LIVE – Ascent B2B 1/27/2024 - 2/11/2024 - Live Blog, Cat Blog, Vlog!

[David Kane]

LIVE – Ascent B2B 1/27/2024 - 2/11/2024 - Live Blog, Cat Blog, Vlog!

Good Evening.

 

It’s been a year since our last Celebrity Cruise, and it’s been 10 years since we first started cruising, so we figured why not get around to doing something we haven’t before and book a back to back on the Ascent. No more getting marginally depressed on the Thursday during the cruise – now we get to remain on-board and greet the next cruise’s arriving guests – presumably standing in the middle of the pool wearing a top hat.

 

I’d like to give a big thank you and shout out to Chemmo, Jim_Iain, Patty Knapp, HappyCruiser6143, GenerationX, Mac_tlc HCat, and all the other frequent Cruise Critic Forum posters who provide far more accurate commentary than I ever will.

 

Note: This Blog is rated H for Hu-Mor. Curmudgeons are hereby advised.

 

Background

DW (who I will refer to by her initials XZ just to circumvent convention) and I are mid 40’s (just like we were when we started this…*ahem*) with no kids and one cat who hates it when we go cruising. We were big Disney Park fans until they started making you book rides like you book restaurants like you’d better be there or ELSE and made the spontaneous experience entirely unenjoyable and, for my 40th, we decided to give cruising a try.

 

We have since sailed exclusively with Celebrity and always in Suites, starting with Royals, moving down to Skys and then, recently, getting to experience the trifecta of the Penthouse on the Summit, and the Edge Villa & Iconic on the Beyond.

 

This Trip

 

As this is a new ship, we elected to book a Magic Carpet Sky as we didn’t expect to be spending much time in the room. More experienced cruisers have indicated that once you go up to the top tier suites it is difficult to go back, but we have never found that to be the case as we started out in Royals and then bopped down to Skys. We booked this before the general price increase and have gratuities and OBC included.

 

Per the usual, we have submitted move-up offers but have not heard back – it appears the ship is entirely sold out (!) on both trips, so I suspect we will be staying in our Magic Carpet Skys throughout – for the 2^nd week we must move - to the room directly next door.

 

Goals this go around include:

--Every Night is Formal Night (we think): While we will strive to continue our grand tradition the sheer amount of formal wear, let alone the hats (so, so many hats) really puts a strain on the luggage. A few of our formal nights might be reflected in the change of a hatband, or a slightly different waistcoat and set of spats.

 

--Chair Ratings: Oddly enough, one of our most asked for features. We have an entire two weeks to literally get our butts into all the seats!

 

--Magic Carpet Sky Views: There really haven’t been good reviews of the Magic Carpet Sky Suites – especially those odd-looking balconies. We will bring you in-depth reporting from the front or rear-facing lines, while trying not to get my arm caught in a slowly…very slowly moving magic carpet (but hey, people get hit by trains all the time and it’s not like you *don’t* know where they are going, either).

 

--Actual Vlogs: We spent the off season acquiring a Go Pro, Mac book, other pod-casting equipment, and an Adobe membership, so we can try this whole vlogging thing out – we’ve posted shorts and other one offs before, but this time we’re really going to give some content a try.

 

--Every Drink in Eden: XZ has made it her personal goal to document every drink on the Eden Bar menu – from ordering through creation and service. Presumably, ‘someone’ else will be drinking them because there are like a dozen signature cocktails…

 

--10 Year Look Back: When we first started cruising, there was no Luminae, no Sushi on 5, and only upper tier suites got access to Michael’s Club. The main topic on CC was endless rounds of Formal Night discussions (hence why we always dress formal) and the Celebrity ‘Connections’ Roll Calls were dozens of pages long. How have things changed in 10 years? We will be sure to let you know, as we even brought along original paperwork from our first cruise for a comparison. People may make snarky comments about Adult Coloring activities, but how does it compare to the always exciting Napkin Folding demonstrations of years gone by! We will let you know!

 

--Dishonest Reviews: And, lastly, we will be posting some ‘dishonest’ reviews. One of the things that we have noticed is that people’s way of speaking has become *infected* by the word “honestly.” It has crept in everywhere – so, to ‘honor’ that, we will be dishonestly posting humorous reviews about the Ascent. For instance, did you know there is an All You Can Eat Brazilian Steakhouse on board? Well, why else would they call it ‘The Meating Place?’ We’ll check out the menu and let you know if this specialty dining location is right for you!

