Detailed Photo Review of 3/14/16 Celebrity Equinox 11 Night Cruise

[deladane]

Great snorkeling shots, Dana!

 

So now what? I have to go buy an underwater camera?

 

Sheesh!

 

Norris

 

haha Thanks! Actually, an underwater camera is one of the best purchases I've ever made! It even comes in handy if I want to take photos but it's raining outside, or if I go to a pool party or anywhere else that there's water :)

[eurotraveller1]

Great snorkeling shots, Dana!

 

 

 

So now what? I have to go buy an underwater camera?

 

 

 

Sheesh!

 

 

 

Norris

 

 

 

Just do it! You know you want it.

[kenevenpar]

haha Thanks! Actually, an underwater camera is one of the best purchases I've ever made! It even comes in handy if I want to take photos but it's raining outside, or if I go to a pool party or anywhere else that there's water :)

 

What camera do you have? I'm always looking for ways to spend my kids inheritance.

[deladane]

What camera do you have? I'm always looking for ways to spend my kids inheritance.

 

My underwater camera is a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX20 that I bought in 2012 so it's probably a few models outdated. It has some really strong pros and cons... I love that it has an easy panoramic mode and that you can take photos at the same time as shooting a video. Unfortunately, the lens is in the top corner and often ends up with fingers blocking the shot!

[deladane]

There is a floating platform in the middle of the snorkeling area, so we climbed up on there to check out the views looking back towards the beach.

 

 

We could also see some of the cruise ships in the distance, so it was nice to know we weren't that far from the port.

 

There are lockers nearby, but we opted to just leave our bags packed up on our lounge chairs while we went snorkeling. We put our seapass cards in the pocket of J's swim suit, and there were enough tourists walking around that we felt safe leaving our towels, clothes, and books unattended. We spent about an hour in the water, then went back to our chairs for the rest of the afternoon.

 

 

 

There was a big restaurant near where we were seated, as well as a bar and restrooms. The facilities were all very clean and nicely maintained, although we did not buy any food or drinks and cannot comment on that quality. The lifeguard stand remained unoccupied all day, so J took it upon himself to hop there and make sure the swimmers looked safe!

 

 

[deladane]

I just couldn't get enough of this beautiful beach! I'm not sure if anyone else likes these edited photos, but I think it's fun to play with the different effects!

 

 

 

At around 2pm, we packed up and headed towards the front entrance. We noticed signs for a tequila tasting, but they wanted $25 per person. Noooo thank you! J was able to negotiate down to just $5 for the 2 of us (I only planned to take little sips, and J would drink most of the samples.) We were lead into a private tasting room where Jorge served us tastings of 10 different flavors. It was a lot of fun, and there was no pressure at all to buy a bottle at the end. When we left, we noticed large groups of people having tastings, so it was great that we got our own private room, especially for only $5 haha

 

 

The whole thing only took about 15 minutes, and then we continued on to the front entrance where there were lots of taxis waiting to bring us back to the port. We spent some time looking around the stores, and J bought a new panama hat. Then we continued on to the pier to reboard the Equinox.

 

 

 

Our balcony was on the starboard side, but the pier was on the port side and we wanted to watch for pier runners. We went down to deck 5 in the outside section below the lifeboats that is designated for the smokers, but there weren't any pier runners today. We waved goodbye to the Constellation as we sailed away from Mexico.

 

 

As we were getting ready for dinner, I noticed my souvenir from Mexico: a sunburn down my whole back side from my neck to my heels! I did wear suntan lotion and I reapplied throughout the day, but it must not be as waterproof as advertised and I guess it wore off while I was snorkeling. I have yet to take a Caribbean vacation and not get a sunburn, and this one was far from the worst I've seen, but at least it happened early in the cruise and was fully healed by the end of the vacation. That Caribbean sun is strong!!

 

And as usual, that strong sun took all of my energy and I fell asleep for a while. We totally lost track of time, so when we woke up, it was after our 7pm dinner time! Oops! We got down to the dining room 20 minutes late, and Gorica said it would be better if we could be on time in the future, but she was still able to seat us with our waiters from last night as we requested. We were extremely impressed with Gorica all week.... by the 4th or 5th night, she knew not only our cabin number, but also our preferred wait staff and our preferred table number! She was always super busy with people arriving for select dining both with and without reservations, yet she never looked overwhelmed and always had a smile on her face.

