This is my video review and full ship tour of the Celebrity Equinox cruise ship from Celebrity Cruises, in October 2022. We cruised on a 10 day Ultimate Southern Caribbean cruise including Antigua, Saint Lucia, Barbados, Martinique, and Saint Kitts & Nevis.
We cruised in late September / early October in hurricane season. We were fortunate to avoid both hurricanes Fiona and Ian. We departed from Fort Lauderdale, starting with 2 at sea days at the beginning, then 5 ports of call, and 2 at sea days on the way home.
This was our fifth cruise, and our second time on Celebrity and it was definitely our best cruise so far! We really loved everything about it. The ship, the staff, the food, the itinerary. It was perfect.
Celebrity Equinox is a Solstice class ship, launched in 2009 and beautifully refurbished in 2019. It’s a mid-size ship with around 2800 guests on board. Its sister ships in the same class are Celebrity Solstice, Celebrity Eclipse, Celebrity Silhouette and Celebrity Reflection. We’ve previously been on Celebrity Summit, Holland America Westerdam, Holland America Noordam, and Norwegian Pride of America. This was by far the nicest ship, and at least partly that was down to the recent renovation it had been through.
We were in Aqua Class on this cruise, but previously with Celebrity we’d been in Concierge Class. We chose Aqua Class principally for the benefit of “Blu”, the Aqua Class private dining room. This was such a good decision as the space is beautiful, the service was incredible, and the food was amazing. We had such a good crew looking after us, and it was really nice having the same table and waiters every day at breakfast and dinner. With Blu, apart from the first night, it’s anytime dining. Surprisingly the only time we ever had to wait for a table was on that first night, even though they allocated a seating time, to try and avoid delays! Anyway, Blu was fantastic, and as someone who can’t eat gluten it was wonderful for me as almost every menu choice could be adapted, if it wasn’t already gluten free to begin with. The other awesome thing was that as well as the Blu menu, you could also choose anything from the Main Dining Room as well, giving you lots of choice.
Blu is a breakfast or dinner venue only, so we often ate lunch in the Buffet - Ocean View Cafe - and the food there is also extremely good. Really the food was the star of this cruise, and every meal was memorable. The buffet has so much choice, but in particular I appreciated that you could get lots of items gluten free: pasta, pizza, bread, cakes, desserts, as well as lots of main items that were often or always gluten free. They identify allergies for each item on a little card, so it’s easy to tell.
We did eat at Tuscan Grille one night, which is probably best described as an Italian steak house. While the food was excellent here, it didn’t really seem worth the extra cost. Blu and the Main Dining Room food was so good, and this didn’t top it.
We didn’t try any of the other premium restaurants, Sushi on Five, Murano, Qsine or its alter ego, Le Petit Chef.
The main other Aqua Class benefit was complimentary access to both fitness classes and the Persian Garden (steam rooms, etc). I actually really liked going to the Persian Garden and lying on their “hot beds” and visiting the steam room. It was a lovely peaceful way to chill mid afternoon.
As part of the “all included” pricing, we had basic internet for two, as well as tips, and the basic drinks package. The drinks package meant we got anything up to $9 included, and if a drink was more than that, we just paid the difference. Coffees, cakes and gelato were also included in Cafe al Bacio, one of the most popular places on board. Expect a line in the morning.
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