Equinox 25 January - We should have been in the room next door!

[uktog]

Just back from 25 January 11 night Equinox trip. As many people rightly say any day at sea is better than a day at the office and I have to agree there. However, sometimes you hope cruise days will be beyond comparison and after 15 Celebrity and Azamara cruises our expectations were high.

Unfortunately, although the itinerary delivered a great experience and there were aspects of the cruise that were very good, there was a marked diminution in standards and the word "no" is often heard.

Now next door to us was Aquaclass and they had a far far superior dining experience than we had. They also had pitchers of iced water and bottles of Evian delivered to their room daily. We asked for pitchers of water and were told no; we had arranged with X UK to eat in Aquaclass each night but this detail was lost so nothing was set up (despite us having the email with us) so we were told no.

We thought the plusses on this cruise were

+ it still feels like a new ship

+ the oceanview cafe is well laid out and very enjoyable, lots of choices

+ there seemed to be enough sunloungers for everyone all day

+ the Captains Club Elite evening lounge was good (would have preferred different hours as we are second seating but we knew that would not be the case before we sailed). The lounge those was chronically understaffed for 400 elites; first two nights we struggled to get a second drink until the lovely Imyomen rescued us and looked after us for the rest of the trip (the greenfolding probably helped!!)

+ great intinerary

 

and the minuses

- the entertainment was dire apart from Mario who saved the last few days (punctuated though by the worst ever act ever seen I have never seen so many people walk out of a theatre during a show). The balance was also wrong, no classical, too many average/poor comedians or acts that did not know if they were comedy, magicians or what

- the main dining room food was mediocre, inconsistent, lukewarm at best, the waiter so slow perhaps he was rushed with too many tables but as he rarely checked if a meal was to our liking so we could not get mistakes put right; the maitre d was incredibly defensive if you raised concerns with him - my growth stunted lobster tail was dismissed as being a good size despite the fact the remaining shell was a mere 2.5 inches long. He did offer to get a second tail but I did not want to delay others who were about to order deserts

- no water pitchers in the room

- room steward was badly organised, never seemed to be able to work out when we were out of the room so we often had to go out again so the room could be serviced around lunchtime - this despite the fact we are creatures of habit and always breakfast at 0830 at the latest each day

 

You could really see the changes in service and cutbacks, staff having to do so much more, so much less provided than before.

 

Sadly our cruise ended on a down note as I slipped and fell on a lethally slippy gangway - we were among the first off and no one noticed it was a skating rink, so our trip to Orlando was ruined as I have not been able to do Disney in the way we had planned.

 

Will we book another Celebrity Cruise?

Well we have one more already booked plus one more Azamara which may be our preference for future bookings

 

Oh and if we do booked Celebrity we will save ourselves a LOT of money by booking Aquaclass; you see we were next door in a Celebrity Suite having paid $4000 more than our neighbours - the lovely Arles our butler who has excellent cannot compensate for the other drawbacks. We had wanted a permanent move to Blu as was agreed up front, we were eventually offered one on Day 5 (at a cost of course) but we declined as we had settled into a lovely table in the MDR - on this trip we let company win over food quality, however we would have liked to have thought the quality would not have been an issue

 

As we said on our comment cards, come on Celebrity we know you can do better!!

 

A

[ellbon]

I was in AQ and left Blu to eat in the MDR.. i had good service and most dinners were good.

 

AQ gets ice tea in a wine decanter not water.. water comes in a bottle. i found whatever i asked for i got for 21 nights.

 

I also was on a cruise with norovirus was there. so i got over the fact there was no butter etc and have a great cruise.

[hajekfam]

I am surprised that you were told before the cruise that you could dine in Blu without being Aquaclass. Blu was designed to only hold Aquaclass -suites can dine there for a small fee on a space available basis. (Celebrity originally announced that others could dine in Blu on space available - but changed that to just suites being able to do this before the Solstice was even launched.) All others ae not supposed to be able to dine in Blu.

[ArtM]

uktog

 

Sorry you were disappointed in the 25 January cruise. We were on it and had very few of the problems you described. I will agree that the entertainment could have been better.

 

As for the water pitcher, we knew that it was no longer a standard item, so the first time we met our stateroom attendant, we requested one. We were immediately given one and it was always kept full of cold water.

 

We were quite happy with the food and service in the MDR even though our assistant waiter was injured and replaced by a trainee for half the cruise. I knew, again from past experience, that the menu would not always be to my liking so I made a conscious decision to make use of the every day menu.

