2021 Ultimate Southern Caribbean Cruise: Celebrity Equinox Dining Review

Destinations/Ports Series: 2021 Ultimate Southern Caribbean Cruise

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Once again the included dining on Celebrity did not disappoint. While Celebrity still has the single main dining room rotating menu concept on their Solstice and Millennium class ships, it works well and the food is always presented in a timely manner and at the correct temperature. That aspect of dining can sometimes leave something to be desired on a large cruise ship, but not on the Celebrity Equinox. With the ship at only about 60% occupancy, everything was extremely efficient. We dined the the main dining room all but two nights. One night, when we wanted to simply have room service and watch a movie, and the other night when we were watching major NCAA football games in the Craft Social Bar.

The Equinox Dining Room

Back were some old favorites like Escargot Burgonne, Borolo Braised Beef with pasta, and a veal chop.

We also enjoyed prosciutto with melon, French Onion Soup, lobster ravioli, filet mignon, veal cordon blue, and pasta with shrimp.

And we enjoyed a few other favorites Beef Wellington, Fettuccine Carbonara, and Tenderloin.

Not only was the food incredible, but our service in venue was impeccable with an attentive waiter and assistant waiter. Our Sommelier, Noah, came over to our table the first night and said “Good Evening Mr. and Mrs. Klasen, it is so good to see you again since we last cruise together in Jan of 2020 to Antarctica”. And speaking of Noah, he did a great job of finding great wines for us to enjoy. We were sailing on a last minute booking with no perks for this cruise, and though we thought about purchasing the beverage package, we decided to see how we would do with just our Elite Happy Hour and purchasing wines A La Carte. Noah got to know what we liked and brought us some pretty spectacular options including a wonderful late harvest dessert wine from Chile.

The Ocean View Cafe

The Ocean View Cafe is Celebrity’s quick service area. Post pandemic it is no longer self serve but they have plenty of servers at each station to put the food on your plate. Previously, I had sworn off the Ocean View as too crowded. On our 2020 Antarctica Cruise the Ocean View cafe was unmanageable during sea days. What I mean by that is that there were way too many people and not enough seating. With the ship at 60% capacity, this was never an issue on this cruise and I once again got to enjoy the variety of food service in this venue.

I have suggested to Celebrity in my comment card that once the ships are back at full capacity, they need to set up a smaller buffet or offer additional options in the main dining room, or maybe offer lunch from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm in the ocean view and extend hours in the main dining room so that things are not chaotic in the Ocean View. However, on this cruise I was once again in love with the offerings in the Ocean View.

There were a wide variety of options including Asian, India, Italian, English, Mexican and Continental Gourmet. You could also eat very clean in this venue with grilled proteins and vegetables if you wanted to forgo sauces and carbs. Wonderful desserts were presented everyday. This venue is also partially open for dinner. When we were watching the football down in the Craft Social, I came up here with one of the ladies to bring pizza down for everyone to enjoy. The manager in charge that night even helped us get three pizzas and a stack of plates to bring down for everyone in our football watching party to enjoy.

Suzanne Klasen

Suzanne Klasen is the Owner / Travel Advisor of CruiseOne Suzanne Klasen. We have combined our love of cruising with computer skills to bring you a very informative and entertaining site that follows my cruising travels and thoughts. I hope that you will let me help plan your next vacation.