Equinox Nov 10-21 2014 Ultimate Caribbean Pic Heavy Review - Emphasis On Ports

[whataboutport]

Hi everyone!

Just back on Friday from the 11 nt Equinox and I want to do my review while everything is still fresh in my mind. I mostly do picture reviews with an emphasis on the ports of call. We cruise mainly for the ports, followed by price, food, and ship/line. This will be basically a day to day recount. I do not have a bunch of photos of the ship, as those are easily found here and online anyway. As my new friend Wallie said, "How many pictures do we need of the tree?!" :D

 

This first post will be a bit long, but afterwards I will be posting lots of photos. So a little about us: we are 34 and 37 from Las Vegas, but go back to Orange County, CA very frequently. We drove from Vegas to OC to drop off our two yorkies with bf’s mom to babysit while we were gone.

 

 

We flew out of LAX on Virgin. Now I have to say that the dumbest things happen to me whenever I have to fly. Last year we almost missed our flight bc I didn’t factor in Friday afternoon traffic in LA. We got to the plane with less than 5 mins to spare. So this time I told bf that the flight was earlier than it really was so we could make it on time. We got to the terminal early, and even checked in online beforehand! Our boarding pass said gate 30, but what happened was they changed to gate to the other side of the terminal and didn’t announce it. Rookie mistake! Double check your gate before you plop your butt down and veg out. WE MISSED OUR FLIGHT! We had to wait another 8 hours for the next flight, and had to pay an extra $50pp to guarantee we even had a seat on that flight! This is yet another reason to have an overnight hotel stay precruise. Don’t be an idiot like me and make this dumb mistake.

 

We finally got to FLL after 6am the morning of the sailing. Thanks to Wallie, we got a sweet deal on the Hyatt House. They had a free shuttle to pick us up at the airport, and once we got there, we were greeted with their very good hot breakfast. Check out wasn’t until noon, so we got some much needed sleep. This is a great business style hotel and I highly recommend it if you are looking for a pre or post cruise stay near the port. They do offer transport to the pier for $10pp but you must notify them the night before. We got there too late, so we took the shuttle back to the airport and took a cab. It still ended up being $20.

 

Since it was a Monday, we got to use the Oasis/Allure terminal. I love this terminal. Security was a breeze and we got through in less than 5 mins. The check in line is by deck level, and that was a little longer but we got checked in after about 25 mins. If you don’t want to wait to board, I suggest you go by what time Celebrity asked you to check in. We were told after 12:30, and there were absolutely no crowds or long lines when we showed up at our designated times. After check in we walked right on board. Also this freed up the elevators too.

 

Our room was 8232 on the starboard side, and the first cabin out on the hump. I loved this room as it was right next to the aft bank of lifts, and was very convenient. I also liked that it was directly across from the sliding glass door to the elevators and the hallway there was not so narrow. I don’t like walking down long corridors and having to dodge people coming the other way. Another plus is the bed is by the balcony, which I prefer. The room is very spacious, and about the size of the cabins on Allure, which are the largest standard balcony rooms I have stayed in. Here you get an idea of how large the balcony is.

 

 

And the view down.

 

The Caribbean Princess was also in port with us that day. We sailed on her exactly one year ago.

 

Edited November 24, 2014 by whataboutport

[whataboutport]

The rest of the first night was mainly spent exploring the ship. The ship is beautiful and spotless. I did not see anything that was in need of repair, unlike the Caribbean Princess we sailed on previously (lots of rust and things needing new paint). Since we were so tired from the long trip to FL, we just had some drinks (thanks 123 GO!) and dinner at the buffet and knocked out for the night.

 

Oh this may be a good time to talk about the cabin. I much prefer the layout of the bathrooms/closet in the cabin on Princess. If you've sailed on Princess you'll know what I mean. (However Princess cabins are smaller.) There isn't the problem of the bathroom door being in the way of the main door, plus you have a little dressing area and a ton of storage. On RCI and X the closet is facing the room and has sliding doors, so you can't look at everything in there at once. Also there are no other storage for things like underwear and t shirts and other things that you wouldn't hang. For those, you have to use the above the bed storage, and for me being 5'2" I could not reach them unless I stood on the bed. Fun fact: if you are under 5'2" you can stand on the bed and still not hit your head on the ceiling.

