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

[liverpoollad]

Hi Dana.

 

The photo I have just posted, was to have a message but I am not au fait on how to insert photos & I've fiddled my way through.

 

The message was...... In your post 284 you had the photo of "The Fat Lady" I thought I had seen one before. This is of my wife on the Summit.

 

I might get a smack for posting this.

 

Cheers

[deladane]

Hi Dana.

 

The photo I have just posted, was to have a message but I am not au fait on how to insert photos & I've fiddled my way through.

 

The message was...... In your post 284 you had the photo of "The Fat Lady" I thought I had seen one before. This is of my wife on the Summit.

 

I might get a smack for posting this.

 

Cheers

 

I opened the photo and saw it had a caption so I knew what the photo was! I already replied to it in the post above ;) I think that photo of your wife is so cute! I wish I had thought to do the same when I was on the Summit in 2010!!

[bessinfl]

My sister and I loved that sculpture on the Summit (and I was impressed that it was a real Botero). She wanted to lie down in front of it like that, but we didn't have the nerve. Lots of credit to liverpoollad's wife!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Cindy]

The Constellation has a fat lady statue too...her pose is a bit different!

 

[KikisDad]

Loving your review and pictures, thanks for taking the time to post :D

[deladane]

Loving your review and pictures, thanks for taking the time to post :D

 

Thanks for following along! :)

[deladane]

Monday, March 21 ~ Cartagena, Colombia (day 2)

 

One of the things I love most about cruising is that every day, I wake up in a new country without having to deal with repacking my suitcase or the logistics of international travel. This morning, I was reminded that land vacations aren't that bad either, as we were still in the same port as we were when we went to sleep last night, and I was excited about it! We got to have dinner on shore and experience nightlife and culture in a new country, and it was nice not to have to worry about rushing back to the ship. Another reason I was so excited to wake up today was because it was my birthday and we had something special planned! As I already mentioned, we pre-booked an excursion through Cartagena Connections for $28 USD per person to go to El Totumo mud volcano and to a beach for lunch, including transportation to and from the cruise port.

 

Room service delivered our breakfast bright and early at 6:30am (our earliest wake up time for the whole cruise), and we enjoyed a beautiful view of the sunrise as we ate breakfast on our balcony.

 

 

 

We left the ship at 7:45am because we were told to meet our guide at 8am. Unfortunately, the port shops didn't open until 8am, and you need to walk through those shops to exit the port area, so we weren't sure how to get out. We tried walking around the outside of the building the way we came in last night, but the guards told us we couldn't go that way and we had to wait until the shops opened before we could exit. That wasn't going to work for us because then we would be late to meet our guide, so we ended up running around in circles for a bit until we figured out another way to exit to the main gate. I was so sick of the horrible logistics of this port!

 

At least the peacocks were friendly and said hello!

 

Once we reached the front gate, the taxi drivers again yelled at us to "Come this way" and "Go with me!" Luckily, Cartagena Connections had told us to look for a woman in a yellow shirt with the company logo, because there was only one woman out there with the taxis and it was very easy to find her. We actually heard her say my name as we approached because she was talking to another guide about who she was picking up, so it was much less shady than our experience yesterday morning, and we knew we had the correct guide.

 

The guide introduced herself as Louisa, and we followed her into a nice, new 15 passenger van and drove 20 minutes to Bocagrande to pick up other people from their hotels. We pulled up to the first hotel and Louisa went to find the people for our tour. 25 minutes later, she came back and said she could not find them so we left and went to the next hotel. This time, Louisa left for 10 minutes, then came back and told us the people we are picking up here were at a restaurant eating breakfast. What?! We were already 20 minutes late to pick them up due to the people at the prior hotel not showing up. How rude could these people be to still be at breakfast?! We would have loved to sleep in a little later and have a leisurely breakfast, but we didn't because we knew we had an excursion booked and we were expected to meet our guide at a certain time so as to not keep the others on our tour waiting. I guess not everyone extends that same courtesy to us! We sat there for 15 more minutes, then Louisa finally went to tell them to finish eating and we would come get them later. Mind you, it was now 9am. We were picked up at 8am and were only supposed to spend 30 minutes picking up other people, but it was now 60 minutes later and we were still the only 2 guests in the van!

