Off to the Ascent
We started off from home around 6AM to make the drive down to Fort Lauderdale. We arrived at the port shortly before 10AM and found it to be more crowded than we had ever seen, with seven cruise ships in port. The line to get to the terminal to drop off our bags was long, so we opted to park first and ended up on the third floor when usually there were plenty of spaces on the second. We dragged our bags to the dropoff point and paid the porters to take care of them and then entered the terminal. We were seated in the first group of 'regular' passengers to be boarded and shortly after 11, we were called to go aboard.
Exploring the Ascent
Since we came in on deck 5, we headed straight up to the buffet to avoid the elevator crowds that would be coming soon. We grabbed some lunch and a mimosa and rum and Diet Coke before going down to our room to drop off our backpack and then down to deck 4 for our muster check-in. Then we spent some time exploring the Ascent, a ship we had not yet cruised upon.
Martini Bar
We headed to Future Cruise to book our Spring 2026 cruise, which would be back on the Ascent and then had our first martinis at the Martini Bar on deck 3, a Sunset Martini and a Lavender Lemon Drop. We tried to go to World Class Bar after that, but even though the app said the bar was open and menus were laid out, they were only serving well drinks. So we went up to our room to see if our luggage had arrived and we were glad we did as only one of our bags was in front of our room. J. R. spotted our large bag in front of a different room with a duffle bag that was not ours on top of it, so he went and got it. We quickly unpacked and watched the ship sail away from our Infinite Verandah before we headed back down to the Martini Bar and World Class for more drinks.
First Night on the Ascent
After drinks, we went to the evening show in the theater, which was a comedian named Monique Marvez. We were generally unimpressed with her humor although others thought she was funny. There is only so much humor you can drag out from the differences between old people and young people. After the show, we headed to dinner in Cosmopolitan. Dinner service did not get off to a good start. The waitress told us about the nightly special, chicken parmesan and penne, and J. R. thought it sounded good, so he ordered it. She delivered him pork with mashed potatoes and broccoli. He called her over and she apologized and then returned with the same plate, now with chicken. He told her he thought this was supposed to be parmesan with penne pasta as she had explained and she apologized again and went to get the correct dish. We ran into a lot of 'lack of listening' from servers and bartenders on this trip, even though their service was generally excellent. We had wanted to do the silent disco but by the time we got out of dinner, it had already begun and with our early start, we decided to head to the room and go to sleep.
