Trip Report: Celebrity Equinox Spain-France-Italy-Greece (July 2-9, 2016)

[jb008]

Equinox: Spain, France, Italy, Greece - July 2nd - 9th

Barcelona, Spain; Provence (via Toulon), France; Genoa, Italy; Rome (via Civitavecchia), Italy; Amalfi Coast (via Salerno), Italy; Chania (via Souda),Crete, Greece; Athens (Piraeus Port), Greece

 

 

TL;DR - Great Med cruise, scoring a cheap suite guarantee was cool, enjoyed sailing X:Equinox, made deposits on future cruises. :)

 

 

Background:

DW and I are young professionals, both in our early 30s, from WNY. We've cruised the Bahamas/Caribbean multiple times before, most recently w/Princess in 2012, Jewel OTS in 2013, and Summit in Jan. ’16. We're not highly sporty, but do enjoy light hiking, snorkeling, and a little adventure. We are not gourmet foodies, but have dined at a few famous restaurants and eat out regularly (but also are cool with hitting up a chain casual restaurant). This was my first trip to Europe, and DW had been there ~15 years ago.

 

Pre-cruise travel (Day 0):

We flew into Paris, arriving Thurs AM for a Saturday Embarkation. We powered through the day as long as possible, crashed before sunset, and were pretty much on EU time by Friday AM. Paris was fun, and we flew to Barcelona Friday afternoon. We got into BCN and to the Hilton Barcelona by about 4p, dropped off luggage and used the public transit to do some sightseeing and grabbed a local casual dinner.

 

Barcelona - Embarkation (Day 1):

We got up early and poked around the hotel for a bit. We headed to the ship about 11 AM, and were checked in immediately - I think from arrival roadside to our welcome glass of bubbly took under 25 mins. We did get to use the suite registration line (which probably saved us 5 minutes). We dropped off luggage to the suite lounge (Michael’s Club), hung out there for about an hour, then went for lunch. Rooms were ready right about 1p.

 

Room:

We were in an S2 Sky Suite, room 2123. This location was right under ocean view cafe (towards the front) and we didn’t really notice any major noise issues and would happily take a similar too in the future. Our past sailing was in a C2 concierge room and the S2 gets you a bigger room (I’d say ~3 feet wider and 4 feet longer) and a larger bathroom (full size tub-shower, which was great). Balcony sported a round table, two chairs with separate foot rests, and a lot of elbow room. I’ll expand on the suite perks in a separate section.

 

Port of Toulon, Provence Region, France (Day 2):

We did a best of Provence Tour through X. Visited several seaside towns, had some free time for lunch (opted for inexpensive pizza-bread from a bakery and bottled water, <8 euros for a light lunch for two of us), bus ride tour back include a drive through Marseille. We felt like we got a nice basic overview of the region and were fine having booked through X (prebooked online).

 

Genoa, Italy (Day 3):

We had wanted to do a Cinque Terre tour, however these sold out (due to limits on how many people can visit CT, tours there can apparently sell out pretty quickly). We instead booked a Pesto tasting tour onboard. It included a nice walking tour of Rapallo, followed by a demo and lunch at a nearby hillside restaurant. Rapallo was great for shopping for souvenirs, and we only found out afterwards that their local olive oil is somewhat distinct, tending towards a miler flavor than oils from other regions.

 

Port of Civitavecchia for Rome, Italy (Day 4)

The port is about 60 km north of Rome, requiring some form of ground transport to get to Rome. We opted for the Imperial Rome tour through X, which we prebooked online. The tour included St. Peter's Basilica, Trevi Fountain, Lunch, Roman Forums, and the Colosseum. The tour group was a little large, but didn't detract from the experience, and our tour guide was AMAZING (yes, this would probably be excursion dependent, however I have to assume that X can get some preferential treatment in this area versus an indy operator). The lunch was pretty simple, tasty but nothing special (though advertised as lunch at a 4-star hotel). This tour was great, but Rome really can't be seen in a single day. Covered knees was loosely enforced at the Vatican, more so for women - tip (esp for guys) is to pack a longer pair of shorts. I wore pants and deeply regretted this on the 90 degF+ sunny day we had.

 

Salerno, Italy (Day 5) - Amalfi Coast

We did the behind the scenes Pompeii excursion (precise name escapes me, but it involved the lab tour at Pompeii). I really loved getting into the labs, but the tour guide was a little sparse on information for the rest of Pompeii - I saw a number of guests with handheld devices that gave more information about the specific numbered placards. Pompeii was very neat to see, and then we also had a short visit to do some souvenir shopping nearby. Probably could save some money by doing this independently, but it's about a 20 km drive from Port to Pompeii, so the X transfers aren't terribly overpriced.

