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Things I Learned About Celebrity Sailing out of Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale FL. .......


JeffB

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Sailing on Celebrity Equinox out of Fort Lauderdale on a 12n S. Caribbean Itinerary as I write this. This isn't going to be a cruise review. See the subject line.

We live in Fort Lauderdale. We're lucky and have friends that will drive us to the port (Terminal 25). You can park steps away from the Terminal 25. Convenient but expensive ($10/day). Come a day or 2 early, park in your accommodation's lot and take a shuttle or Uber/Lyft. That's going to be cheaper unless your cruise is 5d or less.

Don't bother arriving before your scheduled boarding time. Boarding times are enforced by terminal staff (not Celebrity employees). The boarding process is organized, plenty of staff to guide you (and herd the guests). They are good at what they do. Follow instructions.

Have hard copies of you boarding pass, vax card and test results. Organize them for easy access and display to staff when they ask for them. Don't count on finding that stuff on your phone! Guests behind you will appreciate that. 

Check in is entirely digital. It helps if you do everything you're asked to do before boarding ..... Celebrity will send you lots of emails to insure you know what to do. Do it. Other guests wanting to board expeditiously will appreciate that you were prepared.

Terminal staff use tablets and scan documents. Your Sea Pass card (room key) will be in the holder at your cabin.

Avoid the elevator (1 of 4 blocks of 4 cars) adjacent to where the gangway brings you to the ship's entry way on deck 5. Go all the way forward or aft and use those elevators. Avoids all the guests standing around the entry way wondering where to go.

You'll have local network (4 or 5g) connection on your phone until your around 6 miles off shore. To connect to the ship's wifi to use the Celebrity App aboard, select wifi in your settings and click on the Celebrity Equinox Wifi link. Follow the on screen instructions to connect (You can select your internet package here) to set up your account and pass word. Once you've done that and had a look at the Celebrity App, you can use your connection to the 4g/5g local area network to make phone calls, texts etc. 

Don't forget to put your phone in Airplane Mode as you sail out of the port and leave the range of the local area network. If you don't you'll connect to Cellular at Sea for phone and texts. Unless you have a huge bank account, you'll want to avoid connecting to it. After switching on the airplane mode, go back to settings and turn your wifi back on. Connect to the Equinox wifi and sign back in. 

The ship's Wifi is OK for most things you will want to do on the internet. You can't stream with the standard package. I don't think it is worth it to buy the streaming upgrade. It's not cheap. (pricing and that option will appear when you set up your onboard wifi account I described above).

I learned that just recently, crew from countries previously denied access to the US because of the vaccinations they received in their home countries were not approved by the US CDC. That's been resolved. Accordingly, crew staffing has improved dramatically and Equinox was being staffed for a full passenger load (about 2800 guests).

Before the sail date, there were 2200 guests who had booked this sailing. within the last three weeks before the sailing there were in the neighborhood of 400 cancellations (Fears of Omicron?). The ship sailed with roughly 1800 passengers and a full compliment of around 1260 crew members.

Circulating wait staff in the restaurants bars and lounges were notably more numerous than when we sailed Apex in July, Equinox in August and Millennium in November. We've sailed aboard Equinox maybe 6 or more times. Staff friendliness, engagement and service were outstanding as usual .... partly because of increased numbers of crew but mostly because Celebrity in general and Equinox in particular pride themselves in delivering excellence.  

Hope you learned something new here. I'll post again if anything new comes to me.

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.......... interesting observation: About a week prior to this 12n, S. Caribbean sailing on Equinox, I received an itinerary update. As I'm in the remain flexible mode, I paid little attention to the modifications which involved COVID measures implemented by local health authorities in the ports to be visited. One of the changes was new restriction on going ashore on your own in the 7 ports of call on this sailing. Only way to go ashore was with a Celebrity curated tour with one exception that allowed you to go ashore but a restriction to remain within the port shopping area. Within this area, you could book "government approved" tours by local vendors.  

