Boarding and our Room on the Ascent

Arrival and Boarding

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Expresss on SE 17^th street.  It is only about 15 minutes from the cruise port.  We left the hotel about 10 minutes till 11:00 and then went to the port, we dropped our bags, parked the car and went back to the terminal.

Our first view of the Celebrity Ascent

Check in was a breeze, we had completed all our paperwork in advance.  After passing through security, we had our photo taken by an agent with a tablet, and were told we could proceed to the ship.  They scanned us on as we left the terminal area and we went up the ramp to the ship.  We dropped our backpacks in the room which was not ready and were in the Oceanview Café by 12:00.

Welcome cake in Ocean View Cafe

Port Everglades from the Ocean View cafe

We were booked into an accessible concierge class cabin and didn’t know that we could have had lunch in the Tuscan dining room.  We did find all we wanted to eat in the Oceanview Café. 

Accessible Verandah 9228 Room review

When we went to our cabin after lunch, it was ready, and the cabin has very good accessibility. It starts with the door, which opens when you put your key up to the NFT reader.  This is such a nice touch; it makes accessing your room without having to pull on a heavy door.  There is a switch on the inside wall, to open the door on the way out. 

NFT Card reader next to door automatically opens the door.

There is plenty of space to maneuver a scooter or power wheelchair in the room, especially on the window side and at the bottom of the bed.  All of the furnishing and fixtures in the room and the bathroom met the accessibility requirements.  The only flaw was that the shower head was left most of the way up but can be adjusted. The room steward Afif had made sure I did not need anything and would have gladly adjusted it, if we asked.

Our room with me at work.

The balcony is described as an infinity balcony.  It has a glass wall divided into 2 sections vertically and horizontally.  The left side is bigger than the right.  The top half of the left window would lower by means of a switch so that you could easily get fresh air in the room, but when the weather was bad, you can raise the window and keep the bad weather out.  There is an issue with the position of the switches that raise and lower the drapes and window are higher than they should be.  There are two chairs and a small end table on the balcony., with room to spare. There is a quarter inch rise to access the balcony, wheelchair accessible.

Infinity Balcony

The bathroom is completely accessible. The roll-in shower has a dropdown shower chair, and it is an easy reach to the controls for the handheld shower.  If the handheld shower had been in the lowered position a solo cruiser who is a fulltime user would have been able to reach it easily.

There was an emergency cord in the bathroom between the shower and the toilet.

The toilet has a rail behind it and one on the right side of the toilet.  It could have been better with a drop-down rail on the left side.  There is plenty of space under the sink. The towel rods that are the appropriate height.

The room is approximately 13X25 feet inside including the bathroom.  The bathroom is 8’ x 7’, the toilet was 19” high, and the balcony is about 13’ by 4’.  The balcony door opens to 48” and both the door into the cabin and the bathroom door open to 32” wide. 

The closet has a low clothes rod at about 37” it also has a pull-down rod which handle is about 40” above the floor.

There is a work surface that is about 30” at the top with 28” of clearance below it .  There are two 110 V outlets, one 210 volt outlet, 2 USB A connections mounted on top of the refrigerator cabinet.  The bottom of the refrigerator is about 3” from the floor.

There is a set of drawers, 2 large ones, and one shallow one.  All of the drawers are easily reached from a wheelchair. On the wall by the work surface, there is a switch for the lights either side of the mirror above the worksurface.  There is also a lamp on the dresser.

Opposite the worksurface and dresser, there is a couch with the seating surface about 16” above the floor.  The top of the mattress is 21” high, and there is 9” of free space under the bed.  There is clear space of 84” x 108” between the bed and balcony door and the couch and the workspace.  There is 66” between the foot of the bed and the wall.

The mattress was softer than I like, it suited my wife.  There were 4 pillows for the bed, and we could have chosen different ones from the pillow menu, but we used what were there already.

There were narrow end tables next to the bed on each side with three shelves, the bottom shelf is very low.  The wall above the end tables had a power switch and one 220 outlet and one 110 outlet.  On the side of the bed closest to the bathroom and the door, there was an emergency call button.  On the opposite side there was the same configuration of outlets and an additional 2 USB outlets.

Because this was a concierge room, we received canapes on day 2 and day 3 of the cruise.   We also received a bottle of sparkling wine.

We also received one keycard holder and an Effy locket.