Detailed Photo Review of 3/14/16 Celebrity Equinox 11 Night Cruise

[deladane]

 

 

I was surprised at the bright paint on the buildings near the port. I don't really think of Panama as a tropical Caribbean port, but it looked like that's the vibe they were trying to create.

 

Lots of taxis and tour vans were lined up and waiting for us to dock.

 

In case anyone was curious about if the lifeboats affect the view from cabins on deck 7, this is the view if we looked straight down from our balcony.

 

It did not obstruct our view at all if we were sitting in our chairs and looking out at the ocean, but obviously we could see it if we looked straight down. It didn't bother me at all- I actually liked seeing the lifeboats because it reminds me that I am on a cruise ship and not a hotel on dry land!

 

Anyway, back to Panama... I spy the double arches! Authentic Central American food haha

[deladane]

The dock employees were working hard to pull in the lines.

 

John came on the overhead a little after 8am to announce that the ship was cleared and we could head out. We grabbed our tote bags, double checked we had our bottle of bug spray, and went down to deck 2 to the gangway. Sure enough, there was a man standing just beyond the port gates holding a poster board with photos printed from the My Friend Mario website! We ignored him and continued on to the Fantastic Casino right ahead of us, and quickly found a guide with a list of all the tours and saw our name on his list. It was only 8:15am, and we weren't due to meet for the tour until 8:40am, so we waited a few minutes for the other people on our tour to join us.

 

Once all 10 of us were there, we walked over to our air-conditioned mini-van and set out for the 20 minute drive to the Panama Canal. On the way, our guide Igua (I think that's how you spell/pronounce his name??) told us lots of history and facts about Panama. In stark contract to Elvis who stayed silent for most of our car ride yesterday, Igua was very chatty and informative, and I really appreciated his efforts to entertain and educate us. He interrupted himself mid-sentence to tell us to take out our cameras ASAP as we were about to cross over the new expansion of the canal and he didn't want us to miss our photo opps!

 

 

These locks are currently in their testing phase, and they are scheduled to open in July 2016 (Captain Costas said he doubts they'll be open before next summer! haha) They are 40% larger than the original locks, and they operate with a different mechanism than the original locks. Instead of using mechanical mules to pull the ships through the canal, they will use tug boats. Also, the water that fills the locks to raise up the ships to the next level will be stored in huge basins next to the canal:

 

 

After we crossed the bridge, it was about a 2 minute drive to reach the Gatun locks.

 

 

 

[deladane]

Tickets to visit the Gatun locks cost $10, and Igua had pre-purchased our tickets and handed them to us while we were still in the van. As we got out, he said we would spend about 45 minutes here.

 

There are 2 of the original mules on display when you first enter the facility.

 

 

 

We had to climb a huge staircase to reach the viewing platform, but I think there were also elevators for those who cannot climb the stairs.

 

As we reached the bleachers at the viewing platform, the Island Princess was pulling into the first lock. We had great timing as we got to observe the whole process for that cruise ship. The ship moves forward through the canal on her own power, but there are tight ropes attached to the mules to hold the ship steady right to left to avoid it from hitting into the walls of the canal. When ships pull into most ports of call, a pilot boards the ship to advise the captain of current conditions and any safety concerns. The Panama Canal is the only place in the world where the pilot actually takes control of the ship and makes all decisions regarding it's positioning. The pilot directs the drivers of the mules to keep the ship centered side to side in the locks to avoid any damage to the ship or to the canal walls. It will take a ship 8-10 hours to pass through the Panama Canal, whereas a car can drive the 50 miles from the Atlantic to Pacific coast in about 1 hour.

 

Island Princess entering the locks:

 

There is only 18 inches of space between the ship and the canal wall! Now that's a tight squeeze!!

 

Once the ship is in place, they slowly close the locks.

Edited April 26, 2016 by deladane

[deladane]

The locks are almost closed...

 

Ok, now they are closed all the way! The lady standing on the edge with the microphone was explaining the process and constantly telling us to sit down in the bleachers and stop taking photos while standing in the aisle haha We only selectively listened to her! Take note that the canal wall lines up to the black square opening on the side of the ship.