 

The desk had lots of storage for electronics and makeup. Lighting was very good for putting on makeup, and the hair dryer dried my hair super fast! The bathroom also had plenty of storage. I really liked the sliding doors for the shower. I never had a problem with frisky shower curtains, but hear complaints about it a lot. No risk of that here, as no shower curtain! Bed was acceptably comfy, but nothing is as comfy as my bed at home. :)

 

 

Nov 11 Sea Day

I made sure to make it to the galley tour as I always seem to miss this on my past cruises. I suggest getting there early to get in one of the first groups. There are about 6 chefs that lead the tour, and since we were in group 7 we had to wait until the first group was done.

 

They were preparing lamb chops for dinner that night. I love lamb.

 

 

 

One of the prep stations

 

There are pictures of the day's offering on the wall so the staff can see what they are making that night.

 

Fruit carving

 

The tour is actually pretty short. I doubt they show you all of it. I thought they would talk more about their equipment, or see more people working, but it was fairly lackluster tour. Oh well.

 

They promote this tour as a galley tour with food samples from their specialty restaurants afterward. In reality, these are two different events. I didn't see until later on the Celebrity Today that they have a sort of "open house" of the specialty restaurants to get people to reserve dinners. By the time we finished our galley tour and was told to go to the specialty restaurant area, all the samples were already gone. All we got were some yucky sweet and sour chicken from Silk Harvest. Another reason to go to the galley tour early. Or skip it altogether and go straight to the open house.

Edited November 24, 2014 by whataboutport

[whataboutport]

They had food samples out from the different specialty venues. And by samples I mean samples to see what they looked like. You could not eat these. The samples that they did have for eating were all gone by this time. I found it odd that the staff was pushing for you to make reservations but yet didn't have more samples coming out. We even mentioned that they should have had more samples coming out so we can try first to see if we even want to pay the extra $40pp. Apparently we missed out on some crab cakes.

 

Here is what they offered from Silk Harvest. The yucky sweet and sour chicken is in the front.

 

 

 

The sushi offered here looks leaps and bounds better than the sushi offered at the buffet.

 

Gastrobar food. Their prices are now at least 2 to 3 times higher than the listed prices when they first opened. Probably why I never saw anyone eating anything there. Drinking yes, but eating no. The samples they put out looked like the plastic sushi and udon you see in the windows of Japanese restaurants. Sorry, but I would not spend $12 for that burger.

 

Offerings at Tuscan

 

And this lovely piece of equipment made another appearance on the last sea day at the buffet. Hand powered Proscuitto slicer! Want!

Edited November 24, 2014 by whataboutport

[cazzi]

Can't wait to read the rest of the trip. We we will be going soon. Do you know if in the MDR you have to wear sport coat at dinner.

 

Thanks again

Edited November 24, 2014 by cazzi

[whataboutport]

Offerings from Murano

 

This was their lobster dish. It's warm water lobster/spiny lobster, not Maine lobster.

 

The bar in the Ensemble Lounge just outside of the specialty restaurants were handing out samples of some martinis. Now these they didn't run out of. But unfortunately for me, I can't drink vodka, so I was out of luck.

 

No biggie. Down to the Passport Bar on 3 for my first of many! Bloody Caesar with rum instead of vodka! These were very tasty.

 

Sunset pic before dinner.

 

So this night we finally made it down to the MDR and it was the first formal night. We had previously emailed celebritydining@celebrity.com to request a table for two. This email went unanswered, so a few days before sailing, I got a hot tip here on CC to email Domy Valdes instead and make my request. I gotta say Domy is the man! Not only did he answer within 24 hours, but also made it happen! If you have a request, email him at domyvaldes@rccl.com. He is the dining room admin for the Reflection, Equinox, Solstice, Millie, and Century.

 

We got a two top near one of the poles, so only another party to one side of us. The tables were close, but not close enough to hear their conversation. Although they were pretty quiet.