I had a private tour booked with a local vendor in Barbados. After contacting him, he told me he was not "a government approved" tour operator and I had to cancel. Of the 7 ports visited on this itinerary only one allowed you to disembark at the port and explore on your own (Antigua and Barbuda). All ports stipulated masks to be worn indoors and outdoors regardless of vaccination status.

I find this both troubling and these kinds of COVID measures to become more common and more restrictive. While there is a trend within western governments, not including Canada and others that are already returning to very restrictive containment measures in the face of Omicron, to recognize that managing SARS2 and it's variants can be done more wisely than imposing the draconian, costly and largely ineffective mitigation measures of the last 15 months. I doubt that is going to happen in Caribbean governments. What will be interesting is how the cruise industry will engage local public health officials at all the ports cruise ships call on, both in the Caribbean and globally, in an effort to continue cruise operations going forward in this emerging reality of persistent SARS2 and COVID presence. 

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On 12/16/2021 at 10:44 AM, JeffB said:

.......... interesting observation: About a week prior to this 12n, S. Caribbean sailing on Equinox, I received an itinerary update. As I'm in the remain flexible mode, I paid little attention to the modifications which involved COVID measures implemented by local health authorities in the ports to be visited. One of the changes was new restriction on going ashore on your own in the 7 ports of call on this sailing. Only way to go ashore was with a Celebrity curated tour with one exception that allowed you to go ashore but a restriction to remain within the port shopping area. Within this area, you could book "government approved" tours by local vendors.  

I had a private tour booked with a local vendor in Barbados. After contacting him, he told me he was not "a government approved" tour operator and I had to cancel. Of the 7 ports visited on this itinerary only one allowed you to disembark at the port and explore on your own (Antigua and Barbuda). All ports stipulated masks to be worn indoors and outdoors regardless of vaccination status.

I find this both troubling and these kinds of COVID measures to become more common and more restrictive. While there is a trend within western governments, not including Canada and others that are already returning to very restrictive containment measures in the face of Omicron, to recognize that managing SARS2 and it's variants can be done more wisely than imposing the draconian, costly and largely ineffective mitigation measures of the last 15 months. I doubt that is going to happen in Caribbean governments. What will be interesting is how the cruise industry will engage local public health officials at all the ports cruise ships call on, both in the Caribbean and globally, in an effort to continue cruise operations going forward in this emerging reality of persistent SARS2 and COVID presence. 

Just as we get a glimmer of normalcy, another excuse slaps the process down.  On our next cruise (next week), any excursions were booked through the line (as I'm reading many of these islands have prohibited private touring (which of course the lines honor).  The entire travel/hospitality industry is being diminished.  I'm curious if RCL and other lines move to bring all the ships back is prudent with the stop n go policies that will continue well into 2022.

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On 12/18/2021 at 9:16 AM, cruisellama said:

Just as we get a glimmer of normalcy, another excuse slaps the process down.  On our next cruise (next week), any excursions were booked through the line (as I'm reading many of these islands have prohibited private touring (which of course the lines honor).  The entire travel/hospitality industry is being diminished.  I'm curious if RCL and other lines move to bring all the ships back is prudent with the stop n go policies that will continue well into 2022.

Judging the impact of Omicron on RCL's operational plans is speculative but I don't think there is any question that corporate is looking at this. Based on our experience on Equinox right now, port status changes day to day. When we boarded 9 days ago, only 1 port out of 7 allowed touring on your own (Antigua). Today, in St. Kitts, we can tour on our own. Go figure????

We've also not been advised to mask indoors or alerted by email that a cruise we're taking in February aboard Reflection will require masks indoors. I'm suspecting that will change. I can make a case that while masking was arguably only minimally effective in preventing the spread of SARS2, given the 5 fold increase in transmissibility of the Omicron variant compared to Delta, masking indoors makes sense, I'd say less so outdoors. Personally, I can deal with this.

