Infinity, 2019 Jan-March??

I've been watching the March 11 sailing of the Infinity, and decided to book this week. It seems I can't. After speaking to X twice, and three agents, no one has the answer as to why bookings are closed. According to X customer service, it's not chartered, the blocking is done by the "revenue department". I don't see a dry dock happening for two and a half months.

The March 16h sailing is still available.

A big box store agent told me that the itinerary is still there, but is blocked from selling. Another online agent told me the same thing, but they COULD sell me group rate, A2 GTY, but that X could redeploy, change itinerary, cancel, etc. Another overseas online agent shows sold out.

If anyone has any ideas, please LMK. Since we're teachers, we can't move our dates.

Vthere is no Roll Call. I would suspect a charter.

That's the thing. X says no charter. I can't find evidence of a charter anywhere. I also don't ever remember them chartering during March break (and I realize that the break is different for many places). We can only travel at the absolute highest season times (two weeks over xmas/new year), and the one week in March, and those ships always cost at least 50% more to book and sail full, every time.

In our experience when a ship is chartered it just disappears from the Celebrity database and the customer service reps you speak to simply have no information to share. If its a private organization like a large corporation it cannot be booked and doesn't show up on the usual lists of charters.

We had booked for 25th March and saw that it had disappeared from the web-site. Like you, we were initially told various reasons why, but in the end I was kindly advised by the On-shore Concierge (who had been very helpful in the past) that it had been chartered. Rather than wait for Celebrity to contact me and "bump" us, I re-booked for the same cruise departing on the 16th March to ensure early cabin choice.

This has happened to several of the 5 day cruises in early 2019. I am booked on the Jan 28 sailing and it too has disappeared from X’s website. The online TA I booked through contacted Celebrity and was told it has not been chartered but is no longer available for booking on their website. It IS still available on the online TA site.

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I went to my TA's website and all the dates from Jan through the end of March are listed. It may be a snafu on Celebrity's website.

Maybe a large group booking or oversold,,.if not a charter??? Or just fully booked??

I'd ask Plum to PM me, but, you know, we can't do that like every other forum on the internet.

So, I will accept an acrostic poem instead.

:cool:

When will the ship be sold? It's getting close to that time, I think. Could it be that this is a factor?

- Joel

I ran across this while trying to find out why our 2/2/19-2/7/19 cruise no longer showed on X's website since I suspected it had been chartered:

https://www.thesmoothjazzcruise.com/booking-procedures/

Still no one at X will confirm it has been chartered so I can only assume this charter may not sell out and could get cancelled??? The 2/2/19 sailing still shows on several TA websites but I received an error message when I tried to book it.

I've also heard rumors that the Infinity will be going into dry dock last week of January for the new improvements. So I'll just sit and wait to hear something, knowing not to book air in case it gets cancelled/chartered.

When will the ship be sold? It's getting close to that time, I think. Could it be that this is a factor?

 

- Joel

I was thinking that as well, but they just announced that all ships (yes, all FOUR Millennium class were specifically name) are getting top-to-bottom renovations as part of Project Revolution beginning in 2018/2019. Perhaps that's why? Maybe Infinity will be the first to be renovated....

...That being said, until it's actually at the dry dock getting its make-over, selling any of the Millennium class ships shouldn't be off the table.

Could have sworn that I posted on this thread as an update. Oh well, let's try again.

I ended up booking the March 11th sailing a couple weeks ago through a US online TA. Friends booked two other cabins as well. Two specific A2s, one Aqua GTY. We'll see what happens. I'm sure we will all figure it out in the next year. The dry dock is probable. I'm hoping it's done by my sail date. I suspect it will be, those are March break times and the ships always sail at capacity.

Regarding the Infinity it has been replaced in Alaska 2019 by the Eclipse and still no Panama Canal Cruises

which to date have been the Infinity. No idea how the Eclipse is getting to AK for the MAY dates as yet.

I also heard a rumour of a sale.

Got the letter yesterday from my TA. It's chartered. For two months, mid Jan-Mid March. Longest stretch I've seen, and I don't think I've seen one chartered over my March break week before. Disappointing, the pricing was great. They've offered a few other dates which we can't do (teachers), or 100 OBC on a re-book. Yippee.

Anyone know who has the Mar 11 2019 charter? I can't find it.

who charters a cruise for 2 months?

It's a variety of charters, 2 of which are the 'Smooth Jazz' cruises. I think there is some dry dock going on during this time also.