Considering the Best of Spain and Portugal cruise in 2021 on the Infinity

[terrydtx]

Today Celebrity released their 2021 Europe cruise schedule and we are very interested in the Best of Spain and Portugal 10 night cruise on the Infinity. It sails over our 50th anniversary of August 28th and we are interested in a Aqua Class cabin. This is about the only itinerary we have found over of Anniversary that interests us with any cruise line. Our only prior cruise on X was the Century in 2008 for the Western Med cruise and we were not impressed. Since that time we have done several HAL cruises and one Viking ocean cruise for next year.

 

My question is, has Celebrity changed for the better since 2008 and being happy HAL customers, will we like the Infinity and Celebrity overall?  We usually book Signature Suites with HAL but they have nothing like the Blu restaurant and other the  benefits of Aqua Class. The prices announced today are very enticing for this cruise, several hundreds less than the same cruise in 2020.

 

One last question, I see that the Infinity is getting a major upgrade in Nov. 2020, what will this upgrade include?

 

Thank you in advance for any help and input.

[4774Papa]

28 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

Today Celebrity released their 2021 Europe cruise schedule and we are very interested in the Best of Spain and Portugal 10 night cruise on the Infinity. It sails over our 50th anniversary of August 28th and we are interested in a Aqua Class cabin. This is about the only itinerary we have found over of Anniversary that interests us with any cruise line. Our only prior cruise on X was the Century in 2008 for the Western Med cruise and we were not impressed. Since that time we have done several HAL cruises and one Viking ocean cruise for next year.

 

My question is, has Celebrity changed for the better since 2008 and being happy HAL customers, will we like the Infinity and Celebrity overall?  We usually book Signature Suites with HAL but they have nothing like the Blu restaurant and other the  benefits of Aqua Class. The prices announced today are very enticing for this cruise, several hundreds less than the same cruise in 2020.

 

One last question, I see that the Infinity is getting a major upgrade in Nov. 2020, what will this upgrade include?

 

Thank you in advance for any help and input.

We have cruised four times on Infinity.  The last time was in 2014.   It is one of the four Millennium class ships.  We like the M class ships, since they are smaller with fewer passengers and you don't feel crowded.

 

We have done 11 Celebrity cruise, 7 on NCL and 2 on Royal Caribbean.  Celebrity is our favorite, however, due to prices increasing more for that line, Royal C. seems to come up with better deals.

Celebrity's dining and service is superior, however we like NCL and Royal for the entertainment.

[Northern Aurora]

2 hours ago, terrydtx said:

......... Our only prior cruise on X was the Century in 2008 for the Western Med cruise and we were not impressed. Since that time we have done several HAL cruises and one Viking ocean cruise for next year.

 

My question is, has Celebrity changed for the better since 2008 and being happy HAL customers, will we like the Infinity and Celebrity overall? ......

 

 

Celebrity has implemented a number of changes since 2008.  For example, now there are no interior areas designated for smoking.  Even the casinos are nonsmoking.  For me that policy is a positive, but for others it may be a negative.  So it might be helpful if the OP would post what issues they had in 2008 which left them unimpressed.  

 

 

[terrydtx]

26 minutes ago, Northern Aurora said:

 

 

Celebrity has implemented a number of changes since 2008.  For example, now there are no interior areas designated for smoking.  Even the casinos are nonsmoking.  For me that policy is a positive, but for others it may be a negative.  So it might be helpful if the OP would post what issues they had in 2008 which left them unimpressed.  

 

 

For me non smoking is a positive. My prior cruises to 2008 included a HAL, RCCL and a Carnival one. I thought that the Celebrity was supposed to be an upgrade in quality over RCCL and I found the food and service to be no better than RCCL. The Murano Steak specialty restaurant was just average. I think HAL has great main dinning room food and great specialty restaurants, but I know food is totally subjective

 

My sister and BIL have been on 7 Celerity cruises and they swear by the Aqua Class cabins. From looking at AQ Cl on paper HAL has nothing that comes close in comparison, which is why we are looking at Celebrity and this itinerary. We usually do Signature Suites on HAL but there is almost nothing we get in benefits other than a bigger cabin and balcony. HAL calling this category a Suite is a real joke.  HAL has nothing like Blu either.

Edited November 20, 2019 by terrydtx

[terrydtx]

Does anyone know what upgrades the Infinity is scheduled to get while in Dry Dock in Nov. 2020?

[waterbug123]

On 11/19/2019 at 4:23 PM, terrydtx said:

Our only prior cruise on X was the Century in 2008 for the Western Med cruise and we were not impressed. Since that time we have done several HAL cruises and one Viking ocean cruise for next year.

 

My question is, has Celebrity changed for the better since 2008 and being happy HAL customers, will we like the Infinity and Celebrity overall? 

 

Tough for anyone to really answer.  You don't say WHY you were unimpressed with X.  Was it the ship itself?  the itinerary?  food?  entertainment?  cabin category?  service? 

Without knowing what you didn't like, it's hard to say if things have improved, and without knowing your personality, how can someone say if you will like Infinity overall? 

I will say that if you were on the Century in '08, you were on a pretty old ship.  It may have been well maintained, but was in its final days with X and newer ships generally have more features and more options in terms of dining, activities etc.

