blue925

On 12/28/2018 at 8:36 PM, miched said:

I know it isn’t polite to ask a female her weight so I am not really asking that.  I am curious about one thing.  Did you gain any weight?    If not I think my wife and I need to step up our workouts.  

 

Here is why I ask.  My wife and I try to be active and are fairly fit but not as good as we probalby could be with a little more effort.   We follow a decent diet almost as close as yours and weight everything and keep track.  I don’t thing we train as much as you do as we just do the Beachbody programs like P90x, Insanity, Focus, Max 30 and etc during the winter and  enjoy riding our bikes doing at least 20 miles per day in the warmer months.  Nothing exceptional but better than nothing to keep from being  72 year old couch potatos.  

 

Problem is we alway gain at least 10 lbs on a cruise that will be 12 to 14 days and as many as 21.   I know that we eat more than normal  and have many drinks but very rarely do deserts, and avoid pizza, fries, hot dogs and etc.  On a few cruises we did our workout videos everyday while on board but it didn’t help.  I  burn  around 400 calories on average doing them.  We finally decided that why not rest on a cruise as our bodies need it.  Taking the stairs  as we do don’t really burn many calories and  the walking in the ports and on board don’t equal a beer considering calories are still burned when laying around doing nothing so the extra calories being burned  aren’t that many.    As we get older it seems  as of the weight goes on very easy but it is really hard to get rid of.  Problem is when we go on a cruise it is really hard not to indulge.  

 

Thanks for your reply and sharing your cruise experience.  

 

Happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌅

 

Ha, although it may not be polite to ask, I certainly have no problem sharing the number.  However, I have not weighed myself since coming home.  We came home then went right into the Christmas holiday and have been drinking and eating with some abandon since then (I have resumed my exercise routine and breakfast protein shakes, but as another poster said, alcohol is empty calories and does have an impact).  With that said, I definitely notice my clothes fitting differently, although they do still fit.  To me, that means I have gained about 10 pounds since December 13, which is when I last weighed myself.  My weight number is deceptive because of my low body fat and high muscle mass, as I typically run about 145 pounds but wear a size 2/4.  

In any case, the bottom line is that I absolutely gained weight but I also had SO. MUCH. FUN. on Edge that I would not trade for anything. 🙂

On 12/28/2018 at 8:47 PM, angelfeathers said:

blue925, Thank you so much for such a great review and all the photos & info!! We are looking forward to our cruise Jan. 27th. Happy we have a Celebrity Suite!  🙂 

Absolutely -- glad to help!!  I hope you have a fantastic trip.  As nice as it was to be one of the early Edgers, it also is a bummer that we no longer have it to look forward to.

On 12/29/2018 at 3:55 AM, cruise47 said:

Sounds liked you had an outstanding cruise experience. Thanks for all your posts and photos.

Thank you for such kind feedback!  I appreciate it.  I hope to cruise again soon, but first have to earn the vacation time and money to do so. 😉

On 12/28/2018 at 2:58 PM, kenevenpar said:

 

Oops, I see you have already returned home

Hi, I'm not sure whether it was actually fresh squeezed each morning or not, but it certainly tasted like it had been.  I've had frozen juice, and this was so much better than that.  (Caveat -- I virtually never have juice due to an aversion to sugar, so it may well have been frozen at some point.  But...it certainly tasted delicious!)

12 hours ago, LouieT said:

Thanks for sharing your experience and including all the photos. Sounds like you had a wonderful time. Edge looks great.

Thanks, Louie!  I appreciate that.  Edge really was very fun and we are still a little bummed to be home rather than on the ship. 😉 

14 hours ago, Tall-Cruiser said:

Blue925 - Very good detailed review. Looks like you guys had a great time on this cruise. It was pleasure meeting you and your husband. 

 

Wishing you all Happy New Year.

Thank you, Sallah!!!  We really enjoyed meeting you and I loved seeing your smiling face around the ship. And at the Renaissance, too! 🙂  Happy New Year to you and the family.