[deladane]

Tonight's dinner menu featured the Top Chef selections. I wasn't really in the mood for a heavy meat dinner, so we shared a few appetizers and entrees (J ate most of it), and skipped dessert so I could go upstairs for some sushi at the buffet.

 

 

Kale Pesto Beignet- these were delicious!

 

Seared Ahi Tuna

 

Braised Beef Cheek

 

Gingered Mushrooms

 

I really liked that we could get sushi every night at the Oceanview Cafe. They only had 3 or 4 types on any given night, but they types did change from night to night. Unfortunately for us, they served the sushi from 6-9:30pm, so we rarely got to enjoy it as it was too close to our dinner time. It was the perfect option for me tonight though!

 

Sampling of sushi from the buffet

 

Tonight's show was Lou Gazarra, a former American Idol semi-finalist from season 2. I have watched every season of American Idol except season 1. Lou was on the season with Clay Aiken and Reuben Studdard, but I didn't remember him at all! Oh well! Lou was a phenomenal singer, with lots of classics by Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., etc. Most people I spoke to after the show agreed that he was extremely talented and all enjoyed his performance.

 

I was completely exhausted from too much fun-in-the-sun today and we went straight back to the cabin after the show and went to bed early.

 

Up Next: Sea Day #2

[deladane]

Thursday, March 17 ~ Sea Day

 

Once again, we set the clocks back one hour last night to prepare for our arrival in Costa Rica tomorrow. Between that, and going to bed early last night, we were awake and ready for breakfast at 7am. It was really disappointing that the main dining room did not open for breakfast until 8am. There were lots of people awake and waiting for breakfast, so we really wished they opened at 7am, especially with changing our clocks back last night. We debated going to the buffet again, but after eating there the last 2 days, we were really looking forward to a change of pace at the dining room. To hold us over, we went to Cafe al Bacio for some caffeine and a pastry (which looked better than it tasted).

 

 

By the time 8am rolled around, there was a huge line to enter the MDR. They seated everyone quickly but the wait staff seemed overwhelmed by taking in so many people at once. We expected service to be slower than eating in the buffet, but we were there for over an hour and found it to be just way too slow of a process. It was nice having waiters serve everything to us at the table instead of fighting with the crowds at the buffet line, but I was famished by the time I finally got my meal at 8:45am. On days like this, it might have been better to just go to the buffet where I can get the same exact food but significantly faster.

 

 

Cheese Plate

 

Classic French Omelet, Apple Pancakes, and Corned Beef Hash

 

Today's daily schedule included a flyer from the Future Cruise department offering up to $500 onboard credit for this cruise plus 2 free perks for the future cruise if we booked a new cruise today. We weren't thinking about booking another cruise, especially since we already booked our honeymoon cruise to Tahiti on Paul Gauguin for September 2017! It sounded like a good deal though, so we went down to see what cruise itineraries were available for spring 2018. We arrived at 9:20am and there was a super long line! I guess we weren't the only ones who wanted to take advantage of this promotion!! There is an iPad mounted outside the office, so I scrolled through the itinerary options while J waited in line until it was our turn at 9:50am. We found an amazing itinerary for a 14 night cruise on the Eclipse for March 2018 that goes to a few Southern Caribbean ports plus all of the ABC islands! Remember way back when we booked this current cruise and I had been already eyeing a cruise on the Carnival Breeze? Well that cruise went to Aruba and Curacao, so clearly I have been dying to get to the ABC islands for a long time! There was no penalty for booking the cruise today and we could cancel or change our booking up until final payment is due at 75 days before the cruise, so we booked a balcony cabin and opted to apply our $250 onboard credit to this current cruise. We could have opted to apply that to the future cruise, and that would have made our deposit refundable, but we chose to pay the $250 nonrefundable deposit and take the OBC for this cruise because we already planned to spend that much anyway. We were planning to upgrade to the premium beverage package and we had dinner reservations at Tuscan Grill, plus J wanted to take the mixology class, so with all those charges pending, we decided to make use of the $250 OBC now, not knowing if we would have a use for it on the 2018 cruise.

