Hey Everybody! It's Angie from Trips with Angie
and today we are answering the question is Aqua Class worth it on Celebrity Cruise Lines? So what
is Aqua Class? Aqua Class is a special category of cabin you book that gives you extra perks for
being in that cabin. So in this video I'm going to go through all of those perks, talk about whether
or not I thought it was worth it for me and then give you my overall thoughts on whether it might
be worth it for you. Hopefully you're a subscriber so you saw my review last week of our 10-night
Southern Caribbean cruise on the Celebrity Edge. That's what I'm going to be talking about
here. The Aqua Class experience we had on the Celebrity Edge but we have also had Aqua
Class experiences on the Equinox and the Summit. So I can offer a little different perspective
based on our experiences there as well. If you haven't subscribed I hope you would. There'll
be upcoming cruise reviews, cruise ship tours, all-inclusive resort tours and all types of other
travel adventures and I'd love to have you along for the ride and to hear your thoughts. So let's
get started. So one of the first big benefits or perks of an Aqua Class cabin is access to the
Thermal Suite. What is the Thermal Suite? It's a special area within the spa that includes steam
rooms, saunas, heated loungers, special showers and this kind of cool floating area that has these
cool floating chairs where you can sit and enjoy. It also has a very large front deck. So if you
wanted to be out on deck at the front of the ship going in and out of port it's a great area to
hang out there. Specifically it has two different steam rooms, one they call a Hammam it's a that
was the higher temperature steam room and then an aromatic steam room that they always put a couple
essential oils in. They had a salt room which was a lower temperature. So that was supposed to give
you the cleansing benefits of pink salt. They had a crystal healing room, which actually was a sauna
but it was a sauna that was always around 100 degrees. So not quite as hot as a hot, hot sauna
and then they did have a regular dry/hot sauna that had a great view out to the ocean. And then
in addition to those heated loungers I was talking about. Now normally that area is $499 for a couple
sharing the same cabin or two people sharing the same cabin, plus an 18% gratuity. So this is the
the benefit that it has the most clear financial value. So if you I mean if you're looking at an
Aqua Class cabin and it costs $250 to upgrade from a regular veranda to an Aqua Class veranda, do it!
Because that's that's what it's going to cost to have the Thermal Suite and then you get all the
other benefits I'm about to mention. Now I think this absolutely is worth it on the Edge Class
because the Thermal Suite here is phenomenal. We really enjoyed our time in there. Um we also
enjoyed like the showers. I didn't talk about that. They have a series of four showers that
you're supposed to go into because it has various temperatures after you get out of the hot steam
room or the hot sauna. So we really enjoyed that. The Thermal Suites on the Millennium class ships
and the Solstice class ships I don't enjoy as much. They're much smaller, they have less rooms
in terms of steam rooms and saunas and showers and I just I don't like them as well. So I don't
think I would say it's worth it on that class of the ship just for the Thermal Suite access. The
other spa benefits are a dedicated Spa Concierge. I didn't use this. I they had a meeting on
the first day where you could go and learn about different specials and what was available at
the spas. If you're a big spa person I think this would be a benefit because you also get priority
spa reservations. You get complimentary fitness classes. We didn't take advantage of this but I
did notice in the schedule they had a wide range of fitness classes, yoga, indoor cycling, HIIT.
Do you call that HIIT, high intensity interval training? Is that right? Let me know in the
comments. I think that's what it means. So if you were going to be a person that was going to take
regular fitness classes this would be a financial perk for you and lastly exclusive spa treatment
discounts. Now I personally did go to this spa, had a great massage and mini facial but that was
booked on a different daily special. So I didn't use the Aqua Class discount in that case. So the
other big perk is for dining. So you have access to Blue which is a special dining room for Aqua
Class guests only. It's available for breakfast and dinner and has a different menu than what you
can find in the dining room. We thought this was terrific. We had a few meals that were absolutely
specialty dining worthy. I would have paid a surcharge to have them. It was actually like the
first three menus on our cruise were phenomenal. We were very impressed. Now some of the other
nights, it was a bit more challenging. There were a lot of nights it was like lamb and pheasant on
the menu, which I'm not a big fan of. We struggled with some of the beef dishes. So the short ribs
were amazing. The filet was great, they had filet two times during the cruise but then the ribeye
was kind of butchered weird. So I don't know if that was a ship-wide issue or just in Blue.