 

We went to 3 other hotels to pick up a few other people who were all ready and waiting to go (somewhat surprisingly considering how late we were to pick them up!). We then returned to the original hotel and those people were waiting in the lobby... no idea where they were an hour ago! After that, we went back to the second hotel to get the people who finally finished their breakfast. At 9:45am, nearly 2 hours after our pick up time, we had all 14 people on the bus and we left for the first stop on our tour. On the way out of the city, we passed by the beaches in Bocagrande. It was interesting to see that instead of setting up umbrellas, they set up long rows of tarps and put some chairs underneath for shade.

 

 

 

It took about an hour and 15 minutes to drive out to El Totumo. On the way, Louisa played a video to explain how the day we could go. The recording explained everything in Spanish first, then in English. The most important thing to learn from this recording was that there are 3 optional services offered at the volcano, but it is NOT optional to tip for the services you opt to use. The 3 services were a man to take photos on your personal camera while in the mud, a man to give you a massage while you are in the volcano to help work the mud into your skin, and a woman to wash you off and help you remove the mud after you exit the volcano. The tip fee of 4000 Colombian pesos, or $2 US dollars, is not negotiable. Our feeling was that if we came this far to experience El Totumo, we wanted to experience everything, so we planned to use all 3 services.

 

Although Louisa only spoke Spanish and not a word of English, I found it easy to communicate with her and ask her questions throughout the day as she spoke slowly and very clearly. We were so thankful for that considering the trouble we had communicating with our guide on the Chivas bus! Louisa explained that our options for lunch were grilled chicken, fried chicken, grilled fish, or a vegetarian option, and all would be served with coconut rice, a side salad, and fried plantains, plus either water, soda, or juice.

[deladane]

We pulled up to the volcano at 10:30am and Louisa said we could spend 1 hour here. We were in the middle of rural Colombia with no sign of civilization for miles (aside from a small village to house the people who work at the volcano!), and we saw this:

 

 

It makes me wonder how they even found it in the first place! We pulled into the parking lot and could see several small shacks lined up around the perimeter of the volcano. Louisa explained that this shack had bathrooms and showers where we could get changed into bathing suits, and they also had big lockers to store our belongings for while we were in the mud (they put everyone's stuff from our whole van into one locker so make sure you bring a bag and not just have your clothes loose!). They also had shacks with small restaurants and bars if you wanted.

 

 

Once I was wearing just my bathing suit and flip flops, a man wearing a Superman baseball cap approached me (J and I called him Superman because we didn't know his real name), and asked to take my camera so he could take photos while we were in the mud. J does not travel with a camera, so we asked if he would use my camera to take photos of both of us, and he agreed at no additional cost. Superman led us to the base of the volcano and 2 little boys (maybe 5 or 6 years old, at most!) pointed at our flip flops to ask us to take them off. The stairs were very steep, at least 18 inches high, and they were covered with clay and rocks so it was sharp on my feet as I climbed to the top of the volcano. The ground was also very hot so it was hard to walk barefoot. I really wished they let us wear our shoes, but I soon learned why that wasn't an option. Also, while there were hand rails on both sides of the steps, they were awkwardly too high to provide any real support, making it even more difficulty to climb the stairs. The physical therapist in me was shaking my head... this was not an ADA approved staircase! haha

 

When we climbed to the top of the stairs, a line formed around the perimeter of the mud pit so we had a few minutes to observe the process while we waited our turn.

 

 

Superman was very thorough in his photography. While we were waiting, I was admiring our view. El Totumo is by far the tallest object within miles, so we had an incredible view and I wished I had my camera in my hands so I took take photos. When I was reviewing my photos on the bus later in the day, I found a little surprise from Superman! He took photos of the view for me! I guess he knows that everyone would want that photo, but I was still impressed that he did it.

 

 

A few things to note in this photo... The small buildings in the bottom left corner are the shacks with the bars and restaurants. The large open dirt area in the top right (which continues very far to the right... Superman didn't know how to use the panorama function on my camera haha) used to be a lake filled with water! Apparently the drought that dried up the river we were supposed to canoe down in Panama also affected Colombia. I have seen many photos of this lake from my research before the cruise, so it was surprising to see that it was completely dry! If you look very closely at the entrance to what used to be the lake, there are some big buckets. Some of those are filled with salt water, and the rest with fresh water, and that's what the women used to clean us up. The walkway between the buildings is the distance we had to walk after getting out of the mud for the women to clean us off. But let's not jump too far ahead...

