I have been cruising with Celebrity since '99 and have enjoyed many major milestones with the cruise line i.e. honeymoon, anniversaries, kids birthdays, hubbies, and now my big 50 birthday cruise. We did fly in a day ahead and stayed at the Embassy Suites. The hotel was clean but pricey. It was close to shopping so this was convenient to leave out items from our luggage and just purchase them when we got there. I am referring to liquids to keep weight down on our luggage from hair care products to the two bottles of wine we can bring onboard. We completely missed the managers reception they offer since we were late getting in and did not know the morning breakfast shuts down at 9:00 a.m. on Monday. This would have been nice if they mentioned anything about the breakfast when we checked in. Moving on we knew we would have more than enough to eat when we arrived at the ship. The pier check in was smooth but security was extremely rude. This is the first time I encountered such rudeness and just overall attitude. Our computers frequently cause an extra check so we are used to that but the agent was in need of personality adjustment. The Celebrity staff was very nice and promptly processed us in. Moving on our champagne was waiting and we were on our way.

The ship is beautiful and this is our 3rd "S" class ship. We have been on Solstice and Silhouette which are very similar. The Equinox is very clean and well maintained with staff constantly working on keeping it that way. The music level was not a problem. The only place I heard any techno sound was the molecular bar walking through the shop area. The music or entertainment on deck 3 near guest relations is loud and filters through the ship but is not offensive. I found on more than one occasion this led to dance contests in elevators. The ship's activity staff has a wide variety of things to do throughout the sea days or plenty of space to curl up with a good read if you choose. We never had a problem finding a chair! However, we did sit all the way up on deck 15 and warning to those going up there, even if the sun is not out the burn is real. Stayed too long and paid the price. The top deck is very windy and you do not feel the heat.

We did all our shore excursions through the ship and were not disappointed with any of them. One of the excursions in Cartagena skipped a stop that was listed and before we got back to the ship we already had a credit from guest relations along with a phone message and also a letter apologizing for the inconvenience. Wow - I didn't even bring it up but kudos to guest relations for being on top of this. Our excursions were Tour of Cartagena, Panama Canal and Gatun Lake, Costa Rica Veragua Rain Forest and Aerial Tram, Belize Cave Tubing & Cozumel Playa Mia Beach break. The first day in Grand Cayman we just took a cab to the beach on our own. If you would like more details about the tours please ask but all were very informative and enjoyable. This is one of the things about cruising that I love so much there is so much to learn and explore. Read more