 

We spent about a half hour sorting out the details of the booking the new cruise, then we went back upstairs to spend some time reading on our balcony and drinking mimosas. It was just so relaxing to sit out there and watch the clouds float over the ocean.

 

[deladane]

Today was St. Patrick's Day, and we noticed decorations all over the ship to celebrate the occasion. They even had a special section of desserts at the buffet for lunch!

 

 

I forgot to take a photo of my lunch, so not sure what I ate but I know there's no way I skipped a meal on a cruise ship! I think I might have made another visit to the pasta bar. After lunch, we walked around the ship for a few minutes. I loved this sign saying "Here Comes The Sun" on each of the decks near the glass elevators.

 

 

Library on deck 10

 

Grand Foyer

 

We ended up at the pool deck at the Slush bar where I upgraded to the premium beverage package. I was on a mission to try every drink on the Slush menu, but the drinks cost more than was allowed on the classic package and they just weren't as good when they were made as virgin drinks. Iwan is the bartender at Slush, and he charged me $11.80 for each of the 8 days remaining on the cruise, and put a sticker on my seapass card to verify my upgrade. After being on the ship for 4 days, I will admit it got annoying when every bartender tried to convince us to upgrade to the premium package. J and I made a game out of it- every time someone asked us to upgrade, we took a sip of our drink! We always planned to upgrade at some point, but wanted to hold out a few days to save some money and drink the less pricey drinks.

 

With that piece of business taken care of, we continued walking around the ship. J was convinced that the coffee in the buffet was decaf because no matter how much he drank, he never felt the effects. We went over to Cafe al Bacio so he could order something a little stronger, and we shared a slide of carrot cake (yumm!)

 

[retiredinhemet]

If you go to Curaçao be sure to do the "Swim with the Dolphins" tour. Absolutely worth every penny. Small groups, (6 per dolphin) dolphins are not captives (can swim out of the lagoon if they so choose). Would do it again if I have the chance.

 

 

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[NemoCrownie]

Change your Eclipse cruise to February 4😆 I would love to cruise with you...and have a review afterwards to look forward to.

 

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

[Cindy]

Thursday, March 17 ~ Sea Day

 

Between that, and going to bed early last night, we were awake and ready for breakfast at 7am. It was really disappointing that the main dining room did not open for breakfast until 8am. There were lots of people awake and waiting for breakfast, so we really wished they opened at 7am, especially with changing our clocks back last night.

 

We thought the breakfast hours were puzzling, and the hours were one of our very few complaints the whole trip. I thought breakfast opened unreasonably late on early port days too. Since I was in AQ I would have liked to be able to eat breakfast in BLU, but when I was getting off the ship early it was simply not possible. Even in the buffet people were frustrated. We were meeting to get off the ship at 7:15 the second day in Cartagena, and the promised "continental" breakfast wasn't available when it should have been. It was both sad and comical to watch passengers duck under ropes and reach around corners to try to get a piece of bread before going ashore!

 

It seemed like on the Equinox they had decided there was a "sea day" opening time and a "port day" opening time, and those times never varied even when the port call was early. That wasn't how I remembered it on the Constellation in the Baltics...they changed the hours to accommodate the port schedule.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Cindy

[deladane]

If you go to Curaçao be sure to do the "Swim with the Dolphins" tour. Absolutely worth every penny. Small groups, (6 per dolphin) dolphins are not captives (can swim out of the lagoon if they so choose). Would do it again if I have the chance.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

Thanks for the suggestion! Swimming with dolphins is something I've never done and would love to do sometime so maybe it'll happen in Curacao in 2 years!! Was that through the cruise line or an independent company?

 

Change your Eclipse cruise to February 4😆 I would love to cruise with you...and have a review afterwards to look forward to.

 

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

haha As it is, the March cruise is only 6 months after our 2 week honeymoon so I don't think we can push it any earlier than we're already going! We probably would have been better off booking a cruise for May or June but those dates weren't released and I think the weather in March will be better than early summer anyway :)

[deladane]

We thought the breakfast hours were puzzling, and the hours were one of our very few complaints the whole trip. I thought breakfast opened unreasonably late on early port days too. Since I was in AQ I would have liked to be able to eat breakfast in BLU, but when I was getting off the ship early it was simply not possible. Even in the buffet people were frustrated. We were meeting to get off the ship at 7:15 the second day in Cartagena, and the promised "continental" breakfast wasn't available when it should have been. It was both sad and comical to watch passengers duck under ropes and reach around corners to try to get a piece of bread before going ashore!