 

After about 10 minutes, it was my turn to climb down a steep ladder into the mud approximately 20 feet below. Colombia clearly has no ADA guidelines because this ladder was one of the least safe things I've ever been on. It was basically a vertical ladder with nearly no angle at all so I felt like I was going to plummet to the bottom! The guys working here only know how to say 4 phrases in English, so they just kept saying "One more! One more!" to get me to go down each step. I'm not sure that this photo fully conveys the terrifying fear I felt at that moment lol

 

 

Once I reached the bottom of the ladder, one of the guys slid me back into a small opening between 2 other tourists and told me to "lie down!" My instinct was to sit up and look around so I could take it all in, but he did not like that and kept telling me to lay down haha It felt like I was basking in a giant vat of chocolate pudding... the mud was super thick and dense so it was easy to stay afloat with no effort at all. There were a bunch of guys in the mud (let's call them mud men, since "masseuse" would be above their true job description haha) and one came over to me within seconds of me laying down in the mud and started to rub the mud into my skin. No "Hola!". No "Como estas?". He just got right down to business (luckily I knew to expect that after watching a few people enter the mud before me!).

 

[deladane]

He was very thorough, rubbing the mud into my skin from the top of my neck to the bottom of my feet, and everywhere in between! No frisky business or anything like that, but he definitely made sure to cover my entire body in mud.

 

 

 

After a few minutes, he said the next English phrase... "Turn over!" I guess that was my cue to roll onto my stomach, so I did as I was told and propped up on my forearms to prevent my face from going into the mud. It was so bizarre as I felt like I was laying on the floor because the mud was so firm. I was glad that I wore my sunglasses in there as they worked like protective goggles- there was lots of mud splattering around and I didn't want any to get in my eyes! While the mud man was working, I asked him (in Spanish) how many hours a day he spends in the mud. He said he's there all day and his skin is like the skin of a baby! haha

 

After the mud man finished my "massage," he said his last English phrase... "Stand up!" Huh? Stand up? But there's no bottom to this volcano! How am I supposed to stand?? As other tourists explained to me, it was best to push my knees down straight and that would pop my torso up so I could "stand" in the mud. Of course, it was more like vertically floating since my feet weren't planted on the ground, but close enough! This was probably the most fun part of the whole process as it was somewhat difficult to maintain your balance. If anyone bumped into me, or if I tried to turn my head to see what was happening around me, it would throw off my balance and I'd fall backwards into the mud (inevitably hitting someone next to me, causing them to lose balance, and it was like a dominos chain!). Once J finished his massage, at least we could hang onto each other to maintain our balance. We were allowed to remain in the mud as long as we wanted, so we spent some time rubbing in the mud a little more and taking in the scene.

 

 

Notice how close everyone was to each other? It got really crowded in there! I'm sure that was made worse by the fact that no one made us get out of the mud, but they constantly told new people to enter so it just got more crowded as time went on.

 

I'm not sure how he figured it out since I didn't tell him my camera had a video function (and my camera is not the most user-friendly camera to begin with), but Superman took a video of us in the mud! I am so grateful for that, as it does a great job of capturing all the excitement of that day...

 

[YOUTUBE]I8SzUcG_-o8[/YOUTUBE]

 

After a while, we were ready to get out of the mud... this is where things got really interesting! Remember how unsafe I felt climbing down the ladder to enter the mud? Well the ladder to exit the mud was significantly worse! While it was angled more than the other ladder so we didn't have to climb straight vertically up, the ladder was completely covered in dried mud caked onto every step, with a slick coating of slippery new mud from the people climbing out ahead of us. Not only that, but the steps slanted down towards the right so every time I stepped up onto a new step, both feet would slide towards the right side and it was very difficult to hold my balance and proceed to the next step! On the bright side, they had one mud man stationed at the base of the stairs to help scrape the excess mud off before I started to climb. Every step of the way, I was praying that I didn't fall off the ladder. I can't imagine that there hasn't been accidents here before- the whole thing just felt very unsafe and there's no way this would every fly in America! I guess that's what added to the cultural experience of it all! haha

 

 

Yay! I made it to the top!

[deladane]

Now it made sense why we weren't allowed to bring our flip flops to the top of the volcano! We were completely covered in mud and really didn't want to deal with shoes yet.

