Got off the "Equinox" last week....any questions.

[marco]

The title of the thread says it all.

[cruiser77]

Hi!

Were you on the 10 or 11 day cruise?:)

[wallie5446]

Did the construction of the new suite dinning area cause any problems in the MDR, or other venues?

[stipmom]

Is the new. Suite dining room taking space from Celebrity select dining or traditional dining?

 

If you were a 10 night when were the formal nights?

 

How much of the entertainment for late seating was before dinner?

 

Thanks

[Oskial]

Did you have any problems getting through customs at the end of the cruise? Others have said that it takes a couple of hours. We have an early flight home (10:55 a.m.) and I'm considering changing it.

[music]

What category cabin were you in?

 

Where was your favorite bar? Why

 

Did you use the spa?

 

I could go on with many questions since I have yet to sail on the Equinox, sailing in November.

I want to know everything! Thanks for sharing.

[wallie5446]

What category cabin were you in?

 

Where was your favorite bar? Why

 

Did you use the spa?

 

I could go on with many questions since I have yet to sail on the Equinox, sailing in November.

I want to know everything! Thanks for sharing.

Which sailing? We have a great Roll Call going for the one over Thanksgiving.

[kalypso333]

The title of the thread says it all.

 

We are an impatient bunch.

[gopro63]

did not want more.

[Pushka]

Just wondering if you are coming back?

[Im A Happy Cruiser]

We will be getting on the Equinox on February 23. Did you hear of any cases of norovirus during your sailing?

 

If yours was the 11 Night Ultimate Western Carribbean PLEASE share which nights were the formal nights. Also please tell us which excursions you took and how you would rate them.

 

Thanks in advance for the answers to all these questions!

[Giorgi-one]

Did you have any problems getting through customs at the end of the cruise? Others have said that it takes a couple of hours. We have an early flight home (10:55 a.m.) and I'm considering changing it.

 

We were on Jan 23rd sailing and wound up getting off the ship at about 11:30 am. I always book flights after 1 pm so had no problem. I know there are people on these boards saying that making early flights is no problem. That is only true if nothing goes wrong. On this particular cruise only 2 customs agents originally showed up for work. This is about the fifth time we have encountered debarkation delays in 31 cruises. Not frequent but definitely not rare!

[tommy47]

oskial- you will have no problem making a 10:55 flight. we just got off the silhouette a few weeks ago. while on the cruise a couple days before getting off the ship they will give you a form to fill out. just tell them you will be taking the luggage off the ship yourself. you will go down stairs with your luggage at 7:00 on the day you are leaving and you will be at the airport by 8:30 we only had 2 immigration agents. don't do any shuttles or buses. when you get off early there are no lines for a cab. its like 15.00 each way for a cab. the other person that said they didn't get off the ship till 11:30 was because they didn't have a flight before 11AM so im sure they didn't sign up for an early departure taking your own luggage off. believe me even if there is a slight problem youll be at the airport a couple hours early. there were people in line that had 9:30 flights.

[marco]

Sorry I haven't gotten back until now. We also were on the Jan 23 sailing. We were in cabin 8192, a "Standard" veranda cabin. I never even knew about the new "suite dining room" redo, so obviously, it was not intrusive. The upper level of the dining room was "any time" and the lower was the fixed 1st and 2nd sitting (we dined 2nd). We liked the Martini bar and the iced bar to keep drinks cold. This was our before dinner spot. I don't remember the name of the combo, but the combo that played in the main foyer was great, just not enough room for everyone who wanted to dance. We never used the spa and no one in our group did, so I can't comment on it. We were driving back to our house on the west coast of Fla, did the self walk off and we were in our car driving home at 10 after their new boarding procedure. Once you do all of the dock side check-in, instead of just boarding "as you go", we were directed to another area to sit and wait for about 20 minutes, and the "boarding police" had us board in groups of 150 or so. That seemed to make no sense and just created a bottle neck on the gang way as the 150 people jumped up to all board at the same time. We had the "standard" beverage package but no matter what we ever asked for, we were never told it was not included. Don't know for sure, but I was not aware of anyone having the norovirus on our sailing. There were only 2 formal nights, the 2nd, and the night prior to the last. I think there were only a couple of nights that the show for 2nd sitting was before dinner. We're not big on shows and only went to one (which was before 2nd sitting dinner)

[EvelynAlexa]

Was a section of pool lounges reserved for passengers booked in Suites?

 

Alex

[marco]

Alex: No...and this is probably the first time I've ever been on a cruise when the "chair hogs" didn't commandeer every available lounger. There were ALWAYS chairs around the pool available.

