Foodsponge Fullpant's May-11 INFINITY Pacific-Coastal REVIEW PT.-1

[greydog]

INTRODUCTION

This review is designed with the ‘mini-skirt’ rule in mind, i.e. short enough to be interesting, long enough to cover what’s essential.

 

This Pacific Coastal trip on the Infinity lasted 10 days from San Diego to Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Francisco (overnight), Astoria, Seattle, Nanaimo, Victoria, ending in Vancouver. I’m a frequent Celebrity cruiser, sailing accompanied by my starter wife of 39 years, Joan. After all this time I’m still a little uneasy about her favorite song, Deanna Carter’s “Did I shave my legs for this?”

 

We flew from Atlanta and arrived late the night before the cruise. Our Hampton Inn Downtown on Pacific Hwy was 3 blocks from the pier. Construction noise next door woke us at 8am. A Wyndham was directly across from the pier.

 

We did a 10-day San Francisco to Alaska round trip in 2015, so we have visited several of these ports before. We had the Classic beverage package from the BBB promotion and I upgraded to premium early in the cruise. I remembered Paul Hornung’s statement “I read about the evils of drinking, so I gave up reading.”

 

CRUISE-CRITIC RALLY CALL

I repeat from my last cruise review that IMHO Cruise Critic would benefit from an identifying rally cry to engage its board members. We are already familiar with kids in the pool yelling “MARCO” to be answered “POLO”. We also recognize the prideful “Aussie-Aussie-Aussie!” lead with response “Oy-Oy-Oy!”

 

I humbly propose we board members call out the rally signature “Cruise Critic, Cruise Critic” with full-throated response “Whine-Wine-Whine”.

 

I restate the need for a signature theme song for Cruise Critic. I propose Nirvana’s “Teen Spirit” anthem which features the lyric “Here we are now, entertain us”.

 

EMBARKATION

We had received an email a week before sailing indicating that special security inspections would delay boarding. The email indicated boarding times by cabin deck with topmost decks starting at noon.

 

I went the three blocks from our hotel at 11am to check on the boarding situation. There were long lines moving slowly. We returned at noon, dropped our bags, and had a nice leisurely lunch next door at Anthony’s to allow the peak boarding rush to pass. At 1:45pm the TSA screening took 15+ minutes but the Elite+ processing went quickly.

 

I noticed the preponderance of cruisers were married couples and remembered one man’s explanation that “women marry men to avoid having to stay among other women.” It’s rumored that Celebrity stopped publicizing ceremonies for the renewal of wedding vows after Guest Relations was flooded with hopeful individuals asking about expiration dates.

 

STATEROOM

Had Family Veranda cabin 9158 on Deck 9. This popped up 3 weeks before sailing at reduced price for two so I transferred at no upcharge from a lower veranda price. This oversize cabin has a two sofa bed sitting room separable from the main sleeping area by a full height sliding privacy divider. The wake-facing cabin’s veranda was 10.5 ft. wide and 14 ft. deep with 2 loungers, 4 chairs and 36 in. round table.

 

The downside of this and adjacent deck-9 aft cabins is the location directly under the buffet’s outdoor dining patio. Loud chair drag-scrapping noises reverberated through the ceiling to these cabins underneath. Fortunately, these disturbances were after 6:30am and ended by 10:15pm.

 

Cruise cabins function as living room, bath and bedroom. Moreover, cruisers have noted lately that more passengers are traveling with their dog. This triggered the memory of Rodney “get no respect” D’s lament about his dog coming into his bedroom at night in order to pick up tips on begging. The beds were comfortable but I’m still not a fan of the duvet cover which is not conducive to control warmth by layering.

 

Rumor has it that the large mirrors on the cabin wall were originally intended to be mounted on the ceiling above the beds. However, this proved impractical after many males complained that the mirror needed to display the admonition: “Objects are larger than they appear in the mirror”

 

The shower on Infinity was rectangular with the old style cloth curtain to draw. One day while using the bar of soap, a potential boon to mankind occurred to me. If bars of soap were made hollow, later there’d be no annoying little pieces to deal with. I need to contact the Patent Office.

