Jan 16

Jan 16 Day Two - A Day At Sea

Today, Celebrity Apex is sailing toward the island of St. Kitts, which will be our first port-of-call on this itinerary. Just prior to boarding, we learned that our original itinerary which was scheduled to make a port call in San Juan, Puerto Rico, had been modified. Apparently, the powers-to-be in PR think they can outsmart a virus by restricting cruise ships from docking there. I am sure that there may be some people on board who will be disappointed at missing a visit to Puerto Rico, but if you are going to cruise during a pandemic, you have to expect changes and be flexible with your plans.

My day started with coffee and blogging at Oceanview Cafe just as the sun is beginning to rise. The drip coffee machines are available 24 hours a day and the coffee is decent.

As Oceanview Cafe began to fill with breakfast diners, I decide to move my blogging duties to The Retreat Lounge which is reserved for suite guests. It is much more peaceful here and a great place to get some work done.

Once my blogging was complete, Rickee and I decided to try our hand at Trivia which was being held in The Club.

While we did not win at Trivia, we did get 11 out of 15 questions correctly answered and only missed winning by one answer. For lunch today, we wanted to try Luminae, the private dining room reserved for suite guests.

*Rickee checks out the lunch menu at Luminae*

We were informed that the menu at Luminae changes every day and there are some suite guests who dine exclusively at Luminae. The dining room is beautiful and much larger than we expected. I ordered the signature Luminae Cheeseburger with Truffle Fries. My burger was cooked perfectly to order and was quite good. The truffle fries were good, but were not hot. Had they been right out of the fryer, they would have been perfect.

*The Luminae Signature Cheeseburger with Truffle Fries*

We will go into more detail about dining at Luminae in our Apex Dining Review video which will be posted to our YouTube channel at the conclusion of this sailing.

After lunch, we thought it might be a good idea to burn off some of the calories with a walk around the pool deck. There is a very unique walking/jogging track on Decks 14 and 15. The track slopes up and down between the decks and has quite a few twists and turns. Unfortunately, it was so windy on the outer decks that it was all I could do to keep my cap from blowing off my head! When we reached the Sunset Bar (Deck 15 aft) we decided to take a break and enjoy the view of the ocean.

For dinner this evening, we had a reservation at Le Petit Chef & Family. This was one of the most unique dining experiences we have ever had. The multi-course set menu is served on tables that become animated with cartoon characters who prepare each course. It is really well-conceived and a dining experience everyone sailing on Apex should try at least once.

*One of the animations at LE Petit Chef & Family*

After dinner, we had just enough time to get to the theater for this evening’s performance by Brianna Faulk. Ms. Faulk was one of the top 40 finalists on American Idol and she performed a tribute to Tina Turner. The show was very good, although the theater for the second show was less than half full.