Southern Caribbean Holiday Cruise on the
Celebrity Equinox
12/22/2021 to 1/3/2022

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Page 1 – Embarkation, Ship
Page 2 – Ship (continued), Cabin, Dining, Activities, Entertainment
Page 3 - Ports of Call: St. Thomas, Virgin Islands; St. John, Antigua and Barbuda; Bridgetown, Barbados; Philipsburg, St. Maarten

Ports of Call

The ports shown on the itinerary map on the first page is where we were supposed to be visiting, but the itinerary changed several times due to changing Covid requirements by the various islands. The requirements by some of the islands was that the ship could not have more than one Covid case per 1,000 passengers, which is .1%; significantly less than the infection rate on the islands that set the standard. We learned to be flexible and just go with the flow. We were still on a cruise.

St. Thomas, Virgin Islands

We were originally supposed to be going to St. Croix; but since we would be arriving on Christmas day, the port was changed to St. Thomas. Apparently, all of the stores would be closed and there would be nothing for the passengers to do. St. Thomas had told Celebrity that there would be a lot going on for the passengers to enjoy. I had only been to St. Croix once, on my first cruise in 1994, so I was a bit disappointed.

The seas from Ft. Lauderdale for the two sea days had been very calm and would stay that way for the whole cruise. The evening before arriving at the port, we had a lovely sunset.

We would be docking at Crown Bay Center, which is not within walking distance to the main town.

As we got off the ship, we were welcomed by some of Santa’s elves, one on some very tall stilts. St Thomas was very happy to see cruise ships return.

Gail took a photo of Cathy and me in front of the US Virgin Islands sign.

Just outside the terminal buildings was a line of open-air taxis waiting to take people wherever they wanted to go and at reasonable prices. It cost us $4 per person for the about 10-minute ride into town. They dropped us off in the center of town, where other taxis were waiting to take cruisers back to the ship or somewhere else.

I was surprised how empty the streets were. Every time I had been there in the past, the streets and stores had been packed with cruisers.

Our plan for the day was to just walk around and see what we could. On previous visits, our focus was to visit Imperial Jewelers. My late wife, Carol, was a very good customer of theirs. We had become friends with the owners, and I wanted to say hi and let them know of Carol’s passing, since we hadn’t been there since 2013. I was glad to see that they had survived through Covid. We didn’t find anything we couldn’t live without, so we continued our walk.

The one place that I had always had a minor curiosity about visiting was Blackbeard’s Castle. It was closed, but I did want to get a photo of the exterior if possible. Paul was also looking to see if there was a tourist attraction nearby, other than the many jewelry stores. He found a spot called 99 Steps that led up to a nice scenic overlook. It was also close to Blackbeard’s Castle, so we started our search. We came to some statues of famous St Thomas residents.

I was having a problem with the Google Map app, but eventually came to the bottom of the steps. It didn’t look that bad. Since Cathy had injured her knee right before the cruise and was wearing a brace, she chose to wait for us rather than risk more injury by climbing.

At the top we found the overlook. It was pretty nice.

However, when looking back up the mountain, we couldn’t see the castle.

We asked some other tourists, who were coming down a different road, if they had seen the castle. They had and told us to just walk up the road where they came from. I was right around the corner.

Since it was closed, there was no reason to go any higher. We headed back down the 99 steps, which Gail counted. There were actually 101 steps. We decided to just walk around and see if there was anything of interest to check out. We did come to a Liberty Bell replica that was given to the islands in 1950. It is one of the 55 bells that were cast by the US Government. They were given to each state and territory to ring on patriotic occasions.

We then walked along the waterfront. We pretty much had it to ourselves.

We were hoping to find a local restaurant to stop at for some coffee, a beer or even a light lunch; but with it being Christmas day, there wasn’t much open other than jewelry stores. We walked in a different direction and passed by the Virgin Islands Legislature building.

