Just came home from the Equinox, Barcelona to Istanbul, 2 weeks. This was our fourth Celebrity Cruise and our second on this ship. The following is quite long but hopefully valuable.

Embarkation

Ship was in “Code Red” due to previous voyage’s novovirus occurrence which caused delayed boarding. There were not enough staff to manage the rush, and as such our “Select” line did not move for over 20 minutes while the man managing the lines alternated between the “Super Elites” and the regular line. The person checking us in was not an employee of Celebrity and did not know any answers to our questions, repeatedly telling us we could go to Customer Service on the ship (which we know is overwhelmed typically on departure day). A new policy to collect and hold our passports was not conveyed ahead of time and the front staff was telling us it was “because of Turkey” when the letter we were given at that time said it was a new rule of “Greece”. The cruise line sent out emails about the novovirus situation but not the surrender of passports, which caused and overall bad boarding experience. Read more