LIVE!!! - Edge Preview and Maiden Voyage - Dec 6th & 9th - LIVE REVIEW from the EDGE!

[Mainah]

On 12/3/2018 at 1:29 PM, mit429 said:

Yea, I've seen several pictures and videos of them ... my two concerns are that the walkway in front of them is roped off (I'm told it is now) and that they don't seem to get much sun ... so we'll see! 

We rented one this last Monday and they would not rope off the area even though we were told that it would be roped off when we booked the day before (the area was roped off that day, Sunday).  I mentioned it in my "late Live" thread in the Closer to the Edge forum.

[signman]

On 12/1/2018 at 8:04 PM, Sandy1975 said:

4) VTCruising mentioned a "tomtom". I can't remember if it was in her Sky suite or concierge cabin but is there one in aqua? In case you don't know what tom tom is, it is a cylindrical type object that is hollow and you can turn the top to make it a little table or foot rest (sorry english is not my first language and what I just wrote may not make sense)

 

Watched a video tour last week of the cabin of someone on an early preview cruise and they displayed the "tomtom" in their IV.

[abbydancer2003]

3 hours ago, cricketgirl said:

Hi Tim, I am following along and very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences of the Edge!  Are you planning on doing Le Petit Chef one night?   I am very interested in finding out of you have to choose everything from ONE menu, or if you can pick and choose from the two different menus.  My understanding is that there is one menu that follows the show and an alternate menu that does not.  I'm hoping you are not forced to select one menu or the other, but can pick and choose from both.  Also is there a vegetarian option?  Thanks and have a great cruise!

We ate there last week - and while we ordered all from the show menu I noticed several people having both the salad from the show menu and the onion soup from the alternate menu.  Hope this helps.

[Jim_Iain]

3 hours ago, cricketgirl said:

ow and an [ pick [

 

I was at Le Petite Chef last month on Silhouette and found the menu rather limited.  As you say you have the regular menu that follows the show.   On the right side of the menu they have a  couple alternatives - really limited but would assume they could  fix something else if contacted in advance

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2018 by Jim_Iain

[mit429]

So, I have a fairly big update, and kind of a strange one, haha. As I mentioned, my friend Brandon was going to be joining me for the maiden voyage. Well, as of yesterday that is no longer the case. My friend Chas expressed an interest in coming, as he found out he had some extra time off from work - and as it turns out Brandon had a busy week coming up. So, Brandon and Chas came to an agreement that Chas would go instead.

 

This has to be *the* latest changes of a roommate I’ve ever done haha, but it was before check-in closed, so they were able to do it. I’m not quite sure how they worked out the flights, that was something I was out of the loop on.

 

There were some issues with Celebrity regarding changing the name at the last minute, despite check-in not being closed and being told the day before that as long as it was done before the end of Wednesday. Our travel agent spent over 45 minutes on the phone with them, as they were claiming the manifest closed early for the maiden voyage, but eventually it was resolved - thankfully!

 

So, Brandon’s out, Chas’ is in … should be a unique change! I’m sure Brandon will be sad missing out, but he’s actually booked on the Edge with his family sometime this spring, so he’ll be on soon enough!

 

(Do GIFs actually work? I guess we'll find out)

[Lovincruisin1321]

On 12/1/2018 at 2:59 PM, mit429 said:

[If you don’t want the back story as to how we ended up on this sailing and in the staterooms we are in, you can skip over this post - it’s basically just a lot of words haha.]

 

The Beginning

I think it’s important to start with how we got here, as every story has a beginning. For the beginning of this story we have to go back in time to March 13, 2017. Really we can jump back to November 21, 2016 when the first steel was cut for the Edge … but March 2017 will do for our purposes. On March 13, 2017, Celebrity planned to unveil the details of its newest ship, the Celebrity Edge, along with sailing dates and itinerary information. As luck would have it, I was already on a Celebrity ship for the unveiling, the Reflection. I was traveling with my boyfriend at the time, Kyle, and 10 close friends (quite a big group, I know!) On March 13th we were due in Cozumel and most of the group had planned a shore excursion to Chichen Itza, and a few others were going into Cozumel to sample the tequila. I decided to stay behind as they were going to do a live webcast of the unveiling in the Reflection Theatre.

