My husband and I are 60 and this was our 25th cruise but first on Celebrity. We've sailed on most cruise lines but the most have been on Princess, Holland . This was an 11 day cruise to Panama, Costa Rica, Columbia, Mexico, Belize and Grand Cayman. We were late boarding due to the previous cruise having the norovirus on board so a deep cleaning was done before we could board and then it delayed us getting into our cabins. Boarding began about 1:30 but we weren't allowed in our cabins until 7:00 so the ship got a little crowded with everyone hanging out in the public areas, pool and bars. It also took a day or so for our room to be completely stocked with robes, glasses, ice buckets, etc. It may have also had an effect on the service and attitude of the staff. We had a concierge cabin at the back of the ship. As others have said it's a long walk to the elevators but we didn't mind that. It was a great location for the pool and the buffet which were also aft. It was very quiet. Our cabin steward was nonexistant. He did a good job but not great and we only saw him 2-3 times. It was late on day 2 before we met him. We had to continuously leave notes to ask him to replenish items and ice in the room. The cabins on Celebrity are not designed nearly as well as on other ships. Especially the storage. The closet is tight to get into and it's narrow--we much prefer the open closets on Princess and Holland along with the open shelves/cubbies on those lines. On the Equinox there are 5 small, shallow drawers that hold very little as do the shelves in the bathroom. The bathroom is beautiful but the storage is lacking and the counter is very shallow. There is storage above the bed but you almost have to stand on the bed to see what's in there. The balcony was a very comfortable size and it was nice to have the foot stools.

The food in the dining room was very good but nothing really amazing, but the buffet for lunch and the specialty restaurants were very good to excellent. The buffet has so many choices--custom made sandwiches, Asian, American hot dishes, Italian, Indian, Salad Bar and everything was very good. We did select dining and made reservations for the entire trip and never had to wait for a table and had excellent service. We were pleased to see that Celebrity still has wine stewards which Princess has done away with and they all provided fast, efficient service. We felt like Celebrity has cut back in the staffing of the bar waiters and bartenders (wonder if it's because of the Beverage Package that so many people are getting) If there's fewer staff then it takes longer to get a drink--less drinks?? We had to go up to the bar several times to get a drink because we didn't see a server, sometimes the bartender doubled as a waiter and several of the waiters acted like it was a chore to get a drink. We also noticed that the pool/bar staff were really slow or didn't care about picking up used plates, glasses, etc. around the pool. Some days were better than others so the service seemed to be really inconsistent.

We felt like there were a lot of pool activities that were fun and entertaining and a lot of activities on board for people that didn't want to be spending time at the pool--lectures, cooking classes, dance classes, trivia,ships tours, etc. The Activities Manager Shawna was extremely enthusiastic and fun! The ships officers participated in a lot of the activities along with the guests. Read more