 

Sorry, no food porn pics, but the food just wasn't very good. We ordered the chicken liver pate and salmon poke for apps, and the duck breast and lamb chops for our main. I happen to like pates so while some would say cat food, this was ok for me albeit a bit dry. The salmon was terrible. It was so watery, as if they washed it and didn't dry it thoroughly before dicing it. The duck was ok, but the sauce a bit sweet. The skin was not crispy. The best dish that night was the lamb. Cooked perfectly medium, and you get three chops.

 

After three cruises with bf, I've finally realized he hates the dining room. It's not so much the assigned seating time, or assigned tables, but how the staff fusses over you. Pulling out your chair, putting the napkin on your lap, the time between courses, and I have to admit I kinda agree. So after the one night in the MDR we ended up not eating in there again for dinner. We did make it to lunch one time though and it was nice. Not so formal. We did check out the menu for each night but nothing really stood out to us.

 

I should point out now that while I am not a chef, I do cook often and quite well if I may blow my own horn. I cook everything from scratch, make my own stocks, brew kombucha, and make many types of fermented foods (my fave) such as pickles, kim chi, saurkraut, make my own pho. Pretty much the only thing I don't/can't make is bread, baking things like desserts, making my own noodles. So I had a lot of gripes about the food offered on this ship. Last time I sailed on X was back in 2001. While I wouldn't have called myself a foodie back then, I sailed with my sister who already was at the time. I remember we talked often about how good the food was! She esp loved the little breadsticks. This was the first thing I went to at dinner and it just was like a dry cracker stick. There wasn't even butter on the table for the breads. Weird.

 

Anyway, we ducked out before dessert since we hardly eat dessert. When we got back to the room we were greeted by this guy.

 

He was one of two towel animals we got. So yes, towel animals and turndown chocolates are alive and well. Although these were chocolate covered Oreos (YUCK to Oreos!), so they went uneaten.

 

Oh yeah, and shout out to our state room attendant Edgar and his asst. Always there when you needed him, and never around too much to bug you.

[whataboutport]

Can't wait to read the rest of the trip. We wii be going soon. Do you know if in the MDR you have to wear sport oat at dinner.

 

Thanks again

 

Oh thanks for reminding me! Bf does not like being told what to wear, when to wear it, or where to wear it to! He did just fine on the formal night, which was the one night we ate in the MDR. He dresses like Johnny Depp. So he had a collared shirt (wrinkly LOL) and vest, but sleeves rolled up, no jacket, PLUS he wore a hat! I thought for sure they would ask him to remove his hat, but no. It was an ivy, and not a baseball cap. I doubt those would be permitted. Bf wouldn't be caught dead in a ballcap. I think if you look reasonably dressed up you will be fine. I think it also helps if the lady is dressed up. I wore a sparkly cocktail dress with heels so I think I helped dress him up a bit more. I saw many women wearing only a blouse and pants on formal night, and not even a sparkly blouse.

 

So to make a short answer very long... No sport coat, tux, or dinner jacket needed.

 

And to make it even longer; we saw very few tuxes. Many were in regular suits, some much more casual. I even saw an older gentleman in a tuxedo t shirt! Loved it! He was not in the dining room though, just walking around. I think I saw a handful of floor length gowns. Most ladies were in cocktail dresses.

 

Although... on the second formal night, about 95% of people out and about were dressed up. (I always hear the second formal night is more lax.) We were still in our casual day clothes. We got a few stink eyes from some of the older pax. So yes we went back to our cabin and changed into "nicer" clothes so we would fit in more, and we weren't even in the dining room! We were some of the youngest pax on board who weren't with their parents LOL.

Edited November 24, 2014 by whataboutport

[cazzi]

Thanks for the information.

[whataboutport]

Last time I was in GC was back in 2001, yes the first X cruise I mentioned earlier. I LOVED Stingray City so I wanted bf to experience this. I was so happy that the weather was good. Beautiful in fact. We booked our tour thru Native Way for the Rays, Reef and Rum Point tour. It was $62.50pp and included snorkel gear, two snorkel spots (one at a reef, one at Stingray City) and lunch at Rum Point.

