A far too long Equinox review from a new cruiser

[whysitsocold1]

What deck is the Molecular Bar on? I've been looking for it and can't find it even with my magnifying glass! Thanks for a great review. We are going in 60 days!

 

Thanks for the kind words. :) The Molecular Bar is on deck 5, slightly forward of the grand foyer, right next to the creatively named "Boutique C".

[Cruiser Susie]

Congratulations on your marriage... wishing you and your wife many years of happiness together! Your review was great; well-written and easy to follow. I can't wait to be back on the Equinox in a few weeks.

 

Do you remember who the band and the guitarist on the ship were? We usually enjoy listening to their live music; we enjoyed listening to the guitarist in the Ensemble Lounge the last time we were on the ship.

 

Glad you found so much to like about the ship and thank you again for taking the time to share your thoughts.

[CruizeCast]

Great review! Loved the touch of "snark"; exactly how I think, so this was a perfect review for me. Glad you had a great honeymoon!!

[CruisinNana]

Great review! Thanks so much. Loved your writing style and the abundance of information you gave the readers! Wishing you a long and happy marriage filled with many cruises!

Nana

[teedee]

Thanks for sharing your wonderful review. I loved reading it, you have a grea writing style, and I loved your sense of humor. I'm glad you had a great honeymoon cruise and hope you enjoy many more!

Terri

[felix9]

Thank you for a great review. Our family will sail on the Equinox in December and it will be our first time on this ship also. I am really excited and although we have the southern caribbean itinery, this review has been so helpful.

 

Thanks again!

[Railwaylass]

Congratulations on your marriage!

 

Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful and witty review! We are sailing on Equinox, our first Celebrity cruise, on Monday! Your excellent review has us even more excited about what we are certain will be an amazing holiday!

[tright]

Thanks for taking the time to write your review it was great!!

[de313]

Nice review, thanks for the info, enjoyed reading it:D...really looking forward to my first time on the Equinox in 17 days:p (cant come soon enough)... My DH and I are also on deck 9 port side near the back of the ship in a C3.

[Joe19fan]

great review! Loved your writing style!

We, too, will be on the Equinox on March 16th, and can't wait.Not our first cruise, but first time with Celebrity. I'm afraid we are going to be soooo spoiled!

[sunshine nana]

Thanks for the reply. My Celebrity book is for 2010 and I think what is now the Molecular Bar was once the Galleria Tastings. We'll find it!

[FlLuvstravel]

Since I’ve read so many reviews here on CruiseCritic, I figured I’d throw in my opinion as well – never a bad thing to contribute to such an active and inviting community. My wife and I (25 and 29, respectively) were on the Equinox on an 11-night western Caribbean itinerary from February 13th to the 24th, 2012, celebrating our honeymoon. For both of us, it was our first cruise ever.

 

Just a quick preamble before I get started – really, a warning to new cruisers such as myself. If you’re anything like me, before booking your cruise you’re going to pore over as many reviews as you can, learning about all of the positives and all of the negatives. Once you’ve booked, you’re going to read some more, learning a few more positives and a few more negatives, but really just remembering the negatives spread over many, many different cruises and many, many different people, and as a result, maybe internalizing them a bit. By the time you board, you’re going to expect the food to be awful, the pools to be consistently befouled, and the balconies to smell like a tobacco plantation caught fire.

 

Well, I have good news. Unless you are really unlucky, none of this will be the case (as I discovered); so much goes right on a cruise that it’s really easy to seize on the very few minor glitches that will occur when you put close to five thousand people (passengers + crew) in a confined space.

 

Therefore, if you are like me and are just learning about the ship that you’re planning to book (or have booked already and are just getting excited), close the browser window after this paragraph, because all you need to know is that Equinox is a wonderful ship with a wonderful crew and that (almost) everybody behaved themselves. (There are always a couple of grumpy people, but they’re easy to spot and ignore.) In my opinion, all of the other cruise ships we were next to in the harbour looked like garbage scows next to the Equinox. There. Happy? That’s really all you need to know. Go book.

 

Still here? Okay. Awesome.

 

We flew into Orlando on the 9th to spend a few days at Disney World (yes, Disney World was part of the honeymoon) and stayed at Disney’s Pop Century Hotel on the park grounds. This isn’t a Disney World review, so I won’t go into much more detail, but we used it as a bit of a buffer to get down to Florida from Alberta in case our flights were delayed. And, naturally, a three and a half hour drive to Fort Lauderdale is just around the corner, right? Right.

 

Therefore, our benchmark for food on this cruise was … amusement park food. You may just want to ignore what I say about the food from here on out because, while I’ll be gushing over it, I am, after all, comparing it to three days of chili dogs and … well, all I can really remember is chili dogs.

