Cruise Critic Review: Panama Canal with Celebrity Infinity
We chose this cruise to celebrate our recent retirement, and the itinerary -- Miami to San Diego via Panama Canal -- attracted us. The canal has been a bucket list item and this 15 night cruise had seven (yes, seven!) days at sea. We love days at sea -- perfect for relaxing and being pampered aboard ship.
This was our third cruise with Celebrity and we continue to feel that they provide great service and sophisticated atmosphere for the best value. Infinity was well maintained and rarely shows its age. We prefer the larger Solstice class ships because they offer a bit more but, hey, less walking! The staff is terrific and we noticed they've toned down the incessant "hard sell" of drink packages, etc. that we'd encountered on previous embarkations.
Cabin 9099
Our cabin (9099) was close to the mid-ship elevators, attractive, well appointed and had plenty of storage. In fact, on the last day we discovered more shelves in a secret side door in the TV cabinet. 16-days worth of clothes filled the closet and drawers but we still had a little room to spare. A tip from the Forum to use the empty suitcase under the bed as a rolling dirty-clothes hamper was great advice! The balcony overhang has pros and cons -- great for shade but not so great for star gazing. We discovered our cabin was under the smoking section of the pool deck but it posed no problem -- a little noise (only in the morning) but we never smelled anything on our balcony. We'd read that there were water pressure problems but experienced no problem -- in fact, we loved the shower with extra spa-like sprayers.
We spoke with several folks in Deck 11 Aqua class who wish they were on Deck 9 due to hot sun pouring in on balconies and being away from mid-ship.