 

It seemed like on the Equinox they had decided there was a "sea day" opening time and a "port day" opening time, and those times never varied even when the port call was early. That wasn't how I remembered it on the Constellation in the Baltics...they changed the hours to accommodate the port schedule.

Hopefully someone in Celebrity land is reading this and will make some changes because lots of people on the ship had this same complaint! Thank goodness for room service as that was our go-to for the rest of the port days (I just haven't gotten to that part of my review yet haha) At the very least, they need to bump the dining room breakfast hours earlier when the clocks set back for the time changes! You'd think they were trying to starve us! ;)

[deladane]

We ended up back on our balcony for a few hours until it was time for the Mixology class. This is held every sea day at 4:30pm in the World Class Bar, and the cost is $35 per person. I personally didn't have much interest in participating in the class, but I wanted to keep J company so they let me just sit at the bar and watch for free. As it turned out, I really enjoyed the class and learned a few things I didn't know about making drinks. Six people attended the class, plus me and another woman keeping her husband company but not participating in making the drinks. One of the bartenders, Santos, taught the class, and he started with a little intro about the various types of drinks (every drink is NOT a cocktail! There is also a swizzle, smash, mule, collins, etc.)

 

 

Santos taught us how to make 3 drinks, and each time he would demonstrate how to make a simple version of the drink, then he substituted a few ingredients for a jazzed up version of the drink and he brought 2 people at a time behind the bar to make it. Everyone had their turn behind the bar to make each of the 3 drinks: a mojito, a Tom Collins, and a swizzle drink. The class was supposed to take one hour, but actually took over an hour and a half! Maybe because there were 6 people participating and they only took 2 people behind the bar at a time? I'm not sure if this was a larger turn out than normal, and maybe they should have divided us into 2 groups of 3 people to make it go faster? One woman actually had to leave early or she would miss her 6pm dinner time! Regardless, everyone seemed to have a great time, and even though I didn't get behind the bar to make the drinks, I still learned a lot and thought it was a good value (you get to drink the 3 drinks you make, by the way!).

 

Here are a few photos of J making his drinks...

 

Pouring a shot into the jigger

 

Did you know the way to know how long to use the shaker is to listen to the ice? When the sound of the ice changes, you are supposed to stop shaking because that means the ice is starting to melt and you don't want your drink to get watered down!

 

Straining the drink into the glass

 

Smashing the mint leaf for flavor

[deladane]

A pineapple mojito

 

 

Muddling raspberries for the next drink

 

Shake, shake, shake!

 

A raspberry version of a Tom Collins

 

Santos smashing the ice because they don't have a crushed ice machine

[deladane]

Swizzling the drink instead of using a shaker

 

J got to smash his ice too

 

The World Class Bar opens at 5pm, so people arrived for pre-dinner drinks while we were still taking the class. Luca is the other bartender here, so he kept coming behind the bar to make their drinks while we were finishing up the class. J and I loved the dry ice drinks and Luca let us hold the glass after the class was over.

 

 

No comment...

 

At about 6:15pm, we finally made our way back to the cabin to quickly get ready for dinner, then we went downstairs to the martini bar for a pre-dinner drink. This is our second year in a row on a cruise ship for St. Patrick's Day, and we made it a tradition to get dressed up to celebrate.

 

 

Sunset Martini

[deladane]

We arrived at the hostess stand promptly at 7pm, and Gorica was happy to seat us with our regular wait staff at our window table for 2.

 

Tonight's dinner menu

 

French Onion Soup from the everyday menu (it was soooo good!)

 

If you read my Carnival Valor review, you may remember that J brought green food dye to dye all our liquids green for St. Patty's Day. It was very entertaining to see the confusion on our waiters faces when they returned to our table to see lots of green drinks and soups when they knew that's not what we were served! From the minute we booked the Equinox cruise, J knew he had to bring green food dye again!