[terrydtx]

1 hour ago, waterbug123 said:

 

Tough for anyone to really answer.  You don't say WHY you were unimpressed with X.  Was it the ship itself?  the itinerary?  food?  entertainment?  cabin category?  service? 

Without knowing what you didn't like, it's hard to say if things have improved, and without knowing your personality, how can someone say if you will like Infinity overall? 

I will say that if you were on the Century in '08, you were on a pretty old ship.  It may have been well maintained, but was in its final days with X and newer ships generally have more features and more options in terms of dining, activities etc.

As I said above we found the food to be very unimpressive and the Specialty steak house was just average nothing special or worth the upcharge. We booked a verandah cabin but it was one of the converted OV to Verandah and it was so tiny we couldn't move around the bed. We loved the itinerary which is why we did that cruise. However,  I did not think the service or food was on par with our subsequent HAL cruises. We have no loyalty to any one cruise line and look at itinerary over cruise line. This is why we are booked on a Viking Ocean Venice to Athens 10 day cruise next year, it was their itinerary that won us for this cruise.

 

That being said we are going to book the celebrity cruise for 2021 next week when they have their cyber Monday sale. No other cruise line has this Barcelona to Lisbon itinerary that we like. After looking into X, I found that they offer a lot more benefits for the upper tier class booking like Aqua Class. HAL's Signature Suites looks like the equivalent to Aqua but HAL has no special dinning venue and they do not even have a expedited boarding for SS guests. HAL is beginning to offer something called Club Orange on select ships which has separate dining for breakfast and dinner, but it is open to any passengers who are willing to pay an extra $35-$50 pp per day. Only their Neptune Suite guests get the Club Orange for no extra cost. Aqua Class on similar itineraries as HAL seems to be less in the cost per day per passenger than HAL's Signature Suites.

 

If we like this cruise with Celebrity we may be switching to them from HAL going forward.

[George C]

If it’s in your budget I would consider a suite, celebrity has really great suite perks including a site restaurant with great service and food and a suite lounge with free drinks all day and night, we did infinity in sky suite and celebrity suites this year and have one booked for next year . Suite perks are so much better than Hal’s or rccl .

[BarbinMich]

On 11/19/2019 at 4:23 PM, terrydtx said:

Today Celebrity released their 2021 Europe cruise schedule and we are very interested in the Best of Spain and Portugal 10 night cruise on the Infinity. It sails over our 50th anniversary of August 28th

. . .

 

While I realize you're primarily asking about the ship, thought I'd first comment on your itinerary.  Looks like a good one!  We've been to 4 of the ports:  Barcelona (highly recommend spending a few days there pre-cruise, if you've never been), Malaga, Gibraltar, and Lisbon.  Liked all of them, esp. Malaga and Lisbon.  We've also sailed on Celebrity and HAL a number of times.  Celebrity will be livelier than HAL and food will be better IMHO.  I "loved" the casino on the Celebrity Eclipse because I won a diamond pendant they had a drawing for 😉  I didn't realize that the Infinity is one of the 4 ships in Celebrity's Millenium class (others are the Constellation, Summit, Millenium); they all launched in 2000-2002 and carry 2,000+ pax (about the same as HAL's ships).

Edited November 23, 2019 by BarbinMich

[terrydtx]

4 hours ago, BarbinMich said:

While I realize you're primarily asking about the ship, thought I'd first comment on your itinerary.  Looks like a good one!  We've been to 4 of the ports:  Barcelona (highly recommend spending a few days there pre-cruise, if you've never been), Malaga, Gibraltar, and Lisbon.  Liked all of them, esp. Malaga and Lisbon.  We've also sailed on Celebrity and HAL a number of times.  Celebrity will be livelier than HAL and food will be better IMHO.  I "loved" the casino on the Celebrity Eclipse because I won a diamond pendant they had a drawing for 😉  I didn't realize that the Infinity is one of the 4 ships in Celebrity's Millenium class (others are the Constellation, Summit, Millenium); they all launched in 2000-2002 and carry 2,000+ pax (about the same as HAL's ships).

We will be spending 2 extra nights in both Lisbon and Barcelona. Thank you for your comments.

[BarbinMich]

18 hours ago, terrydtx said:

We will be spending 2 extra nights in both Lisbon and Barcelona. Thank you for your comments.

Wonderful!  Enjoy those cities and your cruise!!  One of my favorite foods in Lisbon are the custard tarts.  On our first visit to Lisbon we had a wonderful guide who took us around, including into a bakery to taste/buy them.  On our last visit when I was doing my own walking tour, I made sure to buy some <g>.  I also bought some in a small grocery near the Ponta Delgada, Azores port, but they just weren't the same.

[waterbug123]

On 11/21/2019 at 9:18 AM, terrydtx said:

We booked a verandah cabin but it was one of the converted OV to Verandah and it was so tiny we couldn't move around the bed.

 

 

 

Ah, that makes sense. I think you'll find that if you're on a ship that was originally designed to have balcony cabins from the get go, they won't be as cramped.

[voyager1964]

The Cyber Monday sale may not include Fall 2021:

http://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Celebrity/General_Info/Flyers/CEL_The_BIG_Deal_Offer_Nov.pdf