 

SHIP’S CONDITION

Tired, worn, saggy, sorely needing touchups – but enough about the passengers. On the positive side, at the pool area, I was impressed with the prevalence of men with six-pack abs – see pic at end of review.

.

The public areas had been refurbished recently. The ship seemed to be clean and well maintained overall with crew regularly visible performing cleaning duties.

 

Our sailing before summer vacation resulted in few kids onboard. I have nothing against noisy, sticky-fingered, germ-spreading kids but never forget that they are here to replace us. Some will become travelers - conforming to Mae West’s dictum that “good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.”

 

Cruise Critic “Connections” meeting

Scheduled at 5pm after the safety drill because the next day was a port day.

 

Having grown up watching the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, I tend to look around the group I’d be on the lifeboat with and hope no one closely resembled William Bendix and/or Tallulah Bankhead.

 

It was held in a chilly wind in the new top deck movie terrace. This was uncomfortable and difficult to interact, so there was not much interaction. A second cruise critic social was held a few days later as a ‘do over’ in the Constellation Lounge.

 

This trip’s ‘Roll Call’ members did not pre-organize a group slot pull, so all were left to lose money in the casino on their own. On two prior group slot pulls, each put in $20, and received $11 and $13 back. I do think it’s a tactical error to let the casino manager pick the machine for the group pull – just sayin’. Some day they may revise the saying to “Nice guys and slot pull groups finish last”.

 

SPECIALTY RESTAURANTS

I had purchased the 3-night dining package at boarding. We visited Tuscan Grille and Qsine twice each under the theory that “Those never venturing to try many different things will miss out on many of life’s disappointments.”

 

Having visited these restaurants on other ships, we both had filet mignons on both Tuscan visits. At Qsine we focused on a few favorites from prior experience, specifically the Painter’s Mignon, Chitini (Chinese sampler) and Taj Mahal (Indian sampler). Had the ‘Silver Bullet’ gelato dessert.

 

A couple nights at the entry to the were Deck 10 buffet there were discount offers for going to Qsine, which was never as busy as Tuscan (only two specialty restaurants on the Infinity).

 

SELECT DINING

We prefer to eat early but the couple times we approached the Select Dining area, there was quite a line waiting. So we ended up going to the buffet many nights. We like that you can eat quickly self-serve, have a variety of entrees to try and can eat outside on the patio. I enjoyed the cook-to-order stir fry dinner three nights.

 

We usually went to the Elite Breakfast offered from 8am-10am each morning in the Tuscan Grille area. They had returned to the self-serve buffet of pastries, fruits, cheese and cold cuts. They had juices and smoothies too while servers took your fresh coffee or espresso order. The manager said they do buffet style instead of table service when there are a large number of Elite on board.

 

ENTERTAINMENT

We attended only one theatre performance in the evening – long walks in the ports, dinner and the beverage package takes its toll. A finalist from America’s Got Talent, a young illusionist with wife assistant, gave a one-hour performance that was ok – at least the audience remained throughout.

 

Complaints are common about the quality of entertainment that Celebrity provides. It’s entirely different than with parachutes. When parachutes fail you don't hear the user complaining.

 

On a previous cruise a comedian commented on the ‘mature-leaning’ ages of Celebrity passengers. But he said that it wasn’t as bad as the even older passenger demographic on his recent Cunard gig. He said that on Cunard, in the theatre when the show started and bright stage lights came on, many stood up and started walking towards the light.

 

SPA SERVICES

The Spa concept is based on the proposition “Time may be a healer, but it is no beautician.”

Got a quick haircut for $35. Used my Elite coupon for a ‘port day only’ visit to the Persian Garden. There were 3 steam rooms and separate sauna (Sahara room). One steam room was too hot, another had eucalyptus herbal scent, and third unscented moderate heat. To the side of the lounging area, there were two or three multi-jet showers claiming some herbal scents but the controls were not fully functioning.

