AstoriaPreppy

Does anyone know what the deal is with Trenitalia from Santa Lucia this summer? I’m looking for Venice (Santa Lucia) to Trieste, but it seems the only option is “get yourself to Mestre by ground transportation and then get on the train to Trieste.” Not sure if they’re having issues with the train causeway, or have just changed the schedules dramatically? I was pretty sure there was a nonstop from the terminal on Venice island to Trieste. I may just be looking too soon, or there are service changes planned? It’s only showing three trains a day past the second week of June.

To be clear, we loved the trip: the staff was amongst the best we've had in years, and spent exactly zero time at guest services complaining about the ship issues. We probably could have scored a future cruise credit, but that's not our vibe. However, it's really important that anyone booking the Infinity knows what they're getting. We've sailed on Summit, Millennium, and Solstice since the restart (and on Royal, Carnival, and Princess as well), and Infinity was absolutely the worst condition of any of those trips. I had to take exactly zero cold sponge baths on those ships when my room lost hot water, but that happened on the Infinity. I'd much rather give realistic feedback on what we experienced... you may call that negative, but I call that helpful in making a decision on what ship to sail on.

TBH, we found the public areas relatively shabby, and not up to Celebrity's normal standards. The lighting was especially noticeable. In the Rendezvous Lounge, about 1/3 of the lights were non-functional. In the MDR, pieces of the ceiling "skylight" and random uplight wall panels were dead. In the theater, only the first three or four rows had functional lights in the cocktail tables... the entire back of the main floor bowl area was dead. But then the balcony cocktail tables worked? It was very sporadic. I did notice that the line had made a point to place new seating in the Constellation lounge, and 3/4 of the buffet... but then you'd wander into a section of the buffet with the old wooden chairs. It was very piecemeal, but better than nothing. The MDR seating was not updated. Agree on the atrocious WiFi. We had premium. Once connected, it was great, but connecting to the WiFi in a public space with more than 10 people was futile. The connection to the network would also regularly drop: you may be connected in the Sunset Bar but walking inside to the buffet would drop you (and make it impossible to reconnect). My iPhone regularly gave me a detailed error message about restarting the router, which I've never seen when connecting to any network.

Based on our experience last week, I would disagree that the Infinity is "well maintained," especially in the staterooms and many of the public spaces. That said, I wouldn't hesitate to book the Summit or Millennium.

Just wanted to hop on this thread and share my opinions on the Infinity. We recently disembarked, and were shocked at the poor condition of the ship. Many of the lounges and public spaces are banged up from 20+ years of use, with lightbulbs and fixtures out or non-functional in many public spaces. We did notice that the line updated the seating in many spaces, but this was also sporadic. There’s still 1/4 of the buffet that has the old wooden chairs, which was somewhat emblematic of the shabby/piecemeal nature of the entire ship at this point. The staterooms are in poor condition. Outside of the design issues from a different era of cruising (only two shelves, and the closet drawers are 2 inches deep??), there were multiple problems that cropped up during the week. Cosmetic issues were abundant, but we also had mechanical issues too: some mornings we had no hot water, toilets took several flushes to empty, etc. Anecdotally, we talked to more than one passenger who was forced to sleeping in layers of clothing after their heat failed. Additionally, the Wi-Fi was spectacularly poor. I say Wi-Fi, because once connected, the internet was fast and reliable… but getting on the Wi-Fi and staying connected was a running joke amongst the passengers. I can only guess it’s infrastructure on the ship that hasn’t been updated. Any space with more than 50 passengers would result in a Wi-Fi freak out, dropping users and delivering weird error messages suggesting we restart the ship’s router (ha!). This meant that attending an event in the theater or sitting poolside would render the Wi-Fi inoperable, with the only recourse to try and reconnect to the network 30-40 times before getting back online. While these issues didn’t ruin our trip in any sense and some of the crew were excellent, I couldn’t realistically recommend the Infinity to anyone.

Nothing better than a pearl-clutching Cruise Critic post, harshly judging other passengers for not being up to your "quality of people" standards. Yikes and double yikes. I'd say this was trolling if it wasn't so earnestly written.

Cruise lines *love* Deal or No Deal because it's both a revenue source, and ostensibly an additional entertainment offering for the line. There were very few people who would show up at bingo just to watch... Deal or No Deal offers watchability even for those not playing.

I'd also add to keep an eye out for livestock. There were multiple times we tried passing people, only to find that a flock of sheep had wandered on to the road.

Just making sure someone mentioned this. Unlike Luminae, the Haven restaurant menu never changes. Regular Haven cruisers will trip over themselves to tell you how remarkable the menu is that they don’t need new options each night… but it’s more that the lines wants and expects passengers to go to specialty dining regularly.

A lot of the parking areas in Iceland use an a phone app called Parka. Not sure if that's what was in use here, but it's good to have in Iceland. https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/iceland https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/iceland-guidebook Available at lots of public libraries as an ebook, along with major book resellers.

You'll absolutely have time for that. I'd also recommend the Hverir thermal area. It's on private land, slightly past Myvatn, but is an excellent assortment of thermal features (mud pots, steam vents, etc). There is a nominal cost to park, but it was well worth it.

