Virtually live from the Infinity--July 5 and 12 back-to-back

[George C]

Thanks for posting this, love Kotor and would love to do it two weeks in a row. Also enjoyed our infinity cruise of course hardnot to enjoy a royal suite. 

[A Sixth?]

Love to know if you've noticed any special measures to deal with Covid. Is the ship sailing at reduced capacity, any distancing etc? 

[Bruin Steve]

Wednedsay—Second visit to Kotor.  Since we did such a comprehensive tour last time, we decided to do a relaxing one this time…again using up a bit of OBC.  We chose a shorex “Celebrity Discovery Collection:  Imperial Vineyards and Wine Tastings”.

 

We began with a ride along the Bay of Kotor and up  into the mountains to the  Arboretum Botanical Garden.  I’m not too big on this stuff…but Beth loves it.  I would rather just go straight to the winery! From there, we continued to the village of Nudo and Winery Dabovic. Apparently, it used to be called Imperial Vineyards—hence the name of the shorex. We were able to sample the local wines, delicacies, and pastries and had a nice lunch. Really enjoyed the relaxing time.  At the end, everyone was given  a small bottle of liqueur.  We also bought a couple of bottles of wine…not to drink on the ship—pointless since we have the drink package…and not to schlepp home—we’ve learned our lesson on that one since we can no longer carry bottles on the plane.  But, we figured we have two nights in Rome at the end of the trip…and we’ll drink the wine over those two days!

And, again, we got to experience a second magnificent Kotor sailaway!!

 

[Bruin Steve]

On 7/14/2020 at 11:58 AM, A Sixth? said:

Love to know if you've noticed any special measures to deal with Covid. Is the ship sailing at reduced capacity, any distancing etc? 

 

No...

In our virtual cruise world, we don't need to worry about Covid-19.

The ship is less than full...I guess some people had trouble getting out of wherever they live and getting to Rome...But, pretty much, everyone who is here is happy to be here...It is just wonderful being able to cruise in any era.

 

The ship, of course, does have the little Purell dispensers everywhere...and we are all encouraged to wash our hands.  We are always concerned with any potential virus or other illness.  But, I guess in my virtual cruise reality, we are being rewarded for having quarantined ourselves safely at home, to having worn our face masks at ANY time we've had to venture out...and for living in an area where EVERYONE took the pandemic thing very seriously.  We listened to doctors and scientists and ignored any politician who went off based on their own egos and political expediency.  I guess a lot of other areas of the world did the same...and any where that people ignored the medical advice, well, those people didn't get to cruise...

[Bruin Steve]

Thursday, and we are in Corfu…It’s the next to last port day of our adventure.  Beth and I love Corfu.  We were here for a couple of days during our honeymoon, many years ago…and have revisited a few times on cruises.  We’ll usually wander on our own, but, again, we had far too much OBC, so we decided to take a shore excursion this time.  Settled on “Paleokastritsa, Lakones and Greek Meze”.  Basically, it got us out of Corfu Town and allowed us to enjoy a little of the beautiful scenery around the island—the beach at Paleokastritsa and the mountaintop village of Lakones –with some olives, cheese and ouzo...It was a half day in the morning and dropped us off in town.  So, afterwards, we headed once again to our favorite Corfu restaurant for lunch—“Antranik”.  The place also used to go by the name “Pizza Pete’s”, but I guess they wanted to go by something a little more authentic.  It’s really a one-of-a-kind place…It sits on a cliff hovering over the Adriatic, just up the road from the old harbor.  The kitchen is on the inland side of the highway, the tables are on a covered patio across the highway on the cliff.  It’s fun watching the waiters dodge the traffic bringing you your food.  Then, when anyone finishes a meal, the waiters toss the leftover bread over the railing—where the fish below put on quite a show battling for the leftover bread.  As always, we asked for—and got—a table right at the railing.  After lunch, we wandered around town a bit doing some souvenir shopping, then back to the ship…

Tonight, it will be, as usual, drinks, dinner and show…and tomorrow will be a much needed “At Sea” day before one last port and then disembarkation…

[vickykay]

This has been terrific.  Truly enjoyed cruising with you..

[Bruin Steve]

Ahhhh…Here we are at the final “At Sea” Day.  It is really hard to believe this one is almost over.

