Celebrity Equinox Rocks

After doing about a dozen cruises in a row with Royal Caribbean, we opted for a change this year and booked an 11-day cruise on the Celebrity Equinox. Over the past three or four years, there has been a noticeable decline in the quality of our cruises on Royal Caribbean...particularly the food. We are certainly not food snobs, but we do expect a variety of decent food on a cruise. On our last cruise with RC, it was very disappointing to see the exact same food in the buffet night after night. And, we had only gone to the buffet because the service in the main dining room was so bad.

Enter the Celebrity Equinox, and welcome to the wonderful world of cruising again! The ship is clean and up to date. Every staff member we encountered was friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. There is always something to do aboard the ship, even on the sea days (we had four on this cruise). The food, both in the main dining room and the buffet, was very good. We dined one night in one of the specialty restaurants, Murano, and the food and service were outstanding.

For our desires, the Equinox is the perfect size ship...not too big, and not too small. We have no desire to cruise on the mega-ships, like Royal's Oasis or Allure. We are more about the ports, and getting there in comfort. This cruise, we visited Cartagena, Columbia; Colon, Panama; Limon, Costa Rica; Grand Cayman; and, Cozumel. We had a great time during all of our port stops, and did some amazing things: Went through the Panama Canal on a ferry; zip lining in the rain forest in Costa Rica; Segway riding around the old city in Cartagena; and scuba diving in Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

My wife probably looks upon our cruise adventures with more of a critical eye than I do, and she has commented that our cruise aboard the Equinox is her second favorite of all time (her favorite is still our very first cruise). Given the wonderful time we had aboard the Equinox, I doubt we will be cruising with Royal Caribbean any time soon. In fact, our next two cruises are already booked with Celebrity!