I believe we're in a wait and see mode with respect to Omicron and more importantly on the disease impact it will have. I feel the masking steps Carnival, NCL and RCL are implementing, with a known end-point date reflects that. The lines will continue to assess rates of infection given established health protocols and disease impact on board their ships and decide what easing or tightening of health protocols will be required. Ports of call will be doing the same, hopefully not in the panic mode.

Unfortunately, the world is in panic mode wrt Omicron. Increased transmissibility is behind it. Context, no surprise, is absent. The lack of it in the public domain does not mean it is not available to public heath officials yet lock-downs and boarder crossing closures, intended to reduce human mobility and contact, is on-going. Apparently, there is no real cost/benefit analysis being done before taking these more draconian steps. Does the disease impact measured by hospitalizations and deaths warrant tight restrictions to mobility and social contacts? Clearly not yet. Well see. The cruise industry is going to come under increasing pressure to stop or significantly reduce operations to ostensibly curtail the spread of Omicron without any substantial evidence that cruise ship movement is a source of it. In fact, the evidence is strong that it is not. No matter.

I do see some evidence that government officials are more reluctant to impose lock-downs and shutter businesses or direct cancellation of events where there are people congregating and risk of spread is increased. Caribbean governments have been highly conservative while at the same time providing windows for their tourism based economies to operate. For example, unrestricted access to a port and surrounding areas may not be allowed but certain areas, usually areas in contact with the port itself can be accessed by cruise ship passengers. I'm also finding that "government approved" tours can be booked at the port. Yesterday in Barbados, you could debark into the port area and shop there and it looked like grabbing a taxi tour was easy. I suppose there is probably a government defined process for a taxi to get a port pass and then hire passengers. My point is that Caribbean governments are working to protect tourism by being sensible about COVID risks. As well, with the COVID circumstances in short notice flux, the cruise line may not be in the loop.

One additional comment on Friday's fake cruise news appearing in USA Today about 50 COVID positives on an RCL ship embellished with the headline from the source used in their story, "cruise lines suppress information."  https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2021/12/articles/disease/covid-19-cases-increase-on-cruise-ships-as-lines-suppress-information/

Patently false. First, I've been on seven Celebrity cruises since June 26th including the first revenue sailing on that date from Piraeus (Athens Greece) on Apex. On 3 of those 7 cruises, there were announcements by the captain of positive COVID cases aboard. All of them involved one positive case obtained from self reporting to medical and up to 7 close contacts identified through security cameras all of whom reportedly were tested negative. Protocols were followed, no out breaks occurred on board and ships embarking in ports of calls, according to the lack of press reports of such events, surely something that the press would have jumped on were not the cause of spreading SARS2 infections.

Second, RCL or Celebrity have no duty or responsibility to tell the press anything about COVID cases aboard. If the press wants factual information about the numbers of cases on board any cruise ship currently operating it's available at the CDC web site. Where's the "surge?" There isn't one and the reason is because cruise industry COVID protocols are better at preventing the spread of disease than any place on the face of the earth. Is there a possibility that cases will increase? Yes. IMO, how COVID cases are handled per guidelines by the cruise industry is a spectacularly effective example of how to do it.

You're going to hear a lot of misinformation about COVID in general and about how the cruise industry specifically is dealing with Omicron. If you want to take a look at the factual numbers for any cruise ship in operation, here's the CDC link to the section that provides it. At the link, you have to scroll down to the chart you want to use. You also have to study what comes before it to understand what the chart data means - that's one of the reasons the MSM doesn't use it. Too much work. Just lie, it's easier.

From the chart at the link, Symphony embarked an assumed 60% of capacity or about 3500 passengers - I suspect it was less than that. There are probably 1300 crew aboard. Symphony was designated "yellow" status by the CDC on Friday, the 18th (the chart is current as of the 17th). To cross the threshold from green to yellow, 0.7% of travelers (includes crew and passengers) have tested positive for COVID. That's roughly 34 COVID positives aboard. To cross the threshold from "yellow" to "red" requires a number of factors be present such as medical facilities being overwhelmed - obviously that never happened. So, maybe 34 cases tops. Not a "surge", not 50, not 44 among other erroneously reported numbers of positive cases on Symphony I've seen reported today. No "suppressing" information on COVID cases by the cruise lines. It's all right there at the CDC web site but, wait, requires some digging to find it. 