 

The webcast/presentation itself was kind of boring, but it was super interesting learning about a brand new class of ships. I’m sure those of you who watched along at home felt the same way - probably was pretty exciting to be in the room though! I was surprised as to the amount of people that had come into the theatre to watch along with me - even Kyle eventually joined me, haha! At some point either before the presentation or during it, it was made clear that bookings would go live at 1pm. So at 12:55pm, I made my way over to the Future Cruise office, which is super conveniently located to the theatre on the S-Class ships, and hovered outside waiting for them to tell me they were able to book.

 

Kyle and I sat down with someone at 1pm, as they were still printing off deck plans and learning about the ships themselves. We really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but I knew that we had to be in a suite and I’d really love to be in an aft suite. So after a little back and forth, we ended up securing two aft corner SkySuites on Deck 7 - we had also booked a room for our friends Chad and Cole, as we figured they wanted to join as well. There was a lot of confusion and rooms were going fast, so there wasn’t much time to compare prices, or figure out what was what - we just knew that if we could get two corner S1’s on the same deck, we should go with that. We had briefly discussed S3’s, but they weren’t that much cheaper and we were unsure as to how the Magic Carpet would be working, so we went with the S1’s and I’m super glad. So we were all set, booked on the December 16, 2018 Inaugural Sailing - Eastern Caribbean in SkySuites 7309 and 7306.

 

The Changes

Fast forward to late December 2017, or early January 2018, when Celebrity announced that the Edge was going to be ready earlier than expected! They pushed up the Inaugural Sailing (now rebranded as a Maiden Voyage) to December 9, 2018 and made it a Western Caribbean. We immediately moved to the new sailing, which Celebrity allowed everyone on the December 16th sailing to do, if they so pleased. It actually worked better with my schedule, so I was happy. I should note that Kyle and I decided to end our relationship over the summer, but we had still committed to both going on this cruise together - as we were both extremely excited about it. We were all slightly disappointed that the itinerary had changed, I much prefer the Eastern Caribbean and there was one extra sea day (who doesn’t love a sea day!), but whatever, we still got to be on the Maiden Voyage!

 

On January 6, 2018, Chad, Cole, and I set off on the Celebrity Summit on a 7-night Southern Caribbean cruise. Good things seem to happen while we are on cruise ships, at least related to the Edge - haha! Anyway, while we are aboard, Celebrity allowed the Edge preview sailings to become bookable and also finalized the changes between the December 16th and December 9th sailings. As luck would have it, two corner S1’s opened on Deck 12 on our sailing - so we were quickly able to grab those - always love a higher deck! We are now in 12259 and 12260.

 

We also, while on the Summit, made the decision to get two Concierge Class rooms on the December 6th preview cruise. This was my first time having the Future Cruise office come to us, while we sat in Michael's Club - which I really liked. I'm definitely going to take advantage of that more in the future. We decided it would be nice to try a non-suite room and see what the MDR's were like and what the ship had to offer outside of The Retreat. At that point, we also invited my sister, Erin, and our friend, Chas, who also got a stateroom on the preview sailing. We were all able to book with GO BEST, which was available on the preview sailings for only a few days before X changed their mind. We had booked rooms 10185 (Tim/Kyle), 10187 (Chad/Cole), and 12150 (Erin/Chas).

