Bob_KY

apologies @deep1 but i think i missed what ship you were considering for this sailing?
i do love the aqua class cabins on edge class ships as they have an upgraded shower and we did love blu for breakfast and dinner. it ultimately depends on what it is worth for you -- although i think the MDRs are very good as well!

I know I am in the minority here but I am really loathe to sit at a dinner table with strangers.  I am TERRIBLE at small talk and at my senior vintage stage, I have no tolerance for nonsense.  There always seems to be ONE person at the table that longs to dominate the conversation and that is pure torture for me.  Frankly, I find this situation to be the MOST common at the Pinnacle events.  That is why I will most often get to these events (when we go) early and wrangle a 2-top.  I know the servers hate it when we do this but I don't care.  

Real ID is only for US government purposes only, for instance if you are trying to enter a federal building, getting through airport checkpoint security.  If you have a passport you don't need real ID. 
But you answer your question no Royal isn't requiring real ID, however I would be remiss if I didn't say its always an excellent idea to bring your passport with you (if you have one) when you're on a cruise because if anything happens you'll save yourself a world of headaches by simply having that passport with you.

All depends what you like. You could sip on some bourbon on the rocks, white Russian, gin and tonic with lime, vodka and soda with lime, jack and coke, old fashion.
Before I go on a cruise I either google search different versions of a drink or a drink with a liquor that I like and try them on the ship.

June 1 however, I’d be checking on a regular basis as sometimes that “1st day of the month before your sailing” isn’t accurate.  If you belong to the Facebook group for your sailing you might see people excitedly post when they have successfully booked their entertainment.  That’s a good clue that entertainment is open to book!
 Also, not all ships have entertainment that requires making reservations. 

That fee is WAY over the top. 
Fine dining restaurants in our neck of the woods charge $10 corkage fees if we bring our own bottle. 

Yep despite having the word "cork" in it, a corkage fee is really an item-not-purchased-here fee.  The cruise ship (or a land restaurant that allows you to bring your own wine) doesn't make any profit on a bottle purchased elsewhere so they charge corkage instead.

You are allowed one bottle per adult of drinking age. 

Okay. My solution for avoiding a royal caribbean corkage fee.

To add to the above, your pre-paid gratuities only go towards your room steward and dining room staff. The bar staff doesn't see those daily gratuities. If you want an all-inclusive feel the best way would be to buy the drink package in the cruise planner pre-cruise when you find a price you like and then you don't have to think about it. If you don't feel like you drink enough to make a pacakge worth it, then any drink you buy ala carte will be the amount on the menu plus 18%. 
One big advantage to pre-paying gratuities is that you're grand-fathered in if those daily rates go up later. If you book your cruise today for a sail date 2 years from now and pre-pay your gratuities those will stay what you paid today while anyone booking after the increase will pay the new amount per day. By the time you've made final payment those are all taken care of and paid for.
 
 
 
 

I’ve been getting lots of “change” emails lately, too.  I got one just a day or 2 ago for a casino comp I recently booked but for the life of me I cannot determine any actual “change”.  Recently I found out that they had reverted a (different cruise) casino comp back to an interior guarantee even after I had upgraded the offer.  I don’t think that is the case for my more recent change…the category appears to be correct.  I really have no idea what, if anything, has changed. Guess I’ll call when I disembark AD and see what the casino has to say.

Something so basic, yet I failed to read the names on a booking today.  I supplied the correct crown and anchor for my husband, the guy read it back incorrectly-I corrected it-we verified my husbands name.  Get the confirmation email, I swear it said his name.  Get a “change” email 4 hours later, I have no idea what could have been changed and see some other man’s name on the confirmation! I just informed hubby he’s not sailing with me🤣   And his name was not on the booking confirmation! Of course tomorrow I’ll call to get this straightened out. 
 
On another occasion, a few months back, I had a royal up email. The only problem is it wasn’t a cruise I had booked.  Normally I don’t read the royal up and delete them. Glad I read it.  I looked into it and it turns out my name had been added to someone else’s cruise.
so, take heed, bizarre things happen-read those confirmations and emails!

Celebrity Ascent September 08,2025.  Italy-Greece-Turkey.
Celebrity Xcel April 05, 2026.  Eastern Caribbean.