 

The mule driver is paying close attention to his ropes.

 

 

 

There are actually 2 canals that operate simultaneously, so while the Island Princess was in one of the canals, a huge container ship was moving into the second canal.

[deladane]

 

Meanwhile, the locks are slowly filling up with water.

 

Now notice where the wall hits the side of the ship! That black square I referenced earlier is now at the top of my photo!!

 

Once the lock has filled with water, the ship is cleared to pass into the next chamber under it's own power.

 

Once the Island Princess moved on to the next chamber, we left the viewing area. Igua gave us a few minutes to use the restrooms and look around the gift shop, and we met back at the front entrance at 10:15am. We were only supposed to spend 45 minutes here, but we ended up spending twice that time! Igua said the drive to our next stop would take an hour and a half, so we piled back into the van and he passed out some sodas from the cooler to enjoy during the ride.

 

We arrived at our destination at 11:45am. We got out of the van and everyone started to apply their bug spray to protect against mosquito bites and the Zika virus. The plan was to get in a canoe at this location and go for a 20 minute ride up the river to the Embera Indian village. A man from the Embera tribe came over and told us that there was no water in the river, so we could not get in the canoe at this location! Apparently Panama has been in a state of drought for a while, and the river dried up. We all found it hard to believe that this happened overnight and that no one at My Friend Mario knew about this problem in advance so we could redirect our van. In fact, when I emailed My Friend Mario a month ago, they told me that our hike to the waterfall was cancelled because there was no water in the waterfall from the drought! So if they knew there was a drought and that there was no water in the waterfall one month ago, shouldn't they have known that there may be a problem with the river that feeds that waterfall??

 

Anyway, the Embera man said he would come in our van and direct us on how to drive to the village. We were under the impression that we would be on a short drive directly to the village, but we were very wrong. We drove for over 30 minutes on a windy, narrow, bumpy dirt road through the jungle. When we got to the end of the road, this is what we saw:

 

 

Looking back towards the road we drove on:

 

While it was a pretty view, we did not see any signs of an Indian village. We just saw a whole lot of nothing but vast open fields! Three other men from the village came over to us and explained that we needed to walk through the fields to another place where we could get in the canoe and ride for 40 minutes to the village. The original ride was only 20 minutes, so this would be twice that time in each direction, plus we couldn't see any signs of the river anywhere near us! We had no idea how long the walk to the river was, and we didn't trust these guys at all at this point.

[deladane]

Finally, one lady from our group spoke up and said she was concerned that we may miss the ship if we continued on this tour. By now, it was 12:30pm, and all aboard was at 5:30pm. We were nearly 2 hours from the port, and we had nearly an hour and a half of canoe time, plus who knew how long to walk to/from the canoe dock. We could spend maybe 30 minutes at the Embera village, but it just didn't seem worth the risk. We were all very upset and disappointed at how My Friend Mario handled this situation, and it all seemed so easily avoided considering that the river did not dry up overnight. How did no one know that the river was dry?! Igua called his office and said they agreed to give us all a full refund of our tour if we left to return to the port right now. The 10 of us debated our options and ultimately decided that while we were greatly looking forward to experiencing this village, it was not worth the risk of missing the ship. We agreed that our best option was to return to the cruise port and take the full refund. Before we left, the Embera men were nice enough to pose for a photo with us.

 

 

This was the van we were in all day:

 

 

They were NOT happy that we were leaving. Apparently the women of the village had cooked us a large lunch. Maybe they should have figured out that their river was dry and there was no way for us to get to their village to eat that lunch!!