I will say, though, that the food ranged from “very good” to “outstanding”. I can’t remember a single bad meal (or even an average one) in the main dining room, but that may have been thanks to our wonderful head waiter, Goran, who was not particularly bashful about what he thought we’d like (and what we wouldn’t like). Since we had the package (there is no need to qualify it – people on the ship simply refer to it as “the package”) there was always wine on the table; they took our SeaPass number on the first night and we never had to worry about it again. It would’ve been very easy to make us swipe it at the end of every evening to properly inventory what we drank, so this little touch was very much appreciated.

We ate at each of the specialty restaurants once (except for Blu – we were Concierge Class, so no Blu for us). Tuscan Grille was excellent. So was Silk Harvest. Murano was outstanding. Seriously, look back through other reviews. Nobody complains about Murano, and that’s because it’s just unbelievably good. All of the specialty restaurants, in my opinion, are worth the price of admission, but Murano even more so.

 

(A quick aside: If you made the mistake of reading dress code threads like me, you might be wondering what people actually wear in the specialty restaurants, because, after all, they’re officially always “smart casual”, and indeed, this was the case in Silk Harvest and Tuscan Grille. Everybody seemed to dress up for Murano, though, and I think one might feel a bit underdressed in anything less than formal-ish wear.)

 

We even ate in Bistro on Five a couple of days, mostly for breakfast. We were one of the few, though, as it was almost always completely empty. Perhaps – and this is only a theory - North Americans have a bit of a problem paying five bucks for something they perceive as snack food. The food’s tasty there, though, and I’d recommend at least one visit over the course of a cruise. (I also enjoyed the crepe-making Celebrity Live activity that they had in there on one sea day.)

 

Even the places you’d expect to have mediocre food were good. The buffet never failed to disappoint (although we weren’t in there much) and the Mast Grill is an absolute must for some really tasty burgers and hot dogs (perhaps some latent Disney World thing) and a surprisingly decent beer selection – but more on that in a bit.

 

Let me move on to the actual accommodations, though, because you’re going to be at least a good third of your cruise in there. (Maybe a fourth to a fifth if you can deal with sleep deprivation better than I can.) As I mentioned before, we were Concierge Class (a C3 stateroom if I remember correctly), port side, deck 9, aft-ish, bog standard balcony and the bed near the window.

 

My verdict? They’re nice, very nice! The most important part – the bed - is nice and comfortable, and we didn’t feel any need to order any extra blankets, mattress toppers, or even peek at the pillow menu. I think it’s a bit bigger than a queen, but definitely not a king, and rounded at the edges to allow you to get around the bed to the balcony, but unless you’re really tall it’s long enough; I’m 6’1” and wasn’t poking off of the end.

 

One thing to mention – and this is really an itty, bitty thing – on the rest of the ship, Celebrity does a great job with the interior décor to kind of hide the fact that you’re actually on a ship – it feels like a really nice hotel. The cabin, though, felt very ship-like, from the oddly-textured metal entrance door to the weird lip on the bathroom door to the sheet metal false ceiling. This isn’t a complaint – after all, we were on a ship – just an observation.

The room, though, feels a lot more spacious than it should, especially after you manage to hide your luggage underneath the bed. (Lots of room under there.) The centrepiece is a nice flat screen TV (I didn’t measure it, but it’s big enough) with about twenty channels - well, about fourteen actual ones, the other six seeming to contain only astonishingly cheaply-produced lectures on how to properly wash your hands. By the end of the cruise, I was tempted not to wash my hands just to spite that Alan guy on the five-minute Outbreak Prevention Plan video that always seemed to show up when I wanted to see the cruise director’s video of the day. (I washed them. Don’t worry.)

 

We didn’t see our room stewards much, but they seemed like nice people; I really liked how they set up the room in the evening, closing the curtains, turning on some nice evening lighting, and even pulling back the covers for you. They even hosed down the bathroom without complaint for us after our mud volcano excursion – more on that later. (And yes, we gave them a couple of extra bucks for that.)

 

Let me move on now to the entertainment and activities. I’ve got to give Celebrity a lot of credit here; it was clear a lot of time and effort went into planning and executing activities that appealed to all ages. (Okay, we Gen Y types weren’t likely to go to the scrapbooking class – we have iPhoto for that – but most of them were appealing.)

 

We went to a lot of the culinary activities, all of which were well-done – we went to a cooking seminar, a crepe-making demonstration, a sushi-making demonstration, and the “Iron Chef”-like show. It should be noted that Equinox has an absolutely hilarious pastry chef who is in almost every culinary activity – think the chef from Ratatouille and you’ve got an idea of what this guy’s like. We also did the galley tour on the second sea day, and absent any other behind the scenes stuff, we really enjoyed it. (I think half of the ship was there – Celebrity, take the hint, people like seeing how everything works behind the scenes!)