 

If you thought the staff was overworked, you are, in fact, correct. For the first few days of our cruise, the entire previous cruise, and some unknown part of the prior cruise, the ship was operating in a code red state. This meant that all the stateroom attendants were doing extra cleaning, and dining personnel were serving all foods and beverages and sprinkling sanitizer on guests' hands as they entered dining areas. This serving and sanitation effort took extra staff and deprived them of even the meager amount of time off they normally get. There was a massive sigh of relief amongst the crew when code red ended. Quite frankly, given what the crew had gone through during the preceding three weeks, I was amazed that service was as good as it was.

 

I have the same recollection as Hajekam with respect to Blu dining being limited to AQ class staterooms with only rare exceptions for suite pax.

 

Art

[Texed]

Thanks for posting. :)

[uktog]

We had, because of managing dietary issues made arrangements to dine in Blu as it was felt by Celebrity they could handle these better there. It was therefore a little worrying having been told that there might be risks dealing with the allergy if we ate in the MDR only to be then in that room. For us, it was as much an issue of a promise broken than anything.

It was not the choice that was the issue in the MDR it was the quality and for me the fact that it was always lukewarm at best - elsewhere, particularly in Muranos and tuscan Grill our meals were faultless

I am glad your room steward agreed to give you a pitcher of water - ours refused telling us we had to buy water, however, our butler resolved the issue a few days later for us

[keela1eva2]

Thank you for you comments. I will be in Equinox on the April T/A. Whilst on Solstice last October I asked for water and got it without any trouble. My friend who was in a single occupancy room also and at first was refused but she later asked again and got it at the second asking. I assume that X want us to buy water now and are telling the cabin Stewards so.

 

Sue

[iandjm]

Just back from 25 January 11 night Equinox trip. As many people rightly say any day at sea is better than a day at the office and I have to agree there. However, sometimes you hope cruise days will be beyond comparison and after 15 Celebrity and Azamara cruises our expectations were high.

Unfortunately, although the itinerary delivered a great experience and there were aspects of the cruise that were very good, there was a marked diminution in standards and the word "no" is often heard.

Now next door to us was Aquaclass and they had a far far superior dining experience than we had. They also had pitchers of iced water and bottles of Evian delivered to their room daily. We asked for pitchers of water and were told no; we had arranged with X UK to eat in Aquaclass each night but this detail was lost so nothing was set up (despite us having the email with us) so we were told no.

We thought the plusses on this cruise were

+ it still feels like a new ship

+ the oceanview cafe is well laid out and very enjoyable, lots of choices

+ there seemed to be enough sunloungers for everyone all day

+ the Captains Club Elite evening lounge was good (would have preferred different hours as we are second seating but we knew that would not be the case before we sailed). The lounge those was chronically understaffed for 400 elites; first two nights we struggled to get a second drink until the lovely Imyomen rescued us and looked after us for the rest of the trip (the greenfolding probably helped!!)

+ great intinerary

 

and the minuses

- the entertainment was dire apart from Mario who saved the last few days (punctuated though by the worst ever act ever seen I have never seen so many people walk out of a theatre during a show). The balance was also wrong, no classical, too many average/poor comedians or acts that did not know if they were comedy, magicians or what

- the main dining room food was mediocre, inconsistent, lukewarm at best, the waiter so slow perhaps he was rushed with too many tables but as he rarely checked if a meal was to our liking so we could not get mistakes put right; the maitre d was incredibly defensive if you raised concerns with him - my growth stunted lobster tail was dismissed as being a good size despite the fact the remaining shell was a mere 2.5 inches long. He did offer to get a second tail but I did not want to delay others who were about to order deserts

- no water pitchers in the room

- room steward was badly organised, never seemed to be able to work out when we were out of the room so we often had to go out again so the room could be serviced around lunchtime - this despite the fact we are creatures of habit and always breakfast at 0830 at the latest each day

 

You could really see the changes in service and cutbacks, staff having to do so much more, so much less provided than before.

 

Sadly our cruise ended on a down note as I slipped and fell on a lethally slippy gangway - we were among the first off and no one noticed it was a skating rink, so our trip to Orlando was ruined as I have not been able to do Disney in the way we had planned.

 

Will we book another Celebrity Cruise?

Well we have one more already booked plus one more Azamara which may be our preference for future bookings

 

Oh and if we do booked Celebrity we will save ourselves a LOT of money by booking Aquaclass; you see we were next door in a Celebrity Suite having paid $4000 more than our neighbours - the lovely Arles our butler who has excellent cannot compensate for the other drawbacks. We had wanted a permanent move to Blu as was agreed up front, we were eventually offered one on Day 5 (at a cost of course) but we declined as we had settled into a lovely table in the MDR - on this trip we let company win over food quality, however we would have liked to have thought the quality would not have been an issue

 

As we said on our comment cards, come on Celebrity we know you can do better!!