Just paid off my Celebrity Eclipse cruise for July 2025, leaving from Amsterdam to Iceland and Ireland. 
I'm now starting to finalize hotels, air and excursions!
I'm looking forward to the ports and the sea days.

Celebrity Ascent, March 2025:  Puerto Plata, St Thomas, & St Maarten.  Just booked it yesterday.   This will be our second Celebrity cruise.

Before 2024, I have never been asked nor charged a corkage fee.   During my March 2025 Celebrity cruise, we were asked about a corkage fee during dinner on three separate occasions.  The first time, the sommelier asked if we had a Premium Drink Package.  We had the package and the fee was "waived." When approached in other venues, I mentioned this and we weren't charged. I was unable to find the actual RCI policy.  Even the link that Wordell1 provided does not address a corkage fee policy (or if there are exceptions: Retreat, Suite, Drink Pkg, etc...).  I like to know the rules.

We are just going to disagree about this. They don't enforce the policy consistently on board and ship to ship. I stated that Royal should charge the fee or not, as is their right. Why give us a cost savings and try and take a piece of it back, because it is nickel and diming.
We enjoy the ability to bring wine aboard and not all lines allow it. If Royal would up their wine game just a bit we wouldn't bother. Most of what they serve inside of the drink package is OK but not what we enjoy at home. Trust me we aren't drinking expensive wine but it is much better than what is on the ships.     

Although the fee is minimal and rarely enforced, it is very inconsistent. Which puts the staff in a bind and that is unfair. They allow you to bring on two bottles per stateroom and therefore shouldn't charge you corkage or should always charge you the fee. These are the nickel and dime tactics that degrade the overall experience. On a land based vacation we tolerate these tactics as it is part of the adventure. With cruising starting to cost as much as land vacations this becomes irksome. The thing I love about cruising is going away and that is cost certainty. Yes I've only been on 5 RCC cruises but have had a corkage fee once. The thread question was how to avoid the fee. This is a site dedicated to cruise hacks and I wish Royal didn't make us play these games. 

Quick follow up.  Our Sunset Sky Suite had seating for four on our balcony.   It wasn't crowded at all.  It appears my email  request worked.  BTW, it was a great suite.

AWESOME live blog - we cruise on the Celebrity Ascent in 33 days.  Your insights and reviews made us more excited for our upcoming vacation. Thank you for sharing.

and lastly...
 