[Oskial]

oskial- you will have no problem making a 10:55 flight. we just got off the silhouette a few weeks ago. while on the cruise a couple days before getting off the ship they will give you a form to fill out. just tell them you will be taking the luggage off the ship yourself. you will go down stairs with your luggage at 7:00 on the day you are leaving and you will be at the airport by 8:30 we only had 2 immigration agents. don't do any shuttles or buses. when you get off early there are no lines for a cab. its like 15.00 each way for a cab. the other person that said they didn't get off the ship till 11:30 was because they didn't have a flight before 11AM so im sure they didn't sign up for an early departure taking your own luggage off. believe me even if there is a slight problem youll be at the airport a couple hours early. there were people in line that had 9:30 flights.

 

Thanks Tommy47. I think we'll leave it where it is and hope for the best. We normally drive to the port because we are either taking a few days before or after the cruise. This time we are only doing the cruise. (did I say only?)

[LzyCruiser_NWA]

How efficient were they at letting people off the ship during port days?

[lproots]

I was on this cruise. Easy enough to find chairs around the pool, especially in the shade. Getting off on ports was easy. It was a great cruise. Wish I was still on the ship. Checking out through customs was longer than I ever remember it to be. Only two customs guys showed up that morning. But we had a 12:30 flight so we were not stressed. It was just a drag. Something to be said about getting off early and carrying your own bags. But after a 10 day cruise - that's a lot of bags!!!!

[Nikkibird]

What times were the two shows? We have booked all our meals for 8pm but then I wondered if we could attend either show then.

Also, the two days where you tendered, did it take long to get to shore? We are booking private tours but read that the tours booked through the ship get the first tenders. So how did this work? What gives the order of getting off the ship?

[marco]

On our itinerary, we never tendered. That might not be the case on the alternate 11 day itinerary. As for the shows, like I said, we're really not that into them and only went to one and it was before our dinner (2nd sitting, which was a 8:30). I guess it was early enough as we still sent for cocktails before our dinner, so if you dine at 8, you should be able to see a pre-dinner show and not have to rush out to be able to dine at 8. They do say those who booked excursions have priority disembarkation in ports, but as we never tendered they just made an announcement that "the ship is cleared by customs and guests can proceed ashore, those on excursions, meet your representative pierside." I never heard "only those on ships excursions can proceed ashore now". We never were in a rush to get off the ship and usually didn't until at least an hour after the "you can get off now' announcement, but it took us literally seconds to disembark. And maybe it's just coincidence as to when we got back on the ship, but there were never long lines and queues to get back on. Reboarding never seemed to take much longer then a minute or so.

[ALLSTU]

Hi Marco, Hope you had a great cruise. We sail on 23rd Feb a party of 4

fit seniors coming in from the UK. However we are in a bit of a panic!! Just received tickets etc to find that we MUST have various jabs particularly "YELLOW FEVER" which we don't have !! DOCTORS CLOSED UNTIL MONDAY hopefully we can get them done in time???

However if we don't - do they check every one at Port Everglades check in ?

Just spoke to TA in the UK they said it was only advisory ,but Celebrity UK said they wouldn't let us on the ship as we are going to Colon Panama, Mexico, Columbia, Puerto Limon, Belize City, Grand Cayman.

 

We are not going in the Jungle but if they wont let us on we have wasted a small fortune !!

Any info greatly appreciated- cannot understand if this was so critical why no info from TA . Thanks Brenda & Stewart

[EvelynAlexa]

Alex: No...and this is probably the first time I've ever been on a cruise when the "chair hogs" didn't commandeer every available lounger. There were ALWAYS chairs around the pool available.

 

 

"Always chairs" is good news.

thx.

[marco]

ALLSTU: Perhaps this is some requirement of the UK regarding return? We did not go to those ports on our cruise, but we have sailed to those ports on prior cruises and we were not required to have had those shots. Have you checked the roll call for your cruise? Maybe folks have discussed it there and if not, I'd post an inquiry regarding this on that thread. I'd contact your TA and maybe even an ae-mail directly to "X" and inquire.

[villauk]

Hi Marco, Hope you had a great cruise. We sail on 23rd Feb a party of 4

fit seniors coming in from the UK. However we are in a bit of a panic!! Just received tickets etc to find that we MUST have various jabs particularly "YELLOW FEVER" which we don't have !! DOCTORS CLOSED UNTIL MONDAY hopefully we can get them done in time???

However if we don't - do they check every one at Port Everglades check in ?

Just spoke to TA in the UK they said it was only advisory ,but Celebrity UK said they wouldn't let us on the ship as we are going to Colon Panama, Mexico, Columbia, Puerto Limon, Belize City, Grand Cayman.

 

We are not going in the Jungle but if they wont let us on we have wasted a small fortune !!

Any info greatly appreciated- cannot understand if this was so critical why no info from TA . Thanks Brenda & Stewart

 

This same questions was asked a few months ago, here is the link:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=45241639#post45241639

 

As you will see, most posters replied that they were never asked for any certification regarding YF. However, do let us know how you get on because we are on the same itinerary in April ;).