 

 

Duck Terrine

 

Slow Braised Lamb Wrapped in Phyllo

 

Turkey Parmesan (tasted exactly like chicken parm- not sure why they used turkey?)

[deladane]

Dessert menu

 

Strawberry Angel Food Cake (it was too bland)

 

Tonight's show was the second big production show, Destiny. Once again, the aerialists and acrobats were fantastic! The music selection was very similar to the show Life 2 nights ago, with lots of current pop and R&B songs. Strangely enough, we didn't know about half the songs- J actually thought Celebrity wrote original music for this show. We enjoyed the show, but thought it was weird that it was so similar to the show 2 nights ago. Usually each of the shows have different themes, but this show was very similar to Life, so if you do/don't like one, you'll probably feel the same way about the other.

 

 

The dancers were hooked up to bungee cords and ran vertically up the screens- a very cool effect!

 

 

After the show, we returned to the martini bar, where Yopi served me a candied apple martini on his wrist!

 

After another full and exciting sea day, we went back to the cabin to rest up for our next port of call!

 

Up Next: Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

[deladane]

Friday, March 18 ~ Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

 

We were very excited for our port visit today as neither of us had been to Costa Rica yet, and we had heard such wonderful things about the country from friends and family who have been there on land vacations. Most of those people had been to the Pacific coast, which is much more touristy and built up as compared to where we would dock in Limon on the Atlantic coast. When I started researching what we should do today, I knew I wanted to see some of the exotic animals. Costa Rica is supposed to be a good place to go zip-lining, but we just did that in St. Lucia last year and did not want to do it again on this cruise. I looked around in the Costa Rica forum, but found very few options of tour operators with whom I could book a private excursion, but there was one company that seemed promising. Oscar Brown Tours (http://oscarbrowntours.com/tours.html) offers several different tour options, including zip lining, a canopy tour, aerial tram ride, horseback riding, deep sea fishing, snorkeling, and a few other options. We decided to book the combo tour and a visit to the Jaguar Rescue Center. Here is the description from the company website:

 

As we combine the Jaguar Rescue Center, along with the Tortuguero Canal tour, you have the opportunity to enjoy more of our beautiful country. We start by taking you to the Jaguar Center. This Center is a non-profit, humane-society organization in Puerto Viejo of Limon, Costa Rica. They are dedicated to recover maltreated, hurt, in poor health or abandoned animals, which once reestablish, are then reintroduced to their natural environment in protected areas. When you get there, you will have direct contact, and will be able to spend time up close and personal with howler monkeys, wild cats, sloths, raccoons, reptiles, etc. You can also observe all the venomous snakes of Costa Rica which are housed in terrariums (cage) imitating their natural habitat. The best thing here is to cuddle a baby sloth; they also allowed young howler monkeys to dance across your heads and shoulders, while you hold it. With your visit you will get a unique experience to interact with Costa Rica’s wild and timed animals and help a valuable cause. This place is located in the South side from the pier. We’ll get you there as little as 45 minutes. We include our complementary stops, such as: the banana plantation, life style of the country side, and the option of one beach stop (black sand beach or a white sand beach) we offer time beach (you can walk on the beach or take a dip in the water). The II part of this tour, takes you to the Tortuguero Canal ride. This is a tour through the rain forest, where as you go comfortable seated in a boat with cover, to protect you from the sun or the rain. On the way you will see all wild life: alligator, monkeys, slots, different type of birds. This tour goes for approximately 6 to 7 hours. Soft drinks and complementary lunch are included.

 

I sent them an email to the address listed on their website, and after a few weeks I still hadn't heard back. Not knowing what the problem was, I sent them another email through one of my other email accounts, and I did get a response from Carol Brown within a few days that time. She actually lives in Brooklyn, New York and spoke fluent English, so it was very easy to coordinate the tour details with her. She said the tour would cost $95 per person, payable in US dollars on the day of the tour, and there would be a maximum of 12 people on our tour.

 

We spent the next 9 months so excited at the idea of holding a sloth! That was one of the things we were most looking forward to on this cruise, and we had many sloth jokes between us in anticipation. A few weeks before the cruise, I sent them another email to re-confirm, and everything was good to go.

