Our Mediterranean family vacation began with our arrival at Rome´s Fiumicino airport which was thankfully non-eventful. A whirlwind tour of Rome´s main tourist sites was followed the next day by an easy and fast check-in process at Civitavecchia and the Celebrity Equinox. What a wonderful ship!

We found the stateroom comfortable and the bathroom very adequate for a ship. Our stateroom assistant, Gaston, was very good, always greeting us with a smile and following up on all our requests. Except for the first night´s mixup with our dinner table (we were a group of 9 family members and were given a tight table for 8 only-this was resolved by our able maitre d´) we have only good memories of our voyage. The food was good, the service of our assistant waiter, waiter, and maitre d´was exceptional. The nightly shows hosted by Stuart, our cruise director, were surprisingly very good. There was a nice balance between Broadway, magic, comedy, jazz, and cirque de soleil-type entertainment. There always was plenty of entertainment throughout the ship- maybe too much at times as one type of music (for example, Nestor Santurio and his latin music ) was competing with others (such as the a cappella group or the classical string trio) within earshot. The ports visited and shore excursions were in general good (the exception was our tour guide for Delos who was sub-par when compared to the others). We always ended up at Cafe Al Baccio upon our return to the ship from our excursions - the service there was always exceptionally good! The days at sea were filled with many activities we would have enjoyed if we had had the time - several were scheduled at the same time making it difficult to choose. I also must add that the talks given by the Smithsonian lecturer were excellent.

So, what would be our negative comments? 1-stricter dress code for the dining room - even though shorts were supposedly not permitted, there were several nights where young adults were allowed to enter and dine in swimming pool attire while everyone else was dressed nicely, 2-divide the entertainment venues so that the music of one does not interfere with the other, 3-beverage packages need to be more clearly explained - we had the premium package which allowed for (for example) orange juice and cappuccino coffee and found it ridiculous that we had to ask the waiter for the orange juice, wait until he served it, then ask for the coffee making him do two trips instead of ordering both at the same time during breakfast. Would I recommend the Celebrity Equinox...MOST DEFINITELY!