We board Infinity in about an hour. Let me know if you have any questions.

[Nebr.cruiser]

4 hours ago, hcat said:

all lovely photos!   love the smiles..

hope the fix the shower water temp!

Great Review...thanks for doing it!

What is this tour?  Independent or Celebrity?  We aren't on until May.  Also, wow do those menus look boring, especially since I really like beef.

[Stockjock]

1 hour ago, kwokpot said:

Looks like the same crazy crowds in Oia as when I was there in July. We found them overwhelming and a disincentive to linger around, window shop, and just meandering around. 

They told us we got really lucky because the crowds were pretty light until more or less the time that we are about to leave. And we didn’t hit any traffic going up but as we were coming back down, we could see some pretty massive traffic jams.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Stockjock

[Stockjock]

1 hour ago, kwokpot said:

Looks like the same crazy crowds in Oia as when I was there in July. We found them overwhelming and a disincentive to linger around, window shop, and just meandering around. 

If you like beef you will be happy as long as you like crappy, thin sirloin, with a lot of fat in it, lol.
 

In terms of the tour, it’s a Celebrity your called Destination Highlights: Best of Santorini. What I liked about it is that you can avoid taking that tram car and you don’t have to wait 1 to 3 hours in the sun with long lines each way, you can just stay on the bus the whole way round trip. Also, they take you to a different drop off spot than everyone else goes to l, so I’d liked that.

 

On the downside, it’s a little expensive, but the plus is that it was a really good tour. Had a nice lunch, nice wine, nice entertainment. They also took us to some ruins and I didn’t share any of those pictures because we are really not ruins people. Having said that, cruise critic talked me into seeing the ruins in Turkey, so I guess that will be interesting. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Stockjock

[kwokpot]

1 minute ago, Stockjock said:

If you like beef you will be happy as long as you like crappy, thin sirloin, with a lot of fat in it, lol.
 

In terms of the tour, it’s called Destination Highlights: Best of Santorini. What I liked about it is that you can avoid taking that tram car and you don’t have to wait 1 to 3 hours in the sun with long lines each way, you can just stay on the bus the whole way. Also, they take you to a different drop off spot than everyone else goes to l, so I’d liked that. On the downside, it’s a little expensive, but the plus is that it was a really good tour. Had a nice lunch, nice wine, nice entertainment. They also took us to some ruins and I didn’t share any of those pictures because we are really not ruins people. Having said that, cruise critic talked me into seeing the ruins in Turkey, so I guess that will be interesting. 

So if I understand you correctly, you took a tender from the ship directly to the Athinios port, then the bus took you to the winery, ruins, lunch, then Oia,then Fira??? and you could have stayed on the bus to go back to Athinios port where they would tender you back to the ship, OR you can stay in Fira, assuming you went there, and take the cable car down or walk down but on your own and then take Celebrity's regular tenders from the Old port below Fira? Am I getting the logistics of your tour correct?
 

[ladylemondrop]

If by ruins you mean Ephesus, its incredible and so worth it! 

 

Your tour here in Santorini looks fantastic, your photos are excellent. 

[Lena11033]

6 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

So if I understand you correctly, you took a tender from the ship directly to the Athinios port, then the bus took you to the winery, ruins, lunch, then Oia,then Fira??? and you could have stayed on the bus to go back to Athinios port where they would tender you back to the ship, OR you can stay in Fira, assuming you went there, and take the cable car down or walk down but on your own and then take Celebrity's regular tenders from the Old port below Fira? Am I getting the logistics of your tour correct?
 

 

I did this tour last year, only option they gave us was the cable car down.

[Stockjock]

Back on the ship from Santorini, and we did enjoy our tour and visit there.
 

Just a couple more minor annoyances. Yesterday, on the app, they asked me to pick my departure time when the ship is ready to finally disembark in a few days, and I chose 8:30 AM to 9:00 AM. So after I did that, today, they instead tell me there’s a “change of plans” and I’m actually getting off the ship at 7:45 AM. Why did they ask me what time I want to get off if they’re going to make me get off earlier?
 

Another minor annoyance is that I booked a tour of Rhodes for the morning and then I got a notification that they had switched me to the afternoon.  The girlfriend didn’t mind that at all because she thought she would be able to relax a little bit in the morning and not have to rush and get down to the theater first thing.   Today, I got another notification that they had switched us back to the morning tour and the only notification was on a small piece of paper with my tickets.  I could’ve easily missed that 3rd time change, and if that happened, I would’ve missed the tour all together. And seeing how Celebrity operates, I’m pretty sure they would’ve not have given me a refund either.
 

It just seems like there are a lot of questionable, unexpected and poorly communicated changes that are irritating.
 