We then came upon Fort Christian, which was built by the Danish/Norwegians in 1680. The tower was interesting, but the building and museum itself was closed for Christmas. The view from the front of the building was much nicer than the back, but we didn’t feel like walking around it.

Looking back toward town was a nice view of the waterfront.

Since we couldn’t find a place to stop for a drink or snack, we headed back to the ship for lunch. Later when we left port, I looked back at St. Thomas.

St. John, Antigua and Barbuda

Cruising into St. John, Antigua in the morning sunrise glow made for a scenic entry.

The port area looked pretty nice. I was particularly interested in the twin towered church in the distance.

The mountainous terrain in the distance was unexpected. I was more expecting a flatter island.

As would be the case on each of the islands, we would be having a ship tour. Most of the islands did not allow cruisers to take independent tours. We took a tour called Legends and Lores of Antigua Walking Tour with our guide, Natasha. She did a fine job teaching us all about Antigua life.

For the tour, we were given the Whisper wireless communication devices that allowed us to hear what Natasha was saying without being next to her. We began our our walking through the main port area.

Since one of the devices was not working, we had to take a short detour to the tour company office to get a new one. It gave us a chance to see a cute courtyard area near the office.

We then continued our walk through the brightly colored older section of town.

We passed by some vegetable stands on the way to the market area.

We then saw a large statue of what looked like a politician. It was the V. C. Bird Monument. He was the country’s first prime minister, who served from 1981 to 1994.

We then came into the main market area with a large market building and well as fish and meat markets.

Near the market we had a nice view of the Equinox in port with the Seabourn Odyssey in front of her.

The fruit and vegetable stands were more interesting to us.

We continued our walk, passing by the St. Joseph’s & St. Patrick Catholic church. It was built in 1909 but was seriously damaged in a 1974 earthquake. There has been a continuing restoration project for it.

We then walked to the St. John’s Cathedral. It was the twin towered building I had seen when we first docked. The original church had been built in 1681 but had been destroyed by some hurricanes and rebuilt a couple times. The current structure was built in 1848. It was surrounded by a large old cemetery.

The interior was lovely with all the pine construction.

Our last destination was to see the Museum of Antigua and Barbuda. It was built in 1747 and is the oldest building still in use on the island. It was originally the colonial courthouse.

It contains artifacts from the indigenous Arawak people and from colonial times that were recovered in archeological digs. There were some very interesting exhibits.

A popular item is a statue of, and bat used by famous Antiguan cricket player Sir Viv Richards.

While at the museum, Natasha offered us some of her homemade punch or rum punch, whichever we preferred. She had told us about it early to explain why she was carrying a small cooler bag with her. I must say that it was just outstanding rum punch. She could make a good living just selling it if she could.

We then headed back to the port area. We stopped for a local beer and a snack before returning to the ship.

I took some more photos of the town from the ship, including one of the cathedral with my telephoto lens.

After listening to Natasha telling us about some of the sights on the island, it might have been nice to have taken a tour away from the city. On the way out of the harbor we passed by the 18th century Fort James.

Bridgetown, Barbados

There isn’t much to see when pulling into Barbados, since it is a rather flat island and we docked at a commercial port. The Rotterdam and Silver Whisper were also in port with us.

We were taking a ship tour called The Best of Barbados. It turned out to not being the best tour. As we left the ship, I couldn’t pass up taking a photo of the Barbados sign with the Equinox in the background.

Our tour guide for the day was Arghi. He said to pronounce it as Our Guy. During the tour, things didn’t go as expected and he was a bit confused as to what we were supposed to be doing at times. Adding to that was that he was difficult to understand. It didn’t make for a good experience.

Our first destination, after an hour’s drive, was to the St. John’s Parish Church. The first church at the location was built in 1645. But hurricanes destroyed various versions of the church until the current structure was built in 1836.

In addition to visiting the church, the stop was to be used as a restroom break. Arghi told us that we had 20 minutes. As we walked to the church, we discovered that the church was closed, as were the restrooms. So, we were able to walk around and enjoy the scenic views of the area and the interesting cemetery. It would have been nice to be able to see the church’s interior.

