I am finally finished my cruise review. I apologise to everyone who reads this that it is so long.

This cruise was my second on the Celebrity Equinox. Last year my wife and I did a Caribbean cruise and thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so we booked the eastern Mediterranean cruise while on board. We travelled to Rome on Sunday, arriving there Monday morning for a 4 night stay before the cruise on Friday. Rome was great but the hotel we stayed at was not. Even though they advertised that they had air-conditioning they neglected to say they do not turn on that air-conditioning until mid-May. We were four in the room (myself, my wife, daughter and her boyfriend), it was beginning to warm up in Rome and to say the least the room for sleeping was quite hot and uncomfortable. When I complained after night two about the air-conditioning, the front desk clerk told me the air-conditioning was in fact not broken but not yet turned on. What a misrepresentation by the hotel. While in Rome we visited all the main tourist attractions, the Coliseum, the Vatican (we were told to go in via the museum entrance, the crowds are supposed to be less there, and while very busy with lots of people, the line-ups were in fact non-existent-on the other side there were long lines), the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps and oh yes, did I mention shopping? We did a lot of that too. We also ate a lot. I was warned before we left to be extremely careful of pickpockets but we found that as long as one is careful and aware of his/her surroundings, Rome was safe, we walked all over, took the subway and even mingled amongst the crowds. We even visited Florence for the day. We took the fast train from Rome Termini station and were in Florence in an hour and a quarter. (The digital read out on the train said 252 km/hr.) Florence was great for seeing the architecture and leather shops.

The evening before the cruise we met up with a number of other Cruise Critic members at a restaurant in the Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon. This was an absolutely wonderful evening, meeting all those with whom I had been blogging the past months (one of the most prolific boards, that is still going strong weeks after the cruise is over), with all the people, music and dancing in the piazza. It was an experience that we will not soon forget. Read more