Hopefully Live Celebrity newbs on the Equinox

[desibee]

Bags are packed and we are heading to the airport in 3 hours to start the trek to Barcelona.  Considering the weather delays and the Crowdstrike issue crippling Delta airlines this month I’m still super nervous that we aren’t getting out of JFK but we have one night of leeway before we board the Equinox on August 8.

 

Chris and I are new to Celebrity.  We’ve done Royal and NCL before so we are eager to see how Celebrity compares.  At 9 nights, this cruise to the French/Italian Riviera will be our longest cruise to date.  My cat Finnegan will not be coming with us and he’s very upset about that.  Nana and Papa are going to look after him while I’m gone and I suspect he will be five pounds fatter by the time I get back because nana is already talking about cooking him a turkey.

 

Barcelona here we come!

[leaveitallbehind]

22 minutes ago, desibee said:

Chris and I are new to Celebrity.  We’ve done Royal and NCL before so we are eager to see how Celebrity compares.

Celebrity is pretty much the opposite of RCCL and NCL (who are very similar and direct competitors).  Those two line's primary demographics are families and their ship's amusement park style venues reflect that.  Celebrity's primary demographics is adults 45+/-  with a more sedate cruising atmosphere with none of those venues found on RCCL/NCL.

 

You will find it IMO to be a relaxing, more traditional cruising atmosphere, with limited children on board.

[rcssmom]

Enjoy your trip.  I am excited to follow along.  I am doing this trip next year and hope to learn from your experiences.  I hope you love Celebrity as much as I do.

 

Karen

[PTC DAWG]

Sounds like fun…The Sunset Bar is a nice outside venue, I understand the area to have been remodeled recently..

[desibee]

First setback, our flight from Pearson to JFK was cancelled (like we feared it might be).  
 

Luckily we are rebooked on a direct Air Canada flight later tonight so we should still make the ship on time.

 

Unluckily, they did not transfer our premium class tickets over so we had to pay an extra $600 to not sit in economy for 10 hours.  Gonna have to fight with Delta about that.

[Ciaranaman]

Safe 🛫 travels!  I'll be following along, too 😊 Nine nights goes by fast so enjoy every minute!

 

Oh, that sucks about the delay!  Hopefully that's the last bit of rotten luck on your trip!  Only sunshine and rainbows ahead!

~Bernadette

Edited August 6 by Ciaranaman
add-on

[mahdnc]

1 hour ago, leaveitallbehind said:

Celebrity is pretty much the opposite of RCCL and NCL (who are very similar and direct competitors).  Those two line's primary demographics are families and their ship's amusement park style venues reflect that.  Celebrity's primary demographics is adults 45+/-  with a more sedate cruising atmosphere with none of those venues found on RCCL/NCL.

 

You will find it IMO to be a relaxing, more traditional cruising atmosphere, with limited children on board.

 

I look forward to your report.  Have fun on your cruise!  Sorry to hear about your air arrangements getting upended.

Edited August 6 by mahdnc

[leaveitallbehind]

19 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

I look forward to your report.  Have fun on your cruise!  Sorry to hear about your air arrangements getting upended.

You quoted me but I believe you meant @desibee who is the OP.

[Stem to Stern]

<<< Ziggy (see my profile pic) fully comprehends Finnegan’s hiss-terical catitude over your departure.

Safe travels to you both.

🐱✈️

[mahdnc]

51 minutes ago, leaveitallbehind said:

You quoted me but I believe you meant @desibee who is the OP.

Yes.  I didn't realize that I did that!!!

[scrapcreator]

Welcome to Celebrity! Looking forward to your report.
 

Safe travels. 

Edited August 6 by scrapcreator

[desibee]

We made it to the Plaza Premium Lounge in Pearson just waiting to board our new flight.  This one is direct so now we don’t need to change planes at JFK.

 

The lounge is tiny and crowded but the seats are comfy and the food is okay.  And their power outlets actually work, unlike the ones outside the lounge.

 

We got to use the priority check in which was nice but not any faster, I think.  Security was quick and easy and in Canada you don’t need to take off your shoes.  😝

I’ll update about the flights next!

 

[desibee]

Finally made it safely to Barcelona!  Our flights were very nice after all the panic and chaos of having to rebook them.  We ended up having an entire row of seats to ourselves.  
 

The meal and drink offerings on Air Canada in premium economy were great.  Everything was served on one tray of course but with real dish ware and cutlery not cardboard.  They gave us little packable tote bags with our amenity kits in them and I am definitely going to reuse the tote for a beach bag or a shopping bag on the cruise.  
 

The only not very nice thing was the lack of actual headphones.  The quality of the ear buds they gave us to listen to the entertainment system was so poor I couldn’t understand most of the words of the film I was trying to watch.  Definitely bring your own headphones if you fly anything lower than business class for Air Canada.

 

It took us about half an hour to go through Customs in Barcelona in a looooong line.  Then we took the metro into the city centre and right to the entrance of our hotel.  We are staying at the INNside by Meliá Apolo Barcelona.  We paid a €30 upgrade price to get a room that was ready to check into right away, since I had paid for the hotel on reward points already and we were exhausted and just wanted to lie down.

