It's a long journey from Australia to Fort Lauderdale - over 30 hours travel time each way. We were hoping that the effort would be worth it and we were not disappointed.
The Equinox was everything we had hoped it would be from the first meet and greet provided for Cruise Critic readers to the last hilarious dinner with our new friends met in the silhouette main dining room. We opted for a large table, late sitting and our disparate group hit it off immediately. The waiters contributed to this by getting into the spirit of our 10 nights of dinner parties with no cooking or washing. The food was pretty good - sometimes excellent - and the one night we did eat at Murano, whilst better, did not put Silhouette to shame. The only sub standard dish I had was oysters; but I just left them and got something else.
We have done 5 previous cruises : Princess, Carnival and Royal Caribbean as well as a Nile cruise. We enjoyed them all; but Equinox was definitely a cut above the rest. This was due mostly to two factors - food and ship design. The low key, highly efficient running of the embarkation, cruise and debarkation was also a factor in this. Some people may have found the service too low key - but we appreciated it. We are, after all, from a country started as a penal colony and over the top service can be annoying to us. Having said that, we have never had bad service on a cruise ship.
Great balcony, decor and bathroom. Barely adequate storage. Good looking but uncomfortable creamy leather couch. State of the art TV/information system.