MichelleB1234

Another vote for Josh Crothers from MEI.
He has been very responsive!

As mentioned above... their groups rates will save you money, plus the OBC you mentioned.

Access to group rates is where the TA can save you money. If you're booking insides or balconies for 2, there may be a group rate set up already for your sailing if you work with a TA that is part of a larger consortium. This is where you could see significant savings if you are booking more than 120 days out (before the group blocks have to be given back).

The prices I have been quoted from Josh have always been lower and refundable!!!  He also includes OBC.  No, I do not book suites (I’m considered…at least by this blog community…as a “Poor”) but I always book OV Balcs.  Also…The refundable price is typically lower than the non refundable price!

I recently began using Josh from MEI.  Have no regrets.
https://mei-travel.com/josh.crothers

Boy, if you want to get off the ship the fastest, self assist is always the way to go. Also a great way to see who is under the age of 60 on board. I think every one of us youngsters were self-assisted this morning and it was quite a crowd. But it was honestly about a 15 minute process from the time I hit deck five to the time I was looking for a taxi. 
 
A few random thoughts about Ascent.
 
-no need to go over again what a beautiful ship it is, I think I've covered that. 😊
-wonderful staff. Top-notch.
-I like the infinite veranda. It does tend to be a warm space during the day and I found that closing the blinds if I'm leaving the room for a while really helps.
-Love love love the touchless public restroom doors. Everybody in the world needs to have these everywhere.
-Love the smokeless casino and the absence of a stink cloud on Deck 4.
-that film crew was a nuisance, but I do look forward to seeing the ads that come out of it. I do think that the actors they used were much younger than average demographic on the particular sailing I was on. 
-Super entertainment. Nothing competes with the Aqua Show or the Ice  show, these are very different forms of entertainment and what they offered on this ship was really terrific. 

-people are people wherever you go. Doesn't matter the cruise line, there's always going to be a small chunk of your fellow passengers who are rude, cut in line, are mean to the staff, and don't wash their hands before coming to the buffet, or talk through a whole live performance.
-I got the sense that most of the people on board were seasoned Celebrity cruisers and were there to revel in what they know and are familiar with and expect and enjoy. Oasis felt like a larger mix of newbies. 
-The two ships I used were very different from each other and not even in the same space to compare. I enjoyed different things about both ships. Ascent was obviously a newer, flashy, more refined and elegant and clean-looking ship. Less to "do", (depending on what you like to do with your cruise ) but very very classy.
 
looking forward to reading about others experiences on both of these ships in the future. 😊
 
and now home to family ❤️ and my cat 🐱 ❤️

I did a morning stretch class on the rooftop garden with everybody, had a massage, and just noodled away the day. Packed up and ready to go home tomorrow. I heard somewhere a warning that Fort Lauderdale port area is going to be exceptionally crowded tomorrow because there are so many large ships coming in at the same time with disembarkation and new people and embarking. Shouldn't be an issue for me as I plan to be off the ship with self assist by 7:30 and my flight isn't until noon.
 
When I began this blog, I thought I would probably wrap up by comparing Oasis to Ascent. I can see now that's pointless. They are not targeted for the same audience and it's comparing apples to oranges. It really comes down to which ship is right for me and which type of cruising experience is right for me, you can't go wrong with either ship. As I said, this ship is magnificent, brand new, has a much different more upscale and resort feel to it then I have experienced before. But it's not upscale to the point where it feels like I'm in a whole other world. It's just classy. There is a much different vibe on here than Oasis, of course, a much different demographic of age groups, a much different focus. The crowd aboard this ship wants to do different things with their time than the majority of people on Oasis want to do with their time. The people here have come for fine dining, cocktails, dressing up for dinner, dancing at night with a live band, and day-drinking the hours away by the pool. Nobody is here because they're dying to go to the Caribbean or ride a waterslide or stand in line for the aqua show. (Or spend time with kids or grandkids. So few kids on this ship!) 
 
Because so many folks are in the same age bracket here (over 75) there are a lot of friendships being struck up, lots of long conversations in hot tubs and by the pool. The crowd seems more social here than I am used to.
 
I would estimate the entire cruise crowd to be 75% over the age of 50, with most of that group over the age of 75.
 
Across-the-board, the staff has been wonderful. So engaged, so friendly, you can see they're working like crazy, but they are so bright eyed and cheerful and friendly and helpful.
 
