sxyshell

Yep, I know exactly what you mean.

 

More on their way, with a few more days to go. Welcome to Celebrity! Wishing you a wonderful cruise, enjoy!

Thank you! We are really looking forward to experiencing a different cruise line;)

Excited for more of your review. We will be on the Eastern itinerary on 8/4! This is our first Celebrity cruise.

To each their own.

I tip throughout the cruise. Waiters, drink servers, bartenders and bathroom attendants. Some large, some small.

I have never had anyone not accept the money and the service thereafter has always been impeccable.

These people bust their humps for OUR enjoyment. I hope my little contributions make their difficult lives a little better.

Totally agree with you! We do the same! If we can afford to cruise, we can definitely afford to give a few dollars to those who work so hard to make sure we are well taken care of. We've even tip the pizza maker since we are known to grab a late night snack before bed on a different cruise line. I've always had a part time job in the service industry so I can really relate!

Can I ask what he charges?

He told me $35 per person for 4-5 hours. There are 3 of us.

I wonder why he is charging the other gentleman in this post $65 an hour?

Jimmy Boulai of Marleys Taxi and Transportation. Easy communications , flexible and a really comfortable air conditioned Jeep. I would use no one else!!! Got his name thru these boards and contacted him with an almost instant response.340 998-1380. Tell him Nadine, Fred and Ella (granddaughter) say hello!!

Thank you Nadine! I just booked with Jimmy for our August cruise. I will tell him hello from you.

Really enjoying your review! Thanks for the taking the time to do it. We cruise on 8/4. This will be our 13th cruise but first with Celebrity.

Loved reading your review! Thanks for taking the time! I'm like you and always enjoy watching the ships.

I found myself looking at the last daily sheet of activities already getting sad that it was almost over. LOL

I cruise on this ship 8/4 and it's our first time on Celebrity. We've done 12 with Carnival.

Loving your review! We cruise 8/4 and we've only done Carnival cruises.

I would love to hear about your experiences in the Celebrity casinos. I have only cruised Carnival so this will be my first experience with Celebrity. We've had many bounce back offers on Carnival and I'm hoping to get the same with Celebrity.

I love Ultimate Texas Hold Em on the Carnival ships. Do they have a similar table on Celebrity?

Thanks!

Yes, would have loved to have gone but I booked an 8/4 Celebrity cruise through them.

Do they have an Ultimate Texas Holdem table? We'll be on Equinox in August and this is my favorite table game on Carnival. Thanks!

I've been in bed by 10:30 on Carnival ships and I'm in my late 40's. I've also been up until 3 in the morning in the casino.

I'm actually looking forward to trying Celebrity. My son is 24 and he's looking forward to it. We like to have a few drinks and have a good time but we also like the fact that there shouldn't be a lot kids running up and down the halls at all hours of the night. We can get along with anyone. My son seems to have a knack for fitting in with the older crowd so it should be a relaxing, fun filled cruise! We are also looking forward to the food. Carnival's food has gone down hill over the past few years in our opinion.

As someone who has visited St. Thomas on numerous occasions, we ended up deciding not to book a tour this time and wandered around Charlotte Amalie from Havensight (aboard the MSC Divina). It was interesting to see St. Thomas after the hurricanes ripped through (we visited in February) as we were able to see some damage and closures. However, great to see the island starting to bounce back and welcome tourists to the port.

 

Here's my full review with a ton of photos:

 

https://justinpluslauren.com/st-thomas-cruise-port/

 

Thanks for taking a look and let me know if you have any questions! :)

Awesome review of St Thomas. This is what we've pretty much done the last few times we've been there. The Skyride is pretty great and we loved having Bushwhackers at Paradise point.

We'll be in St Thomas again in August and plan on either taking the ferry to St John's or heading over to Magen's Bay.

This is disappointing to hear as we just booked our first Celebrity cruise through a casino deal with Urcomped. The cruise I booked is actually a blackjack tournament so I'm hoping things will be better!

Our ports of call are San Juan, St. Martin, and St. Kitts. Today is San Juan but we don't arrive until 3:30. I think that's the least favorable part of this trip. I'm not fond of the late arrival time because there's not much going on the ship since they assume most people will get off and stay off. We've been to Puerto Rico before and enjoyed visiting to old fort but I prefer to leave the ship in the morning and return in the afternoon...by 3:30 I'm ready for a cocktail by the pool and a late afternoon nap...oh well tough as it sounds, I'm sure we'll manage ;p.

Christina

Thanks for posting the day by day. We're doing the Eastern itinerary on 8/4. I have a sales rep in San Juan so he is picking us up and taking us on a tour and then dinner. I would rather have the early day as well. My question is, what time does the casino open that night? I would assume it's after we are out to sea by a few miles so it would be a late night.