 

We woke up at 6:30am to get ready for the day and pack up our day pack. This would be the first of 4 days when we were in the "Zika Zone". About a month before our cruise, there were health warnings about the risks of getting the Zika virus from a mosquito bite, so we bought some extra strength bug spray with 25% DEET and hoped for the best. I wasn't willing to cancel our vacation on the off chance that we got a bug bite, and Carol reassured me that there haven't been any reports of people contracting Zika where we were going for our tour. We went up to the Oceanview Cafe for breakfast, and exited the ship as soon as the ship was cleared at 8am. There was a surprisingly long walk from the ship to the exit of the port, where we were supposed to meet our driver. We were also quite shocked at how hot and humid it was this early in the morning! Whoa! This was no joke!! haha

 

 

It took us 15 minutes to reach the exit gate, and then we saw this:

 

 

There were tons of tour guides lined up along the gate, all holding up signs from their company and looking for their passengers! It was a bit overwhelming, but we did find someone holding up a sign for Oscar Brown Tours. We told him which tour we were booked on, and watched him look through his list to find our names. It turned out that we were the only people booked on this tour, so it was a private tour for just the 2 of us! Our driver was Elvis, and he walked us over to where his sedan was parked. We hoped in, he turned up the air conditioning, and off we went to the Jaguar Rescue Center.

 

 

The drive to Puerto Viejo took about one hour through mostly rural roads, although we did pass through a small town and the Chiquita Banana Plantation.

 

 

The town of Puerto Viejo is so far south in Costa Rica that Elvis said we were close to the Panama border. There are lots of hotels and hostels along the main road, and it seems to be one of the few touristy locations on the Atlantic coast (although those hostels and hotels appeared very basic and not at all like the bigger resorts on the Pacific). We got to the Jaguar Rescue Center at 9:25am, just as they were starting to open for business.

 

 

As we pulled up, Elvis asked us each for $20 to buy our admission tickets. We were a little confused about this because we thought the tour price was all inclusive, and he wasn't clear about if this $20 was to come from the $95 tour price, or if it was in addition to that price. We each gave him $20 and agreed that we would pay him the remaining $75 at the end of the day. I am used to having guides handle similar situations differently in that they just pay our for admission tickets as we go along, and we reimburse them when we pay for our tour at the end of the day. Elvis could have avoided that awkwardness if he used this method.

 

Anyway, Elvis bought our entrance tickets and we lined up for our tour. The Center has their own tour guides, so we said goodbye to Elvis and he said he would pick us up when we were done at 11am. We were divided into groups of 12 people, and our guide Rachel introduced herself and explained that all the guides here are volunteers. She has worked there for 7 months and keeps renewing her contract because she enjoys the experience so much, but she can only stay as long as she can afford it because she must pay for her own food and housing. Rachel explained that the Center is not a zoo. They find animals in the jungle who have been injured, and they take them in to nurse them back to health until they are stable enough to be released back into the wild. At any given time, they can have a huge variety of animals on site. While they did not have any jaguars today, they did have howler moneys, sloths, owls, caymans, pelicans, and a bunch of other interesting animals. We spent the next 2 hours (the tour ran 30 minutes over) walking around the Center and looking at all the animals.

 

This volunteer is acting as a mother figure to these 4 week old howler monkeys...

[deladane]

 

Antelope

 

Rachel spotted a sloth in the tree, so we spent a few minutes watching him verrrry slowly climb down. His nails are painted bright pink so they can identify him...

 

 

 

 

 

He was so adorable, and it was amazing to be standing literally 5 feet from him!

[PRH]

We were so bummed to be in Costa Rica on a Sunday because THIS is the tour I wanted to do. Thank you so much for posting! We are returning next year.

[deladane]

We were so bummed to be in Costa Rica on a Sunday because THIS is the tour I wanted to do. Thank you so much for posting! We are returning next year.

 

That's great that you'll get a second chance at visiting the Jaguar Rescue Center! It was such a unique experience and we were really happy we went there. Lots more animal photos to come!!

[deladane]

Toucan

 

The pelicans in the gift shop are not for sale!

 

 

 

They had a few kinds of snakes in terrariums

 

These 2 snakes were keeping each other company...

[deladane]

 

Next we went to the garden where we saw 2 sloths in a tree, and a few birds...

 

I think he's waving at me!

 

Snacking on a flower

 

 

pretty flowers