 

The next date of significance is April 27, 2018 - just a few days before my birthday, as luck would have it! Celebrity contacted our travel agent, who is Kyle, actually, to let him know that 10 Concierge Class rooms on the Edge had been rebranded as Aqua Class rooms and 10185 and 10187 were 2 of them - how lucky is that! We ended up with a better quality room, access to the Spa, and Blu, with no additional cost - talk about a major win! It was kind of a bummer that Erin and Chas’ room didn’t change, but that ended up not being a problem. So despite basically bankrupting ourselves in booking these sailings, we’ve ended up in much better rooms in both cases than we had initially paid for - and it looks like the ship will definitely be worth it.

 

The Finale

As we neared final payment, in September, it became clear that Kyle was not going to be able to join us, and Chas was unable to commit due to some time constraints. That worked out fairly well for the preview cruise, as I just moved Erin into my room and then we cancelled the non-AQ stateroom. Finding a roommate for myself on the maiden voyage was a bit more of an ordeal, as taking a week off in December is not an option for a lot of people, and it wasn’t exactly a cheap sailing (as I’m sure you know, or can guess). As you can imagine there was a lot of drama and a lot of asking people to try to change plans, etc in my attempts to figure this all out. In the end, my dear friend, Brandon, ended up coming through and being able to join for the maiden voyage - so all was saved!

 

So here we are, 5 days away from sailing, which for a while just seemed so far away. I am beyond excited. Chad, Cole, and I message each other non-stop about things that we’ve seen and are learning about the Edge.

 

I took a bit of a hiatus from CruiseCritic for a number of reasons before this sailing, but thankfully we were members of Lloyd’s Facebook group (Celebrity Edge and Oasis 5), which essentially mirrored the “EDGE BLOCKS ARE IN THE HOUSE” thread here, so I followed along with the ships construction intently. I have to give a huge shoutout to Lloyd, Ade, and many others for keeping us all up to date on what was going on - and answering my endless questions. I also have to give a shoutout to vtcruising for all the details on the Edge thusfar, and ChicagoPaul and Norris for inspiring me to write better and better reviews each time.

Looking forward to following along.  Are you taking pictures?

 

On 12/1/2018 at 2:59 PM, mit429 said:

(You really should be able to tag people in posts, this message board stuff is soooo backwards, lol)

 

[mit429]

Well, it’s been a few days since an update, but we’re finally here!

 

I’ve had a busy few days, my vacation officially started on Monday - whoooohooo! I ran a bunch of errands on Monday, like getting my haircut (extremely important!), and started the process of packing. When I mean I started the process of packing, I started trying on clothes to figure out what did/didn’t fit and then put them out.

 

Yesterday, Tuesday, was my big packing day - I woke up early, went to SoulCycle, ran a few more errands and then started packing. It was quite the process, I ended up with more stuff than I had initially intended. My sister and two of my friends came over for a drink after I finished packing to celebrate the “lighting” of my Christmas Tree.  So, all-in-all, a great night and got it all done.

 

Packed and Ready to Go!

 

This morning, I woke up bright and early at 6am, ordered a car, and headed to LaGuardia. I’d normally take the subway to LGA, but with two heavy suitcases that just wouldn’t be possible. I ordered the Lyft around 645am and got an amazing driver named Michael, in a Mercedes E-Class, so that was an extra treat. Checking my bags and getting through security was seamless - I had a few seconds to stop in the Delta SkyClub to grab myself a quick breakfast of Cheerios!

 

Cheerios ... and my Chariot to Fort Lauderdale

 

As I mentioned, I work for Delta, and I made the decision to fly down to FLL on standby. Thankfully, being that this was the first flight of the day, and it’s a Wednesday, I was able to get on - the last seat, but a seat’s a seat! Normally, I wouldn’t risk flying standby down to a cruise, but it’s mid-week and I had an extra day, so I figured I’d be fine, and thankfully I was. The flight was fairly uneventful, albeit incredibly long due a long routing from air traffic control. I occupied my time watching Christopher Robin - which was very cute - reading a bit, and then watching some of the better parts of The Hunt For Red October.

