Celebrity Cruises, Equinox

December 2009

10 Day: St. Thomas - St. Kits - Barbados - Dominica -- St. Marten

The following review of our cruise is an opinion only.

It may be inaccurate in parts as to fact and is only presented here as a report of our experience and perceptions of our cruise. It in no way suggests that the reader should cruise or not cruise on the Celebrity Equinox. The reader is urged to do their own investigation before deciding on choosing the Celebrity Equinox.

Their experiences may differ completely from ours.

Personal Background

We are mid 60's couple retired in Florida and formerly from New York. We have cruised on 35+ cruises on Carnival, Princess, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, and others.

Embarkation

We arrived by car at 10:00 A.M. on Monday at Port Everglades at the new Oasis of the Seas Terminal (Oasis was not in port). A few passengers were still leaving from the previous Equinox cruise, but the terminal was spacious and easily accommodated the new arriving passengers. We breezed through the check in process and were on the ship in 30 minutes. A sign told us that staterooms were not ready until 1:30 p.m. We made our way to the Oceanview cafe and then toured the ship. We were not prevented from going up to our deck 11 aqua class stateroom to see if the room was ready, so we would periodically walk by the room. By 12:45 p.m. we found the cabin was ready and we took possession.

Stateroom

(Aqua Class): Our cabin with balcony on deck 11 Penthouse deck had plenty of room, including the bathroom which was spacious. Our stateroom class was "Aqua" at the front 1/3rd of the ship. The remaining 2/3rds of the Penthouse deck had their balconies beneath the overhang of the Pool deck above - no sun there and no suntan.

Aqua class staterooms come with perks, some of which are:

"Lighting, sound, and aromatic elements to bring the soothing power of the sea into your stateroom oasis" - we are still trying to find the guy who wrote that. The lighting had a dimmer switch, the aromatic element was a small bottle of perfume with a wick, and we don't know what the sound element was.

"Hansgrohe showerhead" - a multi spray shower that had nozzles from your knees to your head and was enjoyable.

"Unlimited access to the Aqua Spa relaxation room" - the room at the front of the ship on deck 11 directly above the Bridge was available to everyone on the ship. It was seldom used by anyone.

"Frette bathrobes" - extremely fluffy and heavy bathrobes more suited for an Antarctic cruise. They were soft and comfortable but too heavy for the warm Caribbean weather.

"Slippers" - small and ill fitting, we did not use them.

"Bottled water" - this was a nice perk and we had all the bottled water we wanted along with a bucket of ice.

There were other perks that were either ok or we did not use, or did not find them to be remarkable here. You can find them on Celebrity's website.

"Specialty Restaurant, Blu pre assigned seating for Aqua class" - not true. Blu was a big disappointment for us. We had requested Main seating and our documents specified main seating. Blu is open seating. We patronized Blu on the first night and found the d cor somewhat subdued and the menu different from the Main Dining Room (MDR). Blu had more seafood and more exotic food which is not our cup of tea. We asked to be assigned to the MDR main seating and they found us a table for 2 which was very nice. Continuing on with the review of the stateroom, we found it to be comfortable, of adequate size, and enjoyable. We did notice that the staterooms at the bottom of the ship seemed to have the same size room as ours and we realized that we could have paid less for much the same room lower down. Our television was flat screen, large, and interactive. We were able to view our account, see our photographs that were taken on formal nights (most photographs were a hefty $20 each including the welcome aboard photo), order room service, and select from many free movies. The interactive part of the television took a little getting used to and at times the controls were lethargic. We want to mention here the stateroom attendant who was a wonderful person: friendly and very professional. The hours they put in on a ship are overwhelming. We saw our attendant in the passageway at 8:00 a.m. and at night at 10:30 p.m. The amount of cabins our attendant had to care for prevented just about any interaction between us. The extremely long hours and hard work of the attendant was evident to us.

Elite Member Benefits (*After 10 earned tier credits)

One category upgrade prior to sailing (when available) - since we booked Aqua class and were assigned to Blu; we think this knocked us out of the box for an upgrade. We did not get one.

A premium onboard discount booklet filled with special offers -- A disappointment. On other cruise lines including RCL, coupons were valuable and entitled us to real discounts. None of the coupons on the Celebrity Equinox Elite Class were valuable unless we purchased something else first and then the coupon would give us something off on the additional purchase. We did not use any of these coupons. We felt cheated by this marketing ploy by Celebrity.

Priority embarkation, waitlist, etc., etc. - a lot of baloney. No one knew of our status or cared.