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/cruise/management/technical-instructions-for-cruise-ships.html#green-ship

The most important lesson learned out of the Symphony COVID cases is that SARS2 and all it's variants cannot be eradicated; the virus will be present for the long term, perhaps forever. But it CAN be managed. The ship and shore facilities followed protocols to protect other passengers and crew from becoming infected. By the prompt isolation and transport of all the positives on board ship, the community was protected. Think you'll hear that from the MSM. Nope.

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21 minutes ago, mac66 said:

It now seems possible that cruises could be canceled in the near future and/or next year.

I wouldn't go that far. I believe the lines are in a wait and see mode. The anecdotal evidence regarding Omicron is encouraging and seems to be getting better with time. It should be about another 2w for hard data to either support or refute the encouraging trends. 

You wouldn't know that from COVID information available in the public domain as presented to us by social or main stream media. I can see why you would worry about cancellations.

There is also evidence that governments are becoming more reluctant to impose overly restrictive mitigation measures or if they do impose them, they are of short duration. As well, the argument that SARS2 is not going to be eradicated and will probably be around for the long term, perhaps forever, is causing governments to take positions that  SARS2 and the disease it causes - COVID - is manageable. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/19/2021 at 2:58 PM, JeffB said:

I wouldn't go that far. I believe the lines are in a wait and see mode. The anecdotal evidence regarding Omicron is encouraging and seems to be getting better with time. It should be about another 2w for hard data to either support or refute the encouraging trends. 

You wouldn't know that from COVID information available in the public domain as presented to us by social or main stream media. I can see why you would worry about cancellations.

There is also evidence that governments are becoming more reluctant to impose overly restrictive mitigation measures or if they do impose them, they are of short duration. As well, the argument that SARS2 is not going to be eradicated and will probably be around for the long term, perhaps forever, is causing governments to take positions that  SARS2 and the disease it causes - COVID - is manageable. 

All it would take is for our govt to clamp down on cruise lines again and/or the media to make a big deal out of the covid cases showing up on ships.  Might happen or might not happen.  Might be another variant pop up between now an then. Who knows.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for the info.  We're on Equinox in March to souther carib too [other posters here also it seems].  Thought I'd post about a wierd experience we had boarding the EDGE last August.  While we understand and agree, that one should arrive to board at their appointed times, we also wonder how in the world that is accomplished when one is coming from hours, even days away, who use shuttles perhaps, or ubers or some other way of that last leg to the port.  Ever wait around hours at one's parking lot passing up shuttles?  Not practical.  So, if one arrives 'early', it's not by design, but mostly by how things worked out, given the long ride, or hotel stays, or whatever involved.  

SO anyway, we were notified the EDGE was being delayed and to add something like 4 or 5 hours to our appointed arrival times.  This meant we had to just ride around the Ft. Lauderdale area most of the day to arrive at our parking lot late in the day...but did the shuttles run that late (?) [turned out they run 24/7 where we were parking].  Wanting to have a buffer of time [not that we WANTED to arrive early]...we got on a late shuttle from that parking, and still arrived several hours 'early' about 5pm  Again, not by dlesign, but how things worked out.

You are quite right, Celebrity takes the appointed boarding times seriously, and we were immediatly ushered onto a large bus, whereupon we were driven to a large shopping mall that was about a thirty minute ride away.  The bus was pretty much full [so much for social distancing which I think, at the time, was the reason people were not being allowed in the terminal early; turned out there is ample seating there].  Once at that mall though, NO ONE got off the bus.  And good thing too.  We sat there, for something like 20 minutes or so, no one knowing what to do really; the bus driver didn't have much info on what was going on either etc.  And then he drove us back to the terminal [again 30 min. drive or so]...and we all got in line at the terminal and eventually just checked in.  We were still early [again, the ship was delayed and we didn't leave port until midnight or so]. 