 

The Cat

In an effort to assuage the Tortitude (it has been…at least 4 days since we’ve been clawed upon) we have brought on a full-time house/cat sitter in XZ’s Mom. One would think that this, and the fact that there are only 3 pages of Reviews for the Ascent, and the fact that she is at LEAST the 3^rd most famous cruise cat (somewhere behind Bug and Captain Hudson…it’s hard to outcompete the full-timers even if you have an OnlyFans…don’t’…look that up) this would have asswaged her anger. Unfortunately, between Cookie-Gate and Wine-Pricing, she has had plenty of time to absorb comments on the forums...so, so many comments on the forums. Each day we will review one “Cat Complaint” about Cruising and see, in person, if it’s valid.

 

Social

Our vlog site is: https://www.youtube.com/@poshcruise

 

We draw inspiration for our social media efforts from:

 

Cruise Dorks (“Oh my God, JIM!)  https://www.youtube.com/@CruiseDorks

 

And a host of other informative Youtubers who I just realized are all Travel Agents in their spare time so…I can’t post them here.

We have tried and failed to create content for Facebag, Instaspam, the site formerly known as Twitter, and Tik-Clop (the short form video site for pony enthusiasts) we have given up and remain dedicated to Cruise Critic.

 

A Note on Questions

One of the most enjoyable features of CC is answering questions for future cruisers. However, to add a wrinkle of unhelpfulness, I will endeavor to ask the least appropriate people I can find. Want to know if Decoy is back on the Premium Package? I’ll find one of the Performers to pose that question to! Interested in Debarkation Times? Perhaps the Inventory Manager will have some insights. All kidding aside, I’ll do my best to respond for at least the first 3 days, after which the ‘LIVE’ part of this blog becomes increasingly inaccurate.

 

The Self-Indulgent Nature of this Blog

 

“But wait! Where are the pictures of food? Sunsets? All I see are photos of your wife in funny hats…what gives?”

 

This blog is largely for the enjoyment of our immediate family; by which I mean I generally try to use it to make XZ laugh when she reads the daily recaps at 3 am. There are inside jokes, there are throwback references, possibly related to professional wrestling, and, occasionally, there is some information masquerading as trite humor.

 

And, to get out in front of it, in case you are unaware what is to follow, allow me to quote our fellow Cruise Critics in their hour of discontent: “I see the Celebrity Cheerleaders are out in force…” YES. EXACTLY.

 

And Here We Go, the luggage has been spotted and the cat is…skeptical...phbbbt.

 

 

Edited January 27 by David Kane

[hcat]

 

.we are sailing on ASCENT  1/28..

maybe we'll  see you on board the ship!

[nimiq]

Will be following 

sea YA 

Eric

[georgiaguy]

We are coming aboard in about six weeks so looking forward to this!

[Cap_D]

Priceless.  Thank you in advance.  Love watching the Dorks.  Have a great time..... Glad to see you're continuing your story.... 

[blueslily]

Fun reading. Boarding the Feb 4 sailing. Will look for your hats 

[vickykay]

Looking forward to following along another David Kane review.  Always informative and fun!  

Edited January 27 by vickykay
Missing letter

[jimbri]

Lookng forward to your review.

[mac_tlc]

10 hours ago, hcat said:

 

.we are sailing on ASCENT  1/28..

maybe we'll  see you on board the ship!

We had the pleasure of sailing with David and I can tell you you will definitely see David and XZ. can’t miss ‘em!!!

 

Wonderful couple to sail with. 
 

mac_tlc

[dock]

Ah, soo sad we will miss you by a few hrs ,

( can’t y’all stay   on another week 😀) but looking forward to another interesting review. 
Thank you. 
 

[bjahil47]

Following along as I am curious about the MC room…and the hats!

 

party on and enjoy!

[Reel Love]

Thanks so much for taking us all along on another one of your great (and I think hysterical) reviews!  Love your sense of humour.... And your cat and your hats!😀

[Jim_Iain]

Happy to see another of your fun Live VLog.    "Dishonestly" think this should be a good read.

 

Can't wait to see the wardrobe roll out.

[countess5]

Jumping on board, since we will actually jump on board as you disembark! 😂

 

This will get me through the next two weeks, Thanks! 

