Ben100014

As an edit, the show was great! Theater was completely packed, never seen so many seats filled. People were sitting on the floor and no one walked out - I guess my parents are just not a fan of the “New Age” entertainment, but I found the show very eclectic and well done. Everyone loved it. And the Captain Dimitros was HILARIOUS. Love the brothers.

Good idea. Will definitely try. The E class doesn’t have traditional curtains, but rather a shade that retracts into the ceiling electronically.

Day 2 updates: Had breakfast at OVC this morning. The additional seating is definitely noticeable. Plenty of places to sit and crowding is much less of an issue than on other ships. The layout really is much improved! Briefly got off in Nassau as I've been there several times to check out the new port. Way nicer and more organized than it used to be! Well done. Found the infinity/plunge pools and they are very nice! Great addition. Then went to the mast grill for an always excellent burger and hung out in the solarium for a few hours to relax. Met a few people who agreed the ship is X's best yet. I love those "hot tub conversations." Excellent dinner and service at Cosmopolitan. Wilson is a top notch and attentive waiter. Spent some time listening to the singer and pianist at Eden, and they were quite lovely. Now waiting in the theater to see the "Bridges" production show. My older parents (70 and 75) didn't really care for it and noted that others were walking out at the 7:30 showing, so I'll have to see how it is. Apparently my parents got the impression they're trying to appeal to a younger demographic. Anyway, all is good onboard. Sea day tomorrow so looking forward to sleeping in! From the theater with sore thumbs, Ben

It seems the smell is from a previous tenant. I will say X has been very proactive at following up with me and trying different things to get the smell out. It’s gotten better, but still seems to be lingering! The older brother is on for the first Contract. Tasos got off on Sunday from what I understand. I believe they're 3 on 3 off, so there's a chance Tasos is on then depending on when in Feb you are going. Tried smelling the sink and didn't notice anything, but will definitely ask for a filter. Could be smoke left over from the workers at the shipyard, but I find that the most unlikely option. We were assigned 8:30, but found this was too late, and the Cosmopolitan Matre'd was more than accommodating to let us come in with a reserved table at 6. She told us we could just walk in at 6 and bypass any line as our table would be held for us. Hadn't experienced this before, but worked for us! Rooftop Garden scheduled for later this week. Looking forward to trying as it was great on Apex! Cigars are awful! Sorry you had to deal with this.

Hi all, Currently sailing on the way from Ft. Lauderdale to Nassau onboard the brand new Ascent, and thought I’d give some brief thoughts of the experience so far. Boarding was the best I’ve ever experienced. From shore to ship in less than 10 minutes - X has really perfected this experience. Other lines take notes! I first went onboard and did as we all do first on a ship - ate. The OVC definitely seems larger than the Apex with a lot more seating. Food and service were very nice. Typical X fare. I then booked a haircut onboard, and ended up getting a great haircut by Angelo at the barber shop, and he was gracious enough to offer to move my haircut to the salon for me to watch the sail away while he styled my hair. Interestingly enough, he told me he was the one who styled Captain Kate's hair onboard the Beyond and was featured in several of her TikTok and Instagram posts. It was a pleasant surprise! The rest of the day was spent unpacking, exploring the ship. (very impressed with the layout so far - they've taken the already excellent E class design and made it even more spacious and efficient). Ate with my brother and parents at the Cosmopolitan for dinner, and was VERY impressed with the service and food. I was on the Eclipse a month ago and the food quality wasn't nearly as good- which concerned me that the quality of food had gone down. For at least this sailing, X seems to have brought all of their top crew onboard and it shows. Everything service wise has just been great. Ended the evening with the excellent CD Luigi and a funny comedian whose name is escaping me right now. My only major complaint is our stateroom (7305) has a rather strong lingering stale cigarette smell which really bothers me. It seems someone either smoked in here on one of the last sailings or smoke is traveling in here somehow. I alerted GR and they sent the housekeeping manager in to spray air freshener and investigate, but to no success. I'm hoping they can find a way to fix this as it is quite bothersome and shocking for a brand new ship to have this. My parents' room next door doesn't have the same odor, so it's definitely an isolated issue. Regardless, on the whole, everyone and everything has been wonderful so far. Will try to update as the week goes on. From the middle of the ocean by the Bahamas, Ben

Turns out it was a setting on our phones that was slowing down the internet. Very frustrating, but the Internet cafe representative was helpful. False alarm, I suppose

Going to this morning. Two members of my cabin experiencing this so I’m a bit concerned.