 

Sea Day (Day 6)

 

Chania, Greece (Day 7)

We did the "Treasures of Cretan Cuisine" X excursion. This involved a coastal drive, a stop at the small soap factory, and a visit to a Winery/Olive press with a simple (but delicious) lunch and wine tasting. Olive oil her was very cost effective (and DELICIOUS) with 250/500/750 mL of organic EVOO running 3.10/6.00/8.40 euros, and the conventional EVOO 250/500/750/1000 mL costing 2.40/4.80/6.00/7.80 euros. Baggage fees on packing this home probably reduced the cost effectiveness of buying the olive oil at the source though :)

 

We really enjoyed this excursion, although there wasn't much history involved so think of this more like a visit to a winery & oil press than a traditional multi-stop sightseeing tour.

 

Piraeus Port, Athens, Greece - Disembarkation (Day 8):

Disembarkation was quick - being in a suite we basically were told to disembark at our leisure, but to vacate cabins NO later than 8 AM. We left the cabin, headed to Luminae for breakfast, and then disembarked from there. We were meeting a small group we'd coordinated via the Roll Call for a tour & transfer at 9 AM, so we aimed to walk off the ship at about 8:30ish. Walking off was quick, no longer than disembarking at various ports. Since this was all within the EU, there was no customs at the pier so we only needed to grab our bags and go (took us about 10 mins from the final card scan to being at the pickup area - we use bright luggage straps so finding the bag takes 2 seconds flat). There was basically no shade at the Athens port, so aim for as short of a wait as possible (although there were lines of taxis waiting to whisk you off to your next destination, so the waiting really only applied for pre-booked transfers).

 

Specific to this trip, there was a luggage SNAFU and 1 cart of the bags from the suites was accidentally sent to the airport instead of available ship-side. This did affect one of the people in our tour group, X filled out some forms, and the bag was waiting for them at the hotel by the time our indy tour/transfer was over.

 

Tour & Transfer - I didn't arrange this, but "Pismo" from our Roll Call had selected PK Tours in Athens, and the company did a great job. Driver was very informative, friendly, entertaining, and accommodated a change on the fly (opted for lunch over one of the tour items) with ease. Shout out to Pismo and LB - Great tour w/you all, thanks again!!

 

We stayed at the Hilton Athens, hotel was solid, but not close to any touristy sites (though did have Acropolis views - although there's a temporary crane partially obstructing the view from the executive floor, roof was unobstructed, as were some of the lower floors). Taxi from there to the airport was flat rate, and the front desk was able to actually charge that to my room (since I was running low on euro currency at that point).

 

Airport:

Sunday mid-morning, trip to airport took about 35m but was told this can take up to an hour or more with traffic (depending on when you go). Check-in was straightforward, I got my VAT refund stamped here versus at my final EU airport (whether they were supposed to do that or not was unclear, but they didn't seem to care).

 

Flying out of Athens and connecting via Rome (FCO) to North America had us doing passport exit stamps in Rome (which had no priority line and took about 40 mins) so our 1h35m layover felt rushed (they started boarding the transatlantic flight about 45-50 mins before departure, so if you're going to need to fight for overhead bin space take the timing into account).

 

 

Dining Experiences:

-Since we were in a Sky Suite we opted to eat in Luminae every night. MDR menu items were available, although some servers were less enthusiastic about that option (Tyrone was a fantastic server, and if he's still there he's worth requesting!)

 

-My wife was unimpressed with the Luminae menu, it basically features higher cost ingredients with dishes prepared in much smaller volume (made to order?) and thus made with more attention to details. She ordered off the MDR menu most of the time. I mixed and matched apps from both, but mostly ordered entrees from L. Servers seemed fine with ordering multiple apps and/or 2 entrees. Service was much less hurried and tables spaced out much more than in the MDR. I definitely liked eating in Luminae, and it's a nice perk but how to value it was a bit fuzzier.

 

 

-Buffet food was very well executed although we didn't eat their much. Stations are laid out better than on Summit and seemed to handle crowds fairly well. Dinner (or pre-dinner snack?) included a sushi bar every day for those that look for sushi.

 

On board experience:

-Staff customer service and friendliness were top notch throughout the cruise!

 

-Live musicians and guest performers were all entertaining, with the dancers and singers all being above average. We noted that some of the dance routines were impressive and timing for dancers’ choreography was excellent! EQ featured acrobatics and pilobolus-style dancing that was very cool, and the aerial wire routines were AWESOME! Of interest, the music selections are starting to skew to newer music - it may be a love/hate thing, but as older millenials DW and I found it an improvement over the musical selections on all of our previous cruises.

 

-Outside entertainers were a bit of an odd mix for the evening shows. We skipped one that just sounded boring, and they brought in a ventriloquist for another of the evening acts that was fine but not very memorable.

 

-We also caught some of the lounge singers/performers, and they were very solid.

 

-Equinox also features the Hot Glass at Sea demos, which were very neat to watch, and the auction on the last sea day was pretty thinly attended. Getting glass home probably isn't trivial, but the sense I had was that pieces there sold at discount to what the items would cost ashore.

 

-Bars started running out of fresh mint about mid-way through the cruise, not sure if this was a side effect of more people having drink pkgs, but this definitely put a damper on the smoothies & mojitos.

