Same Ship Different Season: An Equinox LIVE Solo Review (6/18/22)

[KKB]

10 hours ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

If my hubby didn’t love cruising as much as me I’d def try a solo cruise…and that’s because of your awesome reports! Was so excited when I saw your thread and am now looking forward to reading all about your latest adventure! Glad to hear all of you are doing well with the latest Covid intrusion on your family! 

My DH loves cruising as much as me...but maybe not as OFTEN as me!

B2B this summer...1st week with him, 2nd solo!

[Redking]

@JamieLogicalmy apologies how could I forget your amazing review, especially the cocktails 👌

[Belfast1916]

Hi, I am new to this site and have started to follow you.  We are booked on the Equinox - same itinerary - in late August.  Flying from Ireland and can't wait - it will be our first cruise.  Looking forward to reading your reports.

[vickykay]

Can’t wait to “cruise” along with you.  Sounds like you really need a cruise.

[hcat]

Following...no cruise for us til Nov on BEYOND...if all goes well!

Enjoy!

[countess5]

Following along! 

Love the ship and have booked a B2B this winter on her! 

 

Cheers! 

[GenerationX]

2 hours ago, hcat said:

Following...no cruise for us til Nov on BEYOND...if all goes well!

Enjoy!

Thank you!  Which Beyond sailing are you  guys doing in November?  My friend Red and I are sailing on Beyond on Nov 8th!

[GenerationX]

13 hours ago, janbear said:

Have a fabulous cruise! How is your mini-me dealing with being left out this time haha 

Oh she’s quite salty with me I assure you! She’s going on a sailing trip with her father next week and I keep trying to tell her that will be just as fun as a cruise.  She just cuts her eyes at me and says “Daddy’s sailboat does NOT have a Retreat Lounge!” 😂

[GenerationX]

My suitcases and luggage tag holders have come up from the basement and my husband has started making comments about projects that need to be done around our hobby farm next week then saying “OH that’s RIGHT, you’ll be on a CRUISE then, so I’LL have to handle that.”

 

All signs pointing to less than 48 hours to wheels up!

 

Speaking of the cruise, here’s a little about what I plan to be doing while my husband is repairing a pigsty and trying to keep our tomato crop alive through 102 degree heat…

 

Let’s start with the most important topic: food!

 

When I booked my specialty dining, Celebrity was running a 10% off flash sale which, along with only having to pay a cover charge for one person (solo cruising park!) allowed my OBC to go a bit further.  

 

Not sure if it was the sales or the fuller ship but specialty bookings in the cruise planner were much harder to come by for this cruise.  My S-class first night dinner tradition is to eat at my favorite, Murano.  But this time both Murano and Tuscan Grille were showing sold out for the first night! I’m making the best of if and made a reservation to do Sushi on 5 for first night dinner instead.  I was able to book 2 other nights at Tuscan Grille. Also, since it’s my favorite and all my other cruises till the end of the year will be on M and E class, I decided to go on a Murano binge and booked 3 nights there (albeit one with an extremely late dinner of 9:30 as the only available reservation time).   

 

For those doing the math, that left me with 2 nights with no specialty plans.  Both are on port days where I have  excursions planned so depending on how tired I am, I’ll either go to select dinning in the MDR or take those as rest nights and have a chill casual room service or buffet dinner (the joys of which I discovered on Equinox in November) and then spend the evening on my veranda with my book and a glass of wine.

 

Speaking of excursions, I have excursions booked through Celebrity in St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Tortola.  There was also a decent sale going on when I purchased these. I believe it was 20% buying 2 excursions and 30% off buying 3.  Here again, for the first time in a long time I saw excursions sold out in the cruise planner several weeks prior to the cruise, but I was able to find a few that interested me.

 

In St. Thomas I’ll be going on a half day sailing and snorkeling trip.  In Tortola I’ll be doing an island tour and trip to Cane Garden Bay beach.  The port I’m most excited about for this cruise is St. Maarten! This was one of my favorite islands and most stunning beaches when Jeremy and I sailed on Silhouette a few years ago and I’ve wanted to go back ever since.  All of my previous post-shutdown cruises, the island was still closed to cruise ships and I am very excited to return.  I’ve booked a trip to Orient Beach that includes a beach chair/umbrella, lunch, and 2 drinks.  With the discount I believe I paid about $65 for it.  It seems like a fair deal as I think when I was last on the island (pre-inflation of course), we spent about $120 on taxi rides to/from the beach, lunch and a couple of drinks each.  I also didn’t want to stress about the island potentially requiring a ship’s excursion to go ashore and then everything being sold out and missing the chance to go.

 

My schedule this month has been so hectic I haven’t been able to get to the spa for my monthly massage, pedicure and facial, so I’ll be trying the Equinox spa for the first time and booked those on our sea days (comparably priced to what I spend on land with the pre-cruise booking discount).

 

I’ve also got some OBC saved just in case once I’m onboard any additional sushi lunches, wine tastings, etc. strike my fancy….Who am I kidding? We all know that a pork ramen lunch and a wine tasting or 3 will end up striking my fancy.

 

Well, I think I better get back to my pre-cruise to-do list!  I’ve got to print out all my confirmations and luggage tags, pick up some dry cleaning and make sure all is in order with my NAVICA app/account for my home Covid test first thing tomorrow morning.

 

This time next week I’ll be lying on Orient Beach! Wohoo final countdown!!!

 

 

[rzyjzq]

Was on the Equinox in May and had a great time.  Looking forward to your review!  🙂

[39august]

I will be very interested to hear about your Orient Beach experience. I'm sure you know that all the beach clubs were wiped out a few years ago when two major hurricanes hit St. Martin and St. John. I want to say it was 2017, but   could be wrong.  I think St. Martin is not a pretty island, yet it does have some stunning beaches. 