When we got on the bus, Arghi said that our next stop, the Tropical Flower Garden, was only about 15 minutes away and they had restrooms. When we arrived, Arghi told us that we had 20 minutes to see the gardens. Obviously, most people wanted to go to the restrooms first, which would obviously cut into our time at the gardens. Since the tours normally don’t do restrooms first, there was a lot of confusion when getting our entry tickets as to where we were supposed to meet for the tour. The attendant who gave us each a ticket told us one thing and Arghi seemed to be telling us something else. It was most confusing. Everyone eventually waited in an area that was normally the end of the tour path. Arghi told us that we would be doing the path in reverse, which really didn’t matter anyway.

The gardens themselves were underwhelming for us, since we live in an area that has the featured plants growing in our neighborhood. It was a nice garden, but there wasn’t much blooming. Hopefully, those from colder climates appreciated it more than us. We might have enjoyed it more if we could have heard what Arghi was telling those that were walking with him. We were walking along the path in a long line, so well out of the soft spoken Arghi’s voice range. With us trying to fit everything into the allotted 20 minutes, we were moving quickly and could not take time to look closely at much. At the end of tour, we used the ticket that we received to get a rum punch. Sitting in the porch area enjoying the rum punch was the high point of the stop. I took a photo of Paul and Gail enjoying theirs.

We ended up staying closer to 30 minutes with the restroom break taking so much time. We then took another 15-minute drive to the Gun Hill Signal Station. These type stations were set up to give an alarm in case of an invasion in the early 1800’s. Once again, Arghi told us that this was to be a 20-minute stop. As we walked through the grounds we came upon an area where a wedding reception was going to take place later in the day. It was a lovely setting for a wedding with great views all around.

We walked up to the station itself. Some people climbed up to get a better view, but the view from the base was good enough for us. It was nice place to visit.

We then drove to a different area of the grounds where we could see the statue of a lion that was sculpted from a single piece of coral in 1868 by Captain Henry Wilkinson. It is seven feet tall and a major tourist attraction in the area. We had to take photos from the bus, since we apparently didn’t have time to stop and get out to see it better.

The itinerary said that we would drive by the residences of the Governor General’s and Prime Minister. We drove by very quickly. With one of the homes being behind a wall and the only way to get a glimpse of it was through the gated entry, we really didn’t see anything. I’m still not sure that we even saw the other one. Arghi didn’t let us know when to look or what to look for.

The last attraction on the tour was to see the Emancipation Statue of Bussa. He was the slave that inspired the revolt against slavery in Barbados. He was declared a national hero in 1992. Once again, we drove by it pretty fast. I am surprised that I was able to get the below photos. It would have been nice to get on from the front of the statue.

After all the rushing and limited time, we had to see the sites on the itinerary, we got back to the port 45 minutes early. So, our 3.5-hour tour was only 2 hours and 45 minutes. We could have had a much better tour had the time been properly allocated. We did complain about the tour and received a partial refund. We would have preferred a better tour.

That evening before dinner, the captain reported that two more passengers had tested positive for Covid. This was becoming a nightly event. When we were taken to our dinner table, we found out that we had new waiters. We asked where our regular ones were and were told that they had been quarantined. We never heard how many passengers or crew came down with Covid during the cruise.

Castries, Saint Lucia

I had really looked forward to revisiting St. Lucia. On my first visit our group had a great private tour and we saw so much of the beautiful island. To me, I thought it was the prettiest one I had visited in the Caribbean. It is very lush mountainous landscape. I had hoped to be able to show Cathy some of the beauty that I remembered. Unfortunately, we had to take a ship tour this time. It was called Glimpse of St. Lucia. It was a panoramic tour, so I knew that most of the time would be on the bus driving around. I hoped that we would at least get a glimpse of the iconic symbol of the island, the Piton Mountains. We didn’t. None of the tours went there.