2 hours ago, kearney said:

Did you notice the drone that was stuck in the chandelier in the martini bar? Day one they had drone races and one got stuck there. We came back and each day it was there and then one day it was gone. We thought it would need a major ladder to reach it...but one of the bar tenders managed to free it after standing on the bar with a long pole. So perhaps it is good the bar is not covered in ice after all 🙂 

It is so funny you mentioned that!  My husband pointed it out and I thought that although it looked like a drone, it couldn't be possible that a brand-new ship would have a drone implanted in a key structure!  And then yes, it suddenly wasn't there one day...maybe we were there when it was removed?  I'll have to ask my husband since his memory is more, um, clear than mine for all things Martini Bar.  Thank you for clarifying what it was and how it got there!!

35 minutes ago, C-Dragons said:

They did not collect our Seapass cards.

We also kept ours.

3 hours ago, ecslady said:

 

Let me remind you, that the comments I made about the band being set up with music instead of seating, was about the first 7 day revenue December 9-16 not a preview cruise.

That is a great point -- I had forgotten that myself.

49 minutes ago, Lastdance said:

Thank you so much for all the great information presented in your review.  You have an easy way of writing that, IMHO, captures the essence of cruising, along with trying a new ship.  Disembarking from a suite sounds very easy, and though a little sad, a great end to an enjoyable experience.  Yes, your pics are worth a 1,000 words....thanks for sharing  information on the gym and jogging track too, as those are very important to my DH and me!

Thank you for the kind words!  I should admit that I was a professional writer for many years (as a reporter for the L.A. Times) and so I definitely take pride in my writing.  I appreciate the feedback!!

2 hours ago, Bo1953 said:

Thank you for this.

 

I think many of us are trying to make a comparison of services, presentations, food, bars, music, etc. between the short Preview Sailings and the full revenue Sailings. Which, at minimum, will cause much confusion and concern, understandably so.

 

While some of these may be the same or similar, we do forget that on the Preview Sailings X tried to include a lot of the experience which was planned for eight (8) days into three (3) which is bound to be overwhelming for some of us to take in.

 

bon voayge

I completely agree that is isn't fair or appropriate to compare the three-day cruises to the seven-day (or TA) ones...and when/if we go back on the Edge again in a couple of years, we expect a different experience as Celebrity is clearly making adjustments based on all of this feedback.  It will be neat to see the evolution!

My final post will be fairly short, as it will just cover disembarkation day.

We woke up at what felt like the crack of dawn (really just 5:30, but it was pitch black so it felt even earlier!) and showered, did last-minute packing and checked all of the 400 million drawers, nooks, crannies, cubbies and closets in our room to make sure we left nothing behind.  We had our final breakfast in Luminae when it opened at 6:30.  I did a final caloric splurge with huevos rancheros.... yum!!  Felix came by and thanked us for what we had left for him the night before and I was very moved by his sincerity -- he is just a fantastic guy and I hope other suite guests request him!

We then grabbed our last items from our room (two backpacks, a duffel bag and my husband's two large hats) and went to the Retreat Lounge to wait for our turn to leave.  At 7:36, it was announced that the ship had been cleared and walk-off passengers could leave.  A Retreat staff member started taking down groups of people in the elevator rigged to bypass all other floors.

Luggage tags 1-4 were called at 7:57, so we actually managed to jump on a walk-off passenger elevator and were down to the exit within seconds.  Customs was an absolute breeze (again, despite me not bringing my passport and having my DL and birth certificate) and then we walked to get our luggage.  It was a long walk, as others have mentioned, but not horrible, although I can see it being extremely cumbersome for anyone with mobility issues.  Our luggage was easy to find, we walked outside and headed to the left for Rideshare (Lyft, Uber).  Taxis are to the right.

There were lots of porters with luggage carts around helping people get where they needed to go, although really, the Rideshare area was literally 10-15 feet from the terminal exit.  By 8:19, we were in our Lyft back to FLL, and we actually got there and through security so early that we had almost two hours at the gate before our 10:30 a.m. flight.  

The flight home was uneventful and we landed, Lyfted home and were at Disneyland later that evening to take our daughters to see Santa.  No rest for the weary -- and that means parents of tiny tots!

