Celebrity Equinox - January 2017 - "Free" 7 night Cruise from Foxwoods!

[CTslotters]

Hi all!
I'll be doing this in a few posts since we have a ton of pictures!
We didn't waste any time booking our "free" cruise that Foxwoods was kind enough to offer us a couple months ago. We booked the Jan 2nd sailing of the Celebrity Equinox sailing out of Fort Lauderdale! We flew into Florida very early on the 1st and decided to rent a car for the day and explore. We booked the flight using Southwest points and the direct flight was an 8 AM, yikes!
All the hotels around the port area the night of the first were crazy expensive and since this trip wasn't costing us anything yet, we booked the Marriott in Boca Raton for under $100. It's only a half hour drive and we enjoyed checking out A1A (beachfront avenue!).
We went to awesome dinner at Lemongrass Hot Pot. (pics to come later). You order a broth and cook the food yourself with the proteins you collect from the station while veggies, dumplings and noodles in bowls to grab go by on a conveyor belt. So fun! And so tasty!
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The next morning we dropped off our car and took Uber to the cruise port. It was a hot humid day and we loved it! We were on the ship and enjoying lunch by 12:30pm and in our room shortly thereafter. Our offer was for an oceanview room but the upgrade to a balcony was minimal. We loved our room and spent a ton of time on our balcony enjoying the sun and views!
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Day one we set sail from Ft. Lauderdale. We are trying to drink less alcohol in the new year so we did not opt for the unlimited drink package, but did take a cue from @Georgiagambler and invest in some Rum Runner flasks to enjoy some cocktails on our balcony! Thanks GG for the recommendation and @Laurie and @foamy for the Yeti cups that kept our drinks cold (those have gotten tons of use, now in multiple states and countries, HHH!!!)
More to come...
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[TwoArmedBandito]

I can't wait to see more pics of your vacation.

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[Laurie]

Glad you are using them! Good start and great pics look forward to the rest!!


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[CTslotters]

Night One: We explored the ship, unpacked a bit, and got ready for the evening's show and dinner.
The show was a comedian that was TERRIBLE!!! He was from New Jersey and Adam actually thinks we may have also walked out of his show at the Borgata, LOL! We decided to venture to the casino where I picked up my card with a sticker that allowed me free drinks in the casino (yay, thanks again Foxwoods! I guess I can get free drinks on the ship without the drink package.) I tipped with cash and the bartenders were great and always gave me very heavy pours of Cabernet (since Adam and I were sharing one glass since he didn't have a stickered card).
The casino was small (or smaller than I'm used to given the size of the CT and AC casinos we frequent and never having been on a ship with a casino). The game selection was not to our liking, tons of boring old games and the bright 5 reel games, some reels, old IGTs, and a few newer Bally Games. We went to the casino maybe 4 of the 7 nights and spent maybe an hour or so there each time.
Adam won off the first $20 he put in and played off those winnings (going up to $100, losing most of it, hitting a bonus to get it back, etc) the entire trip except for the last night where he finally lost his entire tito and put more money in the machines. I on the other hand, lost on every machine I put money into. It was pitiful and since we didn't like the game selection, and knew we wouldn't earn anything with play, we didn't feel obligated to play and preferred to save our bankroll for future trips.
Our tablemates at dinner were great! We've lucked out on every cruise having great company at the seated dinners. It made the dinners so much more enjoyable!
Day Two was a Sea day and we spent most of it soaking up sun by the pool, sitting on our balcony getting sun, and watching people play silly pool games. It was great!!
Here is the sunset from our balcony!
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I think we skipped this night's show and overall, the shows were fairly bad. There was one that we really enjoyed, it was also a comedian that juggled axes and was hysterical. (He participated in some of the nightly game shows and such as well).
Day 3: Labadee, Hispaniola (Haiti)
This place was AWESOME!! The beach was amazing and we spent the entire day enjoying the sun and ocean!
View of Labadee from our balcony and my view from my beach chair, just beautiful!
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To be continued...

[Elf70]

Great report so far! Looking forward to more.

[CTslotters]

Day 4: Jamaica
We've stopped at Jamaica on prior cruises and didn't care for the port so we stayed on the ship most of the day. It was great to have an empty ship.
This was our view from the hot tub.
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And our view from the lounge chair.
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And our drinks from when we got off the boat.
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Bye, Jamaica!
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Next up: Grand Cayman! Yay for excursions!!

[CTslotters]

We decided to book a catamaran and snorkeling excursion in Grand Cayman, on all other cruises, we have had this excursion cancelled b/c we had to change our port days in GC since it requires tender service to get to port and our days in port were switched. Not this time, the weather forecast was sunny and 80s! Yay!!
We sailed to two separate snorkel spots.
The first is the site of a sunken WW2 ship (they sunk it on purpose a few years ago), and the second is a coral reef. There were tons of fish and the water was so clear, highly recommend water activities in Grand Cayman!
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Sea Urchin, they were huge! Sushi restaurants should dive there to get their goods, LOL!
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[MNvegasgal]

This trip looks perfect. Weather is beautiful (an way better than what you left back home). Did you try and exotic food on the cruise?

[sassycat]

What beautiful scenery! Thanks for sharing your cruise with us
Look forward to the rest of your trip


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[Evoni]

Great photos, I love going on cruises!