 

Let me say a few words about the ship.  First, for an older ship, the Infinity is still remarkably beautiful.  Celebrity does a great job with the maintenance and you’d never guess it was that old.  With only around 2,000 passengers, in many ways it is better than the larger ships…very easy to get around…and even getting on and off in a tender port like Kotor was not difficult at all.  The crew was fantastic.  I think they are almost as happy to be cruising as we are.

 

We are also very happy with our cabin choice--#8115.  It’s a Concierge class cabin, something I usually don’t spring for initially.  In this case, we originally booked just an OV cabin, but we monitor the fares and, at one point, the fares for Concierge came way down—virtually the same as for an obstructed 2D or 2C, so, we figured why not…and we were able to snag the same cabin for both legs.  The location is nearly midship—which makes getting around the ship—especially a smaller ship like Infinity—fairly easy.  Seems like nothing is very far away.  For a longer cruise, the storage space is, in many ways, better than on the S-class.  No need to deal with difficult overhead cabinetry.

 

The food has been excellent and the dining room service exceptional.  Even though we were in Select dining, we made a standing 7:00 reservation each night…and Celebrity managed to put us in the same area of the MDR with the same waiters every night for both cruises.  Timing always worked well for pre-dinner drinks in the Elite Lounge until about 7:00, dinner, then on to the 9:00 show.

 

Entertainment has been good—the usual mix of singer/dancer production shows, a comedian, a magician and a guest musical act (though, with it being back-to-back, we got a repeat on most shows).

 

Anyway, for the At Sea day today, we’ve done a lot of “nothing”—a little Trivia and a lot of drinking.  We’ve made a lot of friends onboard and today was a good day to just hang out in various favorite venues and talk about everyone’s post-cruise plans…and next cruises…We are SO ready for our next cruise already!

[George C]

Thanks for great review , since this is a virtual cruise I would have been sailing is a royal suite like our February cruise, thanks again Steve. 

[Bruin Steve]

Last port day:  Naples.  And we’ve booked our final shore excursion.  Again, having been here so many times, we wanted something a little different…but we also wanted to re-visit favorites.  So, we found a good shorex for us:  “Amalfi Coast by Motor Launch and Pompeii”.  Beth and I love Archaeology and Ancient History, so, for us, visits in this area almost have to have a stop in either Pompeii or Herculaneum.  Last visit, we toured Herculaneum, so for this one, Pompeii was perfect.  And we’ve done the Amalfi Coast a few times by private tour in a van…and if there is one thing I dislike about that trip, it’s the typical traffic at times along that route.  And, again, of course, we had lots of OBC to spend.

 

We started VERY early for this one—since it’s a 9.5 hour shorex—meeting at 7:15 in the theater…and out the door around 7:30.  They put us on a bus and, very wisely, took us first to Pompeii—since, being mid-July, it was going to be a VERY HOT day and this got dusty Pompeii out of the way in the morning while it was still a little cooler.  We had a very informative guide leading us through the streets of Pompeii for quite an extensive tour, then back on the bus and drove to Salerno.  In Salerno, we got a little tour of the town, then stopped at a restaurant for lunch.  Then it was down to the harbor and on to a nice little boat with some open deck seating for about a one-hour ride up along the coast.  Very different from seeing this stretch from a big bus—something I don’t think I would ever do—or even from a small private tour van.  No traffic, but also no intermediate stops.  But we did get some very different photo opportunities.  The boat trip ended in Amalfi—where we had a small tour of town then some free time to go into the Cathedral, have an ice cream and do a little shopping.  After this, I think we all really could have just headed back to the ship…but, unfortunately, they insisted making one last stop at a “cameo factory”—where they give you a boring presentation on how cameos are made and then the “opportunity” to buy jewelry at their “special, tour-only prices”…yeah, sure…As I said…it would have been better to save that time and get back to the ship a little earlier…

 

Nonetheless, that was it—the last port of our back-to-back cruises.  Tonight will be time to pack and put the bags out…

[nikel]

Too bad your cruise is over.  I am so loving this vicarious travel. If I didn't know better I would think it was real....but there are no pictures. Can't wait for your next one.   Where will it be ??? Maybe Hawaii ??