Anyway, I'm going to reflect on a few things before I offer any final thoughts on the subject, and I may or may not have much to add as far as anything helpful or insightful to people considering either ship. Thanks for hanging in there with me on my two week journey, it went off the rails a little bit healthwise this past week but nothing terrible. 😊
 
It's been a lot of fun and I am so glad I tried out this particular ship. I think I have a good feel for what Celebrity is like now and what to expect. And I would not hesitate to sail with them again.  Of course the Ascent has set the bar very high and it would be hard to picture trying out one of their smaller ships now at this point. lots to love here. 
 
 

Anyway, it was a day of high activity on the pool deck. This was the busiest I've seen the pool deck all week. Every single chair was taken on the pool deck, even in the shaded surrounding stretches, and also every chair up on the sundeck was taken as well. People really really spent the day outdoors today And even though I'm by myself I would've been hard-pressed to find a lounge chair if I wanted one. 
 
At one point they had a dance class on the pool deck and it was just an absolute mob. Shoulder to shoulder people bobbing and weaving.
 
They moved the magic carpet down to deck five today so it was practically sitting on the water, they timed it so you could sit out there and watch the sunset and we just happened to have a glorious sunset. I went up to Sunset bar and True to its name, it was the perfect location to watch the sun sink into the ocean. It was packed of course and lots of people lining the rails to take pictures of themselves or selfies or couple shots with the sun in the background. Really nice. 

Ok. I just went down to the coffee shop on deck four, Cafe Biaco, my most favorite place for grabbing endless bottles of water and cookies and coffees twice a day. I've been there many times for tea. They have a huge seating area and I'm often getting tea and sitting around. So I just went down there tonight and they just smiled and said, Hello Miss Kelly. Without even looking at my sea pass card. So now I feel a little choked up about that. They are most definitely some of the hardest working people on the ship, that place never stops. And I did not see much in the way of tipping all week over there.
 
Well. Lots to tell for the last day. For one thing, lunch turned out to be a huge big grand surprise at the Oceanview buffet today. It was a gigantic seafood spread, I mean there was shrimp and boiled crayfish as far as the eye could see. Row after row after row of boiled shrimp and boiled bright red crayfish. Plenty of other things as well like salad and fruit and bread and grilled meats, but oh my goodness the seafood. Not in the least appealing for a vegetarian, but everybody else was excited.
 
The other big surprise at lunch was the dessert bar. Naturally they always have a huge selection of colorful desserts. And then throughout the week at the coffee shop downstairs, they always have three cakes of the day. Each day they have three different cakes and you can go up to the coffee shop and get a complimentary slice. These are the most amazing looking cakes, super tall and super shiny and very well decorated. They don't look normal at all, they look like works of art. So every day it's interesting to go see which three cakes of the day are available. Well today at the lunch buffet along with all of that seafood, they had every single cake they make laid out in a long row along the dessert buffet. It was the most colorful and beautiful thing you can imagine. And of course I did not have my phone with me so I wasn't able to get a photo. I came back later and the whole thing was destroyed, so you'll just have to take my word for it. It was amazing. (I have one photo of one cake I took earlier in the week I will share here. )
 
And then while everybody was sitting around stuffing their face, all of the chefs from top chef to Assistant chef on down came marching through the dining room. And the officers came behind them clapping and encouraging us to clap as well, which we all did. There was a thunderous round of applause for these hard-working folks and it was so fun. 

My favorite place up top by far is the rooftop garden. Just an amazing wonderful space. So relaxing and for some reason it never feels crowded. Part of the day the huge open space is used for pickle ball but they take the net down after a little while and it's mostly open. They have stretch class here in the morning, and they show movies outdoors. So fun.

One area I've barely talked about is Eden. This is a large part of what is offered on the ship for lounging, snack-dining, a bar, and entertainment. It is at the back of the ship, and it's reminiscent of the 270 on Odyssey.
 
Huge two-story high windows looking out at the back of the ship at the water. Lots of interesting and varied seating, lots of natural light. There's a small café here that's open a couple of times a day for very limited choices on breakfast and lunch, mostly little snack sandwiches and desserts. They have activities here all day long and into the evening. Lots of crafts here like macramé, Paracord bracelets, sketching. They have had some live music in the evenings here, they usually have a piano player. They have put on a couple of actual performances with some sort of acrobatics and music here late at night a couple of times this week but I haven't made it down there to see them, I am usually in bed by then. 😅
 
This is a gorgeous area and the perfect place to go if you want to read and have some sunlight and not be outside. But for some reason, I just don't click with this area at all. It is absolutely gorgeous and I'm not sure why, but I don't especially care for it as far as spending time there. I have tried it out several times and I end up leaving after a few minutes. But to each his own. There is not a thing wrong with this area, it's lovely.
 
