Celebrity Equinox Review

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Review for Transatlantic Cruise on Celebrity Equinox
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cruiseerf
First Time Cruiser • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Apr 2010
Cabin: Celebrity Suite

I am an avid cruiser who cruised with my family on the Equinox for the 4/19 Transatlantic. I tend to prefer small ships so I am tough sell on larger ships and larger lines and I will admit this right out of the starting gate. That said, I am open minded and we all very much enjoyed ourselves and the Equinox exceeded our expectations. Detailed information is below. I will not go into the ports as we have been to them many times before and while we always manage to find new things, I will add that to the port section at a later date. Besides...this was transatlantic so the ports were not the real focus and the ship was. Boarding the Equinox in Fort Lauderdale was easy. The only slowdown was when boarding the ship you are waiting with 500 passengers on the gangplank who are lining up to take the central elevators to their rooms. Normally we would have walked forward or backward to the other elevator banks however we had a wheelchair with us and were instructed that those elevators were best during embarkation. So we waited about 35 minutes in total to board the ship and get to our rooms. Time about 1PM. We were in a Celebrity suite, Cabin 1110 and it was beautiful. Walk in closet, adequate bedroom and a nice sized living room with an L shaped couch focused towards the sea and the 52 inch flat screen TV. Everything was new and clean and we instantly fell in love with our cozy cabin. We do indeed spend lots of time in our cabins so this was important to us while sailing on a large ship. Once inside, we heard nothing but the sea when we opened our door and were perfectly located right by the Library and central Atrium which always had people in them. The only drawback to our cabin was we could not hook up a DVD player to the TV in the living room and we like to catch up on our TV shows on DVD, especially with so many days at sea. They did have free on demand movies however most we had seen already and celebrity needs to increase the selection. Big rub with Celebrity on this cabin is that they still charge you for bottled water?....so Aqua Class which costs 1/3 the price gets free water but "luxury suites" as they deem the top 20 suites on each ship do not? Something needs to change on this. I bought the water package and made great use of it however I found this a bit strange. Elite benefits were excellent as we were all elite members from many past cruises. Our cabin stewards were mediocre and special requests for more chocolates or replacing room service ordering forms never materialized. Butler was very helpful and set up for several cocktail parties we had and he was very attentive. Buffet restaurant was well laid out and the quality of food was surprisingly good for such a large ship. That said, apparently most of the buffet food is "pre-processed" according the chef and they just cut open giant sealed plastic bags and heat or fry except for the salads etc. I appreciated their honesty about that as they said how could we cook all this for 3000? I wonder what the salt and fat content of these processed foods are, but alas...we are on vacation so I am not going here. We could always grab a turkey sandwich or a vegetable curry or a pizza, something for everyone. Boarding day however it was a madhouse with no tables and we experienced this several times during lunch on our trip. When it was too busy we paid the $5 per person fee at the bistro on 5 and had delicious soups, sandwiches and salads and crepes. Delicious, quiet and unhurried and we always enjoyed our lunches here. For us this was a find because apparently the $5 cover puts off most people. Sushi from 5-9PM was lots of rice (might as well eat bread!) with mediocre fish and if you eat sushi regularly in NY or LA or Tokyo....skip this, mass market at best and you can do far better at a cheap mall Japanese sushi restaurant. We ate at both the Silhouette restaurant and Blue restaurant. We liked the atmosphere better in blue and the plates and overall presentation of things. That said, during our cruise, we found blue to be a bit slow with their service and special requests (sauce on the side etc) were not followed on several occasions. Taste was good and most food was fresh. That said, we had excellent servers in Silhouette and we found the very good food coupled with service was, for us, better in the main dining room. Everyone loved that the left side of the menu had "old favorites" available all the time. Many people at our table were having shrimp cocktails and escargot every night. We found the meats FAR better than the seafood as far as mains. Specialty restaurants we booked Murano three times and loved it each time, the goat cheese soufflE was sublime. Here the Dover Sole was excellent. I cannot comment on Lobster Tails as we do long weekends in Maine and I am biased to sweet fresh main lobsters none of which these frozens can compare to. Upon our request Murano had the entire meal served in 1 ½ hours...which suited us fine as we don't like long meals. Tuscan Grill had excellent service however we found the food very mediocre and it seemed to empty out towards the end of the cruise as more and more people figured this out. We did not try the Asian themed restaurant. A note on restaurants is that all guests are assigned the main dining room EXCEPT Aquaclass guests....beware if part of your "group" is Aquaclass....this is problematic if you want to all eat together as they are automatically in Blue. Reservations at Blue are upon availability and while suite guests have priority and can get in most times...other cabin classes have a tougher time. If blue is full, then you have to try to get them into the main dining room which can also be difficult if your table is full.....You can see the challenges. Ultimately this was worked out very well within two days by the Maitre'D...but it did take some time for us to get it all figured out and next time we would either all take Aquaclass or regular and no inside cabins etc. Something to think about for group planning. Staff onboard were all friendly and nice. The captains announcements repeated lots of information which was posted by the customer relations desk on deck 3....and on the TV you could always see your location. The Captains English was not clear and this turned into a another 15 minutes of noise everyday by the time all languages were covered. Most people just wanted to know if weather was going to be smooth or not. Everything else, I feel, was lost. Martini bar was fun and at times very lively. For quiet time before dinner we went to the Molecular bar hidden behind the atrium on 5. Here they infused cocktails with fresh herbs and mint and rose petals etc, and each drink was really a masterpiece. As you can tell, we liked it here very much. The ship was gorgeous and we enjoyed walking around and even the big green lawn. Entertainment was all the time and as far as we were concerned too much. We like a quiet ship and there was music in the central atrium ALL the time and then dance classes with more music, when the music wasn't going on live. The pool had calypso music twice per day.... I think this was because people like a lively ship, for us we just like to hear the ocean and the quiet and wind... and we felt Celebrity should cut back a bit on the entertainment. Acafellas the men who sing together were off key, but they tried and most people wouldn't notice. The production shows were awful....I mean really bad... but this is my opinion and BOTH times I rode up in the elevators with people who told me how wonderful they thought they were...I have seen better high school plays. I did however like the comedian ventriloquist who was very creative and talented. I also liked the casino which took our money regularly but provided hours of enjoyment. I also liked the hot glass show which I found quite informative. Surprise of our ship was Ms. Shirley Jones who gave three performances and was EXCELLENT and answered audience questions about the movies she has been in + her leading men.....and told all kind of "back when" stories which everyone loved. She was a very interesting entertainer and a very welcome surprise in the muck of entertainment mediocrity. We waited to see guest services, book shore excursions, see the cruise consultant and we waited to get off the ship 45 minutes in Cadiz and an hour in Lisbon, we waited for tables at the buffet and waited to get into the dining room for our 8:30PM seating. The waiting is something that we have a hard time getting used to coming from many small ship cruises, but by the end we were more on top of things and learned to come a bit later or eat earlier etc to avoid the crowds. Each ship has a vibe and you have to learn it, big or small ship. Debarkation was effortless in Civitavechhia and Celebrity accomplished what I consider a miracle with how smoothly it all went without someone screaming over the loudspeaker...and that day the ship was actually quiet...ahhh. Overall, we were quite impressed with the Equinox and the way Celebrity has improved. This had been our first cruise on them in a few years as we had two poor experiences few years ago and decided to try other lines. We have booked two more Back to backs in January based upon our experiences and we look very forward to trying the ship out again. Value for money, we thought this large ship is the best in its class out there at this time. There really is something for everyone. I wish everyone wonderful sailing.

Cabin Review

Celebrity Suite

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