Akureyri is a dock, not a tender, which helps. Re: timing, it's important to remember that Iceland at that time of year has like 16-17 hours of daylight, and there's no real closing time for sites... so you're basically able to push the touring as long as you're comfortable. We were docked from 11 am - 8 pm, and didn't feel rushed at all, even with going to Dettifoss which is 2 hours from Akureyri.

That's the one. It's walkable, but just be aware that the walk is up a hill, and then back down the hill descending to the rental agency. There's sidewalks, but we were a bit of a sweaty mess on finally getting to the rental agency at the end of the walk.

I'd make the case that having a rental was totally worth it. Even at $350, the only additional expense ends up being gas. You're on your schedule, and TBH we really appreciated being able to venture to places even private tours wouldn't go (Dettifoss, etc). That money seemed totally worth it when we realized we both beat the tour buses to Dynjandi waterfall, and also had a full day ahead of us (instead of just back to the ship). Iceland is exceedingly easy to navigate on your own, and very tourist friendly. There's also not a ton of cultural interpretation required at most sites (it's not a European "what is this ruin I'm looking at?" thing). I'd recommend picking up Rick Steve's Iceland guide. We found this invaluable in helping us plot out our excursion days, along with our post-cruise stay in Reykjavik.

We used the Holdur branch of Europcar, which is a major rental agency in Iceland and Europe in general. The Reykjavik branch was a full-service location: toilets, coffee, etc. The prices were significantly better than Budget/Avis, and the cars were better as well. We also rented from Europcar in Akureyri and Isafjordur, but these were satellite locations. Akureyri was in a shipping container near the port that was unmanned when we arrived (they thought we came in on the Princess ship earlier and had left when we didn't pick up the car). We had to call and wait for someone to come out and give us the contracts/keys. Isafjordur in a hotel lobby a block or two from the tender pier: we told the front desk we were here for a Europcar rental and a guy showed up with keys and a CC machine. Pro tip: rental agencies provide a booklet about driving in Iceland when renting. I'd highly recommend reading and processing before driving, especially regarding one-lane bridges, roundabouts and livestock.

Free coffee and donuts?

I just want to echo this comment re: Mazatlan. We were on the same itinerary in February, and many passengers had worked themselves up to a level of hysteria regarding the stop. We were shocked at how tourist-friendly and monitored the blue line was, including the areas toward the malecon along the ocean. Police officers every block or two, and tons of American expats (usually old guys) acting as volunteers along the route. It ended up being absolutely the best port stop on the cruise!

Celebrity just got called out in a CBS News report for being amongst the most whale-unfriendly cruise lines on the West Coast. I'm assuming this itinerary change has something to do with that: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/whale-safe-ship-collisions-new-technology/

We were on the Solstice a few weeks ago, and our balcony faced the pier on returning. Self-disembarkation definitely was happening around 7:30 am... which I remember because we made a point to get to the MDR for breakfast by 7:45 before it closed. Global Entry was not being used in the World Cruise Center in San Pedro, and with the very reduced capacity on these sailings, it doesn't really matter. Customs screening was done by facial recognition: unless the tablets in the terminal flagged you, there was no interaction with a customs agent. We didn't stop moving from the second we walked off the ship to the second we got to the curb. Ever group was called for disembarkation around 9 am on our sailing. An officer came to Cafe al Bacio and had to clear stragglers (us) out. Re: self-disembarkation, I'd suggest trying to keep it to self-manageable, cary-on type bags. You can certainly use the elevator, but dragging a 50 pound bag down the gangway is a bad idea. Alternatively, you could set your bags out the night before and ask guest services for an early color tag? There's not a ton of people on these sailings so there's a lot of flexibility there. Re: Uber... where are you going? If it's somewhere further away or more expensive, you have a better chance of getting a car.

everyone on Cruise Critic:

(ed. note, this website is regularly the worst place on the internet) As Whitney would say: "show me the receipts!" Well, here's my dining room assignment from 2019. Feel free to pull up the deck plans. Just remember, I'm only here to lie and convince people to fork over their money to get into a cabin with no functional HVAC system, because that's a thing people do on cruise critic 🤷‍♂️ Because that makes it a balcony... you can 1) either open the window and have the HVAC shut off, or you can 2) open the window + close the accordion doors to make it function like a normal balcony. keeping the heating cooling on in the rest of the stateroom. And you don't have to keep the accordion doors closed for the AC/heat to function normally... only with the window open.

Fair. I do live in NY, which is known for having low standards for food and beverage service across the board 😂

Why would I possibly lie about this? If I wanted to troll people on Cruise Critic, I would start topics about how the buffet is horrible, or room service fees.

I will reiterate this until I drop dead: there is no way you went to guest services and they didn't tell you to just close the accordion doors to keep the AC on. If the heating or cooling doesn't function when the accordion doors are closed, it's a maintenance issue or user error... not how the stateroom is designed to work. I sailed the Edge in Europe in 2019 during the heat wave, and they were repeatedly reminding us to close the accordion doors to keep the HVAC on in the room. These cabins would not be usable without that functionality. Imagine being in Alaska and not having the heat stay on in the room every time someone opened their verandah?!

Well, I can't tell you to contact maintenance to fix if you're no longer onboard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Again, the AC/heat is designed to stay on if the accordion doors are closed... if it doesn't, something is broken. This was clearly noted when we sailed in an infinite verandah... there was a sign that said "close the doors to keep the AC on" or something similar.