 

 

It was a long, quiet 2-hour drive back to the port until Igua awkwardly interrupted the silence to make an announcement. Apparently he communicated again with the main office and they were only going to refund $65 per person instead of the full $95 originally promised. They said that our tour was supposed to have 3 parts (Panama Canal, Canoe Ride, and Embera Indian Village) and we did 1 of those 3 things, so we should pay 1/3 of the cost of the excursion. Some people in the van got very upset about this, saying that we made a decision to return to the port based on the information that we would get a full refund so it was unfair of them to not honor that promise. It wasn't really about the extra $30 as much as we felt this was one more way that My Friend Mario did us wrong. Most of us will only ever be in Panama this one time, and this was our chance to see and do as much as we could in our 10 hours in port. Instead, we spent over 4 hours in a van going to no where and we completely wasted the majority of our day because of something that could have easily been avoided with better coordination. We all knew that river must have been dry for a while, and had My Friend Mario been upfront about it from the start of the day, we could have discussed as a group what Plan B should be. Maybe we would have opted to change our itinerary to one of the many other options listed on the My Friend Mario website, or maybe we would have wanted to spend more time at the Panama Canal. Either way, none of us would have elected to drive all the way out to the Embera Indian village if we had known there was no way to actually get there! In the end, we decided it wasn't worth the $30 to waste more time arguing with Igua when we got back to the port, so we each took our $65 and called it a day. We did tip Igua at the end of the day because we knew this was not his fault and he did the best he could to help us in an unfortunate situation. I ultimately place the blame on the My Friend Mario company, as even though they blamed the Embera tribe for not notifying them about the dry river, it is still their responsibility as a tour company to be in contact with those involved with their tour and to help facilitate our day going smoothly. If they knew that the waterfall was dry, then they should have known the river was dry too.

 

By now, it was 2:15pm, and J and I were determined to make the most of the rest of our day. We poked around a few of the stores right outside the port gates for a few minutes so I could buy a souvenir, and then reboarded the ship. We quickly went back to our cabin to drop off our bags and change into bathing suits, then went up to the Oceanview Cafe for a very late lunch. J opted for another burger from the Mast Grill, while I wanted to try the stir fried noodles. This is located in the Asian foods section, but there are no signs about it and you really just have to know that it's an option or else you would miss it! I ate here 2 or 3 times during the cruise, and every time, I was the only person there and they had to go find someone to make my stir fry (as in there wasn't someone standing there manning the booth like at the pasta bar). It's a shame too, as it's a really great option for a made-to-order lunch! They have lots of fresh veggies set up like a salad bar and you get to put as much as you want into a bowl, and then hand that over to the man who will cook the veggies along with your choice of chicken or beef. You can also pick which sauce you want and if you want noodles or rice.

 

 

[Cindy]

Were Deb and Colin from the Roll Call on your tour? We saw them Sunday night in Cartagena, and they were telling us how awful their My Friend Mario tour was.:(

[deladane]

Were Deb and Colin from the Roll Call on your tour? We saw them Sunday night in Cartagena, and they were telling us how awful their My Friend Mario tour was.:(

 

Honestly, I'm not sure :-/ I think there was one couple sitting in front of us from the roll call but I don't remember their names. I do know that we were the only van of people going to the Embera Village with My Friend Mario so if that's the tour they took, then yes they were in our group.

[deladane]

I had zucchini, carrots, mushrooms and chicken with noodles. The sauce was sweet and tasty, but unfortunately for me, it will filled with chili flakes! I cannot tolerate anything spicy, so I wish I would have known they have chili flakes in their sauce (there was no indication of that). I did my best to pick out the chili flakes because I did not want to waste the whole dish, and I was so famished that I didn't want to waste time waiting for them to re-cook it anyway.

 

 

We wanted to take advantage of most people still being off the ship on excursions, so we grabbed a few drinks from Slush and got into an empty hot tub in the Solarium!

 

 

 

Ahhhh, now this was relaxing!! The Solarium was actually somewhat crowded, surprisingly so considering it was still 3 hours before all-aboard time.

 

 

 

The Aqua Spa Cafe was already closed for the day by the time we got there (so it's a good thing we planned to eat upstairs at the Oceanview!)

[deladane]

I really loved the teak lounge chairs with thick padding, but just an FYI: you can't make them sit upright like a normal lounge chair so it was hard for me to write in my journal when we were in there.

 

Luckily for us, we snagged one of the round sun beds, so we set up camp in there for an hour or so and observed the view of Colon in the background.

 

At around 4pm, we went back to the cabin to get ready for the evening. Sail away was scheduled for 6pm, so we went up to the Sunset Bar to have a few drinks and watch the action from the aft view. I do find it odd that the aft balconies have so little privacy! We could look straight down and see onto nearly every balcony! I guess if you want your privacy back there, you need to be far enough back under the overhang of the deck above you!