 

Entertainment was generally excellent too. One thing to note is that the theatre is generally full about 15 minutes before showtime, so if you really want to see the show, show up early. Note that this wasn’t as true for the comedians – there were always empty seats – which was too bad because most of the comedians were really very funny. Here were the shows we had on our 11-night itinerary:

 

• Day 1: “Celebrity Showtime” – essentially an introduction to the people who will be entertaining you for your cruise – this is about where you learn that Celebrity employs some pretty unbelievably good musicians
  
• Day 2: Greg Bonham – a very entertaining Vegas-style performer – loved it
  
• Day 3: Rich Ceisler – a funny comedian who kept it clean – really enjoyed his act
  
• Day 4: Doug Cameron – a versatile, talented musician who played several different styles of music while keeping them all entertaining (even the country bits, and I can’t stand country music) – great
  
• Day 5: “Limelight” – a stage show with Broadway-style music – loved it again
  
• Day 6: Tony Daro – another comedian, and unfortunately we didn’t enjoy his act as much as the other shows as he clearly didn’t want to make his act accessible to anybody under the age of 50, and in fact a good part of his act was just reciting insulting stereotypes about “young people” – the Boomers seemed to love him, us less so. (A bit of a low as Celebrity, in our opinion, did a good job of providing acts that had broad appeal. But that’s enough complaining. He’s the only one we didn’t like.)
  
• Day 7: “Remix” – another stage show, very well done
  
• Day 8: Matilda, Jamaica’s #1 comedienne – an outstanding ventriloquist show by the very talented Patrick Murray that everybody seemed to like – especially well received were the jokes about Colon, a port we’d visited the previous day
  
• Day 9: “Equinox – The Show” – a Cirque de Soleil-style acrobatic and music show. The acrobatic stunts (and other sheer feats of strength) are outstanding, made even more impressive by the fact that the stage was moving
  
• Day 10: Steve Rawlings – another comedian (and a very talented juggler) - *we* found him hilarious but a lot of people walked out. Seriously, you have to hold a performer in a pretty high amount of contempt to actually walk out on them. Come on, he balanced three wine bottles (and a shoe – don’t ask) on a plate on another wine bottle on his chin, on a stage that was anything but steady. (Also, he threw paper plates at people who fell asleep.)
  
• Day 11: “A Voyage to Remember” – much like “Celebrity Showtime” but more of a wrap-up
  

So those were the evening shows. There was also a crew talent show on day 11 that was really very fun to watch as well. A quick comment about the theatre itself – it is a beautiful, beautiful place to watch a show, and there are very few bad seats (there are a couple with a wonderful view of a pole) – in fact, one of our favourite places to sit was the back row of stools on Deck 5 as it had great sight lines and a long, narrow table to set your drink on. (A quick comment, though - this may not have been the best design idea, as the next row of seats is directly underneath said table, and there was a bit of commotion when one unfortunate lady missed her cup and doused the woman in front of her with what was thankfully water. For those wondering what the commotion up there was during the captain’s toast … now you know.)

 

(The one thing I would have liked to see that seems to be a cruise mainstay was a magic show. No problem, though, as the Fortunes Casino’s slots did an excellent job of making dollar bills disappear.)

 

We always came to the shows armed with a beverage from the Molecular Bar. The two bartenders there, Gareth from Wales and Hector from Argentina, were both fantastic (and quick) at creating some really outstanding (and unusual) drinks. This was a must stop for us every night, and they were always good for some friendly conversation. We also enjoyed the Ensemble Lounge for a classy drink in a classy (yet extremely dark) setting every now and then; there was always some quality entertainment in there. (For some reason, though, I couldn’t get the blues club scene from the Naked Gun (

) out of my head when we were in there.) What was always strange was that although the Ensemble Lounge was usually busy, we almost never saw anybody in Michael’s Club outside of the muster drill. It seemed to be superfluous, trying to attract the same people as the Ensemble Lounge.

 

As I mentioned before, we had the package – the premium alcohol one – and while I don’t think we quite broke even on it, I still think it was worth it as we felt free to try unusual drinks (or just spike cappuccinos in Café al Bacio) without having to worry about the cost. The bartenders never treated us differently – in fact, most of them didn’t even know we had the package as they don’t take your SeaPass until you’ve received your drink.

 

A bit of an aside – the premium package covers every drink that’s 12 dollars or less before tip, which is almost everything on the ship except the more expensive wines (which, if you’re drinking those, you’re likely ordering by the bottle anyway) and one $60 champagne cocktail, which made me a bit confused on disembarkation day when I saw them set up an ad for a new “Ultra Premium Beverage Package” which would let you drink anything served by the glass on the ship for $199 a day. :eek: One question – what on Earth do you have to be drinking to look at that and say, “wow, what a deal”?!