My favorite areas have been The Club, the coffee lounge area on deck four, (Cafe Bacio)---that has huge amount of seating and I've spent quite a bit of time hanging out there with a coffee just looking out the window or listening to live music from the plaza. And just hanging around the plaza area in general is fun. Especially in the evening. They always have live music, there's a huge crowd out on the dance floor and some of those older couples really and truly do ballroom type dancing, and the guys at the Martini bar are amazing. They do all kinds of tricks with their glasses and shakers and pours. 
 
pictures of Eden 

Our final day!
 
I came up top to the pool deck at 6 AM while it was still pitch black. I wanted to watch the sunrise from the sunset bar area. That area was closed off because of filming. I think it's still closed off. They were filming youngish people  (20's) in evening attire, having drinks and dinner in all of the pretty areas. There was a drone circling the ship as well, something the film crew has been using all week.

By 7 AM the pool deck was hopping. People were in the water, grabbing chairs, lots of people using the walking trail. 
 
Last night in the casino, I saw a woman win $8000 on a slot machine off of $1.50 bet. She had no reaction and just kept punching that button until the last I saw, she had lost back $4000 of that and was still going. I saw that same woman a couple of nights ago win $800 and do the same thing, no reaction, just gamble it all away. 
 
I do not gamble nearly enough to comprehend zero reaction to winning $8000. I would be so gone.
 
Last night the singer Andrew Derbyshire performed again. It was sort of a last-minute put together show because the show they were supposed to show had a technical difficulty and had to be canceled. He did an amazing job. I sat up on the top balcony this time in the front row. And I found out that this is the area where the elite and suite and concierge guests have reserved seating. For some reason the middle block was open to just everyday people. So we sat there and watched the whole show and at the last couple of songs, Andrew left the stage and came up top to see us! He high-fived people, he had us singing into the mic,  he gave us all a warm acknowledgment and welcome. That was super. I had to sing "ride Sally, ride" into the mic!
 
Today is a lot of indoor activities and games but of course the usual hard push on final sales. There's an art auction, a huge jewelry sale, sales on watches, champagne invitations to come browse the watch and jewelry collections, they're giving free drinks in the casino starting at 9 AM for players, all of those usual things.
 
You can buy a future cruise credit for just $100. I will say that Future Cruise has been busy every day since I've been here and the busiest day of all was embarkation day.
 
Last night was a performance in The Club. It was a live performance of piano music and singing and dancing, it was really a stage show that for some reason was put on in their little lounge area called the club. And it's actually a fairly big space, but it was not nearly big enough to accommodate the thousand people that wanted to come see the show. There wasn't even standing room left. But I heard it was really good. It was called Smoke and Mirrors. 

We were reminded a few days ago that this is only the seventh sailing on Ascent so far. It is still brand new.
Looks like we have a beautiful day ahead with great weather. There are two cruise ships on the horizon keeping pace with us.

OK I have recollected myself. What I said yesterday about being ready to go home, it's true because I'm just kind of cruised out at this point. But a lot that has to do with getting seasick on day one, dealing with the side effects of sickness medication on day two, and then two visits to medical on top of that.
But today is a new day and the weather is gorgeous and the water in Grand Cayman is amazing shades of blue and it's been a great morning. We are tendering using a third-party that has a double-decker open air boat and that's always a really exciting adventure.
 
We are anchored between carnival pride and a smaller celebrity ship.
 
I explored port and looked in shops and watched roosters wandering around among the shoppers.
 
I canceled my stingray excursion because of my wound on my finger. It's not all the way healed yet and it didn't seem like a great idea to be putting it in the salt water just yet.
 
there are some pool deck activities planned today, there's a small sort of miniature golf game available in the club indoors, and some shows and songs and the usual lively disco parties on the dance floor tonight! 

All right. My day took a turn. During the backstage tour, I developed very sharp pain in my ear and jaw and it radiated all the way down my neck. It was constant. This is never happened to me before. I mean I get ear infections or ear pain once in a blue moon but never this sudden and it's never radiated down to my jaw and neck.
 
I went to sleep for a little while but it didn't go away. I made it down to medical just before they closed. They have no idea what's wrong with me. No ear infection, nothing obvious. They didn't really know what to do with me. They gave me a steroid injection for the pain. And fortunately, I already feel a lot better but you know what? I'm ready to go home. There's nothing like not feeling well on a vacation to make you want to just go on back home.
 
