Equinox Review – July 16 Mediterranean sailing

[caggfamily]

I recently returned from my first Celebrity cruise in a while. I have been on all the mainstream cruise lines – Royal, Disney, Carnival, Holland America, etc. and I am not particularly loyal to any. Different ships have met different needs over the years. But this trip was to celebrate my youngest daughter’s graduation from high school, and since she also just turned 18, she wanted a ship where she could drink. I also sailed with my husband and 20 year old daughter, so Celebrity sounded like a good choice for us. Hint – it was 

 

Before I begin my official review, I just want to give a shout out to Cruise Critic. I’ve been a member for many years and always learn so much from fellow cruisers. I feel obligated to pay it forward after each cruise I take. For those of you newer to CC, let me give you 3 things I learned on this forum that helped me just for this cruise:

 

1. If you think there might be a problem with air, use Choice Air. We have always booked our own air, and I still booked on my own to Europe as we were flying in the week before our cruise. However, when I booked the trip back in September, we were supposed to depart from Istanbul. I knew things were a bit unsettled but I really wanted to go, so I booked the cruise but used Choice Air for my flight to Istanbul. Two weeks before our trip, the bombing at the Istanbul airport happened and they changed our debarkation port to Athens. I spoke to someone from Celebrity immediately after the incident, and they changed our flights for us. Easy.

 

2. I read on this forum that someone was able to get a refund for their Turkey visas. I called Celebrity and asked, and as soon as I submitted the documentation, immediate refund.

 

3. This last piece of advice I read right before I left, and had never up until this point, done this, but I’m glad I did. Someone said to always bring a detailed copy of your booking, that breaks down/includes your promotions, credits, etc. For some reason I decided to bring it, just in case, and it turns out I needed it. Our go Best promotion included premium alcohol package for the 4 of us, but when we got on board, it only showed my husband and me with the package. I think it’s because our girls are not 21, but in Europe they are allowed to drink. Regardless, the lady at guest relations said they didn’t have any record of their having the package. I pulled out my receipt, she stepped away briefly, and the problem was solved.

 

I’ll write the review in stages when I have time. I am not a big picture taker and don’t have any pictures of the menus or daily info sheets, but please feel free to ask questions along the way. I am framing this review from the perspective of someone who has been on many different cruise lines. In my experience, there is no one perfect cruise line, and most have some areas they do better at than others. Stay tuned.

[NCHPcruiser]

I look forward to your review! I was on the Equinox five years ago and am looking forward to being aboard again in September.

[ShawninFL]

I look forward to your review as well. We are leaving in a couple weeks for our own Equinox cruise. Glad to hear you had a good time.

[Bagwhan]

Looking forward to your review. Thanks also for your upfront tips, to a new cruiser they will be extremely useful on front end of my cruising life.

 

Cheers 117DTG

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[caggfamily]

Day 1 - Embarkation:

 

We chose this itinerary because we wanted to go to Istanbul, but as everyone knows, that was not to be. When they finally decided to move to Athens, there were many on this board who complained and questioned the move. While disappointed, I felt it was the right call. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from many years of cruising is that sometimes your ship will not go to the scheduled ports. You can either complain about it or roll with it.

 

Once we learned we were leaving from Athens, we immediately booked a private tour for the morning of departure. It was not cheap, but it was wonderful to have a guide and driver to take us around to the major sights on our schedule. We went to the Acropolis and to the Agora, had lunch at a local café, and went to the Acropolis Museum in the afternoon – good choice as it was in the upper 90s that day. My kids are not really big museum fans, but all of us enjoyed this one. It was modern, bright and somehow a perfect way to highlight the ancient artifacts.

 

Normally when we cruise, we are among the first to board the ship. However, since we had never been to Athens and our ship was not scheduled to depart until 10:30 pm, we spent the day sightseeing and arrived at the ship around 2:30. The benefit was that we walked right up to the counter and were on the ship within about 10 minutes. The only glitch we had was when we checked in. We asked about who to give the parental consent forms to so our girls could drink alcohol. I expected them to give them a sticker or something to indicate that could drink. Several people at check in conferred, but no one was sure, so we knew we had to make our first stop guest relations.

 

A quick word about guest relations. They are about the same on most ships, but for some reason, whenever we went, day or night throughout the week, there was a very long line. The average wait time was 20+ minutes. They had several people working the counters, but it was SLOW. My husband speculated that perhaps with the very diverse group of guests on this sailing, it took longer due to language barriers. I don’t know what it was, except I spent a lot of time waiting in line there.

