Celebrity Infinity Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,664 reviews

Wonderful Potential Unfortunately Unfulfilled

Review for the Panama Canal & Central America Cruise on Celebrity Infinity
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0bnxshs
6-10 Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Dec 2011
Cabin: Deluxe Ocean View with Balcony 2A

Our first Celebrity cruise had its genesis in February 2011, several months before the sailing date, when a dear friend, who was retiring in November 2011, decided to take this cruise to his carefully chosen retirement place: Chile! We chose to celebrate his retirement with him and, frankly, we had been wanting to do this itinerary ourselves. We are not vastly experienced cruisers as this was my 6th and my wife's 7th cruise, but we have tended to choose longer and more exotic cruises and this one fit our desires well. We've cruised on Holland America, Princess and Norwegian but never on Celebrity (or any RCI line) so this opportunity also appealed to us. We booked through Celebrity itself and had a very good experience with the agent and never had any difficulty negotiating the online experience afterwards, finding it all quite easy and confidence-inspiring, much like the other cruise lines mentioned above. We live in Florida, so only needed to book airfare home from Santiago, which we did ourselves, as we drove to Ft. Lauderdale for embarkation.

We learned early on from our retiring friend, but after booking, that this cruise would be the inaugural post-refurbishment cruise. I had read reviews and comments on Cruise Critic about such cruises and immediately became slightly leary as most of those I saw were generally rather negative. My friend said he had heard quite the opposite from friends who had been on such cruises, so I took a "wait-and-see" attitude. At first all seemed well, with Celebrity eventually acknowledging the "Solticizing" of Infinity and even starting a blog about it. Then on November 11th, less than a month before sailing, word came via email and telephone that due to the refurbishment embarkation time had been moved to no earlier than 2pm and to please not even show up before then as there was no waiting area for arriving passengers. For us this was an easily accomplished change of plans as we were driving; for others who were flying in from elsewhere, an impossible one. On our CC roll call, I was the first to mention this but soon, others began to receive the same notification; there were others who never received notification although they had booked through Celebrity too. Celebrity really dropped the ball on failing to plan for this eventuality.

Embarkation day. We arrived, as directed, after 2pm from our hotel. We were greeted happily by Celebrity staff and told us to drop off our checked luggage and to please board one of the awaiting buses for a short trip to the local convention center for check-in. This was fine except for having to handle our carry-on luggage on the bus itself. We were informed during the quick trip to the convention center that we would be provided with lunch, obtained via a "voucher", and a numbered trip ticket back to the ship. We received both as promised and found check-in went as quickly as you might expect with no problems. After check-in we were directed to the other side of a partition which separated check-in from the lunch/waiting area. This area was quite full of people but we found a seat at a table after noticing that everyone had box lunches, not quite what we had come to expect of embarkation lunches, but certainly in keeping with the overall air of the process. I immediately scouted out where to acquire lunch but, to my complete surprise, found there were no more box lunches, they were completely out. So, no lunch for us. Celebrity inexplicably had more vouchers, and apparently passengers, than lunches; whomever was in charge of this produced, in my opinion, a complete disaster. It is inexcusable that there weren't enough lunches and this experience has left me with a rather unfavorable opinion of Celebrity's ability to plan "off-the-cuff". Finally, our trip number back to the ship was called and we boarded around 5pm. Our luggage appeared while we were at dinner, which was started late. Finally at 10pm we departed Ft. Lauderdale and left this disagreeable experience behind.

Cabin Review

Deluxe Ocean View with Balcony 2A

Cabin 2A

Cabin 6053 was very nicely appointed and in very good condition. We most liked the verandah because of its size. It is not aligned perpendicularly to the port side of the ship but is angled aft, is larger than all the others in the same category due to this and provides a nicer view (in our opinion). Well laid out bath but no hair dryer. Night light in bath was very appreciated. TV reception was awful, but we did like the interactive system that allowed us to check our bill and order room service. Close to elevators. This is the only ship we can say we heard noises from other rooms though, especially toilet flushes.

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