We are RCCL Diamond Plus members having cruised with them 25 times. In February we decided to try the Celebrity Equinox and had a fabulous cruise. It was so good we decided to try another on the same ship and we were not disappointed. We liked the older crowd and the fact that not many kids were on board. Getting checked in and all documents was a breeze and took only 5 minutes to get on board the ship! Like our last cruise, when we set foot on the ship we were offered a glass of champagne, which was a really nice touch. We were scheduled to sail at 3.30pm but the rooms were not ready until 1.30 pm (this was a change in that before we had access to our room at 1.00) so we headed for the Ocean View buffet for lunch. In general, the food in the Ocean View is excellent! Our only complaint is that the coffee is really not hot but rather semi warm. Once we had access to our room we were surprised to find that our luggage was delivered by 2.30pm! We have never had it delivered that fast before. Our stateroom was great and fairly near the elevators (with no noise what so ever). Very convenient!! We had the usual safety briefing which featured a video. Oh the video is so boring! I suppose it is also necessary and required but the video needs work or needs to be changed. First and second day was at sea. We discovered one of the ship's bands, "Nu Images" and they were great. So versatile they could play anything from Reggae to Jazz to Pop. Just great.

Our first port was San Juan. It was the usual as we arrived late in the afternoon and left after a few hours. Many of the shops or stores close early even though there are ships in port. Next stop was St. Maarten which is still recovering from Hurricane Irma. It will still be a while until they fully recover. Next day we visited St. Thomas. It too has still not fully recovered from the two hurricanes that hit it last fall. Shopping is just not like it use to be 10 or 20 years ago. Next stop scheduled at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Since there is no pier we would use tenders from our ship to get ashore. Once we set anchor and got one of the lifeboats out as a tender it was determined that the ocean was too rough to go ashore. The Captain made a decision and said we would skip Punta Cana! So the final stop was Nassau. We would have had a full day a sea getting there but since we left Punta Cana early we went slowly and took two days to get to Nassau. When we arrived we discovered that it was Bahamian Labor Day and all shops and stores were closed!

This cruise we ate twice in the Main Dining Room and were impressed by the great service but felt the food was mediocre. Read more