My mom and I had been trying to get to Greece and Turkey literally for 21 years without success thanks to canceled tours caused by Middle East worries or personal health issues. Because Cruise Critic rated the Equinox so highly, we thought things would go well and they did. Even so, our sailing on the Equinox exceeded our expectations in many ways.

The ship is big, the second largest I've been on after the Carnival Magic. Celebrity is known for their ability to make crowds seem smaller and passenger flow more intuitive. That was largely true here although more true on the Celebrity Summit. The Summit has the advantage of being a much smaller ship, but my point is that the Equinox doesn't entirely give you a "crowd-free" feeling. Still embarkation and debarkation were incredibly fast. Both tour companies and airport transfers told us they were aware that the Equinox runs like clockwork to the point that everyone gets everywhere early.

The ship's size was really only a problem at certain meals because the Equinox had oddly short sit-down times for breakfast and lunch, meaning the buffet would be overcrowded. Also, Celebrity would do well to recognize that with limited sit-down times combined with the majority of their own shore excursions stretching through normal lunch hours meant that they needed not to close down buffet stations between 2pm and 4pm. There wasn't a big variety of food (pizza, desserts, a few pasta dishes, hot dogs) and a large number of hungry passengers. But overall, crowd management was excellent. Read more