 

There was a separate staircase going down the other side of the volcano to climb back down to the ground. It was equally as steep and rocky as the stairs going up, but we had the added obstacle of being slippery with mud. I was relying so heavily on my arms to slowly lower myself onto each step that my arms were sore when I woke up the next morning!! When we got to the base of the stairs, the little boys had our flip flops lined up and they told us to put them on. We really didn't want to considering we were still covered in mud and didn't want to ruin our shoes, but we saw that we now had a long walk (approx. 300ft) to reach the washing stations and it was very rocky and the ground was hot, so we had no choice but to wear our flip flops. Huge warning to anyone who visits the mud volcano: it was extremely slippery trying to walk down this path, especially when wearing flip flops! We both came close to losing our balance and falling several times, and J's flip flops actually broke where the piece that goes between the toes ripped out of the sole of his shoe! He was left with broken flip flops for the rest of the day, and it wasn't like we were at a commercial port where he could buy a new pair.

 

When we got to the end of the path, there were a bunch of women lined up with huge buckets of water to clean us off. There used to be a lake here and we would have gone into the lake to clean off the mud, so this was their plan B during the drought. A woman approached me and asked me to sit down on a stool, and she proceeded to pour salt water all over me (so much so that it got in my eyes... owww!). She was extremely thorough and cleaned every part of me, including removing my ponytail elastic to clean my hair, and untying my bikini top to wash inside there, and down into the bottoms of my bikini too! Do not go to the volcano if you have any modesty at all!! It might not have been as bad if I was mostly submerged under water in a lake, but this was kind of uncomfortable knowing that other people could see me if they wanted to (although I actually don't think that was an issue as everyone down here was going through the same process, and Superman and his buddies still had all our cameras up by the volcano so no one could document the bathing scene for posterity haha).

 

After the salt water, the woman rinsed me again with fresh warm water. When she finished, we were free and done with the whole process. That's not to say that we were actually mud-free at this point, but we were done with what the volcano people had planned for us. We slipped and slid our way back up the hill along the dirt path to reach the showers near where our bus was parked. They had 3 outdoor showers side by side so it's not like I could get 100% clean, but I was able to be a little more thorough and get between my toes, inside my ears, and remove the rest of the mud from my scalp. I actually found more mud inside my ears and belly button when I got back to the ship, so I was happy I remembered to pack Q-tips! That mud got EVERYWHERE!

 

Once I was as clean as I could get, I got my bag back from the locker so I could towel dry off. Louisa served us slices of fresh watermelon as a snack and we waited for the others in our group to finish cleaning up. They also had a little stand selling bottles of beer for $2-$3 USD so we had some local beer while we waited. Around this time, the volcano employees came back to collect their tips, and this is when things got tricky. When we originally booked this excursion, we confirmed that it would be okay to tip the people at the volcano using US dollars, and Louisa re-confirmed that on the bus. She said it would cost $2 USD per each of the 3 services, which was technically more money than if we paid the 4000 Colombian pesos due to the exchange rate, but we were okay with overpaying by a little bit for the convenience of not having to change our money. I took 6 singles from my wallet and handed 2 bills to the lady who gave me my bath and she looked at it and asked for pesos. I told her (in Spanish) that Louisa said US dollars was okay and that this was more than enough money to cover the exchange rate but she kept hounding me for more money. I backed away and had Louisa handle it, but I could tell the bath lady was still staring at me. It was very uncomfortable and I still don't understand the problem. The exchange rate was 2500-2600 pesos to $1 USD, so $2 USD was way more than the 4000 pesos I owed and I don't know why this lady was being so aggressive. I paid Superman and finally got my camera back (it had been more than 45 minutes since I exited the mud and I was starting to wonder if I would ever see my camera again! haha), and one of the mud men came to collect the $2 for their tips pool. Once that was settled, I got back in the van and waited for everyone else... I was just trying to avoid any more conflict with the bath lady! I think Louisa eventually explained that she had more than enough money from me, but that whole situation felt very awkward and uncomfortable to me.

 

Everyone piled back into the van and we drove away at 12:15pm. Louisa originally said we had 1 hour to spend here, but it ended up being closer to 2 hours. We got to the end of the long driveway leaving El Totumo when someone from the back of the bus said we were missing 2 people! We turned around and Louisa got out of the bus to look for them, and spent a good 15-20 minutes searching but could not find them. I don't know what happened to them but I thought it was odd that these people wondered off. We were now one hour later than we were scheduled to leave. I can't imagine not thinking to keep tabs on at least a few of the others in my group to know when we were leaving! There was a second van from our same tour company, so 2 people from that van rode with us and the other van stayed later to look for the missing women. Louisa got a call 30 minutes later that they found the missing girls at one of the food stands. The volcano was literally in the middle of no where so they needed a ride back to Cartagena from a tour bus or they would never get back. They struck me as very irresponsible to let their bus leave without them so they were lucky that second bus was there.