 

While GC is a tender port, the ship drops anchor fairly close to the island. The tender ride is only about 10-15 mins. I waited in line at the Gastrobar to get tender tickets, but really it wasn't necessary. By the time we were ready to get off, no tickets were needed. You could just walk off.

 

View of the first tender from our balcony.

 

On the tender

 

 

Pirate ship replica

 

Once on the island, we found our guy holding the Native Way sign. Once our group was together we walked to our shuttle and took a short 10 min drive to their marina. I saw this awesome boat there.

 

And some very nice houses along the way.

Edited November 24, 2014 by whataboutport

[Jaxom37]

I was just wondering what you did for dinner each night? The buffet or specialty dining. Will be on Equinox next week so appreciate your review.

[whataboutport]

I was just wondering what you did for dinner each night? The buffet or specialty dining. Will be on Equinox next week so appreciate your review.

 

We did the buffet. Each night there was something different for dinner for the most part. The grilled to order fish/steak/chicken/pork station was pretty good. The salmon was the bomb, but they only had it for the first few days. After that was tilapia (yuck). Also when I had the steak grilled to order it was excellent. The ones that were already done and waiting were pretty tough.

 

I should point out that at home, we usually eat our main meal at breakfast, with lunch smaller, and dinner the smallest. This is not usually the way cruises do it. So that's another reason for us against the MDR. So we like the buffet so we can get one bite of each thing that looks interesting. If it's not good, I don't eat more than a bite. If it's good, I'll go back for seconds.

 

The Indian food was pretty good. Better and more options than Royal, plus the pappadums were actually crisp.

[Jaxom37]

I have never tried the buffet at night I will have to try it. I have done lunch but try to stick with salad and light fare. I hear ya on the tilapia (sp?) :p Sounds like your BF is like us. We like to dine specialty restaurants for those nights to avoid formal nights. Avoid taking two steamer trunks instead of the one if you know what I mean. How did you find the drinks package?

[Seatbelt_Bag_LOVE]

 

We were some of the youngest pax on board who weren't with their parents LOL.

 

 

My husband and I will be on the Equinox in January. We are 30 & 34, so I suspected we might be some of the youngest passengers! I'm really looking forward to the rest of your review even though we are doing the 10 day Eastern Caribbean itinerary.

 

We were on the Summit in July, and we only ate in the dining room twice. Both times we felt like it was a waste of time. We had more fun exploring the ship, enjoying music and such. Besides celebrity our only other cruise was on the Disney Fantasy. Perhaps that is why we found the Dining room so boring on Celeb. Disney does such a good job with their 3 dinning room rotation, and dinner was so entertaining that even all those kids on Disney were well behaved.

 

 

 

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[tbmrt]

Oh thanks for reminding me!

So to make a short answer very long... No sport coat, tux, or dinner jacket needed.

 

 

Glad to read this...DH planned to wear a nice black vest and dress pants w/new style "bow tie" for formal night w/me getting all decked out.

 

Thanks

[whataboutport]

My husband and I will be on the Equinox in January. We are 30 & 34, so I suspected we might be some of the youngest passengers! I'm really looking forward to the rest of your review even though we are doing the 10 day Eastern Caribbean itinerary.

 

We were on the Summit in July, and we only ate in the dining room twice. Both times we felt like it was a waste of time. We had more fun exploring the ship, enjoying music and such. Besides celebrity our only other cruise was on the Disney Fantasy. Perhaps that is why we found the Dining room so boring on Celeb. Disney does such a good job with their 3 dinning room rotation, and dinner was so entertaining that even all those kids on Disney were well behaved.

 

 

 

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I would love to try Disney one day but the prices are outrageous. I really like the idea of the rotating dining rooms, and the food looks awesome.

 

Glad to read this...DH planned to wear a nice black vest and dress pants w/new style "bow tie" for formal night w/me getting all decked out.

 

Thanks

I think you guys will be just fine. Don't worry about it!