 

We landed into Fort Lauderdale around 1120p, I headed to the SkyClub for a mimosa and some hummus. I then grabbed my checked baggage, and ordered an Uber to the Marriott. I had an amazing driver from Senegal, by way of London, named Kwaku - I’ll admit that I often roll my eyes when an Uber driver tries to engage me in conversation, but I found myself wanting Kwaku to go around the block so we could keep talking.

 

Very excited for the warm(er) weather, and ready to get on the Edge!

 

I saw this sitting on top of someone's bag in the SkyClub - how fortuitous! 

[mit429]

14 minutes ago, Lovincruisin1321 said:

Looking forward to following along.  Are you taking pictures?

 

 

 

Yup - lots of pictures!

Also follow my instagram story to see them quicker!

[lola2013]

Instagram name please?

[jpmc27]

1 hour ago, mit429 said:

So, I have a fairly big update, and kind of a strange one, haha. As I mentioned, my friend Brandon was going to be joining me for the maiden voyage. Well, as of yesterday that is no longer the case. My friend Chas expressed an interest in coming, as he found out he had some extra time off from work - and as it turns out Brandon had a busy week coming up. So, Brandon and Chas came to an agreement that Chas would go instead.

 

This has to be *the* latest changes of a roommate I’ve ever done haha, but it was before check-in closed, so they were able to do it. I’m not quite sure how they worked out the flights, that was something I was out of the loop on.

 

There were some issues with Celebrity regarding changing the name at the last minute, despite check-in not being closed and being told the day before that as long as it was done before the end of Wednesday. Our travel agent spent over 45 minutes on the phone with them, as they were claiming the manifest closed early for the maiden voyage, but eventually it was resolved - thankfully!

 

So, Brandon’s out, Chas’ is in … should be a unique change! I’m sure Brandon will be sad missing out, but he’s actually booked on the Edge with his family sometime this spring, so he’ll be on soon enough!

 

(Do GIFs actually work? I guess we'll find out)

 

Looking forward to be aboard with you, Tim! For those of you who are interested I'm, Chas, Tim's last minute roommate. I've cruised with Tim and our group once before, on the Reflection in March of 2017. I was actually on the ship when Tim booked this sailing!

 

Tim and gang have had over a year to get excited for this sailing, so I have some catching up to do...

[lola2013]

4 minutes ago, jpmc27 said:

 

Looking forward to be aboard with you, Tim! For those of you who are interested I'm, Chas, Tim's last minute roommate. I've cruised with Tim and our group once before, on the Reflection in March of 2017. I was actually on the ship when Tim booked this sailing!

 

Tim and gang have had over a year to get excited for this sailing, so I have some catching up to do...

My friends and I were on Reflection in March, 2017...first stop was San Juan...we arrived about two hours late in a torrential downpour. Also made stops in St. Kitts and St. Maarten.  Is that the cruise you guys were on?  Besides the rain, it was a GREAT cruise!!!

[mit429]

2 hours ago, lola2013 said:

My friends and I were on Reflection in March, 2017...first stop was San Juan...we arrived about two hours late in a torrential downpour. Also made stops in St. Kitts and St. Maarten.  Is that the cruise you guys were on?  Besides the rain, it was a GREAT cruise!!!

 

Nope, we were a Western Caribbean! The rain sounds half fun and half horrible, but I’m sure y’all made the best of it!

[mit429]

Had my first mishap with the mobile site, wow.

 

 

Edited December 6, 2018 by mit429

[J18ktleo]

So, I just found your thread...been following VT cruising all week!

I'm here in FLL and will be boarding with you tmrw, previewing the ship as I have 22 ladies in my group Jan 20!

We all booked  the  IV in  March 2017 for the Jan 20 cruise,  we do a girls cruise every Jan and when I saw the Edge I jumped on it and then everyone I talked to wanted to join so,,,,I have a wonderful & fun group of friends next month!

We hesitated on booking this 3 day and by the next week the IVs were gone so we're in  the  Panoramic Oceanview which should be interesting...

And doing Le Pettit Chef the second evening.

