Just off the Equinox 12/10/2023

[dogsdogs]

1 hour ago, horseymike said:

The ship was pretty full , there were always plenty of people around, yet it did not feel overcrowded most of the time.The S class ships have many public areas where you can avoid crowds.

OVC. At certain times was packed - noon on a sea day. 
Yet there were some folks who tied up tables playing cards as other people struggled to find a place to sit down and eat. This was not an ongoing occurrence, but it did happen.

The line at Cafe Al Baccio on the morning of debarkation was extremely long, one girl behind the counter, major blunder by X.

We saw a lot of this on our Eclipse cruise last month.  One woman was playing cards with her bare feet up on the table.  Ewww.  Thanks for your review.

[ISABELLA]

22 hours ago, CCRUZER said:

Good to know...it's my wife's favorite too. We will be bring one on board for her, but I doubt she can make it last 10 days.

 

You are allowed 2 bottles per room.

[ISABELLA]

8 hours ago, The Fun Researcher said:

I'm trying to remember, is there anywhere else on the ship to get a specialty coffee?  What I mean by that is anything more than black coffee, or with cream?

OV bar

[ISABELLA]

Forgot to mention. At one of themed lunches there were the worst fish-n chips ever.  Tiny piece of fish drenched in thick batter. Horrible. 

Agreed on Cruise Director. Trashy.  Don't know where Celebrity gets them. 

Really sad to see a once good cruise line going down so quickly. 

[CCRUZER]

1 hour ago, ISABELLA said:

You are allowed 2 bottles per room.

Thanks, but I have to have my Reisling

[Cruise till you drop]

5 hours ago, dogsdogs said:

We saw a lot of this on our Eclipse cruise last month.  One woman was playing cards with her bare feet up on the table.  Ewww.  Thanks for your review.

That’s disguising.  I wonder how these people act at home

[TXGREG]

Bingo question about Equinox. 

I have seen recent posts about the Summit and Reflection which state that Bingo was offered in addition to Deal or No Deal.

 

Did you see this on the Equinox?

[ISABELLA]

14 hours ago, CCRUZER said:

Thanks, but I have to have my Reisling

Reisling is offered by the glass. I didn't care for it.

[The Fun Researcher]

20 minutes ago, ISABELLA said:

Reisling is offered by the glass. I didn't care for it.

Is there anything you did like about  the equinox?

[ISABELLA]

2 hours ago, The Fun Researcher said:

Is there anything you did like about  the equinox?

We have sailed on Equinox at least a dozen of times. We liked this ship, even she needs some updating. On this cruise really nothing stood up as exceptional and very good, except our room steward - he was great.  I don't think it is related to the ship, but rather to Celebrity brand. It just not what it used to be. Our previous Celebrity cruise was on Equinox back in March of 2022. It was very good in all areas. We are not giving up on Celebrity and will try Ascent in 2025.

 

[MISTER 67]

On 12/10/2023 at 3:48 PM, horseymike said:

I Will be as concise as possible.

Embarkation was efficient and pain less. No long waits , quickly onboard.

Crew was amazing , even when operating in a situation when they appeared to be short handed.

We ate in the MDR all but the last night ( the menu for that night was uninspiring).

The food was very good to excellent. The service was exceptional.

OVC was really good at breakfast , really good at lunch , just fair at dinner. ( minimal choices at dinner )

Cafe Al Baccio was inconsistent, the crew was always busy and trying hard, but the coffee was good at times and weak at others.

Morning of debarkation, one girl was making the coffee for all the orders , open at 6 am , long line, not pleasant.

Bar service was very good around the ship.

Entertainment was good , not great.

Music was very good most of the time.

Cabin steward was exceptional.

Debarkation from the ship was smooth, collecting our luggage was tedious, we were in group 5 , for whatever reason the luggage for this group was 

very late getting off the ship , most of the other groups already had their luggage unloaded. A bit perplexing.

We’ve been on 5 Celebrity cruises since the post pandemic startup and all 5 have been just about exactly what you experienced, the gratuities keep rising and X is a dollar a day per person more than Princess and HAL who we also sail with. Yes, things were better before the pandemic and there have been changes like the room service charge but to tell the truth with 72 cruises on our resume we have never ordered from room service, don’t know why but we enjoy eating in the various restaurants around the ship. Celebrity is still giving us twice a day cabin service with mints on the pillows in the evenings, they also always have some kind of snack in the bars when you are having a cocktail, little things like that are a plus, we were on the Sky Princess last week and had a nice cruise but there were no snacks with cocktails and no mints on the pillows. 