[whataboutport]

I have never tried the buffet at night I will have to try it. I have done lunch but try to stick with salad and light fare. I hear ya on the tilapia (sp?) :p Sounds like your BF is like us. We like to dine specialty restaurants for those nights to avoid formal nights. Avoid taking two steamer trunks instead of the one if you know what I mean. How did you find the drinks package?

The drinks pkg was very handy to have and I really enjoyed it. We had the Classic. We usually only drink rum or whiskey so we had choices of Bacardi, Jack, and Crown which is what are normal choice is at home. I didn't find that the bartenders didn't ask for our cards after they got to know us, like I have read on here. We were asked for our cards every time, but if we ordered a cocktail and a bottle of water each, they just gave us the water and swiped for the drink.

 

The bartenders were also really good about remembering what we usually got. Our favorite bartenders were at the Passport bar and the Mast bar. The guys at the Mast bar made the strongest drinks.

 

I also did not ever witness anyone tipping extra in cash. And I was at the bar a lot. :D

 

The drink pkg also covered coffees at Cafe al Bacio and juices and smoothies at Aqua Spa. We tried two juices at Aqua spa and they were so gross we never went back to try the smoothies. So watery and looked like dirty sink water.

Edited November 24, 2014 by whataboutport

[whataboutport]

After a nice sunny boat ride, we get to our first snorkel spot on a reef. This reef is no where near the size of the reef in Belize, but we still were able to spot lots of sea life. Large schools of fish, lobsters, even a stingray.

 

So the last two years I came back with blurry GoPro2 pics. Two years ago at Trunk Bay, and last year at Maya Key (Roatan), I got blurry pics bc of not too good conditions. And by the time we got to Belize I ran out of battery and forgot my charger at home. Conditions in Belize were fantasic, so I was really bummed not to get pics. So this year I also got blurry pics even though conditions were great. Turns out that the curved lens on the GoPro does not do well underwater (even though it comes with an underwater case?!) and that you have to mod it out for a flat lens. The newer GoPro models do not have this issue. Out of the water the pics are sharp.

 

Underwater pics:

 

 

Here you can see the ray.

 

 

After about 30 mins we went over to Stingray City. There was a lot of people there already. But although we booked with a private company, we only had 14 people on our boat. We saw some other boats were jammed packed with people. Probably about 50 people on the same size boat as ours!

 

 

Right away the stingrays come up to you as soon as you get in the water.

 

Bf was first in, and he had never been before. Two large ones came right up to him and "petted" him. It was funny watching his reaction.

Edited November 24, 2014 by whataboutport

[whataboutport]

One of our guides took off to catch a stingray for us. He was gone for a good ten mins but we were all having fun playing with the rays, and we didn't even have any food for them.

 

 

Here is our guide with the ray he caught. She's giving him a big kiss.

 

We kept seeing this one. Looks like she had a bad injury a while back.

 

 

Another one of the guides brought out a jug full of squid. He let us feed the rays. Our tour didn't do this last time. It was really fun. They suck the squid out of your hand so fast! I think part of my hand went in one of their mouths. I didn't feel teeth, just hard cartilage.

 

Now off to Rum Point for the included lunch.

 

Sorry for all the blurry underwater pics, but just wanted to show those who have not been yet how shallow the water is. The water is so blue, it looks like straight up Listerine.

Edited November 24, 2014 by whataboutport

[whataboutport]

Before we got to the first snorkel spot, one of the guides takes your order for lunch at Rum Point. There's lots of choices. Burgers, salads, sandwiches, fried things. We settled on jerk chicken and catch of the day. As soon as we got to Rum Point the food was ready for us. Lunch comes with ice tea. There was a bar for alcohol, but the prices were pretty high. About US$7 for a beer. Since we had the drinks pkg we skipped.

 

 

 

 

 

After lunch we walked around to explore.

 

[whataboutport]

 

 

Here's some rocks that are similar to the ones in Hell.

 

 

And I found a kitty!

 

Then after a day of fun, we go on our way back to the port area.

 

I would strongly consider this company again if I am in Grand Cayman again in the future. Everything went off without a hitch. The guides were funny and knowledgeable. The added lunch was really a great selling point.