 

One thing that I did find a bit strange was, despite the huge variety of beverage options, it was remarkably difficult to find decent beer on the ship – in fact, the best selection we found was, of all places, at the Mast Grill. There is almost no draught beer to be found – I guess it’s hard to keep it fresh at sea – in fact, the only draught beers available were Coors and Amstel Light, both of which I wouldn’t touch even though they were included as part of the package. (For comparison, even the pool bar at the Disney resort had a better selection of draught beers - Celebrity, you're getting beaten in beer selection by Walt freaking Disney!)

 

For the last bit of my review, I’ll chat about the excursions we did. We had six ports (well, six non-Florida ports) – Cozumel, Roatan, Puerto Limon, Colon, Cartagena, and Grand Cayman – and we did excursions on four of them, all of which we planned through the ship:

 

• Cozumel – we did the Mexican cooking class at the Playa Mia beach resort. I can’t recommend this activity enough. We had a really entertaining teacher named Luis who took us through the preparation of a three-course, very tasty Mexican meal, all while making jokes and making sure we had fun. Worth every penny.
  
• Colon – we did a partial transit of the canal, from Gamboa (about halfway) to the Pacific side of the canal – Panama City, to be exact. One of my favourite bits were the bus rides to and from the ferry, as it gave about a 45-minute chance to see the Panamanian countryside – quite lovely once you get out of Colon. Note that Celebrity does not offer any scenic bus tours of Colon, and there’s a reason for that – it is a very economically depressed area and not a great place to spend any amount of time. It’s also not very clean - please do me a favour and do not Google “filthy Colon”.
  
• Cartagena – I’m sure it’s a nice city but we didn’t spend much time in it; instead, we took a bus 75 minutes into the countryside (again, lovely) to the “Volcan del Totumo” – a mud volcano. This was a really, really fun excursion – I would almost say it’s a must do – but there are a couple of things to note. First of all, the volcano isn’t in a particularly rich part of Colombia, and the facilities are a bit … basic and less than private. If changing in an open-air, not particularly private nor gender-segregated room isn’t something you think you’d like, or if being near-drowned afterwards in a lake by an elderly lady who will wash every single part of you whether you like it or not doesn’t appeal to your spirit of adventure, this isn’t going to be the tour for you. For us, we loved it. One thing to note, though, is that Celebrity mentions that it “the mud may damage your swimsuit”. More accurately, they should state that you should never expect to wear that swimsuit ever again, nor should you bring it anywhere near the ship, as the silty mud will just cover anything you set the swimsuit on. If you try to wash it, you’re just going to trash your washroom and make your cabin steward very angry with you. Also, note that it’s about a 75 to 90 minute drive back to the ship, so those big water bottles that the tour guide will tempt you with on the bus ride back should not be consumed immediately, as there are limited washroom facilities in the Colombian countryside and the roads near the port are a bit, um, congested. That’s about all I’ll say. Learn from my fail.
  
• Grand Cayman – we did a brewery tour here. They’ll give you draught beer at just after nine AM in the morning and it needs to be consumed as it’s very, very tasty, and once you’re think you’re done, they’ll take you to a rum distillery. Eat a good breakfast.
  

I guess that’s pretty much all I can say for my review. I do apologise as I know full well that I have kind of a snarky way of writing, but really, the Equinox is an absolutely gorgeous ship, bow to stern, kept gorgeous by a crew of kind, friendly, and very hard-working individuals. In fact, some of the friendliest people on the ship were the people who kept the public washrooms clean, and I had several very nice chats with them, all while my wife was wondering what on earth I could be doing in there that was taking ten minutes.

 

Our fellow passengers were great as well – we went into it thinking that everybody was on vacation, and most people were beaming all the time, always wishing good morning, good evening, good whatever, and never making us feel like children given our relative age to most of them. Even the smokers behaved – the only places we ever smelled cigarette smoke was in the handful of places they were allowed to smoke, and it didn’t bug us much anyway. Kudos.

 

So, yeah. I’ve written far more than I was supposed to – and far more than I intended to – but I hope to get across that we really had a fantastic time. Will we cruise again? Sure. Will we cruise Celebrity again? Absolutely. We hope to see some of the friends, both passengers and crew, that we made on this cruise on our next vacation at sea.

 

 

 

Very clever writing style! I enjoyed your critique.

[whysitsocold1]

Thanks for the reply. My Celebrity book is for 2010 and I think what is now the Molecular Bar was once the Galleria Tastings. We'll find it!

 

I think you're right - every drink we had in there showed up on our account as "Galleria Tastings". (Take that with a grain of salt, though, as anything we bought in the Equinox Shop next to the casino on deck 4 showed up as "SOL Y MAR" on Deck 14???)

[isabela]

One of the Best Reviews I had read. Thanks. Do they have any hispanic music?? Thanks and hope that your homeymoon last forever!!!:)