By way of background, I travel with my spouse and his best friend of 30 plus years (mine too, for that matter!). We have cruised often and prefer long cruises with sea days. We don't partake in many - if any - of the onboard activities as we like the down-time being on a ship provides. This was our 4th cruise in 16 months - 2 on HAL and 2 on Celebrity. I have been on 3 other cruises with friends and/or relatives in same time frame. We are pretty experienced!

We flew into Oakland the morning of our trip and were promptly greeted and driven to the pier by the folks at supershuttle. We knew we would be early but that just gave us time to sit and watch the ocean while the Infinity disgorged hordes upon the streets and sidewalks of San Francisco. It was not a pretty sight! Total chaos, more like it!

We were allowed to check in about 11:30 and we were glad we were in concierge class as the line for "express check-in" was anything but! After the usual pointless and insulting security screenings and checks (which I never experienced on the other 3 trips I was on as these were small ships - 60 to 350 pax), we were sent up a ramp only to encounter an endless line of folks trying to board - they were all being screened, yet again, by a single (yep, one!) guy. No one, I repeat no one, could have accessed that area unless they were born while their mother was waiting in line so why it was necessary to slow things down even further eluded us. Read more