 

It’s a small room but clean and the mini-bar has complimentary non-alcoholic drinks in it.  The shower looks spacious so I will definitely try that out later.  There is a tiny balcony with two chairs that looks out over the city scape but with the sun blaring down on it I think I’ll wait until night time to enjoy it.

 

I am writing this while Chris naps and in half an hour we will get changed and go out to explore Barcelona a little.

[Galaxy2004]

Glad the flight worked out. Looking forward to your updates and first impression of Celebrity.

[Harley167]

Glad you made it ok! Will eb following as we are doing the same cruise Oct 2!!Enjoy

[Jim_Iain]

Looking forward to following along on you Live Post.   

[desibee]

Woke up refreshed this morning although the air conditioning at our hotel was not really up to the task of cooling down the room to our preferred temperature.  He’s hoping Celebrity’s air conditioning can do better. 😭

 

The hotel’s breakfast buffet was around €15 each but it is a very extensive breakfast with fresh made omelette and pastry and meats and cheeses and fruits.  The cappuccino machine worked well and I had a very satisfying breakfast overall.

 

 There was a taxi stand just outside the hotel so we caught a cab and took it to the port.  About €13 for the trip.

 

Now we are just waiting to board and using the cruise port’s wifi.  I will post my photos of the hotel room and our breakfast.

 

 

[cruisegal1970]

On 8/6/2024 at 3:59 PM, leaveitallbehind said:

 

You will find it IMO to be a relaxing, more traditional cruising atmosphere, with limited children on board.

YOU must be joking.

Just disembarked Equinox, far from relaxing with many unruly children the worst of all were American teenagers with total disrespect for everyone

[leaveitallbehind]

1 hour ago, cruisegal1970 said:

YOU must be joking.

Just disembarked Equinox, far from relaxing with many unruly children the worst of all were American teenagers with total disrespect for everyone

No I am not joking and your experience is not typical IMO, based on 20+ cruises with Celebrity. (And it's not very polite for YOU to yell at me). If you feel that was a bad experience with children I would suggest never cruising with RCCL, NCL, MSC, or Disney, to name a few.  And I'm certain that all UK teenagers are angels......

Edited August 8 by leaveitallbehind

[hcat]

Guess it depends on the weeks one travels.  We never go during any school vacation. 

 

Made that mistake once over Easter on Royal from Miami...it was a week of  h__l!  Now we check  dates carefully!

[desibee]

We have no choice but to go during school breaks since I teach the little darlings.

 

But so far the Equinox has been very relaxing.  We are on the ship and have tried out Craft Social, the Martini Bar, and Chris went to the World Class bar while I got my hair done at the salon.

 

We are listening to live music in the atrium at the moment while we wait for our dinner reservation at Tuscan.  The band sounds pretty good.  The champagne is excellent.  And no unruly teens so far! 😆

[Bestbubba]

We're on the Equinox TA in April and I'm enjoying following along. Thank you for doing a "live from" 😊

Equinox was our first Celebrity cruise many years ago, after that we were hooked!! 

[Jim_Iain]

15 hours ago, cruisegal1970 said:

YOU must be joking.

Just disembarked Equinox, far from relaxing with many unruly children the worst of all were American teenagers with total disrespect for everyone

I'm wondering if there were a bunch of Grumpy Ol Gits also.

[Random Cruizer]

I've been on 4 Celebrity ships, and the Equinox is my favorite so far! Have fun!

[desibee]

We have docked in La Spezia and so I can finally use my eSIM data to post on cruise critic since the basic wifi package with Celebrity cannot manage to even load the site. 😂

 

So to recap after sail away:

 

We had dining reservations at Tuscan Grill which we purchased for a discount for the first night.  It was around $50 per person for dinner.  Service and food was all excellent and we ordered way too much.  My filet mignon was done perfectly medium, the lasagna sauce was a little sweet and a little spicy and very meaty.  The calamari was crispy.  I had Cattier champagne to drink along with a bellini and both were lovely.  We have a premium drink package so we plan to enjoy everything Celebrity has to offer in that regard.

 

After dinner we went to one of the guest performances in the theatre.  This one was called Rock On! and it was a group of four men doing classical rock medleys such as Aerosmith and U2 and Journey, etc.  They were very good and the crowd was great, singing along and waving their phones in the air light lighters during the ballads.

 

We left the show and wandered up to the Observation Lounge to watch the live band karaoke.  Only a few people volunteered to sing but they were mostly people who could actually carry a tune.  I tried a Capricorn cocktail in the lounge and it was yummy but at that point I had been drinking a lot more than I’m used to in a single day so we went back to the room to watch some Olympic highlights and sleep.

 

It would be a sea day tomorrow with lots of time to explore the ship and relax.

 

 

Tuscan Grill entrance.

 

 

It was far too much food but all of it was delicious!

 

 

This is our cruise director who I forget the name of but he seems very high energy and I’ve seen him around the ship at various activities so he’s very active.
 

The Solarium at night is so pretty with the fountains all lit up.  People swim in here pretty late, as I’ve seen some still in the pool after the 9:00pm show lets out.

 

The Sky Observation lounge at night is pretty too.