 

As mentioned before, we thought we were able to resolve the drinking issue for our daughters, but it didn’t work out that way. My younger daughter looks like she is about 14, even though she is 18, so I expected people to question her. However, I also assumed that they would swipe her card and see that she was 18 – wrong. Apparently, most of the bars do not have anything that actually confirms the age. My husband went with her a few times, and the bartenders got to know her, but she was flat out refused service at several bars. So we went back to guest relations to find out what was going on. They said it should not be a problem because on the front of her card it designates that she is in the 18-20 age group. They told us to point that out to the servers. We did but some still refused to serve her – it was very frustrating. If they are going to have a policy that allows 18-20 year olds to drink on Europe sailings, they need to have a clear way for the servers, and everyone to know her age. She finally started carrying her license. Interestingly, we all went to the casino once it opened and as soon as we went to the roulette table, we were asked our daughter’s age. When we replied she was 18, the woman asked for her id because she wanted to give it to the pit boss for verification from the start so she wouldn’t be bothered throughout the week. They took it for a minute or two and returned it to her, and while she received some looks, no one at the casino every questioned her again. So I’m really not sure why some bartenders would serve her and others wouldn’t, but we made the best of an annoying situation. By the way, my 20 year old was never questioned.

 

When we were at our muster drill, it seemed a bit empty and we knew something was up when they started calling cabin numbers. At first we thought they were confirming cabins of those in attendance, but they were actually reading off the cabins of missing guests (and our ship was fully booked). Just in our small muster station, I think she read off nearly 30 cabins! They later made an announcement that we would stay in port an extra hour or two to allow guests to arrive. The coup in Turkey occurred the night before our cruise started, so apparently there were many guests trying to get here.

 

The next day, a sea day, we had no trouble finding seats by the adult pool mid-morning, and were wondering why people said it was so hard. Well, we later found out from various crew members that anywhere from 400-500 guests were not able to get here, presumably from Turkey. Fortunately for many of them, the next day we stopped in Mykonos and many people caught up with the ship then. We assumed that most were Turkish citizens. Many were, but as the week went by, we spoke to many Americans and others who had planned to fly from Istanbul to Athens but got caught in the coup – some of the stories we heard were quite scary – I was really glad we didn’t go there at all.

[caggfamily]

Ports of Call

 

I’ll just give a brief idea of what my family did in each port.

 

Mykonos – my kids just wanted to go to the beach. We looked at the ship excursion that took passengers to a local beach, but it seemed really expensive – around $40 per person I think. And that just included transportation and a few hours at the beach – nothing else. So we decided to go on our own. Most of the time when we want to head to the beach in a port, we just grab a cab. Unfortunately, we learned that Mykonos has very few taxis so we figured we would take the bus or the ferry. The ship provided a shuttle to a spot near town, and when we got off, we saw that several local beach clubs provided transportation to the beach for a small fee. We decided to give it a try, and it was a great decision. For 6 euros per person we had round trip transportation to the beach. The shuttle runs every hour. The Tropicana Beach Club had everything we were looking for. We got there nice and early so had our pick of umbrellas, lounge chairs, etc. My family opted for two two-person cabana beds with curtains to block the sun. we were right on the water. Each cabana bed was about the same price as two loungers and an umbrella. We had someone bring us food – actually pretty good, especially the pizza, drinks, etc. It was very reasonable. The beach was not sandy – it was a pebble beach, but we didn’t mind, and the water was spectacular.

 

So to any new cruisers, especially when considering a beach day, explore other options before automatically booking through the ship. If the beach is far away or you are worried about time, it might be worth it. But for us, we got to go on our own schedule, stay as long as we wanted, all for a fraction of the ship’s excursion.

 

Malta – We had never been there and knew very little about it. Again, we hired a private guide for the day, and she spent the day driving us around the island and taking us to very local cafes to sample authentic Maltese cuisine. It’s a beautiful island and I would love to return.

 

Sicily – the kids stayed on the ship. My husband and I hired a guide to show us around. The area near the port of Catania is not very nice, but on the drive up to Mt. Etna, it turned into this beautiful, lush landscape. We took the cable car up part of the way, followed by a 4x4 bus that took us to 2,800 meters, where a guide led us around the crater. I expected it to be chilly so I brought a jacket, but my husband did not, and let’s just say chilly is not the right word. I’d call it freezing. Apparently they had some ash fall in December and it acted as an insulator, so there was still snow on the ground. We enjoyed it but did not linger. The trip to the top is pretty expensive, which I guess is why we saw many people hiking up. But I’m glad we went.

 

Afterwards, our guide arranged for us to visit a local winery where we had a multi-course lunch with 5 wine pairings. The wine was just average, but the view from the winery was spectacular and the meal was delicious.

 

Salerno (Amalfi Coast) – We had just spent time on the Amalfi Coast the week before, so we spent the time to explore some areas with family ties and we visited a buffalo milk mozzarella factory and watched them make the mozzarella. Very cool to see and delicious too.

 

I’ll wrap up shortly with my overall thoughts of this cruise compared with other cruise lines.