"Internet" - this was a nice perk. 3 hours of wifi internet in our cabin for the 2 of us. The internet speed was excellent and we were able to email photos taken during the day on our evening internet sessions. For those without a laptop, the interactive TV had a keyboard for internet, or we could use the internet caf onboard.

The ship

The ship is new and clean, but disappointingly plain. We felt that Celebrity had decorated the ship on the cheap. All the "art" in the passageways and landing were framed photographs of art or photographs of odd shapes and colors. Extremely low end and unappealing. The atrium was glass, aluminum, and stainless steel with some curtains hanging for effect. Very plain and more contemporary than the elegance we were promised.

The pool deck

Bumper to bumper lounge chairs and shoulder to shoulder passengers. In port there were less people at the pool but on sea days it was jammed. Crowded or not, the closeness of the lounge chairs left absolutely no room. We did not use the pool or chairs on the entire cruise because of this.

Dining

There are several specialty restaurants but we did not use any of them - Murano's charge was a hefty $30 pp. Our experience with Blu was already mentioned and Blu is only accessible to Aqua class passengers. The MDR has a main level and one balcony. We were on the balcony level. We basically were presented with a menu with a predetermined selection of food -- mixing and matching was difficult or not possible. The dining room staff are extremely overworked and they have absolutely no time to interact with passengers. On our second night in the MDR or waitress had to be replaced because she became ill from the workload. We were told she was changed to an area with fewer tables. As always the staff was efficient, friendly, and always smiling no matter how hard and long they work.

Oceanview Caf - a real gem, every type of food you could want, neat, clean, spacious, and a pleasure to go to. Finding a table was somewhat difficult but slightly easier then on other ships. Lack of trays made several trips necessary but this was not bothersome.

Daytime activities

Little to none. Nothing at all on the pool deck. Days at sea were long and we spent much of it in our cabin and on our balcony availing ourselves to room service.

Evening Entertainment

The main production shows were excellent. The most physically fit dancers and singers of any ship we have been on. The evening entertainment on other nights was extremely disappointing. A Russian classical pianist, a violinist, a guitarist/comedian, a male singer who forgot the words, and a female classical singer who mixed street humor with highbrow singing. With the exception of the guitarist/comedian, the others could put you to sleep and indeed we saw many who were. Between little to no activities during the day and poor one person shows at night, it made for a boring cruise.

Ports of Call

With the exception of the St. Maarten Golden Eagle Catamaran tour, we did not book any other tours with the ship. The prices are extremely high and no longer a value for services received. We have seen some of our old tours double in price. In most ports we were able to get a taxi/van for $20 pp and were taken on a nice 2 hour tour with excellent commentary. Our 4 hour catamaran tour was $82 pp for a total of $164 for 4 hours. To add insult to injury, we had 2 RCL ships passengers on the tour with us. The RCL passengers paid less for their tickets than we paid on Celebrity, even though both are part of the same RCL company and on the same tour. We brought this to the attention of the shore excursion desk onboard and were given a blank stare. We suspect that Celebrity is charging its passengers more food, drinks, etc., than RCL is their passengers, even though it is the same company.

De-embarkation

Smooth and uneventful.

Overall

We have many cruises under our belts on most of the big lines and we are used to not everything going our way. We make allowances for that. However, we would probably not book with Celebrity again, definitely would not book on the Celebrity Equinox again, and would not recommend the line to others. Activities, entertainment, ship appearance - all below par. We paid a hefty price for our aqua class stateroom we were expecting more for our money. What we got was a lot of hype and being sold overpriced goods at every turn - we felt as if we were trapped in an auto dealership full of salesmen, and there was no exit. Our advice for anyone wanting to try Celebrity is to book an inner cabin on this ship, pay much less than we did, get a comparable room to our aqua class stateroom from what we understand, and purchase little to nothing. That would be a much better value for your money. We are going to give Princess another look and we are cancelling our future inaugural cruise on the future 2010 Celebrity Eclipse.

We wish we could be more positive about this ship. The crew was all fantastic. We feel the shortcomings and disappointments we experienced were the result of Royal Caribbean's management policy on how to market the ship as upscale and elegant, while doing it on the cheap, yet charging upscale and elegant prices. We have a letter of inquiry to Royal Caribbean management asking why we were charged more for the same tour as the Royal Caribbean passengers we were with. Perhaps Royal Caribbean has overextended themselves on ordering 2 new mega ships - Oasis and Allure -- and is experiencing a cash flow problem.

G&V

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