[dogsdogs]

1 hour ago, MISTER 67 said:

We’ve been on 5 Celebrity cruises since the post pandemic startup and all 5 have been just about exactly what you experienced, the gratuities keep rising and X is a dollar a day per person more than Princess and HAL who we also sail with. Yes, things were better before the pandemic and there have been changes like the room service charge but to tell the truth with 72 cruises on our resume we have never ordered from room service, don’t know why but we enjoy eating in the various restaurants around the ship. Celebrity is still giving us twice a day cabin service with mints on the pillows in the evenings, they also always have some kind of snack in the bars when you are having a cocktail, little things like that are a plus, we were on the Sky Princess last week and had a nice cruise but there were no snacks with cocktails and no mints on the pillows. 

I don't know what ship you were on, but we have been on four X cruises this year and have yet to see a snack at the bar.  We have started bringing our own.

[MISTER 67]

23 minutes ago, dogsdogs said:

I don't know what ship you were on, but we have been on four X cruises this year and have yet to see a snack at the bar.  We have started bringing our own.

We had to ask. 

[asctony]

3 hours ago, MISTER 67 said:

We’ve been on 5 Celebrity cruises since the post pandemic startup and all 5 have been just about exactly what you experienced, the gratuities keep rising and X is a dollar a day per person more than Princess and HAL who we also sail with. Yes, things were better before the pandemic and there have been changes like the room service charge but to tell the truth with 72 cruises on our resume we have never ordered from room service, don’t know why but we enjoy eating in the various restaurants around the ship. Celebrity is still giving us twice a day cabin service with mints on the pillows in the evenings, they also always have some kind of snack in the bars when you are having a cocktail, little things like that are a plus, we were on the Sky Princess last week and had a nice cruise but there were no snacks with cocktails and no mints on the pillows. 

No mints or snacks. I agree. However, what is the difference in price and packages?

Princess pkgs includes tips, however, X eliminated the tips from their pkgs.

Specialty Restaurants are 2x more on X. 

Compare Apples to Apples. 

[dogsdogs]

2 hours ago, MISTER 67 said:

We had to ask. 

We asked, and at more than one bar.  We asked on the Silhouette, Equinox and a B2B on the Eclipse.  Not one snack was produced.

[Swagner36]

On 12/16/2023 at 5:56 AM, mickey89 said:

Our opinion of the same cruise, we were B2B boarded 21st Nov. and departed 10th Dec  :-

 

• Never seen so many scooters in all my life and the size of people.....oh!
• The crew on the whole were very good.
• OVC was a place to avoid, food quality poor.
• Cafe al Bacio was Ok, not crowded most of the time.  Coffee never hot even when asked.
• Entertainment ...... worst ever. 
• Cruise Director ....loud and brash.
• Disembarkation was a nightmare outside the Terminal with little organisation.
• Classic bev..... down graded, wine choice almost non-existant.

Unfortunately we book a February 2024 cruise a year previous, not looking forward to it, so disappointing.

Definitely will be our last Celebrity Cruise, penny pinching to the extreme.

 

Sorry but I really have nothing good to say, we turned Elite plus during the first cruise so really can state that the decline of Celebrity is astonishing.   Maybe other Cruise Lines are following the same path.......

 

 

[Swagner36]

We are coming back to Celebrity because of the other cruise line we were using has lowered their quality and raised their prices.

[asctony]

17 minutes ago, Swagner36 said:

We are coming back to Celebrity because of the other cruise line we were using has lowered their quality and raised their prices.

That sure sounds like all the other cruise lines including Celebrity.

Food, entertainment, perks, pkgs.

See what Celebrity has done within the past year. You will be surprised. 

[CruiseDuck]

We were on the Equinox 11/30 to 12/10. We have cruised a lot but this was our first cruise with Celebrity. All in all we thought it was a wonderful cruise. Our room steward was outstanding. The ship was full but never really felt full. We found the passengers to be a much older crowd. We found most to be nice and friendly.