Granted, this was an unusual boarding being so delayed [they had a medical emergency cruise before and diverted to Grand Turks island or something]. But the busing was sort of a 'knee jerk' thing I.O.O.   We know they [all lines now] stress to arrive specifically on your alloted boarding time, but for the life of us, we still don't know how that is accomplished with a lot of accuracy [so many variables have to come together if one is traveling from any distance].  We try of course.  But every time [Equinox will be our fifth sailing since restart], there is always a long line and many people there early.  NOT BY DESIGN though one must assume.  It's just how things have worked out coming from far away.    

 

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13 hours ago, LinRon2 said:

Thanks for the info.  We're on Equinox in March to souther carib too [other posters here also it seems].  Thought I'd post about a wierd experience we had boarding the EDGE last August.

It's well past the point of pressing Celebrity to at least address the inconvenience you experienced. IMO, and as you have described it, this is no small matter. Celebrity is very sensitive to guest inconveniences where guests feel that these were not acknowledged to the satisfaction of the guest involved.

Form your post I'm going to assume this occurred at Terminal 25 at Port Everglades. Under normal circumstances, boarding at this terminal is a breeze and the staggered arrivals work well. Where were you in your travels when you were notified of the 4-5h delay and how did you get notified? It sounds like you were enroute to Terminal 25 and had already checked out of your hotel or arrived same day at the airport and shuttled to terminal 25. Did you book transportation from the airport with Celebrity? If Celebrity was late in notifying you - IOW, you were already on your way to the terminal - I feel confident they would have recognized that and worked with you to insure your concerns were addressed.

For others reading about this, do not hesitate to speak to Guest Relations as soon as you board if you have been inconvenienced in anyway during the boarding process and let this department sort out the problem and give you an explanation - this isn't about getting compensated although you may be. This is about communicating to this department that your experience was not the best way to start an anticipated vacation. Celebrity wants to know about problems so that they can be corrected in the future. The best way to do this is to request a meeting with the Guest Relation's manager. You may not actually get a sit-down with him but you will be seriously listened to by one of his assistants. If you are dissatisfied with the response, ask to speak to the Staff Captain. If there is an identifiable problem that Celebrity is responsible for, you will get, at the very least, an apology and explanation.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Just got back from our 12 night Southern Caribbean cruise on the Equinox. Pretty much everything JeffB said in hid OP held true.  A couple differences however....

-I heard different number for how many passengers there were on board. Some said we were at 60%, some said total passengers were 1550. You do the math.  We booked this cruise in 2019. Following some of the other forums, dozens of people canceled in the last couple of weeks. There were also storms in Florida which delayed or canceled flights a day or two prior to the sailing. Did that affect the numbers? I don't know.

-As I said we first booked this cruise in 2019 for 2020. We drove down to Florida for the 2020 cruise only to have it canceled on the Friday before it took off. We did get a really good deal on a interior, deck 3 cabin. We don't need anything fancy and a 12 nighter for a price we couldn't pass up, that's a win!   Of course the cruise was canceled again in 2021.

This time in 2022 it went and we were surprised when we got on board that we had been upgraded to a balcony on deck 8. We later checked and decks 3 & 6 were completely shut down and empty. So a balcony on deck 8 for the price of 2019 interior cabin on deck 3. No complaints there.

There were a few minor issues. Some of our ship booked shore excursion tickets never made it/delivered to our cabin. We had to go down to customer relations twice where they insisted they were sent. They ended up reprinting them.  We did get some excursion tickets inside our cabin the first day with our correct cabin number on them so it wasn't a cabin # issue.