So there was some hits or misses but overall I thought it was really interesting. Having cruised
Celebrity a lot recently it was nice to have a different menu. If you're gonna sail in Blue you
can look up the menus in advance on the app. So I would just double check the menus in advance
make sure there's something you like there. You could also on the Edge make reservations at
any of the other four main dining rooms if there isn't something you like within Blue. Also there
is something you don't like, you can always order from the Classics Menu in the main dining room,
shrimp cocktail, Caesar salad, French onion soup, salmon chicken or steak. So you always have that
as a backup while you're in this smaller dining room getting more personalized service. Also for
Aqua Class there is an expanded room service menu. Now you do have to pay for room service. It's
a $9.95 charge plus 18% gratuity if you order anything other than continental breakfast, but
you can see there are some additional items on here that are more wellness items. Some different
choices you can find if you were going to pay that ten dollars. Now to the room amenities. So the
biggest room amenity to me was the shower head. So let me show you how it works. Okay so this shower
is a little tricky. So this right here controls the temperature. Then there's a little lever here
that controls the water going on or off. Then this controls where the water comes out, so right now
it's on the setting for the waterfall shower head. You can also pick the rainforest shower head
or the handheld shower head or the jets that shoot out. These aren't on full speeding because
I would soak the bathroom. Isn't that cool? So I thought that was a real benefit. I we, I kept
it on the like just dump on your head. What? That’s not what it's called. Another amenity is
the two bottles of water per day. This wasn't a huge perk since we had the beverage package
but it was nice to have water in the room.You get two yoga mats included. They are really nice
yoga mats and they're long and I think this would be great to take up to the rooftop garden if you
wanted to do stretches up there. Within the room though it's a little hard to do yoga. There's
I mean there's not a ton of space but you could do it. You could do it in between the desk and
the couch. Online they advertise in-room fitness amenities and in fact when you go on the App
prior to boarding they have all of these things you could choose from to pre-order, weighted
blankets, workout items different types of mats but once we got onboard they weren't available.
So like none of the things were available. So I think there's a real mismatch between what
they're advertising as available in the app and what's actually onboard the Edge. Now maybe
some of the other ships have more availability of these items but on the end The Edge they
weren't really available. The website also says they have eco-friendly shower conditioners.
Now it was nice to have shower conditioner, body wash and body lotion available to lower some
of your packing. So that's that's a nice perk. One of the things they told on the website is expanded
wellness, on-demand TV programming. Well that ended up being three F- 45 workouts and several
meditations. So it's not like you're getting a subscription to Beachbody on demand here. But
there are a couple extra online workout things. You do get a very nice bathrobe and slippers. You
can request a welcome bottle of sparkling wine. We didn’t. Again we had the drinks package didn't
need it and you can have complimentary use of an umbrella or a pair of binoculars during your
stay. I actually really like this. I like having the binoculars in the cabin. I would not book
Aqua Class to have binoculars in the cabin but it's a fun little perk. So overall you know the
big three things are going to be the spa access, the dining in Blue and then the nicer shower
in the cabin I think. Those are kind of the big three things to determine if Aqua Class is
going to be worth it for you. Now I'm gonna say not every time. I don't think I need to sail
on Aqua class every time. I wasn't you know, blown away by the experience. It was nice having a
different menu in Blue. It was terrific for those several nights we had incredible meals that I
would have you know been akin to a specialty dining. I think if we had not been in Blue we
would have had one or two specialty dining dinners um just to mix it up from the main dining room.
So there is a real you know financial benefit to being in Blue especially if you've been
sailing in the main dining room for a while, uh just to mix it up, get those different menus.
On the Edge class ships, I think the Thermal Suite access is phenomenal. Absolutely worth it for
that, especially if you're not having to pay that much more than what the Thermal Suite pass would
have cost. B on the Summit or the Millennium class ships, the Solstice class ships I'm not sure the
Thermal Suite is worth it. So to sum it all up I would say, I thought my experience on the Edge
was absolutely worth it, for what we paid. I thought it was worth upgrading but I wouldn't
do it all the time and I probably wouldn't do it on a Millennium class or Solstice class ship.
What about you? Have you sailed on Aqua class? For you is it not worth it for you? Do
you agree with me that it's better on the Edge than other places? Please
let me know in the comments.