[Bruin Steve]

Sunday, July 19—Disembarkation Day.  We took our time getting up and then down to the MDR for one last cruise breakfast…which we ate at our leisure.  We arranged for NCC Shuttle to come pick us up at 9:30 for the drive to our hotel in Rome…and they were there waiting when we made it off the ship.  They took six of us in a shared shuttle—all going to different hotels in the same area of Central Rome…but we were lucky and got dropped off first.  Staying at the Residenza In Farnese—a place we’ve stayed a few times before…Right between the Tiber River and the Campo di Fiore, just a couple of blocks from the Piazza Navona…We’ll be here for a relaxing two nights before our flight home on Tuesday, midday from FCO...

[Bruin Steve]

EPILOG:  Of course, all of the foregoing was a bit of a fantasy.  It was the vacation we were SUPPOSED to take…And it was a great trip that we can’t exactly repeat…DAMN YOU COVID-19!!!

 

We do have a next cruise—actually back-to-back cruises—booked for April 2021 on Millennium—29 nights total—Japan, followed by a TransPacific.  We’ll fly into Tokyo four nights early, then circle Japan (with one stop in South Korea) for 14 nights on the first cruise, then three more ports and several days crossing the Pacific for 15 nights before disembarking in Vancouver—where we will rent a car and drive down to Portland, Oregon to visit our kids for a few days, then fly home from there.  I certainly hope the Covid-19 thing is over by then—that scientists will have developed a vaccine—and we can all go back to enjoying our very REAL cruises.

 

AND, here is what we did with THESE bookings:  The exact itineraries are not being offered in 2021.  Zadar and Rijecka—the two ports that we’d never visited and the main reason for booking this one—were not on the itinerary of any Infinity 7-night sailing within a month of ours in 2021.  There was an 8-nighter wedged right into the middle of July 2021 and all of the 7-night Infinity cruises offered would have resulted in multiple repeated ports in any back-to-back configuration.  So, our travel agent told us a “Lift-and-Shift” was pretty much out of the question.  So did Celebrity initially. BUT I persisted.  I contacted higher-ups at Celebrity and we were able to arrange an unusual lift-and-shift.  We moved one leg from the Infinity to the Apex. Yes, this was the hard part—Celebrity told everyone they wouldn’t do that.  But I argued that this was a special circumstance…Why should we be forced into duplicative itineraries because we had booked TWO cruises rather than one?  And, they canceled not us…And they chose not to offer our itinerary with Zadar and Rijecka.  I wasn’t asking for a longer cruise or a different time of year.  And, making it a little more reasonable, when we were talking, the Apex was only selling, in our category, for about $800 (for two) more than the infinity for the same week—It has since gone up to a considerable amount more, but, at the time, it did not look all that unreasonable…in fact, they could have almost pulled it off with the 125% FCC thing—but we would have lost our very good perks.  So, they agreed.

 

So, now, we are booked on the July 10 Apex, Barcelona to Rome—with Valencia, Ibiza, Marseille, Villefranche and La Spezia…But then (a little less ideal that back-to-backs staying on the same ship and cabin), we’ll spend two nights in Rome then board the Infinity for a cruise from Rome to Venice, stopping in Sicily, Malta, Kotor, Split and Trieste.  So, we lose Zadar, Rijecka, Corfu, Naples and the second stop in Kotor…but we pick up Valencia, Ibiza, Villefranche, Marseilles, La Spezia and Trieste plus get to do a pre-cruise in Barcelona…and we get to try the newest Celebrity ship and Infinite Veranda.

 

We have a C2 Concierge cabin midship on BOTH cruises.  Our Infinity cabin is #8115—the exact same cabin we were supposed to be in right now.  The Apex cabin is #10188—at the edge of the Magic Carpet (hopefully, being at the edge of it, four cabins beyond the tracks and several decks from any of its landing places, it won’t be a concern).

 

I figure we’ll fly into Barcelona 3 or 4 nights early, take a day trip up to Andorra (never been) one of those days…Then we’ll reconstruct our two planned nights in Rome between the two legs instead of post-cruise.  And, after we disembark in Venice, we can rent a car and spend several days in Switzerland (sort of replacing our planned 2020 pre-cruise) before flying home likely from Milan (maybe Zurich).  Instead of our planned time in Portovenere and the Cinque Terre, we’ll use our new port stop in La Spezia to visit the Cinque Terre.

 

Let’s all hope that 2021 is a whole new era in a return to REAL cruising!!!

[pacurnl]

Thanks!

 

 

I have to say, I have enjoyed your virtual cruise very much.  It brought back many memories, especially the sail out in Kotor.  It was quite an experience, and one not too many know about.  I hope we can all sail in reality very soon.

 

Trish