[whataboutport]

After we got dropped off back at the port area, I asked which way was Cardinal Ave as I knew they were in the middle of their Pirate fest. Since it was a Wed, they only had a few tents up with food vendors. It smelled so good but we just had lunch so we just walked around. Lots of people were eating the food, locals and tourists. Everything looked good. If you happen to be in Grand Cayman during the first week of Nov, the first weekend they have a huge parade and a staged pirate battle in the harbor.

 

 

After walking around for a bit, we caught a tender back to the ship, and we got ready for dinner.

 

[whataboutport]

I'm going to skip over the sea days and just do a general ship post at the end, since I want to focus on the ports of call.

 

Cartagena was our least favorite port.

 

View from the ship.

 

Bird sanctuary when you get off the ship. This was free and it was very lush. Probably the best part of our day.

 

This little deer guy was very friendly. He would lick your hand when you tried to pet him. He even licked the back of bf's leg when we wasn't looking. Totally freaked him out. LOL

 

Monkeys

 

This guy was inside the caged in aviary.

 

He tried to bite my camera strap numerous times. This was the shot I got right before he snatched.

 

There were many other birds; peacocks, flamingos, maccaws, all friendly and tame.

[whataboutport]

Also inside the aviary was a toucan. He tried to bite my shoe. LOL He moved around a lot, I was lucky to get this shot.

 

So while Cartagena is a beautiful city, but there is just not much to do. It was my mistake in thinking we would save money by going on our own that day. The taxis really want to charge you a lot, and once you get to each place of interest, there is a significant fee to go inside. I read here on CC that a member negotiated a taxi for 4 hours for $60. Try as I might, I could not get them much lower than the $20/hr rate. We ended up with a $50 rate for about 3 hrs, but we were so bored being there we did only about a bit over two hours. If we wanted to go up to La Popa, he wanted to charge us $80!

 

Also not a lot of people here speak English. They will know just enough to get you inside their cab. Of course you can test them, but if you ask them questions about landmarks, rates, normal stuff you would ask a cabbie, they know all that in English. After a while our guy would only speak to us in Spanish. I know very little Spanish, and seeing as how I was not ordering food at a restaurant or waiting for my number to be called at the carniceria, it did me no good except to know how much he was trying to charge us.

 

First spot we stopped was the fort. I wanted to go up, but when I asked at the ticket counter, I was told $18pp, then another person said $10pp. Bf didn't want to hike up so we just took some pics and went back to the cab.

 

 

I showed the cabbie a map of the places I wanted to go. They were mostly all highlighted on this card in the cab.

 

The cathedral

 

 

One of the many plazas

Edited November 26, 2014 by whataboutport

[whataboutport]

Yes, this city reminds a lot of people of New Orleans. I agree. I was also bored in New Orleans.

 

We stumbled upon this boutique hotel. We just happened to peek our heads in and it was very nice inside.

 

The Ananda hotel. They got really good reviews on TripAdvisor.

 

 

 

It was about 4 stories high with an awesome roof top deck.

 

 

[whataboutport]

The last section our cabbie actually parked the car and walked us into another large plaza that cars aren't allowed. This is where the San Pedro Claver church is (again you must pay to go inside).

 

 

 

He took us outside the walls.

 

 

 

 

Outside the walls you see pretty much the whole top row of points of interest on his card; the pegasuses, the replica Pirate ship, the sea, the tower.

 

I asked him again if he would take us to La Popa for some pics, but again he said $80. We hadn't even had the full 2 hours at this point (remember $20/hr), so being frustrated, just told him to take us back to the ship. We hung out some more at the bird sanctuary, and were back on the ship before noon. =/

 

Oh, also want to add, I got two of my total of three bug bites here. I was worried about Belize, but I got bit here while walking through the city. If you are sensitive to bug bites like I am, load up on the Deet here. My bites swelled up to silver dollar size.

Edited November 26, 2014 by whataboutport

[mike x ftc]

Thank you for this, these are lovely photo's. We were on this same cruise so i'm following with interest. We had a really good time.