 

Anyway, we drove back in the direction of Cartagena to a beach for lunch and arrived at 12:45pm. This beach is frequented by locals and was called La Boquilla. The sand was white and soft and stretched on for a great distance down the coast, but the water looked rough and grey and I wasn't tempted to swim in it.

 

 

 

Louisa said we would spend 1 hour here including time to eat lunch. We ate at an open air restaurant along the beach with a thatched roof called Donna's. Everyone on our bus sat at a long table and chatted while we waited for our food.

 

 

 

Lunch was very good, the chicken had a nice marinade, and the portions were generous. Louisa offered us bottles of water, coca cola, or fruit juice, and we enjoyed our meals and the views.

 

[deladane]

After everyone finished eating and our plates were cleared, Louisa gave no indication that we would leave soon, so we just sat there and talked. It was fun getting to know the others on our tour as there were a few couples from Australia who were on vacation for several months traveling around the world. It was so interesting to hear the stories of their travels, and they even taught us a few fun phrases that they use in Australia like "holy dooley" and "the cat's pajamas" haha

 

By 2pm, we were getting antsy. The original itinerary said we would be back at the cruise ship by 2:30pm. The beach was 30 minutes from the ship, plus we knew we had to drop off others at their hotels first. All aboard was at 4:30pm and we needed extra time to make the long walk back to the ship because J was hobbling on his broken flip flips, plus we had yet to buy any souvenirs in Colombia and had planned to do some shopping at the port before returning to the ship. I asked Louisa when we would leave and she indicated that we were staying at the beach longer. Everyone wanted to leave, and some others had other tours booked that afternoon so no one appreciated that we would be late for our planned return time. I explained that to Louisa and also that I was concerned the ship would leave without us if we were late. Remember that all of this communication was in Spanish so some things were probably lost in translation. At last, Louisa realized that we really had to leave, and at 2:30pm she showed us to a different van with 3 other couples and we left. Luckily, those 3 couples were at hotels in the old city, so it wasn't out of the way like when we went to Bocagrande that morning, and we arrived back at the cruise port at 3pm.

 

I was very disappointed to end the day on such a sour and stressful note since we had a great time at the volcano. I would highly recommend people in good physical shape and looking for an adventure book the trip to the mud volcano as it was an interesting part of Colombian culture. I would even say that you should book with Cartagena Connections as they responded to all of my emails with the planning process and their prices were reasonable. The only thing I would do different next time is that I would skip lunch at the beach. We had 3 options of how to book this tour:

 

1) Just the volcano

2) Volcano plus lunch at the beach

3) volcano, lunch at the beach, and kayaking through the mangroves

 

Option 3 wasn't scheduled to end until 5pm (and based on how late we were to everything, I think they wouldn't end until closer to 6 or 7 pm) so that wasn't an option with our 4:30pm all aboard time. I think the best and most valuable part of our day was the volcano, so I would skip the 2 hours at the beach if I could do it over.

 

Back at the port, we spent about 20 minutes buying souvenirs at the store, then walked back to the ship. I noticed my legs had reddish brown streaks all over them, likely from the clay in the mud- I looked like I did a bad job with a self-tanning lotion!

 

 

I have never wanted a shower so badly, and I spent over 30 minutes scrubbing off all the dirt. I apologize to Celebrity as I ruined their wash cloth with all the clay stains from scrubbing my skin haha Days later I was still finding red marks in hard to reach areas! We got dressed and went down to the Martini Bar at 5pm for some pre-dinner drinks. It is always fun to watch the excitement as they prepare our drinks! This is the Fresca Martini and the Sapphire Ginlet.

 

 

 

Very impressive to watch Yopi pour all 4 drinks at once! The blue one was the Tropitini.

 

[YOUTUBE]28_-tCUpdPY[/YOUTUBE]

 

Beautiful view of the sunset over Cartagena as we sailed away

[Hugahav]

Just wanted to post and tell you how much I'm enjoying your review and beautiful pictures. I appreciate all the information and tips you're providing. Looks like you two had a wonderful trip!

[Cindy]

Now it made sense why we weren't allowed to bring our flip flops to the top of the volcano! We were completely covered in mud and really didn't want to deal with shoes yet.

 

 

I love the smiles on your faces, and I loved reading about your adventure! Your description was great, and I feel quite sure your review is the closest I'll ever come to doing something like that!:rolleyes: The thought of having mud in various nooks and crannies doesn't do much for me!:eek: I'm glad you enjoyed...it certainly sounds like a "once in a lifetime" kind of thing!

