I booked a cruise for me and the misses in early Dec 2026. So way out 1.5 yrs but only $900 down and the rest by Sept 2026.
Celebrity Ascent in Aqua something class - misses never wanted a cruise (crowds, bad food, lotta bias) but always wanted to see Grenada so with that as a day excursion booked this 10 dayer to give her the sauna treatments she likes, elevated food options, etc.
Can anyone opine on Celebrity, or Grenada, or cruising do's/dont's as this is our first cruise ever
I happened to see your post and since I just got back from a 7 night cruise on the Ascent, I will comment. I am not a cruise person either. My only cruise until this year was a 4 night Disney Cruise as part of our honeymoon 10 years ago.
For our 10 year anniversary, we wanted to go to Europe and since my wife had never been there, we decided along with extended stays in Paris, Barcelona and Berlin, we would also do a 7 night Mediterranean cruise to see more of Europe without having to change hotels every day.
She did months of research and we ended up booking the Celebrity Ascent.
Comments:
The boat is beautiful - it is Celebrity's newest ship - but it won't be by time you cruise as I believe they have another ship coming online at the beginning of 2026. It was extremely well maintained. I don't think I saw a piece of trash the entire week. The service and staff were excellent. It seemed like our room guy was in our room cleaning every time we left. He was in there maybe 3 times a day? I don't know. I never actually saw him. The room and common arears were spotless. Each night at dinner we had a main waiter and an assistant and a sommelier and I think a fourth guy. I don't remember. Everything was well staffed.
Because we did port excursions every day, we were not on the boat too much during the day. There was one sea day and the boat was crazy crowded. They did open all the bars and even had pop up bars that day to keep wait times down. But forget about finding space near the pool.
We had no issues eating in the four main sit down dining rooms. The food was great. They do try to upsell their premium dining but I didn't think the upcharge was worth it so we didn't go for that. Even the buffet was decent (not great but not bad).
Do's: Get the premium drink package!! We like to go to bars and drink. We LOVED the Sunset Bar and the Magic Carpet Bar. We went to both every night. Sunsets from both bars were amazing every night. We by far got our money's worth with the premium drink package. If you like to drink even a little, the drinks add up wicked fast. But on the premium drink package we also got unlimited premium water bottles. I think we probable drank at least 15-20 a day between the two of us. Not an exaggeration. Add in all the $19 cocktails and $19 glasses of wine, plus the premium coffee in the morning and yeah, it added up. My wife stalked the prices for months before the cruise. The drink package prices fluctuate every day like an airline fare. We ended up getting the premium package for $8 more per person per day than what we would have paid for the classic drink package (which was included free in our booking). Best decision we made.
Don't's: We also had the basic wifi included in our booking for free. I did not upgrade to premium and wish I had. I use basic wifi at all hotels, airports, etc. I never have had a problem since I do not stream or game or anything. The basic wifi on the ship was horrible. Could barely load emails. Normally, on a cruise I would not care. When we did the Disney cruise 10 years ago, I don't think there even was onboard wifi and that was fine disconnecting. But for this cruise, we were trying to plan shore excursions in foreign countries every day and it was so difficult on the wifi. We got AT&T international service once we hit port so we were able to get by.
I liked Celebrity. One of the things we looked for was our "vibe". Some cruises are too stuffy with formal nights etc. And others are like a wild drunken party. Celebrity was definitely our speed. I still would not say I am now a cruise converter. I still do not like the idea of 4000 people in one relatively small space - especially at peak times trying to squeeze on the elevators. But my experience on Celebrity makes me want to go back someday. I think for me, it would be more about the destination ports than the boat itself. Like I would like to do a Baltic cruise or maybe Alaska more to see those places than to cruise. But where last year, I would have said let's just go to those places, now I would entertain a cruise.