 

 

There was one other small ship in port with us who sailed away while we were waiting.

 

 

As he did every day at all-aboard time, Captain Costas came on the overhead with the days updates. Unfortunately, today he announced that there was a passenger returning from the ship's Panama Canal excursion who needed medical attention. They called for an ambulance and it was currently on it's way from Panama City. What?!? Is that to say that Colon, the country's second largest city, doesn't have an ambulance?? It seemed very strange that the sick passenger should have to wait over an hour for an ambulance to arrive from the other side of the country!

 

Anyway, so much for our plan to watch the sail away from the Sunset Bar before dinner. The Captain said the ambulance should arrive at around 6:30pm and would need about half an hour to assist the passenger so we wouldn't set sail until after 7pm. We decided to go back inside and grab a drink at the Gastrobar before dinner.

 

 

[Cindy]

Honestly, I'm not sure :-/ I think there was one couple sitting in front of us from the roll call but I don't remember their names. I do know that we were the only van of people going to the Embera Village with My Friend Mario so if that's the tour they took, then yes they were in our group.

 

It must have been them...I looked at the spreadsheet and they were on a $95 My Friend Mario tour that was supposed to include the canoe ride and the Indian Village. Deb said something about canoes and no water!:eek:

[CaroleSS]

We contacted Almiza tours about going to Fort San Lorenzo and the Gantun Locks, but given your review, now I'm not so sure!

 

Would you recommend them or should we look elsewhere?

[deladane]

It must have been them...I looked at the spreadsheet and they were on a $95 My Friend Mario tour that was supposed to include the canoe ride and the Indian Village. Deb said something about canoes and no water!:eek:

 

Yea, that was definitely them then! We booked all of our tours back in June so I didn't pay much attention to those posts in the roll call. We all said that My Friend Mario would end up with enough bad publicity after this incident that they'd ensure never to let it happen again!

[deladane]

We contacted Almiza tours about going to Fort San Lorenzo and the Gantun Locks, but given your review, now I'm not so sure!

 

Would you recommend them or should we look elsewhere?

 

Prior to booking this tour, we did a lot of research about things to do for our day in Limon and My Friend Mario had tons of fantastic reviews. I hesitate to say that you shouldn't book with them, especially for a tour to a fort and the Panama Canal as those landmarks aren't going anywhere! I suppose they could be randomly closed the day of your tour and MFM might not know about it, but that seems unlikely. In the end, I think that while the whole situation could have been avoided, MFM did try to make it better by refunding our money. I think they learned a valuable and expensive lesson and will likely improve their practices going forward to ensure that it doesn't happen again. With that said, there are other companies that offer a similar tour so you may want to go with them instead to avoid the doubt.

[IrishLassie]

I wonder if that ship (Zenith) used to be a Celebrity ship? Our first cruise with Celebrity was on the Zenith!

[thecruise_guy]

You love food? Check these out then! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7SdGabQZ5WXqOPaSxbEycg

[Cindy]

I wonder if that ship (Zenith) used to be a Celebrity ship? Our first cruise with Celebrity was on the Zenith!

 

That was the old Celebrity Zenith with a new paint job!

[offnoncruiser]

&

I wonder if that ship (Zenith) used to be a Celebrity ship? Our first cruise with Celebrity was on the Zenith!

 

Oh wow! Good to see the Zenith. She looks so tiny! Our first Celebrity cruise was on the Zenith as well, in Dec 1995. We sailed on her twice in the 90's. Ah the good ole days!

 

Thx.

 

Bruce

[deladane]

The Gastrobar has a food menu for a small fee, but I never saw anyone ordering any food there. It seemed a little weird to me that they would charge for food here considering there are so many other free places to eat on the ship. I wonder if they will eventually discontinue this part of the menu if no one ever orders from it?

 

While the specialty here is exotic beers, they also offer a nice selection of wines.

 

 

It was so convenient that both the Martini Bar and the Gastrobar are located on deck 4 right outside the MDR as we often had pre-dinner drinks here and then left by 6:58pm to arrive on time for our 7pm dinner reservations.