random thoughts & observations
 
some things i did not love/like or areas where royal took the win...
internet the internet was GREAT. wicked fast; i did wind up getting disconnected randomly towards the end of the sailing for some reason and would have to reconnect in my settings every once in a while, but otherwise no problem. my ISSUE was that you HAD to use your elite/elite+ minutes of internet BEFORE signing into using any package. i wish i had known this prior to signing in as i would have happily used them on my phone and kept my kindle logged in for a while. there is no option to use after the fact, once you have signed into your prepaid package for the week. this is one area where royal takes the win; i often don't use my diamond plus credit/time until the back half of the voyage, because we're in port so much in the beginning and i can tmobile hotspot my kindle. guest services guest services was actually very cool; it was down on... deck three i think. it's just a few desks stationed against the wall in an L shaped formation. it looks more like a concierge desk than a true GS set up. we went there on the second to last night to get some change and also to transfer some OBC from my account to J. the crew member who helped us was a little reserved and buttoned up -- not rude, but certainly not warm and smiling like every other crew member we encountered. perhaps she was having a bad day or long shift; i am not sure. but she held the distinction of being one of two crew who weren't the most engaging. the other was the crew member at the egg station in the OVC; she was not pleased when i was trying to figure out where the order and pickup line was. it was early, and i was lacking coffee. also another passenger was determined to mansplain to me and i was being aggressively pleasant to him (my danger mode) to try and deter him from setting me off further. food misses hashbrowns guys i didn't think it could be done but... the hashbrowns were WEIRD. J and i both agreed and aborted on these. in blu, her omlette would come each morning with roasted potatoes instead of a hashbrown; health concerns aside 😂 i think they knew they just weren't that good. tuna weirdly, there were a LOT of different varieties of tuna on board. i will confess, i did not try them all -- but the quality of the tuna was different than i am used to. probably it is heartier than what i am used to on board royal but it tasted more like fish. (does this make sense?) J swears it was fine and had it several times; i tried it a few times, in different venues and different incarnations of it, but it just was a little too... fishy for me. there was so much other amazing food that it didn't even matter in the end; a lot of times i am just scrambling for lunch options so i would typically revert to tuna from park cafe out of necessity than anything else, and this was NOT the case on board. but something to note. pizza my very first bite on board and i was starving; to be fair, it looked like the slices i had were slices that had been sitting for a while. and it's hard to mess up pizza. but they were not the best. i DO suspect that had we gone back at ANY TIME in the voyage and gotten fresh pizza, it would have been incredible. but we wound up getting distracted by other options and did not make it back to the aft of the OVC/jammer to thoroughly investigate. i will commence with further investigation when we are onboard in december. 😎 towel animals NO TOWEL ANIMALS! this was so weird and a little bit of a nostalgia miss, if i am honest. however, we did get turndown service every night, with little mints and we EACH got a paper compass. so it's hard to be upset about the trade off. pool deck bathrooms so.... we set up shop on deck 16 in our "spot" every day except when we were in st. maarten. and this was great. however, there is only ONE bathroom nearby and it's a single use that has a bit of a learning curve due to the touchless door situation. so if someone was in there... you'd either be waiting an indeterminate period of time, or going elsewhere. which is fine, except... getting to another bathroom from there required going down two narrow flights of stairs at prime time and picking up the public bathrooms outside the jammer. not the end of the world, but be sure to plan your liquid intake accordingly. 😅 entertainment SHOWS specifically -- we would have done a better job of getting there for the shows but we are pre-vintage and could not stay awake!! truly the people we encountered in the lounge at the airport were shocked when we told them we only made it to the first 30 mins of the cher impression show and missed the others 😂 sparkling wine in aqua class evidently we were due a bottle of sparkling wine -- but only if we ~requested it. for some reason this slipped my mind and i totally forgot to request it. we only remembered when we ran into other folks who were also on our sailing, in aqua class, whose cabin attendant reminded them. of note, our cabin attendant was great!!! (but he did not remind us about the wine.) in his defense, we did strip the mini bar upon arrival and pulled out all the liquor to make room for almond milk, cold brew, and water. so maybe he thought we were not drinkers...  
we did not note many smalls on the ship -- they were either REALLY hella small, like infants, or somewhere upwards of teenagers. the sole exception to this was two little boys doing zoomies all over eden one night. the vibe was mostly tolerant of them, as there were a lot of indulgent grandparents on board 😂 otherwise there was honestly none of the kid shenanigans we typically see on standard oasis class sailings. (we love kids, but -- spoiler alert -- didn't miss this AT ALL.)
speaking of indulgent grandparents... J and i thought this would be a sailing where we had a lot of peace and quiet -- and it was!! but also... we were adopted by many a vintage and would often get stopped for conversation or dinner with such new friends. a totally different vibe where you can disappear into a sea of 6K other passengers, for sure...
 
some things i loved or areas where celebrity took the win...
service in blu was OUTSTANDING. we had THE BEST team; the best meals, and the best time. i cannot say how much this blew me away. (no pun intended) i would stack them HIGHER than CK, and with better meal options/accommodations. the tables were VERY close together but we lucked out midway through the sailing and got seated at a little banquette with a couch on one side and a chair on the other. we only had to share this with one other couple, and they preferred to keep to themselves. so if we were socially tapped out, we'd grab that table and it was perfect. entertainment MUSIC specifically -- they did a STELLAR job of mixing up the music and genres and activities on the pool deck. often it is just LOUD music or club music and this was a whole variety. i thought it was exceptionally well done and i really appreciated the time they carefully allotted for everyone's preferences. the champagne was cattier and it was NICE. brilliant upgrade from my beloved chandon. i am looking forward to consuming more of it in december and i swear to you, there were nights when i am convinced i drank a bottle of it myself. crew to pax ratio i mean, it's almost unfair to bring this up because we're looking at a minimum of 2K passengers LESS than your typical oasis class sailing (if my math is ballparking correct -- and i am bad at math) but it made a HUGE difference. the crew was truly outstanding. i called out several of them by name in my final survey and could not be more delighted by every one we encountered. they were all so wonderful. something to note; the average celebrity contract is 7 months (from what i understand) so there were a lot of crew members we are not sure if they will still be on board when we return in december -- and we asked. i get the sense that the shorter contracts allow for more flexibility... and all the crew seemed a lot happier, too. no idea if this has any correlation, but would be interesting to note. boarding/disembarking we relaxed RIGHT away; there was no time that we had to “unclench” or decompress — boarding and disembarking was such a breeze that we honestly felt spoiled. the cruise director was in the terminal, waving us off!!! elevators as you know, i loved the elevators and the fact that each bank had two entrances -- so you had two points of egress whereas on royal, you typically are dead ending into an elevator bank on passenger cabin decks. i will try to get a better pic of this in december, but needless to say, it made for a MUCH better flow.  
there are other areas of the ship that we didn't really get to explore, or take much note of, and i am excited to get back to them at the end of the year. (magic carpet, the thermal spa, some forward areas of the ship and shows to name a few...)
 