I had the four dining rooms on Quantum OTS and it was pretty easy but maybe it was also the itinerary so people weren't as consistent but never had any trouble just waking in at the last minute with a group....we'll see although I do have my whole group all scheduled for dining 😜

Looking forward to meeting everyone at Sail away tmrw, beads on and celebratory drinks in hand!

 

Jeani 

[mit429]

I wrote a post at dinner last night and it disappeared, but I know better than to write in the website and not in a document first… oh well.

 

Anyway, I arrived to the Marriott around noon and as luck would have it - a room was ready for me, status has it perks! (Also, traveling on a Wednesday had its perks) I was last here in the Spring of 2016, and the public areas look exactly the same, not that they are in need of any updates. The rooms have been slightly updated, to align with Marriott’s new brand standards. I’m really not wild about tile floors, I wish they gave you an area rug of some kind for next to the bed - oh well. The room did have a great view of the beach! (I included some pictures of the room, in case you were curious!)

 

 

 

It was a little too cool out when I arrived to sit poolside, so I relaxed in my room for a bit and then decided to get a mani/pedi. After that, I went and changed into my swimsuit and sat by the pool for a bit. It was honestly a tad too cold to be sitting out there, but I wanted to get some sun, so I took off my shirt and forced myself to stay there til the sun went down. I had decided that I would just skip lunch and have an early dinner, as I was super tired and wanted to be up early.

 

 

My original plan was to go to the Mai-Kai Restaurant for dinner and the show, but as I was sitting by the pool that sounded like a lot to do, so I was just going to eat at the hotel. I eventually changed my mind and went to the Mai-Kai, but more on that later.

 

I seem to be having trouble keeping this “live” but I’m going to try my best!

[mit429]

10 hours ago, J18ktleo said:

So, I just found your thread...been following VT cruising all week!

I'm here in FLL and will be boarding with you tmrw, previewing the ship as I have 22 ladies in my group Jan 20!

We all booked  the  IV in  March 2017 for the Jan 20 cruise,  we do a girls cruise every Jan and when I saw the Edge I jumped on it and then everyone I talked to wanted to join so,,,,I have a wonderful & fun group of friends next month!

We hesitated on booking this 3 day and by the next week the IVs were gone so we're in  the  Panoramic Oceanview which should be interesting...

And doing Le Pettit Chef the second evening.

I had the four dining rooms on Quantum OTS and it was pretty easy but maybe it was also the itinerary so people weren't as consistent but never had any trouble just waking in at the last minute with a group....we'll see although I do have my whole group all scheduled for dining 😜

Looking forward to meeting everyone at Sail away tmrw, beads on and celebratory drinks in hand!

 

Jeani 

 

Jeani, looking forward to meeting you and your gaggle of gals!

[Sandy1975]

You are probably super excited boarding today! Have a good time! Following you in IG and here!

[musicalianne]

Enjoying your “live” review!  Have a wonderful cruise!  Looking forward to seeing your pictures.

[cricketgirl]

19 hours ago, abbydancer said:

We ate there last week - and while we ordered all from the show menu I noticed several people having both the salad from the show menu and the onion soup from the alternate menu.  Hope this helps.

 

This is quite helpful - thanks so much!

 

19 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

I was at Le Petite Chef last month on Silhouette and found the menu rather limited.  As you say you have the regular menu that follows the show.   On the right side of the menu they have a  couple alternatives - really limited but would assume they could  fix something else if contacted in advance

 

Thanks for this info, I may go ahead and talk to them in advance when I board the ship.

[mit429]

As I previously mentioned, everyone was getting in much later in the evening than myself. Chad and Cole were due to arrive around 830pm and Erin around 1030pm, so I had planned to do dinner alone.

 

I heard about this Polynesian/Tiki-themed restaurant and dinner show a year or two ago and I’ve been curious. I’m a huge fan of Tiki bars and figured this would be a fairly awesome experience. They do a dinner followed by a show, the cost of the show is 15$ and dinner is ala carte. I had made a dinner reservation for 7pm, followed by the 8pm show, which when I was lounging poolside, seemed like it would be too much.