[deladane]

Just wanted to post and tell you how much I'm enjoying your review and beautiful pictures. I appreciate all the information and tips you're providing. Looks like you two had a wonderful trip!

 

We did! Thanks for reading along :)

 

 

I love the smiles on your faces, and I loved reading about your adventure! Your description was great, and I feel quite sure your review is the closest I'll ever come to doing something like that!:rolleyes: The thought of having mud in various nooks and crannies doesn't do much for me!:eek: I'm glad you enjoyed...it certainly sounds like a "once in a lifetime" kind of thing!

 

Haha! I'm glad you enjoyed living vicariously through our adventure!! We knew going into it that this was the kind of activity where we needed to be all in... you can't do this half-way! It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience, but it was one of my favorite days of the cruise because it was just so out there and different from what we usually do on cruises lol

[matondo]

We took basically the same cruise in 2014. I wish we had spent the night in Cartaegna looks like you all had a wonderful time.

 

Thank you for all the time and effort you have put into this review.

[ImpulsivePuppy]

What a phenomenal review! Thank you so much for doing this. Excited to look at your pics as my wife and I will be doing this cruise in December. So hard to wait, reviews like this help!

[Woobstr112G]

More great pictures.....:):):)

 

Bob

[deladane]

We took basically the same cruise in 2014. I wish we had spent the night in Cartaegna looks like you all had a wonderful time.

 

Thank you for all the time and effort you have put into this review.

 

Thanks for reading along! We did have a wonderful cruise, and I'm having fun reliving it by writing this review :D I really enjoyed staying overnight in Cartagena, and I look forward to having an overnight stay in Aruba on my next Celebrity cruise. It's such a unique opportunity to stay overnight docked in a port, so I wanted to take advantage of it!!

[deladane]

What a phenomenal review! Thank you so much for doing this. Excited to look at your pics as my wife and I will be doing this cruise in December. So hard to wait, reviews like this help!

 

I hope you find my review helpful in your planning process! Please let me know if you have any questions about the ship or things to do in each of the ports :) I know how hard it is to wait it out until your cruise... we booked this cruise 10 months in advance, we booked our upcoming honeymoon cruise 20 months in advance, and we booked our Eclipse cruise 2 years in advance!!! Those two cruises are so far away that it's hard to imagine I'll ever get to take them! Like you, I love reading other detailed reviews to pass the time :D

[deladane]

More great pictures.....:):):)

 

Bob

 

Thank you!!

[eurotraveller1]

Thank you for this amazing report and for taking the time to write about it. I just keep reading it while I'm waiting for my sailing aboard the Eclipse on July.

 

I laughed with the pictures of the green food on St Patrick's.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Cancruz]

Loving all your adventures and pics!!! We have been to all of the ports, but not on Equinox. We will sail on her in early NOV. DH is handicapped; cruising allows him travel freedom.

 

I am very adventurous which is okay with my DH as long as I go with others. Our adult DDs are not so happy with me. So, when I started reading your volcano adventure, I thought this is great! Before you finished the ladder scenario, I was out :eek:

 

Thanks for allowing me to tag along with your adventures. BTW try an almond joy martini w/chocolate - best ever!

[shipshape sam]

Maybe I can check the mud volcano off my list now enjoying it here. :)

 

Loved the pics and video and description/commentary. The Martini's were a great end of day choice!

Edited May 4, 2016 by shipshape sam

[Jiminy1955]

We really wanted to sail on Celebrity & are booked on the Equinox in March 2017.

However I just read a Celebrity Today from February 2016 on the Equinox posted on someones blog. It says "guests are asked to follow the Smart Casual & above dress code in the Equinox Theater for all evening performances". Does this apply to the bars & lounges too? We, DH especially, usually change into more comfortable clothes after dinner. I'm looking for opinions as to whether we should change our cruise to Royal or stick this one out and just change after attending the first performance.

Edited May 5, 2016 by Jiminy1955

[Cindy]

We really wanted to sail on Celebrity & are booked on the Equinox in March 2017.

However I just read a Celebrity Today from February 2016 on the Equinox posted on someones blog. It says "guests are asked to follow the Smart Casual & above dress code in the Equinox Theater for all evening performances". Does this apply to the bars & lounges too? We, DH especially, usually change into more comfortable clothes after dinner. I'm looking for opinions as to whether we should change our cruise to Royal or stick this one out and just change after attending the first performance.

 

Lynn, I saw a little bit of everything in there. I don't think you should worry about it.