 

A

 

Great review. Fantastic to hear the name Arles, He was our Butler on our first Celebrity cruise in 2004. He made the cruise for us :)

[Lyn Mc]

Hi A

 

Sorry to hear that you had some issues with X. Sad to say I had to post a "less than hoped for" review on our cruise in October last year. The water jugs were still available on that cruise though. However, the communication issues, as some of your problems, were also the big issues for us and 'No' was most certainly heard more than we wished.

 

By the way are the ice buckets still in the cabins???

 

When we wrote to Celebrity Head Office they certainly didn't seem interested in our repeat business and we think this attitude now seems to be drifting down to management on the ships. We are booked on the Eclipse in April and will see what happens - we will be looking at Cunard and P&O if we meet the same problems. Like you say any time on a Celebrity Ship is better than a day at the office, but I think you are quite justified in expecting Celebrity to keep to an agreement made 'in writing' before the cruise.

 

So sorry you were disappointed on this trip.

 

Lyn Mc

[librarylady19]

I'm sorry to quibble with your review BUT why would you spend an extra $4000 on a suite then let your cruise be marred by lack of a water pitcher. I think AQ is the way to go....guaranteed dining in Blu and many amenities. If one expects to be catered to 100% then perhaps X is not upscale enough.

[Lolotte]

We were also on this cruise and the service was the best we ever had. We booked an inside cabin and our cabin attendant Baka was excellent, we got the pitcher of water and ice as soon as we requested it. He was always happy to give us anything we wanted ! Same in the dining room, excellent service except the lobster tails were tasteless ! The MDR is still very good but going too much in the Nouvelle Cuisine direction, it cannot pleased everybody. They should have a few more traditional dishes.

I agree the best entertainer was Mario D'Andrea, but the music across the ship was the best for dancing we have had in our latest cruises with Celebrity. The party band ( Treasures of the Carribean) kept everybody dancing all the time, hardly any room ! The Celebrity orchestra was also exceptional.

All the employees that we encountered really did their best to make it an excellent cruise and if you are not pleased you should complain. On our last cruise ( Century) we had a problem with our MDR staff and after I complained we got an excellent table with a lot of apologies.

[uktog]

I'm sorry to quibble with your review BUT why would you spend an extra $4000 on a suite then let your cruise be marred by lack of a water pitcher. I think AQ is the way to go....guaranteed dining in Blu and many amenities. If one expects to be catered to 100% then perhaps X is not upscale enough.

 

To be clear, our trip was not marred by a lack of water pitcher, I was just highlighting the kinds of issues we had to handle and the anomalies in pricing. Yes you are right, for us when we make further bookings on Celebrity S class ships it will be in Aquaclass. Certainly do not expect to be catered for 100% but as I said in the original post, having had 2 trips on Azamara, maybe it is the way to go for us. However, as a shareholder it is strange that a company will actually have products that for many will encourage a lower spend per head and therefore impact on revenue - we met several suite passengers on board who were very unhappy at how they felt they were being treated vs a vs Aquaclass so it will be interesting to see what develops in the future when others become aware of the pricing/product mix

 

Yes ice buckets are still provided and filled - I agree I think this is revenue generation to promote the sale of water plus one more task to remove from the room stewards list means he/she can do more cabins so less staff required

[ellbon]

When i was on the century we had water pitchers in the SS cabins.. i still drank bottle water daily..

 

i have no problem with paying for water. but i do like the space in an SS cabin.

 

many people think AQ class is expensive. but for you it will be just right.

[WehoAtlantis]

I thought it was very clear that Blu is for AQ only. We had a great time on the Equinox but you and the others are right about the entertainment. It was pretty dated.

[AWorldCruise4Me]

I enjoyed your honest balanced review. Thanks for posting.

 

Funny similarity. I was once upgraded to a suite on Princess. It was the worst room steward I ever had. I've booked inside, ocean view, balcony and mini-suite. And my one suite upgrade was the worst experience. Funny how that happens some times.

 

Best,

Michelle

[pris993]

Just back from 25 January 11 night Equinox trip. As many people rightly say any day at sea is better than a day at the office and I have to agree there. However, sometimes you hope cruise days will be beyond comparison and after 15 Celebrity and Azamara cruises our expectations were high.

Unfortunately, although the itinerary delivered a great experience and there were aspects of the cruise that were very good, there was a marked diminution in standards and the word "no" is often heard.

Now next door to us was Aquaclass and they had a far far superior dining experience than we had. They also had pitchers of iced water and bottles of Evian delivered to their room daily. We asked for pitchers of water and were told no; we had arranged with X UK to eat in Aquaclass each night but this detail was lost so nothing was set up (despite us having the email with us) so we were told no.

