Adrienne Jennings – Emma Cruises

GUEST POST: ADRIENNE The Cutting Edge: Why I LOVED my short cruise aboard Celebrity Edge I recently had the privilege of taking a 3-night sailing aboard the brand-new Celebrity Edge. The ship was absolutely amazing and breathtakingly beautiful. Here are six reasons why I LOVED taking a 3-night sailing aboard the new, innovative Celebrity Edge. If you're considering your first Celebrity Cruise, check out this post: 10 things you should know before cruising with Celebrity Cruises. 1) The ship is the destination I am at a place in my career where I have such a limited amount of vacation time. Although I am self-employed, I need to be present at work as much as possible and my husband only has about two weeks of vacation time. As such, a 7-day cruise vacation is half of his vacation time for the year. When I book a 7-day vacation, the destination and itinerary are my major priority and focus. On the flipside, when I am eager to see the sites, I am exhausted by the time I get back to the ship. This prevents me from getting the most out of the ship and what it has to offer. 3 Night Cruise! This 3-night sailing went to Nassau, Bahamas. Most people who’ve cruised at least once have sailed through Nassau and are usually okay to stay on the ship while in port. We had a phenomenal time in Nassau but we didn’t stay in port for long. We returned to the ship early feeling completely refreshed and enjoyed all of the amenities the ship had to offer. 2) A Chance to Experience a Celebrity cruise I am not new to cruising but I am new to Celebrity. Many of the itineraries that have been of interest to me are far longer than I can take. I have heard so many phenomenal things about Celebrity and was quite eager to experience what they had to offer. The attention to detail was definitely something I appreciated. a. When returning to the ship after a day in port, there were ice cold hand towels and fruit infused water waiting for tired travelers to refresh themselves prior to boarding the vessel. b. The fitness facilities had a refrigerator with cold towels to wipe your face after an invigorating workout. c. There was always a crew member waiting by the entryways with hand sanitizer to keep everyone healthy. d. Every guest space was incredibly beautiful. While boarding the ship, the embarkation deck lent itself to the same contemporary design as the rest of the ship. There was ambient lighting, clean lines and modern décor in an area that often looks industrial on most other cruise ships. 3) Embarkation The new cruise terminal was beautiful and there were no lines to enter. We were able to take our downloaded sailing document along with our passports and enter the waiting area seamlessly. Once embarkation began, they boarded people based upon their levels with Celebrity. When general boarding was called, we were able to immediately board without lines or hassle. We were welcomed onboard to a smiling member of the staff, told to proceed to our rooms to drop off our bags, collect our keys (outside our staterooms) and go upstairs to deck 14 where lunch was served in the Oceanview Café. 4) Customer Service I have never experienced bad customer service on vacation although I am pretty easy to please. Celebrity Edge, however, really wowed me with their level of customer service. The thing that stood out was the friendliness of the staff. While walking down the halls, we were always greeted with a smile by the ships’ officers and crew. There were smiling faces everywhere. Our stateroom attendant introduced himself to us and asked what he could do to help make our vacation better. Additionally, one morning in the Cosmopolitan dining room, a fellow table guest accidentally spilt her coffee. The staff quickly and discreetly cleaned the area, got her reseated and presented her with a complimentary dry-cleaning voucher for her clothes. This was the best service I’d seen in quite some time. 5) The Club There was a large, open, two-story space for nighttime activities. Every night there was a different activity occurring within this space. My favorite night was the Silent Disco. Every guest was given headphones upon entering and told which station was which. There were two DJs present and each of them had a different station (green and blue). The third station (red) played Latin music. Everyone in the room was dancing to a different station based upon which of the dueling DJs was selected. This was by far my favorite event of the sailing. 6) Disembarkation I took this short 3-night sailing with one of my dearest friends. We both had early return flights home and chose to self-carry our luggage from the ship to expedite getting off the vessel. We were able to disembark at 7:15am. All passengers who chose this option lined up to exit the ship on deck 5. We were all directed through customs and back into the Ft. Lauderdale cruise port within minutes. There was an eye scanning station, in lieu of passport checks, to keep the lines moving rapidly. This was the fastest disembarkation I have ever experienced. It took five minutes from the time we left the ship until we were on the sidewalk calling for an uber. We were pleasantly surprised and quite impressed. Overall impressions I enjoyed Celebrity Edge. The ship was beautiful and I would not hesitate to book a longer sailing with them. Until then, I will continue to sail the shorter itineraries and enjoy all that Celebrity has to offer. Up next, Celebrity Silhouette! Emma says: Thank you SO much for this one! Celebrity Edge certainly looks like an interesting ship. I've never seen anything quite like her before. I haven't cruised with Celebrity yet but think that I'd really enjoy it. I visited the Celebrity Silhouette a while ago and I have to say the thing that impressed me most was the buffet!! The food was AMAZING and they had loads of cookies. About Adrienne My name is Adrienne and I met my husband the first night of my first cruise in 2001. We love to travel and we've been cruising ever since! We now have two little cruisers along for the ride. I look forward to sharing what we learn on our future travels! Adrienne and her family have cruised on the Carnival Jubilee (2001), Celebration (2003) and Freedom (2016), Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas (2006) and Enchantment of the Seas (2017), Peter Deilmann River Cruise (2008), Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam (2013), MSC Divina (2017) Norwegian Pearl (2017) Ruby Princess (2018) and Celebrity Edge (2018). Adrienne has also reviewed the Norwegian Pearl for us and the MSC Divina as well as the Ruby Princess and the Disney Wonder. We’ve got 3000+ cruise mad members in our Facebook Community. Join us! Cruising Isn’t Just For Old People – Facebook Group. – – – FURTHER READING: CRUISE GIFTS, CHEAP AND PRACTICAL FOR FIRST TIME CRUISERS CELEBRITY CRUISES CLASSIC DRINKS PACKAGE 10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE CRUISING WITH CELEBRITY CRUISES