[Shimsdan]

Yea!  Was just showing my Mom around the cruise critic site and saw your trip report.  I am especially excited for it, as my family (Mom, Brother and SIL and two nieces, 11 and 13) and I will be on the ship with you!  I will definitely look for you at sailaway.  I'm pretty sure I can get my SIL to join me for a cocktail to start our trip!  Looking forward to my first cruise since January 2020.

[Anita Latte]

I’m so excited to cruise with you again (virtually, that is 😉)…I’ve so enjoyed your previous reviews. Like others have said, you inspire me to try solo

cruising if my DH could stand being left behind. It sounds like we’re going to have a great time with all your plans…thank you so much for taking us all along. I personally am not ready to cruise again so I very much appreciate reviews like yours while I sort when and if I get on cruise ship again.

[GenerationX]

16 hours ago, KKB said:

My DH loves cruising as much as me...but maybe not as OFTEN as me!

B2B this summer...1st week with him, 2nd solo!

I LOVE this B2B idea.  We should totally  do this together sometime! A B2B together where we bring the husbands for the first week then kick them off our ship for the second one! 😂

[GenerationX]

2 hours ago, Shimsdan said:

Yea!  Was just showing my Mom around the cruise critic site and saw your trip report.  I am especially excited for it, as my family (Mom, Brother and SIL and two nieces, 11 and 13) and I will be on the ship with you!  I will definitely look for you at sailaway.  I'm pretty sure I can get my SIL to join me for a cocktail to start our trip!  Looking forward to my first cruise since January 2020.

Looking forward to sailing with you and your family! Hope to see you at sunset bar at sail away. We will drink to your triumphant return to cruising!

[hcat]

3 hours ago, GenerationX said:

Thank you!  Which Beyond sailing are you  guys doing in November?  My friend Red and I are sailing on Beyond on Nov 8th!

Yes indeed..that's the one.. short but hopefully very suite! Dh and I  are looking forward to it.  Ship more so than the ports...

 

Def would be nice  to get together!  Have followed your reviews for quite awhile ....you and I have some stuff in common, although I am a few decades and dress sizes  Beyond You!

Hcat...

[bjahil47]

3 hours ago, 39august said:

I will be very interested to hear about your Orient Beach experience. I'm sure you know that all the beach clubs were wiped out a few years ago when two major hurricanes hit St. Martin and St. John. I want to say it was 2017, but   could be wrong.  I think St. Martin is not a pretty island, yet it does have some stunning beaches. 

I think you need to go back to St. Maarten and drive around the 37 mile square beautiful island!  We are there for 3 weeks every January and it is one of the most beautiful islands I have been to!  

[graphicguy]

Very Cool.   Looking forward to you sharing your adventures.  🙂

[Janthere]

4 hours ago, GenerationX said:

Oh she’s quite salty with me I assure you! She’s going on a sailing trip with her father next week and I keep trying to tell her that will be just as fun as a cruise.  She just cuts her eyes at me and says “Daddy’s sailboat does NOT have a Retreat Lounge!” 😂

LOL Oh my you may have created a monster haha. Maybe her ire will be assuaged knowing you won't have access to the Retreat on this sailing as a "lowly" concierge class passenger. 

[cinderellen]

I love reading your reviews! Looking forward to another. Safe travels.🚢

[parrothead33]

Looking forward to following along on another GenX sailing.  I too have been going through withdrawl after Jim-Iain and JamieLogical reviews ended so I was very happy to find your post.  
We’re on the Summit July 31st, when are you sailing?

Have fun!

Cheers.

[dgoz]

Gen Z where are you finding these cruise sales that include OBC, premium drinks etc? Do you just keep checking the Celebrity site regularly or is there some other magic trick?

[GenerationX]

2 hours ago, parrothead33 said:

Looking forward to following along on another GenX sailing.  I too have been going through withdrawl after Jim-Iain and JamieLogical reviews ended so I was very happy to find your post.  
We’re on the Summit July 31st, when are you sailing?

Have fun!

Cheers.

I think we’re the sailing right before you. We sail on the 24th!  I’ll have my 40th birthday onboard 😁 bummer we’ll just miss you!

[hildacloake]

I am coming along with you on your cruise.  We just got off the Equinox on May 29th and it’s one of my favourite ships of all!  Been on it several times by now.  Have fun! 😎

[GenerationX]

Ok, so I know we have some real air travel warriors/experts on the boards so if any of you are reading this and can weigh in, that would be fantastic. Here’s my question:

 

I was just on an AA discussion board and someone posted that their red eye STL to MIA flight for tomorrow morning had been cancelled and they were told by AA the earliest available rebook was on Saturday (6/18, aka my sail date). 
 

I am scheduled to fly a nonstop red eye  STL to MIA on Friday morning (6/17) and when I just did a dummy booking it looks like there are still about a dozen seats left open on my flight.

 

My question is how concerned should I be that my flight is going to get canceled, given that it’s not being offered as a rebook option (even though it looks like seats are available) and that I’ll also be offered no alternative options to fly till Saturday (even though there are several other flights out Friday, albeit not nonstop, to Miami).

 

I don’t know if this changes the analysis but the person indicated that they booked a ways out on an extremely cheap fare (almost 900 less than what seats on my flight are priced at currently) so not sure if that would affect what rebook options would be.

 

 I know that whatever will be will be and situations like this are why I book the earliest flight (with a less than 10% cancellation rate) a day in advance so that I have a good chance at options and time to still make the ship if things go wrong.

 

Just checking to see if anyone has any insights that could drop my anxiety level a few notches!