My wife and I are experienced cruisers but this was our first Mediterranean cruise. We selected this cruise due to the ports of call and the excellent online reviews of the Equinox. We have sailed mostly with Royal Caribbean and were looking forward to the Celebrity experience. We had heard that Celebrity offered a more refined atmosphere and was a slight upgrade over RCCL. All in all we had a wonderful cruise, really enjoyed the itinerary and would definitely book with Celebrity again.

Pre-Cruise and Rome:

We flew into Rome one day before embarkation. We booked a small boutique hotel called Hotel Campo de Fiori based on strong reviews from Fodor and Trip Advisor. This hotel was a gem. The hotel was in an excellent location within walking distance of all major attractions and also close to Trastevere where a lot of the better restaurants are. Prior to embarkation we stayed in an apartment which was about two blocks from the main hotel. The apartment was very spacious, clean and had a very large, modern bathroom. A couple of drawbacks were that is was on the fourth floor without elevator access and street noise was a minor distraction. We also stayed in this hotel for a night after the cruise. On the return we had a deluxe king in the main hotel on the fifth floor. It was luxurious, clean and had a modern well appointed bathroom. The hotel has beautiful rooftop terraces overlooking Campo de Fiori. We found the hotel staff to be very friendly and responsive to our needs. We booked two private tours through the hotel prior to arrival. We did the Vatican tour and the Colosseum/Roman Forum tours. The cost was 150 euros for each of the tours. The hotel uses Eyes of Rome and we found the guides to be very knowledgeable. Given a choice, we much preferred the rooms in the hotel over the apartment. We would definitely recommend this hotel to friends and family. Read more