The invitation to the Captain's soiree along with a flower arrangement thanking us for being members of the Captain's Club was delivered to our cabin except it was delivered the day after the event.  It was not a big deal but we are elite on X and it would have been nice to meet some of the ship's officers.

Technical/mechanical issues prevented the ship from leaving the dock for about 12 hours. Consequently we didn't get to St. Croix (our first stop) on day 3 until 2 pm. Who'd of thunk they couldn't make it in 2 days?  They ended up staying until 8pm. This forced us to change our private shore excursion. St. Croix was the only private excursion we booked. We got back to the ship at 6:40 pm.  

Technical issues cropped up several other times with only minor repercussions to the schedule. We never did learn what the issue was although one of the forward elevators was out and under repair for at least the first week. I don't think that would have caused the delayed departure.

You can't do anything about the weather but it was cold and wet the two sea days going to St. Croix and then just wet most of the rest of the time in every port.

We ate dinner in the main dinning room every night but two. We met a couple at the next table so looked forward to seeing them every night. The only times we missed was when our excursion didn't get back in time on St. Croix (we had 6 pm seating) or we were just too tired to dress for dinner. Service was okay, not as good as I remember it. We had to go looking for/ask for the salt and pepper every night even though the dining room was never more than half full. It became a running "Where's Waldo" (salt and pepper) joke every night. It's not like the waiters were busy. Often times we were the only two tables occupied in the whole area.

A pet peeve was the lack of lemon slices at the drink stations in the Ocean View. For those of us who drink tea, iced tea and water by the glass with our meals a slice of lemon is appreciated. I noticed no lemon at the cafe in the solarium and the mast grill the first couple of days as well. When I mentioned it to a supervisor of those areas the lemon showed up the next day. I must have asked a half a dozen officers in charge in the Ocean View and never did see any. Some wrote my suggestion down, some just shrugged their shoulders, some looked at me with an uncomprehending stare. One suggested going to "station 4" for lemon. I never did find out what/where "station 4" was.  We were on the Summit 3 weeks prior to this cruise and lemon was out everywhere every day.  Also because of the lack of passengers only about half of the food stations in the Ocean View were open at any given time but that just makes sense.

Smoking on board was another pet peeve. It was allowed at the sunset bar at the rear of the ship as well as along the lawn on the port side rear. It was also allowed at the Mast Bar, starboard side forward. You couldn't walk completely around the upper deck without smelling smoke. Fortunately it wasn't allowed in the casino so didn't stink up the interior. I've mentioned this before, ban smoking, allow vaping on board. Rant off 🙂

We were on the Equinox for the first Mardi Gras cruise in 2017. We really liked the ship back then. 5 years later it is looking a little worse for wear. Upholstery and carpets are worn and frayed not to mention the mechanical issues.

This was the longest cruise we've taken. Previously a 9 nighter (Mardi Gra) was the longest we did. The itinerary was excellent, would do it again.

 

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4 hours ago, mac66 said:

We were on the Equinox for the first Mardi Gras cruise in 2017. We really liked the ship back then. 5 years later it is looking a little worse for wear. Upholstery and carpets are worn and frayed not to mention the mechanical issues.

Thanks for your post cruise report. On our last Equinox Cruise in December - a 12n S. Caribbean too - we became aware that there was going to be a large crew rotation in February. In my experience that almost always precipitates the kinds of issues you reported. I don't think there is any way of knowing in advance when these are occurring so you can book to avoid them.

I do know that the Operations Department at Celebrity and RCL HQ tries to stagger these so stuff you mention doesn't occur. It's very hard on supervisory staff when a large number of new workers show up in their section all at one. Equally hard for head guy in a section - say the food and beverage manager or Chief Engineer - when a lot of supervisors switch out. COVID and health protocols have, I'm quite certain, thrown a huge monkey wrench into "the best laid plans ......"  

