Infinity feels so crowded

It's been eight years since I was on an m-class ship and I know that the Infinity was heavily renovated in 2011 in a move that added cabins and for fee restaurants at the expense of included public spaces. I'm on the Hubbard Glacier Cruise out of Vancouver right now (stuck in cabin with napping child) and I swear it feels so much more crowded. The buffet is always packed and we often have trouble finding a table. The dining room feels like the tables are all crammed in next to each other.

Is it just me? I'm sure it's been covered but the search function on cc stinks and I can't find it.

It's uncomfortable to the point where I don't think I would book another m class cruise whereas they used to be our favorite.

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Maybe because it's the middle of summer and there are many families on board, so cabins that have 2 in the winter all have 3-4 right now?

We always cruise off season and I've never found the M-class ships to feel crowded.

I wonder now too if it's because all of the people who would usually be hanging around the pool in the Caribbean are inside. That could make a huge difference.

But very true about the families. We always went at off times too before we had kids and had to consider school schedules.

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Maybe because it's the middle of summer and there are many families on board, so cabins that have 2 in the winter all have 3-4 right now?

 

We always cruise off season and I've never found the M-class ships to feel crowded.

That was my thought also.

The layout of the buffet on the M class ships causes the crowding. Finding a table at the buffet in both M & S class ships can be a challenge if there are a lot of game players or book readers occupying the tables at peak times.

We spend 4 weeks on the Infinity in South America and other than the buffet the ship didn't feel crowded, but no children.

It's been eight years since I was on an m-class ship and I know that the Infinity was heavily renovated in 2011 in a move that added cabins and for fee restaurants at the expense of included public spaces. I'm on the Hubbard Glacier Cruise out of Vancouver right now (stuck in cabin with napping child) and I swear it feels so much more crowded. The buffet is always packed and we often have trouble finding a table. The dining room feels like the tables are all crammed in next to each other.

Is it just me? I'm sure it's been covered but the search function on cc stinks and I can't find it.

It's uncomfortable to the point where I don't think I would book another m class cruise whereas they used to be our favorite.

 

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I can't remember how long it's been since Luminae and Blu were carved out of the MDR on M-class ships but 8 years seems about the time that they started. We've sailed all Century and M-class until our last trip on the Eclipse. I was worried that we wouldn't like the larger S-class and that the larger passenger load on the S-class would make us feel like herded cattle. We were pleasantly surprised that the S-class seemed much less crowded that our previous cruises. We the disappearance of the Ocean Liners/Murano type restaurants on the M-class ships now, we will probably not book another M-class ship unless the itinerary is something we can't pass up. We tend to cruise when families aren't travelling and so are comparing apples to apples time wise. I think the layout of the S-class makes a smoother flow and the pool areas are larger.

We also found Infinity too crowded when we cruise Aqua Class. The Blu restaurant was so different to those on S class ships. Tables close together and always a wait for a table even at almost 9pm. We tried select dining on Millenium as we said we wouldn't do Aqua again on an M class ship and that was awful. Given that Celebrity took away part of the dining room for Blu and then more for Luminae what was left was extremely squashed in. We ate in Ocean Liners after that but of course that is now gone. We now only use S class ships, sometimes Aqua class and sometimes select dining with several visits to speciality restaurants. If the itinerary we wanted was only available on M class then we would look at other cruise lines. We are almost at elite plus with many Celebrity cruises under our belt and find it sad that standards have declined so much.

I do think a lot of it may be due to your location....in hotter regions many guests will pick up food at the cafe but then take it poolside or back to their balcony. Also guests will sit and stroll for longer in the ports of call post excursion rather than dive back onto the cruise ship to defrost and dry out! We have been lucky on both our cooler climate cruises (Alaska and Norway) to have great weather but on both cruises as the sun went over it was cold!

We did notice, sea days especially, on both these cruises that the ship seemed 'fuller' than usual....it was, there were less people outside!