Although we were docked at a commercial port, we could still see that it was a lovely town. The Norwegian Escape and Silver Spirit were also visiting that day.

Before getting on the small bus, they took our temperature and sprayed our hands with disinfectant. When seated, a sheet was passed around where we put our names and cabin number in the row representing our seats. It was a great way for Covid contact tracing. We met our guide for the tour, Lucy. She was very nice, pleasant and informative. She was a great representative for the island.

As we left the port area, we passed by the All In statue. It is an unusual statue with what appears to be 4 people rowing a boat, but there is no boat. It is supported by the oars. The sculpture represents Saint Lucia's ethnic composition of Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and East Indians all of whom arrived by boat.

With the island being so lush, it was difficult to get photos of the island’s beauty through the trees as we were moving. Additionally, the view needed to be on the side of the bus we were on, and the sun needed to be in a position that it wasn’t shining in the camera lens. Lucy would ask the driver to either slow down or stop when there was a good view, so I did get a few of the scenery.

At another stop, we were able to look down to the ships docked in port.

With it being a 2.5-hour tour, we did make one stop where we were able to get out and use a restroom if needed. It was an overlook above Marigot Bay. Just a gorgeous place.

Someone was nice enough to take our photo there.

As we were going back to the ship, Lucy pointed out the old tires that were being used as a retaining wall. A great way to use a waste product that would otherwise be in a landfill.

As we were approaching the dock, it was strange to see the Equinox at the end of the street, like it was one of the buildings.

I wish that we could have had a private tour on the island, but this at least gave Cathy an idea of how pretty the island is. This is an island that would be great to stay at a nice resort to really enjoy what the island has to offer.

At around 5:00 PM, the captain announced that there had been more Covid cases found. He also said that Grenada, our port for the next day had been cancelled. We were instead going to be going to Dominica the next day. To replace Grenada, we would be going to St. Maarten in a couple days. So at least we would still be going to ports on each of the 7 days designated for ports. At 10:00 PM the captain made the announcement that we were not going to be allowed to dock at Dominica either. Bummer! One port lost.

Sea Day 3

It was kind of nice to have a sea day to break up the ports; but since we hadn’t been able to do that much in the ports, it wasn’t that needed. We hung out in the shaded area of the pool deck. We get plenty of sun in Florida and don’t enjoy laying out in it. But we did enjoy being on the pool deck relaxing, listening to the music and drinking mango and pina coladas. We would also hear announcements of cabin numbers that were being called to receive Covid tests.

Philipsburg, St. Maarten

This was the day we were supposed to be in Dominica, which was a port I hadn’t previously visited. I wasn’t that excited about it being replaced by St. Maarten until we found a ship tour that sounded really good, the Americas Cup Sailing Regatta. We would be able to experience being in a 12-meter sailboat race. It is certainly something that neither of us had done before and we were very excited about it.

We pulled up to the dock and could see the shopping area that I had been to many times in the past. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as it had previously been.

Paul and Gail were going to Great Bay Beach, which was a short water taxi ride. It was $7 for a round trip or $5 one way. Below is a photo of how close the taxi dock is to the ship. Where the people are standing in line at the lower right of the photo is the taxi dock. The dock on Great Bay is in front of the red building at the upper right section of the photo.

The charge for a couple of beach chairs/umbrella and the taxi ride though Celebrity is $39 per person. The charge for 2 beach chairs/umbrellas on the beach is around $25. So, the cost to do it on your own is half the price of the tour, $19.50 per person.

For our tour, we lined up on the dock just outside the ship. We filled in the contact tracing sheet once again, but no temperature was taken. We then walked in single file to the water taxi dock where an open taxi type boat was waiting for us.

Eighteen of us left the boat and loaded on to the True North IV.

The other 18 were taken to the other boat, Canada 2.

