Celebrity ‘Beyond’ from Miami Dec 2025
I want to preface this review by saying that my spouse and I are a childless couple in our 30s (me) and 40s (him), and we go on 1-2 destination resort vacations per year. We are bougie and typically get swim-up rooms in 5-star luxury resorts, spending on average $2500ish CAD per person. Also husband had never been on a cruise before and was very apprehensive about it, so he went in with very low expectations. I, on the other hand, had been on a Carnival cruise once when I was in university and remembered loving it, so I figured Celebrity was the perfect adult equivalent.
I’d like to share my review because I really enjoyed reading reviews before I booked and hope others might find this helpful or maybe make you reminiscent on your last Beyond cruise.
Port of Miami
We flew into Fort Lauderdale because it was the much cheaper option from Toronto. Driving to the port we had anticipated it being extremely chaotic because I had read a lot of reviews prior. That being said, our Uber driver was crafty and managed to get us from the entrance of the port to our drop off at the entrance of our ship bay within an hour. This does seem extremely inconvenient we seen many people walking with their luggage, but my spouse and I are pretty chill and didn’t mind sitting in traffic playing on our phones.
The building for celebrity itself was dead inside which I found so odd for how chaotic the exterior of the building was. We were about 2 hours earlier than our check-in time but they let us in without question!
Room/Aqua Class
We had the Aqua class room that comes with the highly debated ‘infinite balcony’. My husband was very concerned about feeling trapped in the room and was not sure how he would like the window aspect of the balcony vs an actual balcony, but I must say we absolutely loved it. We brought magnets and would hang out wet bathing suits up near the window to dry as we sailed. We even had it open one night where we were able to fall asleep listening to the sounds of the ocean. The room itself was spacious and my butler was able to get me an acupressure mat.
Aquaclass comes with the Persian Gardens which is the thermal spa. I thought it was really neat and as an added feature in the room class I made use of the spa 5 out of 7 nights. Key word night. It was very busy during the day on sea days but at night when everyone was at dinner or the show I really loved going there to unwind. In comparison to spa’s on resorts it was actually surprisingly large and had lots of seating in the steam rooms and saunas. Unlike a resort there was no pool in the spa which I found unfortunate, but I loved it nonetheless!
Dining & Food
I’ll start this section by saying we are not drinkers and I am a very ‘picky’ eater. We didn’t get any dining packages or drink packages, but we did get a few coffees at Cafe Al Bacio and it was delightful! We didn’t mind paying a few bucks here or there for some drinks, and the buffet had lots of juices, coffee, and tea available at all times.
I found it weird that they advertise that there are ‘dedicated water fill up’ locations on the ship, but we actually couldn’t find one and the staff kept directing us to the water station in the buffet that has a sign specifically saying ‘do not fill up water bottles’. People would fill a cup of water and then pour it into their water bottles. It was interesting but the least of my concerns. As an aquaclass guest we got 2 water bottles a day, and I will say that that was not enough water at all and to purchase a water bottle was $5… so it’s best to bring a refillable bottle and deal with the buffet fill up station!
Speaking of the buffet: wow! I just couldn’t believe the selection. I had a full plate every single meal, and even seconds sometimes. We had MDR once and it was yummy but again as a ‘picky’ eater I found it hard to find things I liked and feel bad asking them to alter my meals. We primarily ate at the buffet because my husband was obsessed with it.
I had high hopes for the elusive Blu restaurant, and honestly, I was really disappointed. We ate at Blu one night and I was shocked at how close together the tables are. We were placed next to another couple and I actually took a photo of the tables because I could only fit 3 fingers between the spaces of our tables. They were great folks and we talked with them throughout the evening, but I felt like we had to! We were literally eating with them. It was very odd.
Additionally, I didn’t find anything on the menu I liked because it was too healthy and fancy, but I knew from my research that you can ask for the master menu that has all the menus, so I was excited for that! I asked for that but they brought me a menu that only had 1 MDR menu. I thought maybe this was the master menu (is it?) so I ended up ordering one of the salads but specifically said ‘no nuts’ and told them I had a tree nut allergy. When they brought our apps my salad was covered in pecans. It was unfortunate because then I felt anxious eating anything from there. I told the waiter and he apologized and took the salad away but he never brought me a new salad or anything. It was weird. Anyway we stuck to the buffet after that and truly have no complaints because it was delicious food!
Entertainment/Pool
I couldn’t get over the shows and the theatre on the ship. The graphics on the stage and the lighting was beautiful. The singers and dancers were phenomenal, the acrobatics were incredible. The shows were packed and I understand why, they blew resort shows out of the water!
The ship also had a lot of other entertainment happening all over and we didn’t get to experience a lot of it because there was so much going on. It was never a dull moment on sea days, but that being said, if you want to go for a swim I’d recommend going early. We couldn’t believe how packed the one outdoor pool was. It was wild. Crawling with people one on top of another! But that being said everyone looked like they were having a great time. And even though the pool area was very busy there was still a lot of little nooks and crannies you could find to sit on a couch and chill out in the sun.
Concerns/Issues
I pretty much just have 2 main points of contention with our cruise, and they actually had nothing to do with the ship or vacation itself, but rather with the people on the ship.
#1: Politics on Display
People were literally wearing their politics on their sleeves and I found it so interesting. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a Canadian and we are less ‘in your face’ about our politics or what, but I would never wear some of the shirts I seen. A few shirts I seen were ‘Ice Cold Conservative’, ‘Gulf of America’, and my personal favourite ‘We Are Charlie Kirk’. The 80+ year old lady wearing the Charlie Kirk shirt was also going around in an American flag hat wearing earrings that had Charlie Kirk’s face on them, and was giving out MAGA stickers. I found it absolutely unhinged and have never seen anything like that before on any of my vacations. Not sure if this is normal cruise attire? I get that there are LGBT meet-ups but we aren’t running around wearing MAKE AMERICAN GAY AGAIN shirts (that’s what I was going to ask her if her stickers meant but she never approached me, must have been my tattoos LOL)
#2 : Parents Letting Kids Run Wild
On numerous occasions we witnessed young children 4-5 years old completely alone wandering the ship. One evening in particular we got on an elevator and there was just a little girl maybe 5 years old on there by herself wearing a little dress with lipstick and fake eyelashes on. My husband couldn’t believe it. She got off in the casino lobby and just walked away like she owned the place, and that was just so troubling.
Both of us also had similar instances in washrooms where young children were completely alone in the bathrooms and then walked off into the busy pool deck or into the buffet to be lost in the crowd. I know we on a higher end cruise line but I think parents need to remember that rich people are just as sick and twisted as anyone else, and people need to keep an eye on their kids. It was unbelievable.
Summary/TLDR
The Celebrity Beyond was amazing and we loved it! My husband got off the cruise not knowing if he liked it better than a resort or not, but now he’s fully bought into the cruise lifestyle! We already have our next one scheduled: Celebrity Xcel December 2026! I can’t wait!!!!
There was so much to do on the ship and the ports were just an added bonus! I didn’t go into the details of the ports because this post is already massive. If you’ve read this far you awesome! Thanks for reading.