We thought the plusses on this cruise were

+ it still feels like a new ship

+ the oceanview cafe is well laid out and very enjoyable, lots of choices

+ there seemed to be enough sunloungers for everyone all day

+ the Captains Club Elite evening lounge was good (would have preferred different hours as we are second seating but we knew that would not be the case before we sailed). The lounge those was chronically understaffed for 400 elites; first two nights we struggled to get a second drink until the lovely Imyomen rescued us and looked after us for the rest of the trip (the greenfolding probably helped!!)

+ great intinerary

 

and the minuses

- the entertainment was dire apart from Mario who saved the last few days (punctuated though by the worst ever act ever seen I have never seen so many people walk out of a theatre during a show). The balance was also wrong, no classical, too many average/poor comedians or acts that did not know if they were comedy, magicians or what

- the main dining room food was mediocre, inconsistent, lukewarm at best, the waiter so slow perhaps he was rushed with too many tables but as he rarely checked if a meal was to our liking so we could not get mistakes put right; the maitre d was incredibly defensive if you raised concerns with him - my growth stunted lobster tail was dismissed as being a good size despite the fact the remaining shell was a mere 2.5 inches long. He did offer to get a second tail but I did not want to delay others who were about to order deserts

- no water pitchers in the room

- room steward was badly organised, never seemed to be able to work out when we were out of the room so we often had to go out again so the room could be serviced around lunchtime - this despite the fact we are creatures of habit and always breakfast at 0830 at the latest each day

 

You could really see the changes in service and cutbacks, staff having to do so much more, so much less provided than before.

 

Sadly our cruise ended on a down note as I slipped and fell on a lethally slippy gangway - we were among the first off and no one noticed it was a skating rink, so our trip to Orlando was ruined as I have not been able to do Disney in the way we had planned.

 

Will we book another Celebrity Cruise?

Well we have one more already booked plus one more Azamara which may be our preference for future bookings

 

Oh and if we do booked Celebrity we will save ourselves a LOT of money by booking Aquaclass; you see we were next door in a Celebrity Suite having paid $4000 more than our neighbours - the lovely Arles our butler who has excellent cannot compensate for the other drawbacks. We had wanted a permanent move to Blu as was agreed up front, we were eventually offered one on Day 5 (at a cost of course) but we declined as we had settled into a lovely table in the MDR - on this trip we let company win over food quality, however we would have liked to have thought the quality would not have been an issue

 

As we said on our comment cards, come on Celebrity we know you can do better!!

 

A

 

Sorry your cruise did not meet your expectations.

 

We were on the Equniox in October to the Middle East.

 

I agree with you regarding your comments on the MDR and the Lido.

 

We were on a 13 night cruise, after 5 nights, we decided to skipped the MDR, service was slow and the food was hit and miss in terms of quality. We actually enjoyed the Lido more -- generally had a good late lunch and skipped dinner.

 

We enjoyed our balcony cabin, the ports and found skipping dinner left us able to enjoy the entertainment, mostly dancing on board to the fullest.

 

To be honest, we cruise Princess, Celebrity and HAL. We have found food quality and service on all of the lines in the MDR is not what it use to be. We are getting older and don't eat as much, so Breakfast and Lunch are fine for us. We are able to take a late afternoon nap, then enjoy the evening entertainment and retire early. Makes for a more relaxing cruise. We spend less too because since we don't go to the MDR we don't buy wine every night. We have lunch on our balcony, enjoy wine with our lunch that we bring on board. Works well for us.

[RichS10]

I appreciate your review, but IMHO, trying to compare a suite to an Aqua Class cabin is like Apples and Oranges. I loved Concierge Class on the M Class ships until I booked a Sky Suite with the butler and other amenities. For the life of me, I just can't rebook a cabin that small anymore.

 

I also understand the attraction some have for Blu, but this ship has the MDR and so many other dining venues. Personally, I could not give up the suite just for Blu. But that's my own personal opinion.

 

Finally, I cannot imagine a room steward or butler refusing a Celebrity Suite passenger a water pitcher. On our last cruise this past November, we requested some orange juice to make some in room cocktails (my bottle). For the rest of the cruise, our butler kept a free, refilled pitcher of orange juice in our fridge. Maybe next time, you shouldn't kick the butler in the shin before asking for the pitcher of water. :) (just joking!)

 

I do appreciate your review, though!

Rich

[jackdiamond]

If there were only two of you in the suite, you might be well advised to try AQ for your next cruise. We love AQ, both for dinner and breakfast.

[RichS10]

If there were only two of you in the suite, you might be well advised to try AQ for your next cruise. We love AQ, both for dinner and breakfast.

 

Jack:

Out of curiosity, can you still order "in cabin" breakfast in AQ? If so, do you remember which menu they use? (ie: Regular, Concierge, Suite or a special one for AQ)?

 

Thanks,

Rich