The backstage tour was so interesting. We saw the galley, the bridge, the engine room, the laundry room, and the recycling center. I thought the recycling center was just amazing. There is so much involved. They can't just hang onto all of the crushed bottles and glass and cardboard and wait till they get back to land and dump it off. They do so much to try to minimize their waist and they do a lot to make gray water safe enough to dump back into the ocean. 
 
They originally said we would not be allowed to take photos but then when the tour started they said that we could. We all did.
 
Tonight is a magician. He calls himself Magic Bones. I have a see at the end of the aisle on row two. The people next to me have been playing Jenga with the seats for 20 minutes.

Day 5, a big uptick in the amount of coughing everywhere. Had to leave the buffet early this morning because of the surrounding cough factor.
 
at 7:30 this morning the pool was hopping. This is surprising because this crowd was partying until late in the night. I went to bed at midnight and the place was still hopping.
 
The film crew has the magic carpet blocked off and it has been blocked off all morning. People that wanted to use it to see the sunrise are put out.
 
Gray windy day but the pool deck is completely full and people are using the walking trail by the dozens. It's a day at Sea.
 

And we had an amazing sunset.

All right, I made the rounds in Cozumel. Vendors are very friendly and approach you quite a bit but nobody is rude or hassling people or anything like that. Lots of friendly smiles and lots of warm welcomes. 
 
My husband likes to get a hat or a T-shirt from Ports I visit so I grabbed him a nice one. I did the ultimate tacky tourist thing and got myself a hat from Margaritaville and I'm thrilled with it. 
 
It was so fun to walk around and look at Apex and Ascent side-by-side. What magnificent ships. So large! So much glass. There are so many ships in Port today. Ascent, Apex, Norwegian, Carnival, and then two ships in the distance I can't make out.
 
I spent two hours on the top deck this morning, I walked the walking path quite a while which is really fun, this walking path snakes around in the sort of figure 8 and it has a couple of hills up and down built-in. (I can see a similar situation over on Apex.) I spent the rest of the time lounging at the sunset bar and let me tell you that is a great place to hang out. Really really nice. Sunset bar and Rooftop Garden are quickly becoming my favorite place in the ship. 
 
Rooftop garden was closed the entire two hours I was up there because the film crew was trying to film a couple playing pickle ball. I watched for a while. They kept doing shot after shot of the husband character swinging the pickle ball paddle at the camera. Then they would stop and talk a while and do it again. The husband character was in his 40s, wearing a t-shirt and shorts. The wife character looked to be about 25 and was wearing a tiny white tennis dress. They also had a drone they were flying all around. They were still at it when I left.
 
None of this bothers me in the least, it annoyed me when the thermal suite was closed for three hours the other night but overall, I think it's kind of interesting. But I have no doubt Celebrity is going to hear a slew of complaints, and people expecting compensation for prime areas being closed off to passengers during prime hours.
 
Back on the ship for iced coffee and recharging my phone battery.
 
One more thought on the older crowd here. Even though there are people well into their 80s on board, these folks know how to party. Nobody is wandering around here confused and dazed because it's their first cruise. This is a seasoned cruising crowd. And those that are able really get out on that dance floor late late at night and they go at it hard to those 70s disco tunes. The ones that can't dance fill the chairs circling the atrium on all three levels and really enjoy. 

The view from my infinite veranda this morning. (I opened the window!) We are docked right up next to Apex. There's a Norwegian ship on the other side of Apex, I'm not sure which one it is. Cozumel today!
 
The room rocked last night but it was gentle.
 
You can close the blinds on the infinite veranda if you want complete darkness and don't want to be woken up by the sunlight. That's a nice option to have. And also....privacy for port days. 😀
 
There is a control panel on the wall next to the bathroom. You can just hit "close blind" if you want or you can close it with a button on the veranda itself. Also, the control panel has a morning, evening, and sleep button to control lighting. If you don't want to walk around adjusting the few lights in the room you can hit one of those and it will give you lights off, soft lighting, full lighting. 
 
You can set the air-conditioning as low as 65, but there is not a chance it's getting down to 65 in there. Pretty comfortable though, especially at night.
 
it was a gray drizzly rainy day all day yesterday but today looks to be beautiful.
 
Breakfast in MDR, finally. Of the four dining rooms, Cosmopolitan is the one open for all three meals per day. At dinner you can choose from any of the four, but breakfast and lunch are only in Cosmo. The menu is pretty basic MDR, variations on eggs and omelettes, pancakes and toast and waffles and pastries, cold cereal and hot cereal. The food was delicious and the service was terrific. They did not ask me if I minded sitting with other people, they just sat me at a table by myself. Which was fine.