 

Gorica told us they were just cleaning off our table 514, and asked us to wait 2 minutes so they could get it set for us. We used that as a chance to take a photo in front of one of the giant pieces of art. These murals made great backdrops for our photos, and they have so many different ones throughout the ship!

 

Tonight's dinner menu

[deladane]

Yummmmm, Escargots! My favorite treat on a cruise!

 

Prosciutto Di Parma

 

Homemade Gnocchi al Quattro Formaggi (this was phenomenal! It's a good thing J and I shared it though because it was very rich and probably very caloric as well haha)

 

Steak Dianne

 

At 7:45pm, we saw the lights from the ambulance drive away from the port. I hope whoever required medical attention got the help he needed. Luckily this was the only time we were delayed on the cruise from someone requiring an ambulance (at least as far as I know!).

 

We noticed the ship was moving a few minutes before 8pm, so we ended up leaving port 2 hours late. Yet another time that it was fun to have a window seat in the dining room! Thanks Gorica!!

 

I expected Captain Costas to come back on the overhead to announce how this delayed departure would impact our arrival into Colombia, but he never did, so we went to sleep not knowing if we would dock at 10am, noon, or somewhere in between.

[deladane]

Continuing our quest to try every beverage offered on the ship, we ordered a few dessert wines tonight. I love sweet wines and J loves ports so it was fun to try some new brands we hadn't tried before.

 

A late harvest muscat for me and a tawny port for J

 

Dessert menu

 

Cannoli Tutti Frutti

 

Sacher Torte

 

Tonight's 9pm show was an Elton John impersonator, Craig Meyer. He was great fun and sang lots of upbeat songs in crazy costumes.

 

When we got back to our cabin tonight, we did not have a daily schedule on our bed. I'm not sure if this was because Rhonda forgot to give it to us, or because they didn't print it for some reason. We did find the schedules at guest services on Sunday morning.

 

Up Next: our first time on the continent of South America!

[Rob the Cruiser]

Loving your fantastic review but the food pictures are driving me crazy!

[fninsn]

 

 

Something else I wanted to point out was that we thought it was odd that there wasn't a bar in the theater. They have a handful of waiters walking around before the show starts to take drink orders and bring them back to you at your seat, but if you are sitting in the middle of the row, or if you arrive after they are finished, you can't get a drink! There were nights that we would get our seats and then J would have to run to the nearest bar in either the casino on deck 4 or the World Class Bar on deck 5 and carry our drinks back to the theater. We really would have appreciated them having a small bar at the back of the theater where we could get our own drinks if we missed the drink waiters. I hope the designers for the Edge class ships are reading this! ;)

 

I'm really enjoying your review. I will be sailing on the Equinox in February on the Mardi Gras cruise and it's great to see all the wonderful pictures of the ship.

 

I just got off the Summit on April 16th and we were happy to see that they put up a temporary bar inside both entrances to the theatre where you can get drinks prior to the show. We thought this was a great idea and hope it will eventually be done on all the ships.

 

Can't wait to read more :)

 

Linda

[hcat]

Quote:

The Gastrobar has a food menu for a small fee, but I never saw anyone ordering any food there. It seemed a little weird to me that they would charge for food here considering there are so many other free places to eat on the ship. I wonder if they will eventually discontinue this part of the menu if no one ever orders from it?

 

on our EQ cruise we tried to get an early lunch there .around noon but that was going to be too early for their schedule.....on embarkation day we went for a drink...said they had to shut early for the lifeboat drill...not sure where the food comes from but seems it more a night time bar than a good alternative for lunch unless a game is on TV ...

 

Enjoying ther review...sorry for the bad excursion experience Panama... on that itin we stick to ship's tours...worked out for us when the bus broke down in Costa Rica....they sent a new bus & held the ship!.

Edited April 27, 2016 by hcat

[liverpoollad]

Hi Dana.

 

We are on the Equinox in May & I have been looking at all the posts for Equinox & somehow I didn't find yours until last night:confused::confused: I read all in one go & thank you for such an excellent travelogue & super photos.

Can't wait to get on board now.

 

Cheers.