 

Cheers! 🍸

[Texed]

We have been on Ascent for two sailings. We have been in a Magic Carpet Sky Suite. 
 

We have been very pleased with the suite, with the butler, with the room attendant, and with the food in Luminae,  and in the specialty restaurants. 😊

Edited January 27 by Texed

[David Kane]

The Fast Forwards

 

Recently, a commenter suggested that someone posting a LIVE review should just eliminate all the where-with-all and get on with it. We couldn't agree more - thusly, we present 'the Fast Forwards.'

 

99% of you should just scroll right through this to the onboarding post; it's kind of like the way I watch Road House - keep fast forwarding until Sam Elliot shows up.

 

For the remaining 1% the travel day went like this: the goal of travel, especially involving the never-tedious airport process, is to look far enough ahead to cut down on restrictive chaos. That is, to say, plan, plan, plan. To that end, common wisdom states to take the first plane of the day, as that is the one that overnighted at the airport, with a fresh crew, and barring predictable weather, will leave on time. Everything else beyond that one flight falls into transactional chaos. SO! That is what we did, flying out of Providence at 6am, which means getting up at 3am to make it through security theatre in time (the TSA can be a touch stressful, what with the continuous shouting, but, if you think of it like attending a play, it makes SO much more sense - you have to check your hat and coat, the stage manager has to examine your props, and, occasionally, you get selected for audience participation).

 

Normally, this would be fine...except when your 6am flight literally breaks down at the gate and gets cancelled. Whoops. Now, good news is Providence has a semi-secret hidden Encore lounge in the basement where we got to camp out at for 5 hours while we got re-booked. The bad news is that, instead of getting breakfast in Baltimore, we got to go Washington for no lunch. 

 

Two points on this: 1) I haven't flow this route in a number of years, and apparently, at some point, they named this airport Regan International? Naming an airport after the person who broke the back of the Air Traffic Controllers Union is...certainly a choice. And 2) the food option in the A terminal are absolutely atrocious. They have done away with friendly bartenders and banter. Instead, there are QR codes for menus and drones staring out from behind plexiglass wordlessly delivering far too overpriced food with no mirth or joy. When people on CC wonder how it is we tip so much extra on the ship; it's because I didn't spend $54 for a garden salad and a beer at Regan International.

 

Happily, the flight from Regan left on time, arrived early, and baggage arrived even faster. For a $63 taxi ride ($80 with tip - see I'm still ahead on that Garden Salad) we arrived at the Ritz Carlton in Fort Lauderdale and are happily ensconced watching the Royal Rumble. 

 

These conclude the Fast Forwards. Tomorrow, we return to our regularly scheduled onboarding content.

[hcat]

sorry for your travel woes.. driving across Florida was no picnic Saturday.

 

.  Lots of traffic and  slowed down by  closed lanes ( brush fire, fender benders..not us  and   cones set up for  weekeday construction ). 

 

But we made it...finally.  We are Ready to cruise!  Will tune in here when we can...

[Minorhawk]

We're a mere six weeks away.  Looking forward to your perspective of this new shop!

[Sandy1975]

Looking forward to reading your report! I will be in on the ship in 48 days!

[Arzeena]

Following!

[georgiaguy]

You were so close you could have swung by and picked us up! (When you were at DCA)

Edited January 28 by georgiaguy

[David Kane]

Onboarding Update 1 of Many

 

The first day, let alone hours, on board are full of fond exploration and little time to sit down and reflect. Some early notes: 

 

--We arrived at port at 10:50 via a $22 UBER from the Ritz-Carlton via a driver who had 10,000+ rides. The Ascent is down in 25, and, as usual, you get dropped off where the guys with guns tell your driver you *should* be dropped off.

 

--We were through security and on the ship in 30 minutes, but it would have been 13 minutes if we didn't spend time enjoying the pre-embarkation lounge.

 

--Luggafge arrived at 1:40pm - a new record! The claims of the best crew being brought over from some of the other ships appears to be in place on *all* levels.

 

More to follow, in a more coherant fashion!

 

 

[countess5]

Looked like a great sail away!

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers! 

[georgiaguy]

Happy sailing!

[mauimary]

We just got off the Ascent this am. We saw you sail away from our hotel on FL Beach this afternoon