Thank you all for reading along, and please feel free to ask any questions you like.  I plan on writing a review to post on CC during the next few days as I continue processing our thoughts on the ship, room, experience, etc.  Overall, however, I give our weeklong trip and the Edge a solid A!  

21 hours ago, ecslady said:

 

When I looked at this picture, I knew there was something different.  On the Dec 9-16 cruise, there were tables and chairs where the band is set up and playing.  Glad to see Celebrity made a change and put music by the Martini Bar, instead of the same piped in beat day after day.

Oh, interesting!  Yes, I can't imagine there not being live music in Martini Bar.  I think we experienced live music (singers, small bands, duos, etc.) every single day from afternoon through the evening.  It was absolutely delightful, even when we were "just" having coffees from Bacio and enjoying the sound from the level above.

Photos from the final full day!

On Saturday, our last full day, I woke up and panicked a little because there were so many things I still hadn't seen and experienced!  We also got an extra hour of sleep due to the time zone change, so I was raring to go at 7:30 sharp!  (I am also an incredibly perky morning person, anyway -- my co-workers LOVE traveling with me hahaha)

We breakfasted at Luminae then went out to the main pool to check things out since we hadn't really spent time there.  It was clearly going to be a cloudy and somewhat chilly (by Caribbean standards) day, but there were still folks out there by 9 claiming chairs.  We got two of the last ones in the inner circle around the pool and stayed there until about 10 people-watching.  (For those interested, I saw MAYBE a handful of people actually in the pool any time we went by.  They were all in the chairs.  Also, the Solarium was almost constantly packed.)

At 10 we went to the Retreat and had a couple of mimosas to wake up the taste buds.  We then reluctantly went downstairs to pack knowing we would not be in the mood later.  We got 90 percent of our packing done and then went to Luminae for lunch.  We both had the burger (which was inevitably done one level more than requested -- I should have asked for rare since my MR was a light but consistent brown with no pink) and starters.  I really consistently like the raw fish starters featured at lunch; if it weren't for those I would have been more interested in trying Raw on Five since I looooooove sushi.  DH had a coconut chicken soup, which was about an 8-level (out of 10) spice -- our server did warn him.  The soup was incredible, but it turns out my husband's stomach does not like coconut, so he stayed in our room most of the afternoon while I explored.

I hit up all the spots -- Retreat, martini glass hot tubs (easy to find a space, BUT it was quite cold and windy up there -- someone grabbed my Seapass and cover-up because they had flown away!), Magic Carpet (open for drinks almost constantly although the app does not reflect that), Bacio (ran into a guy who recognized me from the Facebook group for the Edge), etc.  I wish I had made the time to explore the outdoor spaces more when it was warmer, since frankly the wind made them not enjoyable since I was in a bathing suit and light cover-up.

Had our last dinner at Luminae and shared the second bottle of wine that we brought on board, then went to Eden, Martini Bar and then to bed.  A bittersweet night -- so sad to leave the ship, but also really excited to get home to our daughters for Christmas.

17 hours ago, msteries said:

Thanks for the great reviews and photos!  Here’s hoping I run into some fun-loving, ready-to-try new things folks like you on my February cruise.  I have one question about the Eden dinner.  Can you order regular bar drinks there.  I can party hearty as long as I stick to my Dewars on the rocks. 😉😉

Yes, absolutely!  Eden has a very, very complete bar and also lots of wine.  After my cigar box drink, I switched to wine then had a vodka-soda at the very end to awaken my palate for Martini Bar. 😉  You will be totally fine, I promise!

On 12/23/2018 at 11:10 AM, Lilikins said:

 

Not to sound creepy and go off cruise topic but if you wouldn’t mind sharing your arm workout, that would be awesome. Your arms are killer!

Not creepy at all!  Incredibly flattering.  Essentially, I do HIIT/boot camp workouts five to six times a week, do really heavy lifting with my legs once a week (I would do more, but my trainer is a full-time English teacher and it's hard to make our schedules mesh).  The HIIT (high-intensity interval training) workouts have been incredible for my stamina, leanness and musculature.  We work on arms (especially shoulders and chest) a lot, and I also build bicep and tricep muscle really quickly.  When not on cruise ships, my diet consists primarily of protein shakes, chicken, white beans, egg whites, green vegetables, water and black coffee.  SUPER EXCITING!  Hahaha...but honestly, it's fine, and I do indulge once every two to three weeks.  Thanks again for the kind words -- you made my day!

