This cruise on Celebrity Equinox restored my waning interest in cruising and the direction of the cruise industry in general over the past 10 years. I feel and definitely recognize like some others that cruise lines had been lowering the standards and proving cheaper dining fare, harder worked, less responsive crews both to save money and encourage passengers to use their over-priced specialty dining venues and more expensive classes of tickets.

This cruise restored my faith in the quality and care of cruising and exceeded my expectations in almost every category. I do like land trips a bit more but this cruise got me back to looking at cruising as a decent alternative – maybe a push back against trends of the past decade and the cruise lines listening and responding to valid complaints by people who have witnessed and did not like the changes on recent years.

FOOD – great selections for breakfast including omelet station, ham off the shank and mostly crisp well cooked bacon. There is also the healthier selections for breakfast and lunch at the Solarium, such as healthy smoothies fruit, yogurt sundaes, cold cereals, bran muffins. In the main dining room there was no corner cutting such as small or tiny lobster and lack of good meats. The Caribbean lobster served was rather large – difficult to eat two and one at our table had to take their second away. Prime rib was served on a separate night not the same night as lobster and 2 other nights had exceptional, expensive cuts of meat. There was no lack of great quality choices at every dinner and the back up standard choices available at every dinner included shrimp cocktail, which I have seen some cruises severely limit, especially nightly, New York steak and salmon. Read more