Also just looked it up and Equinox, lunched new in 2009, was refurbished in 2019. A lot of that was structural and I too noticed some of the same things you noticed on furniture and upholstery but nothing was unserviceable, dirty or unseemly. I'd speculate that most of the money went into structural changes and upgrades. The Solstice class ships are now the second oldest ships in Celebrity's fleet (Solstice in 2008) behind the Millennium class ships (Millennium, 1999). Lot's of emphasis being placed by corporate on the Apex class ships and given budgetary constraints I'd expect Millennium and Solstice class ships are going to start looking a bit long in the tooth. Fares are going to be lower on these ships and in some cases, quite a bit older. There's a limit though on how low they can get and still produce a profit with older ships being technically less efficient and more costly to operate than the newer Apex models.

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On 3/26/2022 at 2:20 PM, JeffB said:

Thanks for your post cruise report. On our last Equinox Cruise in December - a 12n S. Caribbean too - we became aware that there was going to be a large crew rotation in February. In my experience that almost always precipitates the kinds of issues you reported. I don't think there is any way of knowing in advance when these are occurring so you can book to avoid them.

I do know that the Operations Department at Celebrity and RCL HQ tries to stagger these so stuff you mention doesn't occur. It's very hard on supervisory staff when a large number of new workers show up in their section all at one. Equally hard for head guy in a section - say the food and beverage manager or Chief Engineer - when a lot of supervisors switch out. COVID and health protocols have, I'm quite certain, thrown a huge monkey wrench into "the best laid plans ......"  

Also just looked it up and Equinox, lunched new in 2009, was refurbished in 2019. A lot of that was structural and I too noticed some of the same things you noticed on furniture and upholstery but nothing was unserviceable, dirty or unseemly. I'd speculate that most of the money went into structural changes and upgrades. The Solstice class ships are now the second oldest ships in Celebrity's fleet (Solstice in 2008) behind the Millennium class ships (Millennium, 1999). Lot's of emphasis being placed by corporate on the Apex class ships and given budgetary constraints I'd expect Millennium and Solstice class ships are going to start looking a bit long in the tooth. Fares are going to be lower on these ships and in some cases, quite a bit older. There's a limit though on how low they can get and still produce a profit with older ships being technically less efficient and more costly to operate than the newer Apex models.

Appreciate your insight. 

Considering it's age, the Equinox is worn but not worn out. They were constantly cleaning and maintaining.  Maybe it was just me/us but things on Celebrity just seemed to be a bit off in terms of quality of food, certainly activities. Understandable coming of the covid thing. I have to say that the crew were all very friendly and eager to please (except for the lemon thing in Oceanview 😉).  It has to be exhausting keeping your spirits up doing 9 & 12 day back to back cruises.

We were on the Summit in February for the Rock and Romance charter cruise. That's a completely different experience but the main dining room food and service were sub par. Even so we kind of preferred the Summit to the Equinox. The Ocean View cafe food was actually better and more variety on the Summit.   We are back on the Summit in August for a 12 night Iceland, Greenland, Nova Scotia cruise. It will be interesting to see what difference there is between a charter and a regular cruise.

And...I suspect you're right about X focusing on the Edge/Apex class ships. They are newer and are apparently cash cows.  At some point we may try one but currently have no interest in them. I think one gets more value on the older, smaller, perhaps less popular ships.

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3 hours ago, mac66 said:

I think one gets more value on the older, smaller, perhaps less popular ships.

No question. We too have had some great cruises at remarkable value on Millennium class ships. Something I've noted is that suites remain in great demand on these ships and that is mainly because when the itinerary is released and available for booking, suites get snapped up at low introductory prices and that demand drives the prices of suites not yet booked up. There's a net benefit overall though. Intermediately priced cabins - e.g., Aqua and Concierge class cabins go unclaimed early on and are often the same or slightly lower in price than say a Veranda where demand may be a little higher. As always, inside cabins are an especially good catch on introduction and these too get snapped up by cost conscious cruisers quickly but my experience is that there is still availability at only slightly increased fares for inside cabins well into the pre-sail time frames.

