We sailed this 17 night Panama Canal to San Francisco cruise, back to back with the next 11 night Alaska cruise. I'll review each cruise separately, but my overall impressions are based upon our total 28 night experience onboard the Celebrity Infinity. We sailed with our adult daughter who has a physical disability, so one of our two cabins was an accessible cabin, 7137. Infinity is a Millennium Class ship, which from an accessibility standpoint, is not nearly as accessible as any of the Solstice Class ships. None of the public bathrooms have an accessible power door opener - so you have to wrangle the door open on your own which is very difficult to do if you're in a wheelchair. Whereas on Solstice Class ships, ALL of the public bathroom doors are equipped with an auto opener. On Infinity, very few of the doors that lead onto the decks are auto opening, whereas on Solstice Class ships, yes, you guessed it, all public deck doors are auto opening. Also on the Infinity as on all Millennium Class ships, there are innumerable metal stops or thresholds on the public deck floors, everywhere throughout the ship, including the cabin hallways - which are major barriers to those that have physical needs - you have to be constantly looking down, being aware, so as not to trip or get your wheels somehow stuck or impeded. The door to our cabin was also not auto opening, whereas, they are auto opening on the Solstice Class ships. And inside our cabin, the hinges on the bathroom door are on the opposite side of where they need to be to make access comfortable. My daughter uses a walker and she had to roll past the door, turn herself around, reach and swing open the door, then go in - it's hard to picture, but trust me, the planning was very bad - something that was rectified across the board, on the Solstice Class ships.

For the ports of call, we primarily booked Celebrity sponsored shore excursions ahead of time. We are able to discern from our at home research, who the tour providers are that Celebrity contracts with to run the excursions, in the ports - we check prices and have always found Celebrity's prices to be in line with the prices the contractors charge, so there is no reason for us to not book with Celebrity. On the Infinity, as we have found in general on all of the ships, the Shore Excursion staff was exceptionally well informed and very helpful and sensitive regarding our daughter's physical needs. On this cruise, we were extremely disappointed that the port of Puerto Vallarta was cancelled. There was apparently a violent drug cartel uprising and it was deemed unsafe for our ship to dock, thus giving us an extra sea day. Since this itinerary was already sea day heavy, this was a disappointment, but the Captain's Club Hostess, Claudia, worked overtime to make sure passengers were happy - we for instance received an invitation to a tour of the Navigational Bridge, which we gratefully accepted. The Celebrity Life Activity Staff, led by the intrepid and uber talented Rachel Ball, also went into overdrive on this newly non-port day, coming up with lots of additional fun things to do. So, though Puerto Vallarta never happened for us, the crew worked hard to keep the passengers happy - as, in fact, they always do!

The Panama Canal was the highlight of this cruise, no surprise! We docked in Colon for a full day, leaving the passengers free to explore the country on tours. Then, the next day, the ship made the transit through the canal. Bill Fall, a former Canal Zone resident and expert regarding the area and the Canal, gave several talks in the theater about the Canal, before and after transit day. And on transit day, he gave narration from time to time, along with a local Panamanian resident, about what we were seeing and experiencing. The Panama Canal is truly one of the 7 Engineering Wonders of the World, something not to be missed if you have the chance. We recommend reading David McCullough's book, "The Path Between the Seas" in order to fully appreciate this marvel. The Captain opened up the helicopter pad area at the bow of the ship to all passengers for the transit, which was terrific! Read more