You might remember that they screwed up my dining type up too, and they kept changing that around, changing us from late seating to any time dining, changing us from table 520 to no assigned table, to a table for two that was actually a table for four, and before that, asking us to wait 40 minutes for a table for half an hour before the restaurant closed.  
 

I don’t have the slightest idea why these things keep happening. It’s not exactly a world crisis, but just one on top of many little annoyances, that kind of start to add up and irritate after a while.

 

We are having fun on this trip, so I don’t want to make it a gripe fest, but they don’t seem to have their act together.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Stockjock

[kwokpot]

7 minutes ago, ladylemondrop said:

If by ruins you mean Ephesus, its incredible and so worth it! 

 

Your tour here in Santorini looks fantastic, your photos are excellent. 

Ephesus is in Kusadasi,Turkey, not Santorini, Greece.

[Stockjock]

9 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

So if I understand you correctly, you took a tender from the ship directly to the Athinios port, then the bus took you to the winery, ruins, lunch, then Oia,then Fira??? and you could have stayed on the bus to go back to Athinios port where they would tender you back to the ship, OR you can stay in Fira, assuming you went there, and take the cable car down or walk down but on your own and then take Celebrity's regular tenders from the Old port below Fira? Am I getting the logistics of your tour correct?
 

Yes, you are correct. Maybe 20% of the tour, if that, took the cable car down, and the rest of us just stayed on the bus. I didn’t want to mess with any of that in terms of a 1.5-3 hour wait and Fira didn’t seem that exciting to me.

[Stockjock]

1 minute ago, kwokpot said:

Ephesus is in Kusadasi,Turkey, not Santorini, Greece.

We went to some ruins on Santorini, and we are also going to ruins in Turkey. Of course, the ruins that we saw on Santorini are nothing similar to the scale of what we will see in Ephesus.

[Stockjock]

6 minutes ago, Lena11033 said:

 

I did this tour last year, only option they gave us was the cable car down.

You might want to doublecheck and make sure it was the identical tour because this was the only tour I saw where it appeared that the cable car ride was not mandatory. There are a number of them that sound quite similar, but I selected this one specifically for that reason.

[ladylemondrop]

29 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

Ephesus is in Kusadasi,Turkey, not Santorini, Greece.

Stockjock mentioned being persuaded to visit ruins in Turkey. - 

 

'Having said that, cruise critic talked me into seeing the ruins in Turkey, so I guess that will be interesting' 

[Wichenford Wolf]

I hope that when you were in Oia you picked up a takeaway cocktail from Boozery Bar, undoubtedly the best, friendliest and most reasonably priced bar on the island? It looks as if you might have passed it as it is at the bottom end of the passageway in the first photo of your girlfriend. 
 

We spent a week in Santorini in July and it’s a much nicer island to stay in awhile than the brief cruise ship visits (of which we have done three). And you can sit in the cool of Boozery Bar, watching the cruise ship masses!

[Stockjock]

11 minutes ago, Wichenford Wolf said:

I hope that when you were in Oia you picked up a takeaway cocktail from Boozery Bar, undoubtedly the best, friendliest and most reasonably priced bar on the island? It looks as if you might have passed it as it is at the bottom end of the passageway in the first photo of your girlfriend. 
 

We spent a week in Santorini in July and it’s a much nicer island to stay in awhile than the brief cruise ship visits (of which we have done three). And you can sit in the cool of Boozery Bar, watching the cruise ship masses!

We did pass it by because we were running short on time. We had enough time to walk around a bit and take some photographs, but it’s not a lot of time. We did stop at one place for a snack and iced cappuccino, but that was about it.

[Stockjock]

3 hours ago, hcat said:

you added a photo..was this local entertainment they brought on board..

 

suggestion for the potato/ veggie issue...order appetizer/ soup and then a salad to go with the entree..they seem fresher looking than the limp veggies!

This was local entertainment at the restaurant stop, quite possibly the owners, wife and daughter, lol. But it was fun for sure. The food was also decent.

[Stockjock]

Just to weigh in on the food topic again, both the girlfriend and I agree that MSC’s standard main dining room food is now better than Celebrity. And in the past, I thought that Celebrity was head and shoulders above MSC in terms of MDR food quality.  Celebrity is definitely not for foodies anymore.  However, Celebrity does still win with respect to their buffet quality.

 

We haven’t seen much of the entertainment on the ship, but I sense that Celebrity still wins in that category, and they probably also win in the service category, although they do screw things up a lot on the ship, whereas most of MSC’s screw ups are pre-cruise relating to customer service issues.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Stockjock

[hcat]

1 hour ago, ladylemondrop said:

If by ruins you mean Ephesus, its incredible and so worth it! 

 

Your tour here in Santorini looks fantastic, your photos are excellent. 

I believe Ephesus is in Turkey.

