All in all a lovely vacation cruise. Celebrity lives up to its ratings. We flew into Rome the morning of departure, met the CC group we were sharing the Facile taxi van to port and our driver at less than half the cruise ship price. Boarding was painless and quick. We had a different group for the return Facilt cab ride back to Rome.

Beautiful ship Equinox, very comfortable concierge cabin on top deck, superior cuisine in the main dining room, no need for specialty restaurants, staff went all out to please my finicky DW. Lots of activities, entertainment, bands, dancing, etc. Ports were interesting and we enjoyed them all, but mostly the Greek isles, Rhodes, Santorini,and Mykonos, where we had never been. Previous land travels took us to Sicily, Italy, Turkey, and Greek mainland.

We used CC to join another couple for a specialized Jewish tour of Rhodes. The private tours of Santorini were fully booked as were all the rental cars so we had to use the ships tour of Santorini and Oia. It was pretty good, but a private tour or a rental car would have been better. Mykonos is easily done on your own and thoroughly enjoyable. Messina and Kusadasi are small cities and fun to walk about in. Naples is big, but the ship docks right near the city center and you can walk or taxi to the more distant city sites. But on a Sunday, many of the best restaurants are closed. Check out TomsPortGuides.com for useful info about doing things yourself. My photos are posted on Facebook under William Kaplan. My DW got sick the next to last day and the Ship's doctor and nurses rehydrated her and some tummy meds got her all better by the next morning. Kudos to those caring experts.