 

LAUNDRY SERVICE

We sent two batches of laundry, returned the next afternoon, using the Elite coupons. My wife reported missing a top from the laundry halfway through the cruise - it was only returned the last day of the cruise after inquiries at Guest Services desk.

 

On a prior cruise someone’s very fashionable polo shirt turned up with my laundry. I was reluctant to return it but knew it was the gentlemanly thing to do – but I’m aware that Lana Turner said “a gentleman is just a patient wolf.” I seem to remember Lana Turner was one of Hollywood’s ‘sweater girls’. I wondered if the ‘sweater girls’ were the source of another well known saying “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

 

To reduce the risk of misplaced laundry, I suggest adding some distinctive personalized labeling. For example, a banker could mark all his undershorts with ‘too big to fail”.

 

DEBARKATION

We ate at 6:30am in the buffet and went to the Tuscan Grille waiting area. We had specified preferring 9am debark because we were staying over in Vancouver and had no time constraints.

 

The Tuscan Grille got overcrowded for a while but by about 8:30 most of the tag numbers had been called. Movement through baggage claim and customs was the usual noisy jostling herd of humanity but moved fairly quickly.

 

We left Canada Place pier and pulled our roller luggage two blocks to Delta Suites on W. Hastings St. Fortunately a clean room was available early and we were able to move in and prepare for our day visiting Vancouver’s Granville Island entertainment district.

 

PART 2 of this review is forthcoming about our time and activity in each of the ports visited.

[The bubble]

Hi greydog,

 

Loved your review so far. Looking forward to part 2 and the review of the ports.

 

We will be taking this cruise May of '17.

 

Thanks.

 

Phyllis

[thebutlerdidit]

I am so sorry, but the missing denim shirt was folded and returned in our laundry. I left the stack untouched until we began packing on the last day. :o I called guest services as soon as I spotted the error and even commented that I'd had the rogue shirt for days and that there was a passenger somewhere on board throwing a hissy fit right now because it was the last day and they thought they'd never see their shirt again. (We didn't hear the hissy fit if one was thrown.)

 

BTW. we had a great time at Qsine with you both. We both thought it was better than Tuscan Grille, which we tried on the last evening.

[norwegianwood57]

Cant wait for part 2, if not for information then for comic relief.

[Jane2357]

Thanks for the laughs - I'll be watching for part 2!

 

[Ozzmund]

Greydog,

 

Very entertaining review, all it is missing are some rimshots.

[Cruise_Dancer]

After all this time I’m still a little uneasy about her favorite song, Deanna Carter’s “Did I shave my legs for this?”

 

Never heard this song before and I love it. I'm making all my students dance to it this week.

[Clarea]

Nicely written, looking forward to part 2.:)

[greydog]

I am so sorry, but the missing denim shirt was folded and returned in our laundry.

 

BTW. we had a great time at Qsine with you both. We both thought it was better than Tuscan Grille, which we tried on the last evening.

 

Hi Bob/Lori - nice to have met you. Hope you trip home went smoothly.

 

All's well that ends well re laundry.

 

We've think Tuscan has lost some of its luster over time, or we're just a little jaded or both. We plan to do 'ultimate' dining pkg again on Reflection in April - get the Porch raw bar for lunch, choice of specialty every evening - our fav by far is Lawn Club Grill - tasty casual outdoor cookout at sea. Warm choc cookie dessert is a treat.

 

N. MI nice now? Atalnta was 95 a couple days ago. I've been here in a past July when every day in July it got to at least 95. BYE

[cruisetexas]

I want to cruise with you....your sense of humor brought a smile to my face this morning!

 

Thanks.

:)

[Nicstucruisers]

Grey Dog,

 

Another great review.

 

Looking forward to Part 2 as we gear up for our Pacific Coastal Cruise in September.

 

No wine tastings??

Edited June 28, 2016 by Nicstucruisers

[Niagarawine]

Please.please,please go,on another cruise and do,a review. You made my day!