Akotori is now open on Santorini

 

We  did a similar tour on Santorini..early tender to bus area, early arrival at Oia, lovely winery  and back to Fira. 

 

Very hot day  town was crowded  lots of women beggars.  We took the cable car down,( no lines), got some food at the  tender area and easy ride back to the ship. 

 

if we go back  we would seek out Akotiri..

[hcat]

11 minutes ago, Stockjock said:

This was local entertainment at the restaurant stop, quite possibly the owners, wife and daughter, lol. But it was fun for sure. The food was also decent.

Looks like fun!

[CruiseCrew123]

I’m doing this itinerary on 16th but won’t be getting off there as we have another week there after we disembark 

[hcat]

Ephesus is amazing..even if not into ruins.  Alot of walking..wear comfy shoes.and sun hats!  The Turkish people are  warm and hospitable..

[Smmessineo]

22 hours ago, Stockjock said:

So day three, and they finally succeeded in making my girlfriend cry on formal night, and she doesn’t cry easily. As I mentioned, they have screwed up our dining situation with long waits 40 min 1st night, estimated 40 minute wait (before I politely raised hell the second night).  And then musical chairs and misinformation with the table situation. They told us initially we had an assigned table, but then the next night someone was in that table, and we didn’t have an assigned table, and it was all sort of a cluster while they tried to figure it out, and I think it’s probably still not figured out.

 

So we stood around for a while tonight while I tracked down a manager (again) and they tried to sort it out. For right now, at least, we are not at a table for two, but there’s no one else here, so hopefully it will end up being a table for two. We’ve had dinner problems each of the first three nights, so I’m hoping that it won’t happen on the fourth night.

 

She said to me, “Why can’t we just sit down and have a nice dinner without having problems every night and having to find managers to straighten things out? I don’t want to go on Celebrity anymore”. But I told her that we do have a cruise booked for next year on Ascent.

 

here’s a picture of a salad for starters. It’s pretty tasty actually.

I would cry, too! My husband and I never go out to eat at home, so we love the experience of the MDR every evening, just talking and enjoying the food. Please tell her this is not the norm. We had a bad experience on the Equinox years ago....new wait staff, food wasn't great, bar service nonexistent. We thought  "uh-oh, Celebrity is going downhill". We sailed on her again two months later and it was glorious, as it usually is. 

Sometimes a bad mix of staff, bad ideas by management and bad luck all come together. I hope you are enjoying the rest of the cruise and that wonderful stateroom!

[zanderblue]

6 minutes ago, Smmessineo said:

I would cry, too! My husband and I never go out to eat at home, so we love the experience of the MDR every evening, just talking and enjoying the food. Please tell her this is not the norm. We had a bad experience on the Equinox years ago....new wait staff, food wasn't great, bar service nonexistent. We thought  "uh-oh, Celebrity is going downhill". We sailed on her again two months later and it was glorious, as it usually is. 

Sometimes a bad mix of staff, bad ideas by management and bad luck all come together. I hope you are enjoying the rest of the cruise and that wonderful stateroom!

Unfortunately, this may well be the norm nowadays.
There are multiple posts here about the MDR dining experience on several ships now. Primarily, related to reduction in choice and quality.

From what I understand they have had a shake up of the menus, which has resulted in this situation.

We experienced this first hand on the Solstice a couple of weeks ago. 
I am following this thread closely since we’re on infinity in 4 weeks. We had another cruise booked for February on Silhouette which we cancelled yesterday, pretty much for this reason!

[Lena11033]

2 hours ago, Stockjock said:

You might want to doublecheck and make sure it was the identical tour because this was the only tour I saw where it appeared that the cable car ride was not mandatory. There are a number of them that sound quite similar, but I selected this one specifically for that reason.

 

It was the same tour, best of Santorini. It could be depending on time the options they give you for getting back or slightly changed the return options. But when we were there even though it was mid August there was no line to get down so maybe we left later in the day (guessing based on everyone saying the lines are long and I had no line).

[Lena11033]

1 hour ago, Stockjock said:

Just to weigh in on the food topic again, both the girlfriend and I agree that MSC’s standard main dining room food is now better than Celebrity. And in the past, I thought that Celebrity was head and shoulders above MSC in terms of MDR food quality.  Celebrity is definitely not for foodies anymore.  However, Celebrity does still win with respect to their buffet quality.

 

That's concerning, but same time the lobster I had on MSC was way better than Celebrity. I learnt with MSC certain things were better and certain things to avoid with the food

[Stockjock]

We are about to go to dinner for night four, and as I mentioned the first three nights, our dinner reservation was screwed up. So maybe I should do a mini pole in terms of what do you think?  Will everything be sorted today, or will have a fourth straight evening of frustration in the dining room?

Edited September 5, 2023 by Stockjock