[caggfamily]

The Equinox is similar in size and layout to many other cruise lines. We were on the middle of deck 9 in hump balconies – 9264 and 9268. The room location was great because we were so close to the elevator. We always try to be on a deck that is sandwiched between two other cabin decks. It is usually pretty quiet. We rarely saw anyone pass by and only occasionally heard noise from other cabins. The layout of our cabin was okay – we had the bed by the closet, whereas our daughters had the couch by the closet. With the bed by the closet, we felt a bit more cramped as we entered the cabin, and it was impossible for more than one person to be at the closet at the same time. I don’t know why they put sliding doors on the closet doors – very hard to access. In general, I think I like ships with closets in the hall as you enter. There was enough space for two of us. I’m glad I read about the storage above the bed; otherwise I might not have noticed. It helped but was awkward to get to as I am fairly short. I would have liked either more shelf or drawer space, but it was fine. The larger balcony was lovely and the bathroom had a ton of storage compared to other ships. The only thing I disliked about our room location is that we weren’t in easy walking distance to any of the main areas on the ship. Normally we are only a deck or two away from the lido or something, but by being on deck 9 of this ship, we were 3 decks below anything and 4 decks above. Sadly that meant that I didn’t use the stairs as much as I usually do.

 

Food – that is very subjective but I’ll offer my opinion. As there were 4 of us and my kids are picky eaters, we didn’t see the point in spending the extra money for the specialty restaurants – they are much higher than specialty restaurants on some other ships we’ve been on. We had select dining for the first time and it was perfect. We tended to eat between 6:30 and 7:00 most nights, occasionally a bit later and we never waited. We really liked our servers so we were seated in their section each night. The food was good, but not spectacular. The lobster was a nice surprise as it was perfectly cooked and neither tough nor mushy! I thought the vegetarian options were a bit sparse and would have liked more pasta options. I thought it was strange that there were only a few new dessert options each night, so if they didn’t appeal, we either went with one of the items on the menu every night or went to Café Bacio.

 

We loved Café Bacio both for the coffee and the pastries/desserts. We had the premium alcohol package so it was nice to order whatever we wanted. I’m not sure we broke even but it was nice to be able to get a drink or a bottle of water without thinking about it. I really liked it at dinner because they had a large selection of wines by the glass, and since we were on the package, the sommelier would always come by and refill our glasses. We spent a lot of time at Crush and got to know the main bartender pretty well. It was hard to find drink menus at some of the other bars, but we did fine. My husband enjoyed the craft beers and the martini bar was a great place to hang out and people watch. My one complaint is that there were very few servers wandering by the pool areas to serve people in lounge chairs. The only time I had a waiter ask me if I wanted a drink was when we got back early on a port day and were pretty much the only ones by the pool!

 

Things I like about Celebrity – few announcements, the mostly friendly staff and the comfortable cushions for the lounge chairs. However, although the lounge chairs in the solarium are nicer, they don’t allow you to fully sit up to read. I had to roll towels under by neck to help me get to a sitting position for reading. There were a lot of spaces to sit around the ship. I loved that the casino was smoke free – none of the other major cruise lines that I know of have done this, and I certainly spent more time (and money) than I otherwise would have. We loved Alejandro, the cruise director. He was truly funny and didn’t tell the same tired jokes other cruise directors seem to pass around. We avoided the main production shows, but were pleased with the a Capella group we heard, as well as the rock group. We really enjoyed the Corning Glass Shows and went whenever we could. We even won a piece at the auction at the end. We liked talking to the glass blowers. We’ve actually visited the Corning Glass Museum in New York as we only live a few hours away. Some of the shows had very few people watching so we had much more time to get to know them and what they do. I have mixed feelings about the lawn. It’s nice but I’m not sure it belongs on a ship. I have a lawn at home that I can sit on or walk on whenever I like, so I’m not really sure what the point is. It looks like it would be better served as an outdoor restaurant.

 

What I didn’t like – the food in the main dining room was not fabulous, I think in part because there are so many specialty restaurants that they are always trying to get guests to go to. The music on the ship varied. The music in the atrium was ok, but the singer at the pool was very average.

Fellow guests – my previous cruises have been in the Caribbean, so this was my first Mediterranean cruise. While I expected there to be people from all over, I was surprised by how few Americans there were on board. My girls marveled at how many different languages they heard all around them, many of which they couldn’t even identify. It made it a bit harder for them to meet people their own age, because it seemed like many people were traveling with extended families and spoke their own language. And my husband, who is one to strike up a conversation in the elevator or wherever he is, often was met by blank stares when he spoke. On this cruise I think we actually spent more time interacting with the crew as the servers, dealers, waitstaff, etc. all spoke English.

 

Although I enjoyed visiting so many ports, I would have like more sea days, especially at the end of the cruise. While I wouldn’t recommend it as a replacement for visiting these places, it’s a great way to get a small taste of different countries and cultures.

 

Depending on the itinerary, we will likely sail Celebrity again in the future.

[Kiran]

Thank you for taking the time and making the effort for the review.

 

I go on Celebrity again next year and want to keep up to date with what Celebrity is doing.

[Clarea]

Very nice review, thanks.:)

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.