, styling and technology have come a long way since we started cruising in 2000. There are more dining choices, more entertainment options, the theaters have new technologies and even the staterooms have fancy gadgets like temperature and lighting controls. It’s even possible to adjust the shades, lighting and temperature of a stateroom using an app, from anywhere on the ship. Not terribly useful, but there are cases where it might be.

There were things we loved about Apex, and a few things that we didn’t care for. I won’t go into a lot of detail here, but overall we liked the ship, but for our money we prefer the smaller and slightly older Solstice Class like Equinox that we sailed on for the first two cruises.