 

I waivered back and forth about going there or just eating at the hotel and eventually decided I would go, eat/drink at the bar, and not stay for the show. If I thought it was a good experience, I could come back with a group next time I was in town. Eating at the bar had another appeal and that is the Mai Kai’s Happy Hour - half price everything (drinks, apps, salads, entrees) from 5-7pm. It’s probably the best happy hour I’ve ever seen.

 

 

The Uber ride from the Marriott to the Mai Kai was about 20 minutes and cost $8, I got there around 530pm and found myself a seat at the fairly crowded bar. The staff was fairly nice, but not the most attentive - it was kind of strange. Oh, as an added bonus, on Wednesday’s they had free pork dumplings and a light sushi selection available complimentary if you were eating there.

 

The menu is expansive and everything looked delicious, I ordered a Shrunken Skull as my first cocktail which was both delicious and dangerous. I ended up buying the mug for an extra $12 (I love tiki mugs). I got myself some dumplings and sushi, and also ordered the Wagyu Beef Sliders and Tahitian Cheese Tangs. The dumplings were delicious, the sushi was … okay, I guess what can you expect for complimentary sushi - it was mainly just California rolls anyway. The Wagyu sliders were fairly tasty, especially with the spicy mustard I was given as a dipping sauce with the Cheese Tangs. I had never heard of Tahitian Cheese Tangs before, they are basically fried balls of cheese and they are delicious!

 

 

 

The couple next to me, who were visiting from Las Vegas and on their way to Key West, ordered the octopus, which looked amazing, so I had to copy them. It was quite good, albeit a little salty, but I’d definitely recommend it if you find yourself at the Mai-Kai. For my next drink, I ordered the extremely large Hakulai, which was also delicious, and did I mention how big it was! I debated ordering dessert, the chocolate mousse cake looked delicious, but I figure I’d save room for a creme brûlée every night on the ship - lol.

 

 

 

When I figure out how to upload a movie from my pixel, I have one.

 

All in all, it was a delicious and extremely filling meal, that only cost me $43 before tip (and before the mug). After dinner, I walked about .3 miles to a Target down the street to pick up some Sundries. They also sell wine at Target down here, so I picked up 6 bottles of sparkling wine for the 4 of us to split up and take aboard with us.

 

We’ve found that we usually like to take advantage of the two wines per person policy, but keep them in our stateroom. We ask our attendant to place them on ice when they come through to clean in the AM, and will often have a glass or two while getting ready in the evening. It’s a nice touch that we’ve really come to enjoy - and you can thank Chad for that fabulous idea many years ago!

Edited December 6, 2018 by mit429

[mit429]

After the Mai-Kai, I came home, repacked and tried to get some sleep. I succeeded I’m sleeping about 4-5 hours, in fits, which is pretty good for me before a vacation.

 

I woke up at 5 to see where the ship was and noticed on the MarineTraffic app that the Edge was nearing port and was due in around 545am. I paid the extra 99 cents to be able to see her location and route live. I went out on the balcony and saw her (I won’t bother posting those pics because they’re super blurry). I left the hotel and hopped on a Lime scooter over to the Fort Lauderdale jetties. I was able to get onto the beach and arrived just as the Edge was passing by, and I’m just AMAZED. Just WOW.

 

 

[floridaag]

Nice she is gorgeous.  We had a perfect view of her leaving Nassau ahead of us as the sun was setting on Sunday

[dugknight]

Keep it coming. The reviews of Edge so far have NOT been good. Looking desperately for a great one!

[mit429]

I haven’t forgotten about you all, it’s just been an insanely busy day, I promise I will get caught up tomorrow (or today)!

[stinsowm]

Following along with you all from Nashville.  Enjoy each moment.  I appreciate your great comments/photos!!

 

Walter