Part 1

During our 2024 cruise from Hawaii to Vancouver aboard Celebrity, we booked a Future Cruise on the new Celebrity Ascent for February 2nd to 13th 2026. A few weeks after we got home, I noticed the ship had a different itinerary (and one we love) for its following cruise, the same stateroom was available (so we wouldn’t have to move), so we booked our first back-to-back cruises – 21 days in total on our first Celebrity Edge-Class ship! Given the Winter it turned out to be, sailing in the Caribbean for almost all of February was a great idea.

Our Westjet flight direct from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale, Florida was very pleasant and right on time. As usual, we stayed one night at the Homewood Suites Fort Lauderdale Airport-Cruise Port in Dania Beach. We hadn’t been there in a couple of years, and I observed that it needs a good steam-cleaning, but the staff was cheerful and helpful as usual, the bed was comfy and there was lots of room. For dinner, we ordered Subway sandwiches online, they were delivered to the room by Door Dash, and we got a bottle of wine from the hotel. We were wiped out from traveling so we had a long night’s sleep, enjoyed the complementary breakfast, and took the shuttle from the hotel to the pier. You pre-book it through the hotel when you check in and it’s $20 USD cash each.

Our reserved boarding time was for noon and our only available departure time from the hotel was for 10:30 so we arrived early in the frigid weather. It was about 1C in Fort Lauderdale!! Fortunately, there was lots of seating space inside at the Pier and before we knew it, we were boarding the Ascent. We went off to our room, grabbed our keys, checked for the correctness of all our shore excursion tickets, checked in at our Muster Station, and then went8 to the Concierge Class lunch in Tuscan restaurant. (one of the 4 Main Dining Rooms) All MDR’s are stunning but Tuscan is especially pretty. At that point, our 2 cruises changed from wonderful to fabulous. We met our waiter Mary, who introduced herself as “a little Lamb”, and she was. We learned she was working in Cyprus MDR for every dinner on our cruise, so we just keep going there every night. You can order items from other MDR’s so you don’t have to try them all and experience new wait staff. Each night we were also treated like gold by our main waiter Mark, his assistant Mary, and our Sommelier Jonaris. It was so fun to get to know the team well and they were so helpful and knew our preferences by the 2nd night.

The Celebrity Ascent is a gorgeous ship – the Martini Bar is in the Grand Plaza and is a 3-storey affair. Although we stopped in other bars occasionally, it’s always our favourite. They know how to make a Vesper for Steve, and their Lemon Drop and Bananas Foster martinis are amazing.

Our stateroom was almost Aft-Facing – a large Infinite balcony room, which means you don’t walk out to a balcony, it’s part of your Stateroom, and you push a button on the wall for the top half of the full window to descend, and then it looks like a balcony (see the pic) The window, blackout blind, and room temperature are all controlled by the Celebrity app on your phone- although the AC won’t work if the window is open. Another cool feature is that if the Captain deems it too windy or rainy to have the window open, the button won’t work. Some people don’t like the Infinite Balcony – some love it – I’m in between, and Steve prefers a traditional balcony. What I really liked was having extra space in the room, and having a separate spot to sit and read or gaze at the water, no matter what the weather.

The Celebrity App is also really helpful to make dinner reservations, check menus for meals, what’s going on, and your booked shore excursions are in the calendar. It helps when you’re timing your day around when the hors d’oeuvres are delivered, when certain bars open, and when to get dressed up to go to dinner. There were 2 formal nights on each cruise, although we dressed up more than that – it makes each meal special and we think it’s fun. The meals were fabulous and the service was almost perfect. It was clear to us that this ship hired experienced staff and they were so friendly. Our stateroom attendants were so helpful and were able to get us everything we asked for – extra hangers (not a surprise, right?), towels to take off the ship on excursions, afternoon cheese and fruit plates, and perfect timing of our bottle of champagne per cruise for sailing in Concierge Class. They also clear out the minibar for us, so we have room for our water bottles and chilled wine.

To get it out of the way, I’ll tell you about the only bad thing that happened in the entire 3+ weeks. On Day 2, we decided to go to a sit-down lunch (unusual for us as we tend to have a very late breakfast through Room Service and then skip lunch). We went to the MDR called Cosmopolitan, which was great until dessert. We both ordered the peach and raspberry cobbler, and when it came it had a granola topping. Steve had advised the team about his allergies, including tree nuts. He took the time to confirm there were no nuts in the granola, as it looked to him as though there were. It was unfortunate that the wait staff kept arguing with him about whether or not there were nuts, but they were relying on the incorrect information provided to them by the chef, who didn’t know they had changed granola suppliers. So, Steve knew he was having anaphylaxis after a few bites, and off to the doctor he went. Oddly, the Manager in the Dining Room who took him to the doctor just started walking there (to the other end of the ship, and 2 decks down on the stairs) and kept walking way ahead of Steve, who could have fainted by that time. However, he was treated right away for no charge (of course). They offered a Benadryl IV but eventually went with tablets instead. After a long nap, quick dinner, and a long night’s sleep, he recovered.

The whole experience convinced us that staying in the same MDR for meals where they are religious about his allergies, was the right decision. After 2 days, no one had followed up to see how he was doing, so he shared his experience to anyone he could think of – the most responsive was the Manager (Danesh) in our favourite MDR, Cyprus. We also suggested a good way to compensate was to comp a meal in a specialty restaurant, and minutes later, he returned with an offer of lunch at the Steakhouse, which was the only specialty restaurant we wanted to go to anyway. In the following days, Steve made sure he spoke with Managers and Chefs who did apologize and outline what they would do to make sure the error never happened to anyone else.

After that experience, each night Steve was given the dinner menu for the following night so that he could pre-order, then the Chef would check to make sure his choices did not contain any allergy triggers, and in some cases, they offered to make an item that did not contain any item he’s allergic to – the big ones are tree nuts and sesame. That approach worked out really well and we were so happy with our team at Cyprus. When food and drink are so big a part of the cruise experience, it’s really important to find somewhere that excites you every day and where you truly feel cared for.