I do think this is going to change as capacity Celebrity increases from 50% to 75% and on up based on demand. Shopping what are called the "shoulder seasons" e.g. after Thanksgiving and a week or two before XMAS (there are others), you'll find some very low fares.

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On 3/27/2022 at 7:23 PM, JeffB said:

No question. We too have had some great cruises at remarkable value on Millennium class ships. Something I've noted is that suites remain in great demand on these ships and that is mainly because when the itinerary is released and available for booking, suites get snapped up at low introductory prices and that demand drives the prices of suites not yet booked up. There's a net benefit overall though. Intermediately priced cabins - e.g., Aqua and Concierge class cabins go unclaimed early on and are often the same or slightly lower in price than say a Veranda where demand may be a little higher. As always, inside cabins are an especially good catch on introduction and these too get snapped up by cost conscious cruisers quickly but my experience is that there is still availability at only slightly increased fares for inside cabins well into the pre-sail time frames.

I do think this is going to change as capacity Celebrity increases from 50% to 75% and on up based on demand. Shopping what are called the "shoulder seasons" e.g. after Thanksgiving and a week or two before XMAS (there are others), you'll find some very low fares.

We often book what you call "shoulder season" in late Nov/early Dec. I have a birthday in early Dec so it's a good excuse to cruise then with the low prices fewer passengers. I usually spend most of October & November hunting at the cabin roughing it. Come Dec I'm ready for some warm weather, service and getting reacquainted with the wife.

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We're not a fans of flying in/out of FLL.   Discovered that during high capacity times, the FLL airport restricts luggage with air check-in to 4 hrs prior to flight.    As we disembarked at 8am, we were at FLL about 5 hrs prior to our allowable check-in time.   Crazy with the spring breakers and lines despite having priority boarding and check-in didn't mean anything.

Future mitigation: carry-on (do-able for a 7-day Caribbean, flying in/out of Miami, or  find a fan boat excursion to burn down time.  

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1 hour ago, cruisellama said:

We're not a fans of flying in/out of FLL.   Discovered that during high capacity times, the FLL airport restricts luggage with air check-in to 4 hrs prior to flight.    As we disembarked at 8am, we were at FLL about 5 hrs prior to our allowable check-in time.   Crazy with the spring breakers and lines despite having priority boarding and check-in didn't mean anything.

Future mitigation: carry-on (do-able for a 7-day Caribbean, flying in/out of Miami, or  find a fan boat excursion to burn down time.  

Hobby is the same way in Texas.  FLL depends on your carrier.  Delta never baulked at taking my luggage whenever while Southwest is a stickler for the 4 hour rule in many airports across the country.    I've sat with my luggage waiting at FLL for Southwest before.  It's no fun.  I'm pretty sure it's coded into the system at Southwest.  Even 5 minutes before the 4 hour mark they wouldn't or couldn't take it.

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6 hours ago, cruisellama said:

We're not a fans of flying in/out of FLL.   Discovered that during high capacity times, the FLL airport restricts luggage with air check-in to 4 hrs prior to flight.    As we disembarked at 8am, we were at FLL about 5 hrs prior to our allowable check-in time.   Crazy with the spring breakers and lines despite having priority boarding and check-in didn't mean anything.

Future mitigation: carry-on (do-able for a 7-day Caribbean, flying in/out of Miami, or  find a fan boat excursion to burn down time.  

I can't say never, but we rarely have a problem flying in/out of FL, though Miami/ Ft. Lauderdale is sometimes a pain. Prefer Orlando, Tampa.

And...we've gotten pretty good at minimizing to carry-ons for 7 day cruises. Usually fly Delta and they usually allow carry-ons to be checked at the gate free. That means last loaded, first off. Our COs are usually the first off the plane, no waiting.

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6 hours ago, BB1 said:

we are flying on American. 

We have not experienced that on American through Miami.  Although people we were flying with from FLL said it can happen there also during spring break.   Been through MIA many times on spring break (flying AA), and not experienced.

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