We did witness what could have been a very bad accident. A man who clearly had his limit at the Martini Bar fell as he got up from his bar stool. He got up and stumbled towards the atrium railing and nearly went over before a man standing nearby grabbed his arm. They put him in a chair and as two ship's people in Uniforms were standing near by he got up from his chair and nearly went over again before another man grabbed him. I have to say many were getting their money's worth with the liquor package....I will leave that there.....   

We enjoyed the shows and went to almost all of them. We really enjoyed the Cruise Director, Crystal, with her high energy. She mentioned it was her first cruise as Cruise Director.

Getting off the ship was at first a little confusing as everyone lined up and snaked through the Theatre before going down the gangway. Once we got off it was easy to find our luggage and our way to the parking garage even though we embarked at pier 25 and disembarked at pier 19. 

We enjoyed Celebrity and booked the Apex for the Norway and Arctic Ocean cruise in 2025.

[go fish 44]

We were on the Equinox for B2B starting Nov 21tst for a Thanksgiving cruise then on for the next cruise.

We had a great MDR team of waiter and asst.  Our food, even soup was always nice and hot in MDR

 

 

My only complaint was on day 4 of the 10 night cruise the ship ran out of the only wine I like Pinot Grigio   I was very disappointed in the fact that I could not get a glass for dinner of this wine.

For me it was a waste of the drink package 

Come on Celebrity you can do better.

[Cruise till you drop]

3 hours ago, go fish 44 said:

We were on the Equinox for B2B starting Nov 21tst for a Thanksgiving cruise then on for the next cruise.

We had a great MDR team of waiter and asst.  Our food, even soup was always nice and hot in MDR

 

 

My only complaint was on day 4 of the 10 night cruise the ship ran out of the only wine I like Pinot Grigio   I was very disappointed in the fact that I could not get a glass for dinner of this wine.

For me it was a waste of the drink package 

Come on Celebrity you can do better.

Only Day 4.  That seems preventable and inexcusable

[baypeople]

On 12/14/2023 at 8:38 PM, Cruise till you drop said:

I love concise reviews with Q&A afterwards.  

We’ve only done E class ships (Edge twice) so far and 1st time on an older and smaller ship.

 

We board on Jan 8th for 10 nights and very excited.  Will be on SV on 11th deck.

 

Question - was the ship full and did it feel full or not?

We'll be on board then.  See you around the ship.  We start our cruise on Jan 8.

[ISABELLA]

On 12/17/2023 at 8:12 PM, CruiseDuck said:

We were on the Equinox 11/30 to 12/10. We have cruised a lot but this was our first cruise with Celebrity. All in all we thought it was a wonderful cruise. Our room steward was outstanding. The ship was full but never really felt full. We found the passengers to be a much older crowd. We found most to be nice and friendly.

We did witness what could have been a very bad accident. A man who clearly had his limit at the Martini Bar fell as he got up from his bar stool. He got up and stumbled towards the atrium railing and nearly went over before a man standing nearby grabbed his arm. They put him in a chair and as two ship's people in Uniforms were standing near by he got up from his chair and nearly went over again before another man grabbed him. I have to say many were getting their money's worth with the liquor package....I will leave that there.....   

We enjoyed the shows and went to almost all of them. We really enjoyed the Cruise Director, Crystal, with her high energy. She mentioned it was her first cruise as Cruise Director.

Getting off the ship was at first a little confusing as everyone lined up and snaked through the Theatre before going down the gangway. Once we got off it was easy to find our luggage and our way to the parking garage even though we embarked at pier 25 and disembarked at pier 19. 

We enjoyed Celebrity and booked the Apex for the Norway and Arctic Ocean cruise in 2025.

So glad that you enjoyed your cruise. When you said you cruised a lot, what cruise line you have most experience with? 

[CruiseDuck]

23 minutes ago, ISABELLA said:

So glad that you enjoyed your cruise. When you said you cruised a lot, what cruise line you have most experience with? 

We cruised Princess alot in the past but we switched to NCL several years back. We like the mix of passengers and laid back atmosphere on NCL. 

[kwokpot]

On 12/11/2023 at 5:47 AM, SRch said:

Coffee was also a difficult thing it took 4 nights to get that figured out. They had no idea about cream for coffee. Finally got it and it was curdled.

This has been an on and off issue on Celebrity going back at least 10 years. They have MILK in the MDR but don't have half and half. As an aside Americans and Canadians  are the only country that uses half and half in coffee. The product is non-existent in the rest of the world.