Seasons Greetings from Infinity!

[mahdnc]

My family of four is spending Christmas and New Year's Day aboard Infinity during its 15 night cruise from Valparaiso to Buenos Aires. This is our 11th Celebrity cruise as a family. We sailed on Infinity during her first year of service when the kids were very young almost fifteen years ago when they would happily play at the Fun Factory! Now that they're both over 21 years old, we don't see them much anymore so these cruises are more family reunion events! And so we tend to spend a lot of time by ourselves and haven't mingled much or participated in very many organized activities.

 

We have never been to South America and we have never cruised over Christmas Also our last three cruise during the past three years have all been on Eclipse, so it was going to be interesting to sail M class again!

 

Today is only the second day of the cruise. But it is (or was) Christmas at sea! Since it was our first cruising Christmas, we decorated the stateroom with a small artificial tree on the desk, four stockings hung in the wall using magnetic hooks, and snowflake stickers on the balcony for glass. A fireplace app on our iPad was useful for Christmas morning, too. We also decorated our stateroom for. I was surprised that there were very few doors decorated by passengers.

 

The ship was decorated beautifully. The staircase in the Grand Foyer was closed off and each step was decorated from top to bottom. I guess Santa made a visit to the ship to give toys to alk the kids and to participate in a Latin dance class with the adults!

 

The passengers are very mixed nationality wise. The Captain's Club host, Alexandra Fataccioli, tells me that there are only 150 Captain's Club members on board. On the other hand Luisa, Guest Relations Officer, tells me that there are 300 kids on board. We haven't seen many of them, and what few we've seen, are very well behaved.

 

The ship is in very good shape and the service has been excellent.

 

On Christmas morning, a large 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Chile and was centered near Puerto Montt which is tomorrow's next port! While we are obviously concerned about the residents, it appears that it has not affected tomorrow's stop.

 

Ok. Time for bed. We had a great Christmas today and I was able to watch my beloved Steelers win today on the stateroom TV!

 

If you have any questions, let me know!

Edited December 26, 2016 by mahdnc

[Kentucky816]

Wow, sounds fabulous!! Please fill us in on how things are in Chile tomorrow. [emoji106]

 

 

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[RexC]

I hope you enjoy your cruise! We will be on the Infinity for the first time in March and I am interested to see the daily news sheets from the ship. Trying to get a feel for the activities and entertainment we may have. If you could post some photos at some point it would be appreciated.

[sabrefan]

Thank you so much for this live review. Will also be doing this same cruise in March but starting from Buenos Aires. All previous cruises on Celebrity have been on Solstice class ships so very interested to hear what you think of M class ships. Along with photos I hope you can tell us about any excursions you will be on. Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your cruise.

[cruise47]

Thanks for taking the time to share your review and please enjoy your cruise to South America.

[mahdnc]

No problem, RexC. I am saving the Celebrity Today newsletters and I'll post them when I get a chance.

 

Right now my family and I just finished the white water rafting site excursion at Puerto Montt. The ship is scheduled to sail at 6pm. But it is 5:23pm and it looks like half the ship's passengers are queued up in a massive line to catch the last tender!

[mahdnc]

I'll post some comments while I wait in this massively long line!

 

We flew into Santiago from Chicago on Thu Dec 22 giving us two days before we embarked.

 

When we landed in Santiago we discovered that one of our bags didn't make it! Fortunately Delta was already aware of the situation when we arrived and told us that the bag never made it to our connecting flight out of Atlanta. I also stupidly left my iPad in the seat pocket and didn't discover it until we were near our hotel in Viña del Mar. A quick call to the Delta rep who handled our late bag solved the problem. She was able to retrieve the iPad which I was sure was permanently lost! Both items were transported to our hotel the next day. Whew!

 

We stayed two nights before the cruise at the Sheraton in Viña del Mar. It's a very nice hotel on the coastline. Our overview room had a direct view of the cruise port a couple miles away.

 

We didn't do anything special during our time there, but we really enjoyed it. We mainly walked around the town checking out shops. We also spent some time going to a medical center to get a prescription for Imitrex which we filled at a local farmacia. We enjoyed checking out the local restaurants and shops. We found that English was not commonly spoken which made interacting with the locals more interesting. But it's amazing how much headway you can make with a smile, hand gestures, and the Google Translate app! We used the translate app occasionally where we passed my iPhone back and forth!

 

We used or Visa credit card where we could. American cash was always accepted in Viña del Mar. At least where we went!

 

Time to go, I've got to go thru the x ray machine!

Edited December 26, 2016 by mahdnc

[easyboy]

That is one good reason of being near port day(s) ahead of sail time. Delayed luggage can catch up. Good to know too that your iPad found your way too. Happy sailing and looking forward to your updates.