Michelle

Looking forward to reading the rest of your review! We don't sail until 8/4 but I've only cruised Carnival (12 cruises) and I'm so excited to learn little tidbits about Celebrity. Thank you for taking your time to do such an in depth review!

Is anyone booked on this cruise for the tournament? I booked it through URCOMPED. Drinks, cash, and a tournament ticket was included. Super excited to try Celebrity as I've only cruised with Carnival.

Michelle

Thank you for the review. We've done 12 Carnival cruises but this will be our first time on Celebrity. We are looking forward to the experience!

quote=BobbyD;55593704]Just off the Equinox yesterday. My wife and I took this cruise as part of a group of 11, including friends and family. For context, this is our third cruise on X. We are Elite due to our Diamond status on Royal. We have also cruised a few times on Carnival. The following is a brief review based on our experience. We are pretty easy to please so keep that in mind! Any questions, just ask.

Pre-Cruise: Flew into Fort Lauderdale a day early. Chose FLL mainly due to availability and cost of flights from Hartford but stayed at the Hampton Inn Brickell in Miami. Uber from FLL to the hotel was $41. We had dinner on Friday night at Havana 1957, a Cuban restaurant near the hotel. Great place, good food, free entertainment!

Embarkation: Left the hotel by Uber (I think it was around $10) and arrived at the port at 10:30. We checked in right away and were put in a holding area until around 11:15 when they cleared the ship and allowed us to board. Easy process.

The Ship: First time on the Equinox and it didn’t disappoint. A close copy to its sister ships that we have been on (Reflection, Silhouette). The Gastropub was a nice change and new to us. Very clean and well-kept (no surprise). The Hollywood Hot Glass was up and running and there were some demos taking place early in the cruise and then passengers signed up for workshops. We didn’t take part but I heard many people talking quite favorably about the experience. I love the size of this ship. My last cruise was on the Carnival Imagination for a quick 4 night in the West Coast. While the cruise was fun, the ship was very small. Last spring I was on the Allure for the second time. We loved the cruise but do think that the Oasis class is a bit too big for us. The Equinox seemed perfect. My wife said she enjoyed the “smaller ship”. Pretty sad when 120,000 tons is a “small ship”!

Cabin: We were in a 2A cabin (7272) on the hump. We have been in that general location for all three of our X cruises. Perfect accessibility to elevators, stairs, etc. After many cruises, it was our first time with a bed near the bathroom and not the balcony. We really enjoyed it and it seemed as if we had more space. Good cabin steward although we are low maintenance. I only ask for ice each day and that’s about it. He greeted us in the hall daily and was quite friendly.

Food: We ate in the MDR for all of our dinners at a large table in the center of the dining room. Hernando was our waiter and one of the best we have ever had. He was awesome. He was friendly and efficient, making good recommendations along the way. Our wine steward, Rashid, was ever present and with 11 of us having the drink package, just left bottles on the table and kept coming around and filling our glasses if we hadn’t. The menu was great, food was hot and seasoned well. A few in our group had never cruised with X prior and they noticed an uptick in food quality from Royal. Desserts were excellent, as well. We love long and leisurely dinners in the MDR, especially with a group and each night were there until the lights came on! A highlight of each day.

We ate breakfast and lunch each day in the OceanView café and were happy with the selection. I love the Eggs Benedict made to order each morning, a nice touch that X has that Royal does not.

For those who like late night options, the late night pizza ends at 1:00am. My adult son and his friends wish it were available longer. No 24 hour pizza like on other lines!

Many of the group made good use of the Mast Grill with their burgers, toppings and fries. High marks. Various members of our group visited Sushi on 5, Café Al Bacio, and Aqua Spa Café. All good options.

Entertainment: We love the shows at night and went to a show each night. There were three production shows, a comedian/impersonator, male R/B singer, and a Jersey Boys type band. I might be missing something else but overall the entertainment was pretty good and quite entertaining. Lots of activities throughout the ship with late night up in the sky lounge, two nights of parties on the pool deck and the ever popular Silent Disco! Quite fun. I made good use of the casino as my late night entertainment as well!

Service: This is where the ship really shines! Staff is very friendly and accommodating. Every crew member who passed us in the hall, on deck, in lounges, acknowledged us. Their goal is to server the passengers and they do a very good job at it! My last cruise on Royal (Allure) was just missing something, probably due to the size of the ship. Service wasn’t bad but just didn’t have the extra effort that was ever present on the Equinox! Kudos to X.

