Celebrity Equinox Review

Nice Sailing, Terrible Food

Review for the Eastern Mediterranean Cruise on Celebrity Equinox
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hkaya
2-5 Cruises • Age 30s

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Sail Date: Aug 2015
Cabin: Concierge Class 1

I want to give it a 3.5 if 3 is average and 4 is very good.

After thorough researching I though I found a cruise ship with good food. I thought that with celebrity aligning themselves up with top chef and overall other friends of mine saying the food was not bad in the oceanview cafe, I thought it was be safe to assume MDR, and the pay restaurants would be great.

After my first experience at the MDR I was very dissapointed. MDR Service was very slow, took over 2 hours to finish a meal (maybe because we were the last seating? on fixed time), food was oversalted, and our waiters failed to mention that you had to request more than a day in advance to have less salt on your meal as the meals were preprepared, we only found that out when we had lunch randomly in silhouette on deck 4 about 2/3's of the way through our cruise.

Cabin Review

Concierge Class 1

Cabin C1

Very nice views from the aft, for our particular sailing we could see most every sunrise from our balcony on the horizon.

Very quiet end of the ship, cabin next to us was smoking which was not supposed to be allowed by their smoking policy but stopped when we brought it up with guest services.

Cabin was pretty roomy.

Port Reviews

Istanbul

Istanbul was great, we stayed at a hotel in the sultanahmet area, walking distance to hagia sophia, blue mosque, topi kapi, grand bazaar, and spice market.

food was alright, nothing oustanding, better than the ship food.

We wanted to go to turkuazoo but didn't have the time unfortunately

Kusadasi

The excavated very well preserved ruins of the ancient city of ephesus, there is a lot to see as it used to be an important entire city.

Mykonos

very good place to kick back and relax.

in the summer even though it's hot all around other cities, as mykonos is right by the water, strong winds blow that heat away and it's very refreshing.

Everything you would want to see is pretty much walking distance, all the houses are very nicely painted, food was excellent, at the sandwich shop, bakery, and italian restaurant i went to.

Athens (Piraeus)

I think everyone must see the acropolis when they are there, a very important place to our civilization. much of the temples have been restored, and it all looks great.

Food was pretty good, way better than the ship's food.

Kotor

Very nice, we didn't walk up the wall going into the mountain, we did walk around the city front wall in old town.

Food was average (but way better than ship food), buildings are very well maintained nice place for pictures all around.

Dubrovnik

Even larger and nicer than kotor, food was average, nice laundry place right outside of old town good, place mid cruise to do laundry as laundry on ship is ridiculously expensive.

Corfu

A lot to do and see but we were pretty tired from the heat from the previous 2 ports and didn't get to explore much. Lot of churches, and forts.

Food was under average

Rome (Civitavecchia)

Villa d'este and Hadrian's villa in Tivoli.

Man they are very sensitive about photos and photo taking, we were stopped by people in both sites saying we can't take photos, but in hadrian's villa, when we confirmed whether we could or not with the administration, they let us, but by then we had to leave as we were on a strict schedule with our tour group.

Villa D'este however kept saying their director is the only one that can authorize and she wasn't there so no photos.

I mean what is the point of even going to these places if you can't take photos?

Monaco (Monte Carlo)

anchored in villefrance, tendered into the port, walked to train and trained 7 mins over to monaco.

monte carlo was great, excellent food, and very interesting to walk around. Even moreso if you like the grand prix and want to walk along the track. Casino was too fancy for me to enter, but views were very nice off the side of the casino area, especially when you go up to the palace, you can get a really good overview of most of montecarlo there.

We went to Joel Robuchon a 2 michelin star restaurant. It was the best food I've had in my life. It was modern french I believe and the light appetizers and main I ordered really suited my palate. Highly recommended, we made a reservation beforehand, but it seemed like they had a lot of tables so they may be able to accomodate lunch even with no reservations. I did overhear that dinner was fully booked for the next 3 days however, so it must be a popular spot at night.

Marseille

walked around the city, a bit of the old port, took a bus up the hill to notre dame de la garde, a lot of cathedrals, palaces, and forts/castles to see, but very spread out. with 1 day you probably won't be able to see everything unless you are on a tight schedule with a excursion tour.

food was average

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