Limited choices on dinner tonight. Didn't like anything on the menu for the main dining rooms, and for some reason, the buffet was half the size as usual. Baked potatoes and pasta and bread and some grilled meats.
 
Played a game in "the club" which is kind of their spotlight lounge. Really fun, too hard to describe here but lots of fun and lots of group participation.
 
N'Kenge did a one woman show today and she was fantastic. Lots of Broadway tunes.
 
The massage was nice. Overall the spa feels somewhat deserted so far this cruise. I noticed they added a spa special into the app for tomorrow. That wasn't there this morning. 
 
There's a solo performer this evening, Andrew Derbyshire. Getting ready for the show to start. Remember I mentioned the lack of reservations, as in reservations are not required. I'm not seeing rows of front row prime seats reserved for concierge or suite people either, I wonder if they are supposed to claw their way to a seat like everybody else? That can't be the case, that feels offbrand for this ship.  Interesting.

We are at sea today. I got up early and did some filming and photos on the lower decks. By 9 o'clock, all of the breakfast seekers were out. So many older folks, I believe I've mentioned that a few times but it's just a bit of a wake up call for me as I've never sailed a non-family line that had this many elderly folks on it. You need to be careful where you walk because there are scooters and walkers and people shuffling along the best they can with canes and you just generally have to be careful. I guess that goes for life in general, don't go crashing into people, but just in general on the ship it feels like you really need to watch where you're going. And to also be patient. A lot of folks here that are hard of hearing who try to give a coffee order or a pastry order for example, and it just takes a little longer than maybe you might think it would. 
 
The film crew is out taking up half of the main pool and there's a lot of folks sitting around in swimsuits looking unhappy about it. I have no doubt that Celebrity is going to get a slew of angry surveys and emails demanding some sort of compensation for the film crew being here and taking out prime spots on the ship for 1 to 3 hours at a time.
 
I skipped breakfast and I'm planning on making it to the main dining room finally. I'm going to have lunch there today. I was able to get photos of two of the main dining rooms this morning because they were empty. Tuscany and Normandie. Very classy.
 
The focal point chandelier at the bottom of the atrium in the middle of the ship is kind of cool. It strobes throughout the day in different patterns.

Room service menu! Night ambience and a few things around the ship

The show tonight was called Bridges. It was terrific. Really wonderful. The theater has this amazing stretched out movie screen behind it and they projected all kinds of famous bridges on the background while the singers sang and danced.
 
It was a collection of pop songs with dance numbers which is exactly what I just said I don't like. But I like this. That cast was phenomenal, they all sounded like they belonged on Broadway. They had a ton of energy and the songs were familiar songs so they were catchy. Plus they threw in quite a bit of acrobatics which was really fun.
 
I would say at the very least 50% of the crowd on this particular sailing are over 70. Lots and lots of older people. So sometimes they would finish a dazzling high energy amazing number and then stop for applause and the applause would be smattering and light. Hate that for them. I think the cruise demographic might change during the summer but it's definitely a much older crowd, like a Holland America crowd, right now.
 
some of the numbers were aimed for a younger crowd. There was one number where the men were grabbing their crotch repeatedly. I saw a lot of shocked faces in the audience.

The guy at the end the aisle a few seats down for me looked to be at least 92. He was filming the whole show on his phone and he was actually doing a darn good job with a steady hand.
 
And I should mention that before the show they announced that we were encouraged to take video and photos and put it on social media.
 
I went to the 730 show and every seat in the theater was taken. I sat in the front row and there were a handful of empty seats by me. As to be expected, a large group came in four minutes before Showtime and went straight to the front row and then stood there having a long conversation, trying to figure out how they could all sit together. (They couldn't.) That led to another conversation about how they were going to divide. And even though the show was only 45 minutes there were many many people who could not possibly sit through the whole thing, they had to get up and leave and then come back. 
 
I went back, toying with the idea of going to the 930 show and seeing it again, but I went back at the last minute and it was sold out audience.
 
i'm back in my room for an early evening and I'm so thankful the room is not rocking very much. Tomorrow is sea day, and I will be waiting around for my doctors appointment and I hope I come away satisfied.

A week is not going to be enough time to lounge in all of the varied lounge spaces that I want to lounge in. Plus I pretty much never want to leave my room. This infinite veranda is amazing.
 
Eden alone, plus entire top 2 decks, require many many hours of lounging and enjoying.

You guys. This SHIP.  😍
 
more soon

Some quick pics