Our Captain was David Kelley. He first told us all the safety information that we needed while we were on the boat and then asked for volunteers for different jobs on the boat. This type of boat needs a crew of 12 to operate, so we had extras that shared some of the jobs. He was very patient in showing each person or couple what they were supposed to do when he told them to. Once he was comfortable that everyone knew their job, we were able to head to the racing area.

The gorgeous turquoise water and view made the ride so enjoyable.

Once the committee boat raised the flag, we had six minutes to get to the starting line. If we got there too soon, there would be a penalty. If we got there late, we would possibly be behind the other boat. David yelled out his commands and people did their jobs. He did have to help a few to do it more correctly, but everyone did fine. For some people, it was pretty strenuous to crank the lines to move the sails. It was quite impressive to see everyone pulling together to do what was needed.

When we got to the starting line, we speeded up and were having even more fun. The boat would lean, we would hold on, the sea sprayed, and we pulled ahead of Canada 2. It was so much fun to be on a racing yacht.

Here is a short videos of the team doing one of the maneuvers. The team kept busy at times, but they also had adequate down time to just enjoy speeding through the water.

We were ahead of Canada 2, when they slowed way down. David said it looked like they had an issue with their main sail. They had to stop to replace a line while we gained way more ground than they could ever make up, so we did win the race. Once the sail was fixed, we did one more lap to give them a chance to beat us. We beat them again in a much closer finish.

On the way back we sailed to a different dock that was on the edge of the main town. The view of the beach area and turquoise water was so nice. It never gets old.

We were told that we could stay there to see their museum and take the boat back to the taxi dock near the ship about 15 minutes later or just stay in town and catch the water taxi back later. We chose to walk around town a bit.

We then decided to have lunch at a place called the Thirsty Pirate. The sandwiches were very good, as was the local beer.

After lunch, we took the water taxi back to the dock and took the short walk back to the ship. It had been a most enjoyable excursion and one we won’t forget.

That night the captain told us that there had been 5 more passengers with a positive Covid test. He also told us that we were not going to be allowed to dock the next day at our last port, St. Kitts. We were always supposed to have two sea days after our last port to get home. The captain told us to replace St. Kitts, we would instead stop in Nassau on the last day of the cruise. Not the best replacement, but at least we would be able to get off the ship.

Sea Day 4

The captain announced that four more guests had come down with Covid. He also told us that the Celebrity corporate office had made the decision that all passengers had to wear masks inside the ship, except when eating or drinking. It was about time! Way too many people didn’t wear masks at all, even when on crowded elevators.

Sea Day 5

On the second sea day before we were to dock in Nassau, the captain told us that we were not going to be allowed to dock in Nassau, so we would have an additional sea day instead.

Sea Day 6

Although we ended up having 6 sea days and 5 ports, rather than 4 sea days and 7 ports, the sea days were very pleasant. We had beautiful weather and smooth seas every day.

Disembarkation

After three days at sea in a row, we were ready to leave the ship. The process went smoothly other than a log jam in the terminal immigration line. Most passengers disembarked on deck 5, while the quarantined deck 6 passengers disembarked on deck 2. We were originally told that they would leave after everyone else and then heard that some were leaving before everyone else. It doesn’t really matter; we were off the ship and happy to be going home.

Recap

Caribbean cruises are never my favorite. I normally take them to experience a new class of ship, so the ports aren’t that important. Our main purpose for taking this cruise was to finally be able to cruise again, especially with our friends Paul and Gail, after the long Covid break. We certainly enjoyed that part of the cruise. I must say that the entertainment was some of the best we have experienced on Celebrity, as was the service and food. I hated that we didn’t get to all of the original ports, but we knew going in that there might be issues and itinerary changes. Fortunately, missing a Caribbean port isn’t like missing a stop in Lisbon, Venice, Shanghai or some other amazing city. We still had an enjoyable cruise experience and that is what matters.

Southern Caribbean Holiday Cruise on the Celebrity Equinox 12/22/2021 to 1/3/2022