I suspect this may be the case as well. The odd thing is when we log in, it says we have the premium package, but the performance is awful. Will check with guest relations this morning.

Just boarded the Eclipse today, and upgraded to the premium wifi as I usually do. However, it has been completely unusable the entire time. On my last few cruises, the premium wifi at least got up to 5mbps, now it won’t exceed 0.9mbps at the most, making it virtually worthless for browsing the web, let alone streaming. Anyone else onboard experiencing this? This is ridiculous. Not usually one to complain but for as much as X has been touting this, I fear this may be the latest cutback if this isn't just a fluke.

Roger that, thank you to all! (Go Sun Devils 😈)

Hi all, I recently just became CC Elite along with my parents; we are booked aboard the May 6th cruise onboard the Millie from LA, and are taking a friend of mine who will be in my AQ stateroom with me who has never traveled on Celebrity before. My parents will be in another AQ stateroom. That said, is my friend able to join us in the Elite pre-departure lounge, and go into the Elite check-in line with us? Or will he have to go into the standard queue? TIA for any help/clarification you can provide!

They have a few MDR staples such as the french onion soup, steak, salmon, etc that you can order off-menu, but they cannot accommodate MDR orders as the galleys are on opposite sides of the ship.

Indeed, but that's 5GB more than VZW gives you internationally. I couldn't do that on VZW and ATT's international coverage is limited to Latin America. T-MO definitely owns the international coverage game.

Guests are not obligated to give them 10s. If anything but a 10 is considered a fail, that's poor management.

Agree and disagree. Management has to monitor their employees, but they cannot hover over them while they are providing service and must rely on surveys in order to gauge how well they are doing their jobs on a customer-facing level. Surveys are essential for this. They are non-obtrusive and take 5 minutes to fill out waiting for a flight home. It is unfortunate that they have not addressed your suggestions, but they recieve, quite literally, thousands a month and probably have to parse through and search for patterns to improve on. Single data points are not really useful from a holistic standpoint.

TMO is awesome. 5GB of high-speed data included anywhere in the world pretty much, plus texting.

That is still excellent and more than usable for everything one would need on a ship.

Very strange the rollout is delayed until the end of next year for EQ and SM-can't imagine why there would be that severe of a delay unless they anticipate they won't have the capacity to accommodate those ships until then?

Just a single room! We never saw anywhere that this was a double points promo, either.

Nope, stayed with two other people in it.

Hi all, I got off the Apex 11/26 sailing a few weeks ago, sailing in a Sky Suite. Before this sailing, I had 205 points and was in the Select tier. However, after this sailing, I somehow earned 112 points, which somehow enabled me and my family to end up inside the Elite tier. I'm not understanding why this is the case (certainly not complaining), as the Sky Suites only earn 8 points per night, and this was a 7 night cruise. Is there some kind of bonus because this sailing was booked onboard a cruise last year? Attached is an image proving this. Thanks in advance for any explanation for this!

Wow, that's great! About time cruise ships had modern wifi! Hopefully will be able to try sometime next year.

How is the new internet aboard? I hear mixed reviews; some amazing, some very poor.

Wow, now that is awesome.

My two cents... As someone who has been in AQ and the Retreat , Blu is my favorite. The suite experience is amazing, and definitely the best at sea, but Luminae is for sure the weak link, as someone said above. The food and service, while great, is on par with Blu. In fact, we generally found more food we liked in Blu than Luminae. The food in Luminae was almost a little too gaudy for us; think quail eggs, unfamiliar types of fish, etc. Of course, you can always eat at Blu in a suite, but if you're paying for the suite experience...I'm not sure if that is worth it.