these slight nitpicky things aside, you know my heart now belongs to celebrity and i am not sad about our upcoming sailings IN THE SLIGHTEST.
 
i hope this has been an honest and informative review our sailing and that it has been a somewhat good use of your time 😅🥰 if you have any questions about this sailing or celebrity in general, while i am by no means an expert, i will happily take a stab at answering!!
as always, this liveblog would not be HALF as entertaining without all of YOU!!! so thank you for coming along and sticking the course with me. 💚💚💚
 
lastly... my dry dock will not be long as i have an upcoming cruise on msc seascape in april with my parents in the yacht club!! i will probably post some liveblog-ish observations and comparisons on the back of this thread (arguments could be made that we are still ascending to a new era, after all 🤣) so you will know where to find me before a true dry dock until december...

 
forever yours in bezos and shenanigans cup clips and napkins,
alison 💚

breaking this up so no one feels like they're stuck in a full length novel 🤣
 
cabin thoughts
so, hot take but.... we actually LOVED our infinite balcony. hear me out -- while we love a traditional balcony and all it contains, there was something absolutely wonderful about having the extra space and light in the cabin itself. the extended part of the IV was especially helpful for J because that is where she packed and unpacked, while i was in the section with the sofa. we had our own "zones" and this was fantastic. aqua class shower you guys i could write a sonnet about this shower. it had 4 water settings. i will honestly miss it when we go sunset veranda in 2026 on... it was just a dream and the water pressure was perfect and we never ran out of hot water. A DREAM, i tell you!! closet DOORS (not a slider!!!) i cannot explain why i loathe closet doors that slide so much; maybe it's because i am an only child and hate to share and J and i are pretty good at sticking to our "sides" of the closet 🤣 but for whatever reason -- while the JS on royal remains my ULTIMATE and favorite closet, any time we get a closet with double doors has an automatic WIN in my book. no wasted space!!! AGAIN - i had my reservations about us having enough room in the cabin with the limited cabinets, cubbies and closet -- we HAD just come from a CLS where we'd essentially had our own FLOORS of the suite -- but we had enough room and some to spare. (not a LOT to spare. just some 😂) in fact, now that we understand the lay of the land when it comes to the cabin, i daresay we'll be packing and unpacking a lot faster than we did. could i use another set of wide drawers in the main vanity? i mean, sure. i'll never turn drawers down. but for the value and use of the space that we had? EXCELLENT. the bathroom similar to the shower, but the bathroom was really well designed and made excellent use of space. the shower was larger than usual, the toilet was set back a bit, and there was a low shelf along the wall that was helpful. there were tons of places to put things in the bathroom; two sets of shelves flanking the mirror, a huge sink, a drawer under the sink and then more shelving below the sink as well. again, REALLY well done.
 
i very strategically selected cabin 10223 as it was the last of the cabins in the section that "jutted" out -- so we had a really great view with no obstruction and great angles for when we did open the IV. i also liked this because we didn't "share a doorway" like most of the cabins onboard. ours was set where it was and our neighbors were set forward a little bit more. highly recommend this cabin or zone for anyone interested!!
i would not hesitate to sail in this cabin again and would in fact select it without reservation; the location was great (dining was on 5, pool deck up on 15/16, and we were centrally located) as well as its quick distance to the elevator banks. there were even times when we came up the forward elevator bank and walked back to our cabin and it was quick and easy.
 