Ports: Key West, Costa Maya, Cozumel, Grand Cayman. We did Key West on our own. Our first time there and loved it. Did a lot of walking and took the Conch Railroad tram. Very informative. On Costa Maya, we took a taxi to a beach. $2 for the taxi, $10 for the beach, including chairs. We had food there and drinks but very low pressure and good service from our beach waiter. Fun day. On Cozumel we took a private snorkeling excursion. Just 12 of us in a boat, three different snorkeling sites. Saw lots of sea life. Ocean was pretty choppy and some of us were a bit queasy as we were in the water for over 2 hours total. On Grand Cayman we just tendered into town and walked around. Very crowded but we still contributed to the local jewelry economy!

Debarkation: Ate breakfast in the Ocean View and were out of our cabin by 8:00am. We waited in the Tuscan Grill and had our number called at 8:45. We were off the boat and through customs, in a Uber on the way to the airport at 9:30. Plenty of time to make our 11:45 flight out of FLL!

In closing, it was an awesome week. Great weather (although a bit cloudy at times), with temps hovering around high 70’s F. My only complaint was chair hogs were in full force during sea days. We hung out on the Solstice Deck and ended up taking bags off of a couple of chairs that had been unoccupied for almost 4 hours, so that others could sit down. The people came back and were annoyed but I told them I would get a crew member to settle it and they just went off in a huff. I know the rule is 30 minutes but if somebody is gone for an hour, ok, I get it. But 4 hours? I had no guilt about taking their towel off.

Thanks for reading. Any questions, let me know, I’ll try to answer and if I can’t, I’m sure somebody else will be able to!

Wanted to give my opinion on the Valor after dry dock. This is still my least favorite ship. Our room steward was awful! Cabins 8276 & 8278 Just got back on Saturday. Great cruise but I'm still not a fan of the ship. The food in the main dining room was still excellent the 80's show was awesome and we love the Alchemy bar, Blue Iguana and Guys burger. The fish and chip place is still there and the fish was pretty good. Maybe if our room steward wasn't so bad and the cruise director was more fun I still wouldn't feel the same. Matt and Jaime are still the best CD's in the fleet, in my opinion.

I am looking forward to your feedback. We are in Amber Cove/Puerto Plata in June and we are looking for a similar type of tour.

Our tour with Jose Fco Paulino was awesome! He was very nice, his English was good and he took us where ever we wanted to go. His email is josepaulino24@hotmail.com. He actually works for the port taxi service and has a nice newer Honda mini van. It was comfortable and the air worked great. We did the cable car which was a good choice. I didn't want to do it but my friend did so the other 3 of us who were scared did it and we were glad we did. It was $10 for the ticket. We were up on the mountain for over an hour and Jose waited for us. After that we headed to the rum factory. That was interesting. Then he suggested we eat lunch at a local place. The food was good and it was right across the street from the beach so we had a great view. He took us to the fort and a few other places. He was great and I would highly recommend him.

Just got back from Amber Cove, CCL Breeze. A warning not to book FiveStarDriver Tours (Luis, driver, and Venice, owner I think), we pre-booked with them and Luis did not show up. The taxi dispatcher was very helpful and phoned Luis (we had his #), and he said he was not coming, he had other people. So the dispatcher got us another taxi who did a great job, Jose Paulino, good English, very accommodating, Transporte Turistico, josepaulino24@hotmail.com First to the cable car up the mountain, then to the fort at the ocean in Puerto Plata, then we walked the boardwalk in Puerto Plata while he waited at La Sirena, then to the shopping district (not worth it, shop at the port), then back to the ship with some interesting things to see on the way, took most of an afternoon, $70/couple.

I've been in touch with Jose Paulino. We are supposed to use him next Wednesday when we are in DR. He told me to email a week before the cruise. He quoted us $80 total for the whole day for 4 of us. Thanks for recommending him and I'll report back after we get back from the cruise.

You can post on Ebay. My son won a seat for the Dream in June poker tournament and can't use it.

Can I ask what made it your least favorite ship?

Just the fact that it didn't have the 2.0 upgrades which we love! No Alchemy bar or specialty restaurants except for the steakhouse. I think we've just been spoiled with all the ships that have the upgrades. The food was actually really good in the main dining room when we were on it in April and I can't say the same for some of the other cruises we've taken. Plus the decor isn't something that wowed us. It's very patriotic which I know some people love but just not our cup of tea.

I am booked on the 5/15 cruise. Cruised on the Valor this past April and the only reason we booked again was because of it being upgraded but no one could tell me what the upgrades are going to be. Hopefully we won't be disappointed. It was our least favorite ship but the only cruise available for our casino bounce back.

We are planning a cruise we have narrowed it down to 2 ships the Valor or Sunshine! Would like some opinions positive or negative,

I've been on both and Sunshine was the best out of the 2 as far as amenities go. The Valor doesn't have the 2.0 upgrades which we love! The Sunshine is very crowded. I would pick the itinerary that works best for you and try to get the best price!