Celebrity Equinox Best of Europe
My Australian friend Juanita mentioned back in February 2008 she was planning on coming over to Europe the following year and suggested we do a cruise together.  Excellent idea and any excuse to get me back on a ship!  But what?  It would have to be something not too expensive and she ruled out anything less than a week.  She fancied the Caribbean but that would have cost a fortune when you add flights.  I was leaning towards P&O since they're reasonable priced for a fortnight in spring as she was unable to do June-September, which are costly anyway.  Then came an announcement from Celebrity Cruises - Celebrity Equinox would be having the maiden voyage from Southampton to Rome on the 8th August 2009!  Wonderful, and I did enjoy my trip on Constellation.  The only problem was it being during the time she couldn't go.  I thought I'd test the waters so phoned on the 4th March (5th there).  I put it to her, reading the itinerary from the dedicated website which wasn't supposed to be live until the 6th and it sparked her interest.  Captain's Club members could book from the 13th with it going on general sale a week later.  All we needed was a price.  I'd enquired with Mandi at Thomas Cook but she'd never even heard of it.  She did some digging and came up with the goods.  I usually book direct but she'd been so good I'd have felt terrible if I hadn't used her.  Well the 13th arrived and nothing.  It was on sale from 2pm (9am in New York) but no one could access anything this side and the prices were in dollars!  She finally got the cost around 4.30pm, by which time Juanita was in bed.  So I sent an email asking her to let me know when she was awake.  I called as soon as I received a reply and she was fine with it so I went down in the morning to get it all booked, while discussing with Juanita various options over the mobile.  The bill!  We had stateroom 7137 port side so that would be interesting.  In November I went to add my flight, since Juanita would be staying on in Italy and then flying to Paris to catch up with friends.  Mandi discovered an earlier enquiry regarding cost of deferring five days for both of us had been added by someone at Celebrity.  So they had to cancel all that before doing the flight on the 20th August.  She was informed, because it was deferred, I would not receive transfers.  On the 16th February 2009 someone from Thomas Cook phoned to tell me the ship would be early and the original 31st July cruise to the Fjords which they quickly removed, had been added.  We couldn't change but Juanita didn't want to anyway, the itinerary being the main draw for ours.  When Celebrity put out a press release about it the next day, they said it was a 'soft launch' and ours was still the maiden.  Also, booked passengers would have the option to sail on both.  Not us!  Wonder how many others weren't asked either?  I started paying it off on the 20th April, all done by the 24th.  Now it was a matter of getting into the booking.  Couldn't do it!  "Contains multiple gateways" it read.  Turned out it was because of my flight and they didn't want anything changing accidentally.  I was told how we could book the tours so I emailed Juanita with the details.  Juanita began to organise excursions on the 3rd June then hotels, her own travel plus arrangements from the port to hotel in Rome and my car to the airport the day after.  A month later I could access the booking!  While the ship arrived in Southampton on the 19th July for around 5am, my tickets didn't reach the travel agent until the 21st. Juanita arrived in the UK on the 5th August, staying in London a couple of days before coming to me on the 7th.  There was no way someone uninterested in ships was going to get up at the crack of dawn to see her arrive.  Oceana was also in but due to leave at 4.30pm while we were 5pm.  We caught the 10.35am bus and took a nice stroll down the pier.  There was some entertainment going on at the Promenade and American flags.
It was lovely Hotspur IV taking us over.  From the oldest passenger vessel in the area to the newest.  Andy was on and entertaining Juanita while asking why I want more photos of Oceana when I have plenty.  Not at that angle I don't!  He's so cheeky.
We had a short wait for a taxi but a couple turned up.  The driver didn't know which ship was Equinox or which the terminal was so I had to tell him.  He dropped us off at City and I had to record the monumentous occasion of Juanita at a cruise terminal about to go on one!
							Next
	(C) Copyright Patricia Dempsey & Juanita Adie-Cooper 8th-18th August & 7th September 2009 Not to be reproduced without permission