 

Thoughts on Suite/Suite Perks:

We booked a suite guarantee as an upgrade after final payment deadline, for ~$150pp, however we had already paid for Go Best perks which were complimentary w/the suite but were unable to get the $310pp from that refunded via our TA (another couple that booked direct through X was able to get that refunded so YMMV). My TA indicates that GO perks can be added pre-cruise up to late in the game, so my future tactic will probably be to hold off on paid GO perk upgrades until very close in to sailing in the event I catch an upgrade fare drop like this in the future.

 

The room was nice, with the extra room in the bathroom and balcony being really appreciated (extra space in the room wasn’t as valuable to us). We didn’t really make use of the butler service, other than some of the tea time snacks offered (though nothing of real value to us here). Michael’s Club concierge did handle a somewhat unique request to get me the song list from one of the production shows, I’m not sure if this would have been possible otherwise (but not a major value add). If you like being recognized by name at a bar, the Michael’s Club is also good for that, albeit a very quiet and very small bar. Also the MC drinks are free (although if you already have the drink pkg w/a suite then this is a marginal add-on too) and they seemed more concerned about you being happy versus you keeping the free drink in the lounge.

 

The other suite perks were nice, most of them probably weren’t game changers other than Luminae. We used the sit down lunch on embarkation, but sit down lunch is also offered for Concierge (albeit at different dining room).

 

Currency:

Hilton Barcelona would charge currency to your room, up to 30 Euros were no charge, >30 was a 5% service fee. This was the best rate I found to get currency (in hindsight, I wish I’d gotten more here). My credit card carries no foreign exchange fee, so anything charged in euros gets the prevailing rate on that day. Purchasing Euros from Guest Services onboard carried a roughly 12.5% fee, it was still cheaper than my home bank and credit union, but the Hilton Barcelona was cheaper (and generated Hilton points and more credit card spend). I had planned to use Uber in multiple cities, but found that cars were much less available than anticipated (or was no longer in cities of interest e.g., BCN). I was able to get the taxi charged to my room at the Hilton Athens, but they wouldn’t charge currency back to the room like Hilton Barcelona.

 

In Closing:

The Mediterranean itinerary was really nice, and we had another great Celebrity cruise. There’s nothing that stood out as having gone poorly or that we remarked they should have done differently, we felt we got a good value for what we spent. Perhaps most telling, we put our money where our mouth is and made a deposit on a future X cruise before disembarkation :)

 

Thanks for your time and interest! I saved copies of the Equinox Today daily agenda and most of the paperwork handed out over the course of the cruise if anyone’s interested in more details on anything specific. I also saved a set of the Classic level coupons for reference as well. The most notable of the discounts was a 10% savings on internet packages (not the by the minute rate) and a coupon for free gelato - the Select discount on internet was 25%.

Edited August 11, 2016 by jb008

[drychi]

We appreciate your observations about your cruise on this ship. We will be on Equinox in May, 2017 during her Caribbean sailings. Happy Cruising! Bob and Linda

[Tommy3putts]

Glad you had a great cruise. Thank you for the informative review.

[Texed]

Equinox: Spain, France, Italy, Greece - July 2nd - 9th.

 

We were on this cruise also. So, thanks for posting. :)

Edited August 11, 2016 by Texed

[jb008]

Howdy Texed! :)

 

One small addition - if memory serves me right, the Connection party was the evening of embarkation and required ducking out on the last ~15m of the evening show in order to be there for the party kickoff (7:45p). The Cruise Director was in attendance for it, and our turnout was pretty low (probably due to when they scheduled it).

[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.

[Clarea]

Well written report, thanks.

[easyboy]

Thanks for your report.

[vana]

Thank you for the report. Did you, by any chance, keep the "who's on board'' paper. We will be on Equinox soon and wanted to know who's there as a cc host, captain, etc.

 

Thank you

[jb008]

Thank you for the report. Did you, by any chance, keep the "who's on board'' paper. We will be on Equinox soon and wanted to know who's there as a cc host, captain, etc.

 

Thank you

 

Yes - I'll try to find it to post this evening.

[Texed]

We will be on Equinox soon and wanted to know who's there as a cc host' date=' captain, etc. Thank you[/quote']

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=50463825&postcount=4266

 

I posted this after our cruise. :)

[DrivesLikeMario]

Excellent review, thank you! Welcome home! :)

[vana]

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=50463825&postcount=4266

 

I posted this after our cruise. :)

 

Thank you! We had Ana on our June Alaska cruise on Infinity... She want to Europe fast.

[jb008]

Thank you! We had Ana on our June Alaska cruise on Infinity... She want to Europe fast.

 

Some of the senior staff can move around very rapidly. We sailed on Summit in January and Nina was onboard then, and was on EQ in July. I asked her about it and I think she said she was on Summit for "only a few weeks" before coming to EQ (I didn't ask where she was before that though).