Infinity 9/29/07 Panama Canal Cruise from San Francisco.

Please remember to click on photos to enlarge them when they are hard to view!

This was a great cruise, our best yet! As you start reading you might doubt that, but don't worry even though we had a few glitches, especially at the beginning of the cruise, it ended up being fantastic and in no small part due to meeting wonderful people like Bonnie, Rich, Merce, Angus, Joyce, Annette, Thomas, John, Len, Stephanie, and Gary. In fact there are so many more of you I can't continue to name everyone, but if you met us and chatted with us more then an minute, then believe me you helped make our cruise special, so many thanks!

Leaving our home in Cupertino, California, we arrived at Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 35 Terminal around 11:00am. Passengers from the previous cruise were blocking the Terminal entrance as they waited for taxi's. Boarding started around 11:30am but our express pass was anything but quick since we were unlucky enough to get a woman who didn't know how to use the scanner for the passports, credit cards or how to find anything on her computer. After about 15 minutes someone helped her process us but later during the cruise we encountered others who also had a long wait with her and all of us received letters from the customer service desk the next day that they needed our credit card once again.

Once aboard Celebrity's Infinity, champagne glass in hand we went to our corner FV stateroom 7199 and dropped off our carry on luggage.

We then went and checked out the pool area and bar and it was onward to the buffet for our first lunch.



This was our third cruise on an M Class Celebrity ship and the second on the Infinity. Our first cruise on the Infinity was July 2001. At 91,000 tons it is considered a mid-size ship and at capacity can carry around 2,000 passengers and 1,000 crew. The M class ships never feel crowded to me and while there was some wear and tear, it's a lovely ship and I would be happy to sail on her at anytime.

After the obligatory life boat drill and a very funny one it was as Captain Dimitrios Kafetzis has a great sense of humor, we were back in our stateroom.




What we loved about the corner FV cabin was the private hallway, perfect for extra luggage storage, the extra closet and storage space. The fact there is both a love seat and a full size sofa in a separate living room area from the bedroom was a terrific plus since Randy likes to read for a bit after I have gone to sleep. The FV's also have two televisions, though we really didn't have time to watch them much. On the M class ships the aft balconies are all huge and the corner FV balconies are even larger and also get a great cross wind on the side which was a blessing on a cruise like this one with hot and humid weather. The one negative for us is we love the CC class, room service breakfast menu and the FV cabins only get the regular menu which we found not to be very good in comparison to the CC menu on our Baltic cruise in June of 2006 on the Constellation.

Our stateroom balcony had a great view of Alcatraz.



Even though we went to our stateroom the minute they opened it up around 1pm, there was no sign of our cabin steward or his assistant. After two hours I called him because we wanted ice for the champagne we had brought on board and Robert finally came and introduced himself. Robert and Aaron his assistant were polite enough but without a doubt were the worse cabin steward's we have ever had. If it had been our first cruise we might not have known they weren't as good as they could be, but for someone who is used to first class service on the Celebrity ships, they were definitely lacking.

Once the champagne was iced we lost little time in enjoying it and our balcony in anticipation of a 5pm sail away.


That anticipation of a sail away went on for more then two hours and one bottle of champagne! Turned out one of the crew on shore leave never returned to the ship and there were certain procedures that the Captain had to follow before we could depart. We then made the mistake of going to the first show and during it the ship set sail and we missed going under the Golden Gate Bridge.

Back to our stateroom all luggage had arrived and we had time to unpack before going off to our late seating dinner in the Infinity's main dining room. We had requested a table for six and had somehow ended up at a table with 12 place settings! We were the first ones there so we quickly made our way to the assistant Maitre D and let him know we didn't mind eating that night in our stateroom as we were tired but would like a table for 6 or at least no more then 8 for the rest of the cruise. He wouldn't hear of us eating in the stateroom but insisted on finding us a table for six immediately and we ended up on the lower level of the Trellis dining room near the large 2 story windows and a few tables away from the Captain's table. Everything turned rosy quickly as we developed a friendship with Joyce and Angus from Manchester, England, and Annette and Thomas from Vacaville, CA. Strangely enough Randy, Angus and Thomas were all engineers and Angus and Thomas were born on the same day and celebrated their birthdays on the ship while Randy's was a couple days after the cruise ended.


Day two, had us up early in the morning to attend the Cruise Critic meet and greet in Michael's Club. WWW.cruisecritic.com is a great website with a wealth of information about various cruise ships, lines, ports, etc...thanks to the informative group of people who post there. We had a wonderful roll call for this cruise and most of us (about 40) did show up for the Cruise Critic party we signed up for before the cruise. There's a short clip below with Ian and our Cruise Critic attendees.

Remember to click on the photo above to really be able to see everyone.

Later in the day we went to the Cova Cafe and had them pack up tea sandwiches and dessert to take back to our balcony to enjoy.




This was also our first formal night. We ate 10 dinners in the Trellis dining room and our waiter was Schubert and he was one of the best servers I have ever had on a cruise. The other five dinners were either at Bonnie, Rich and Merce's penthouse stateroom or the SS United States specialty restaurant (more about them to follow).