My husband (61) and I (59) just returned from a 10 night Celebrity Equinox Cruise. This is our 12 th cruise but our first on Celebrity. We arrived the day before and stayed at The Hampton Inn. Small hotel with the best and friendliest service I have even encountered. It's not in a location I would stay at for more then a day or two but for the night before or after a cruise it was great. The hotel picked us up at the airport within 20 minutes and after two long plain rides( Vegas to Houston to Ft Laud) it was nice to relax. There is a Winn-Dixie across the street in an older strip mall along with a great Sports Bar called Slackers where we had a great dinner. The hotel set up transportation to the ship for $6 each from a company called All Stars. Very efficient and we set up a ride after the cruise to the airport for $15 each. The hotel had breakfast the next morning which we ate in our room. We just had bagels and yogurt but there was other food available.

Now to the cruise. The Equinox is really a pretty ship. I really loved the decor, subtle and classy. We were in cabin 9232 - mid balcony on deck 9.The cabin was nice, good bathroom, loved the glass door shower. Our bed was near the sliding glass door and I liked that. Having the couch nearer the hall door gave the room a more open feeling. We met our cabin steward Denny. I told him we were not a demanding couple and to please make sure I had ice daily and I would be happy. We only saw him a couple times, it was usually his assistant we saw, but our room was clean and we had ice so all was well.

We had Select Dining for 6 nights and ate in the Specialty Dining for 4 nights. I made all reservation times and excursions reservations way before we left home. The first night in the MDR we were given table 518 (table for two) right by the window. We asked for that table every night we ate in the MDR even if we had to wait a bit past our 6:45 reservation. The food in the MDR was good to very good. I don't think any of it was great but we liked what we ate and there were plenty of choices. Read more