My wife and I did this cruise back to back with another cruise in the Western Caribbean. We disembarked the other ship in Tampa, and took two days to drive to Fort Lauderdale, via Fort Myers and Alligator Alley. We dropped our hire car at Fort Lauderdale airport at 12:00 and took a taxi from the terminal to the ship.

We arrived at about 12:20 but it seemed to take longer than usual to get on the ship; there was a lot of queuing, and it seemed less well organised than normal. The cabins opened at 1pm, the boat drill was at 3:15 (it's now a video in the muster station) and the ship left at 4:30. We did feel that the hard sell on additions like drinks packages and specialty dining hit you as soon as you got on the ship, - can't they wait till you have at least finished your glass of sparkling wine?

We have been on a similar ship, the Eclipse, before, and our initial impressions of the Equinox were as good. This class of ship has a more contemporary feel to its interior design - an interesting contrast to RCCL's more old fashioned decor, much better in our view. Read more