This was our 7th cruise with Celebrity, 2nd on the Equinox. What the heck happened in the year we were gone?

While the service was still excellent, we felt like the food had slipped more than a notch; the entertainment fell off a cliff. Select dining seemed not to have enough servers. They did their best, but seemed to be rushing around constantly. The food was fairly ordinary, maybe even uninspired. I was disappointed that the last formal night crammed all my favorites onto the same menu. I would have liked not to have to make the choice between Beef Wellington, duck l'orange, lobster tail and other tasty items on one night. The desserts really seemed to suffer. No one from New York makes a NY cheesecake that is light and fluffy. The wonderful black and white cookies disappeared from Cafe Baccio, which had many of the same offerings as the dining room. Did Celebrity downsize its pasty chef staff? The Ocean View Cafe didn't seem to have much variety in its daily selections.

We never expect much from the opening night show - in this case, it was mostly the house band, one of the lounge performers, and a taste of the next night's offering, Paper Back Writer, a Beatles tribute band. Fake Beatles - really? The stage was bare for all the shows, no scenery, with little done with lighting. We enjoyed the 3 tenors (one of whom isn't a tenor) and the comedy/juggler, but the rest of the shows were below standard. The new, much-hyped production show was a big disappointment. "Life" consisted of a bunch of unfamiliar music sung so that the words were unintelligible, accompanied by some very athletic dancing. This was no substitute for the Circ-type show we have seen on a number of other Solstice class vessels. Read more