our neighbors -- if we ever heard them -- were quiet and calm.
i had heard that the IVs lend to a lot of creaking and popping noises throughout the night/when sailing -- in fact, beyond is rumored to be so bad that they yanked her from the mediterranean and they have to keep her in the caribbean for this reason -- but we didn't hear ANYTHING until the near end of the cruise. even then, it wasn't constant or incredibly jarring. for that reason as well, i would select 10223 again.

okay friends, this is about eleventeen million years late BUT i came home and things got WILD at work. so, without further ado...
overall thoughts
best cruise we ever had. full stop. NO NOTES. ...okay. SOME notes 😆  i will say we went into this cruise with reasonably low expectations. J and i knew we'd bought in HARD to the celebrity brand -- mostly because of the fact that to get where we wanted to be with royal, the pricing was... insane. so we figured, the edge class ships are relatively new, they tick a lot of the boxes, how bad could it be? THANKFULLY IT WAS NOT BAD AT ALL AND IN FACT, QUITE GOOD. this cruise was the perfect alchemy of all the things we hold dear; exceptional service and attention by the crew, peace and quiet throughout ALL areas of the ship, a best in class dining experience and the most delicious food we've ever had aboard (barring a few random outliers). i cannot WAIT to get back on board in december -- and 11 nights will be a TREAT. 😍  
ship thoughts
the ship is stunning.
the public areas are all like works of art. there is no wasted space on board and they have made such a clever use of lighting, angles and space that it's hard to believe you are even on a cruise ship. i understand that certain modern areas and touches might not be what all cruises want -- certainly there are die hard celebrity fans who prefer the experience on some of the older ships -- but we thought it was excellently done.
there were even areas that we didn't properly explore or sometimes fully discover until the week's end -- and this ship is smaller than our traditional oasis class preference.
also i thought the amount of pax on board was our new sweet spot. i didn't get full numbers but i am fairly certain our sailing was sold out because it disappeared from the website weeks before we departed and would only pop one or two cabins once in a while, as the rest were all sold out. even with that, it didn't really ever feel crowded or hectic.
we never had to wait very long for an elevator -- i think only once or twice the entire week INCLUDING embarkation, did we abort mission and hike a few sets of stairs instead. i would have honestly taken more stairs except for my foot. 😅 there were 10 elevators in each bank and though they seemed a touch smaller than the usual royal elevator (not all were ADA accessible and held lesser numbers of pax), they were very quick and responsive.
it was also easier to KNOW which elevator came for you as they were lit up around the entire set of doors in green (for up) and red (for down).  i'm now kicking myself that i did not get a picture of this.
 
we have another three cruises booked on ascent alone and i find it very interesting/funny that the 4th ship in the class is yet again, our favorite. (symphony, we miss you from a distance, ya hear me?) i researched extensively when planning our cruise; edge and apex are the oasis and allure (respectively) of the edge class ship in that they were the first blueprint. beyond is harmony, and ascent is symphony. (LISTEN I KNOW MY BRAIN IS WEIRD AND WILD. LET ME BE.)
i say this to say -- they made improvements on beyond and ascent with a little bit more room, some changes/improvements to the retreat (which will become nice for us as we will be in the retreat next february).
the next in the lineup is the Xcel and she will have her own improvements and delights to share. one of of the things to note is that eden -- the large open multi purpose venue in the back of the ship -- will be transformed into a new concept called 'the bazaar' on Xcel. similar to my feelings on the sun suite deck on symphony and how it changed on wonder, i may feel similarly about losing eden. we spent A LOT of time in eden; we grabbed breakfast there, pre-dinner drinks, post-dinner hangs, made use of the library, hid ducks in the walls, and listened to live music there.
while i am sure they will do a fantastic job on the bazaar on Xcel, i also am of the mind that if it's not broken, no need to fix it?? and thus we throw all our love and weight behind the ascent for now.
also the pricing for xcel is just a touch more than we'd like to pay when contrasted with the additional days we can get on an ascent sailing.

Look Dan!!
 

Sounds like you should try Celebrity. Food is great, all casinos are non smoking, adults only solariums are beautiful.