3 hours ago, Lilikins said:

Did you ever get a chance the check out those martini hot tubs? I’m just curious because celebrity kept mentioning them in the promos but I’ve yet to see a review with someone saying if they like them, if they are crowded, and if the view was as great as they made it out to be.

 

 

I DID!!  I made it a point to on our last day because we had not earlier during the trip.  I'll discuss when I post about our last full day, which will be momentarily.

Oh my gosh, I totally failed to mention that on Friday, about 25 people from our roll call did a cabin crawl and it was SOOOO MUCH FUN.  I'd highly recommend trying to arrange this with your roll call simply because it was great to see the variety of cabins and how ship position affects view, furniture set-up, etc.  Plus we got to see a Celebrity Suite!  We volunteered as one of the hosts (one of three suites on the crawl, in addition to the CS and an aft SS1) and loved meeting the group, plus several of us had drinks at Eden afterward to dissect our Edge experiences and also just talk travel.  We had so much fun I forgot to take photos!  There should be some floating around, though, along with videos since Bob from our RC took video of every cabin we toured.

3 hours ago, Lilikins said:

Thank you so much for the wonderful review! I LOVE food/drink porn! The dishes look amazing. How was your eden box drink? 

 

Did you ever get a chance the check out those martini hot tubs? I’m just curious because celebrity kept mentioning them in the promos but I’ve yet to see a review with someone saying if they like them, if they are crowded, and if the view was as great as they made it out to be.

 

 

The box drink was...different.  The main liquor was mezcal, which I don't particularly enjoy since I don't like a) smoky or b) tequila-type booze.  That said, the drink seemed to have something pineapple-ish and sangria-y going on in addition to the mezcal, so I drank it without issue.  My husband, however, called it "an ash tray filled with rain water."

My favorite Eden drink was the Shaman, made with rum. Partly because of the taste and partly because it was covered under the Premium package!  Thanks to Barb from our roll call for introducing me to it!!

1 hour ago, kwokpot said:

 

I'm glad you enjoyed your time in Eden. I did not have dinner but breakfast and lunch was really good there! 

I'm interested in your experience regarding the Edenists performers and whether you encountered them outside Eden. If you you had seen them outside Eden where and what time was this? Did you have a direct interaction with them? If so how did it go? 

I agree that lunch in Eden was wonderful!  We also made it a point to go hang out there at several points because it's truly so beautiful.  Probably my favorite space on the ship after Martini Bar.

I did not see any Edenists outside of Eden but I met someone who saw one at Bacio and had a brief conversation and another who saw the "queen" walking around the ship.  But nothing intrusive like I had read about happening to others.  I think it's neat that they walk around and sort of advertise the show in that way and potentially get people intrigued.

48 minutes ago, Lastdance said:

Thanks so much for your review...It is obvious that you had a great time.  I had canceled this date, but kept my TA.  I think my DH is going to have an issue with food in Eden, but maybe, just maybe he will be okay...thanks for the story about the dog, as he sure does look right at home on the water...so glad you both enjoyed your vacation!

 

We ran into several couples/groups who reached out to Eden beforehand and made arrangements for special food due to vegetarian preference or seafood dislikes/concerns/allergies.  To a person, they all were well accommodated and several actually met the chef (a very young-looking guy who is obviously quite talented).  I would definitely recommend letting them know in advance about any of your husband's preferences and I'm sure they'll be happy to help.

3 hours ago, vtcruising said:

Thanks for all the great pictures and commentary! It looks like you two know how to have a good time! I really enjoyed following along. 🙂

Thank you so much!  I truly appreciate the kind words -- your live review really set the bar high!! 

Ack! I forgot the lobster photo from dinner! Felix gave us two tails and I ate every morsel of them. The sauce was fantastic. 

Photos from Friday!