sunset sails

First let me say that we are not complainers. We consider any day on a cruise to be a great day! We have sailed on several lines and most recently have been loyal to Celebrity as we considered it to be a step above the others in food and service. We sailed on the Silhouette in January with 3 other couples and we all had a fabulous time. Everything was up to Celebrity standards. We just returned from a Panama Canal cruise on the Infinity and unfortunately we saw some definite changes from prior cruises. At first we thought that maybe the difference was that we were sailing on a smaller ship - we had always been on a Solstice class ship in the past. However, I compared notes with a friend who was sailing on the Silhouette at the same time we were on the Infinity and she confirmed the same changes we saw so it appears that these changes are company wide. Here are a few examples:

The number of Someliers seems to have been severely cut. In the Select dining area, there were 3 for the entire area. They were doing their best but had too many tables to provide good service.

Bar service had been noticeably cut. There were seldom any bar servers on the upper deck of the pool. During our cocktail time prior to dinner, there were very few servers in the bars, and we tried them all. We were fine with getting our own drinks, but clearly the service in this area has been cut. If this is due to the free drink package, then we will happily pay for our drinks.

No Lobster Tail in the MDR - Rather than a lobster tail with butter as we have had offered on previous cruises, there was a seafood medley offered with a rock lobster. This is more in line with what is served on other cruise lines.

Live music had been severely cut. During cocktail time we could only find it from 7:45 - 8:45. In the past, it seemed that there was live music that could be heard throughout the atrium area every night.

No Brunch Buffet

No Parade of Chefs

Our stateroom service was wonderful although there was no ice service. We could have asked for it but the stateroom attendants seemed very busy.

Will we sail with Celebrity again? Absolutely. As a matter of fact, we are booked on B2B cruises in January, 2015 which we booked while on our January trip. In the future however, unless we see the little touches that we have grown to expect on Celebrity, we will choose our cruises based on itinerary and price rather than loyalty to Celebrity because in our opinion it is on par with other lines now.

Thanks so much for your quick replies! Great idea about the rubber band too! We leave in a week for a Panama Canal cruise! Time to start packing!!!! I appreciate your help!!!

I have searched threads for the answer to this question but am still unclear. Is there a plug-in hand held hair dryer in the balcony cabins on the Infinity. It looks like from what I have read that in AQ and Concierge cabins, there are such hair dryers stored in the desk. However, we are in a B2 balcony cabin and I want to make certain that there are plug-in hairdryers in those cabins also. I hate those old hair dryers attached with a hose to the wall in the bathroom - hope those were all replaced when the Infinity was refurbished. I don't want to add the weight of my hair dryer to my luggage but I will rather than wrestle with one of those wall units. Any help would be appreciated!!! Thanks!!

Our excursion with Soualiga Destinations was fabulous! Booking with Captain Bob was easy and he provided good directions from the cruise terminal to the marina where his boats depart. He had several boats go out that day and Chris was our captain on one of the pirate boats. He made sure that we all had a wonderful time! Despite being in January, the waters were calmer than usual so we were lucky. Chris was very knowledgeable about the area and stopped along the way to describe points of interest. Snorkling with the turtles was a great and at another stop we saw lots of beautiful fish. Lunch on the beach was delicious! Our group of 8 voted this day the highlight of our cruise! We would definitely book this excursion again and recommend it to others!

We took the "Tour" with Thenford Grey on our recent cruise to St Kitts and it was great! He is very knowledgeable about his island and gave great commentary along our route. He even quoted some poetry! We saw beautiful vistas at Brimstone Fortress and he later drove us to an overlook where we were able to see both the Atlantic and Caribbean sides of the island. He offered us water along the way so we had no issues with that and were not expecting food as that is not part of the excursion. We had a wonderful day with Mr Grey and would definitely recommend him!

Thanks so much for this detailed review! We are cruising in March and your review has convinced me this is the tour for us! One question: Do you recall the approximate time of day that the tour left and returned to the port? Thanks!