LIVE: Infinity Suite Class Dec. 22 5-day Xmas Cruise

[canadianbear]

I may have a stupid question for you.  If you order room service is it a random person that brings it?  You mentioned Rikki-is he a butler?  Do we have to have a butler?  (This would make my husband very uncomfortable).  

[GenerationX]

51 minutes ago, canadianbear said:

I may have a stupid question for you.  If you order room service is it a random person that brings it?  You mentioned Rikki-is he a butler?  Do we have to have a butler?  (This would make my husband very uncomfortable).  

 

 

Rikki our Butler has brought all of our room service orders other than the one time we ordered some pizza in the middle of the night.  Your butler can be involved as much or as little as you want though.

 

We typically only see our butler a couple of times a day (when he’s bringing room service breakfast and the afternoon snack tray).  I know there are others who ask their butlers do more though.

[GenerationX]

Last night at Sushi on 5, Jeremy had the shrimp and scallop hot pot with miso soup and I had the pork ramen with an order of shrimp and lobster wontons.  We also split a shrimp tempura roll.

 

Jeremy said his hot pot was flavorful but could have been warmed up more.  The wontons were made by the sweet dipping sauce they’re served with.  The shrimp tempura roll was fine (it’s really a pretty hard sushi roll to mess up). 

 

Now, you guys, can we talk about the pork ramen? This is one of my favorite dishes in all of Celebrity Cruises.  I had it for the first time on Reflection 2 years ago and now it’s one of the things I start dreaming of as soon as final cruise payments clear my checking account. The broth is so rich and buttery and full of pork flavor. The pork melts in your mouth and tastes like it’s been slow smoked for hours.  I think Jeremy said some profound and extremely romantic things to me during this course of dinner (impressive given what a less than sultry sight I am while eating noodle soup with chopsticks)  but I’ve got no idea exactly what he said because in my mind I was floating away on a sea of pork ramen goodness.

 

After dinner we went to the martini bar for a bit to build liquid dancing courage and then went to one of our favorite onboard activities: the silent disco!

 

For those who aren’t familiar, the silent disco is in a dark room and each person wears a set of ear phones.  There are three different channels with different styles of music you can chose to listen to by flipping a switch on the headphones. The lights on your headphones change color depending on what station you’re listening to.  While participating, be sure to stop at some point and take your headphones off and look around. It’s the funniest thing to hear a relatively quiet room with random pockets of people singing along out loud to Cher, Justin Timberlake and Elvis all at the same time!

 

[canadianbear]

Thanks for your answer about the butler-that eases my mind.

 

Your food photos are amazing-I can tell we won’t go hungry!!  

 

 

[Blazn7]

29 minutes ago, GenerationX said:

Last night at Sushi on 5, Jeremy had the shrimp and scallop hot pot with miso soup and I had the pork ramen with an order of shrimp and lobster wontons.  We also split a shrimp tempura roll.

 

Jeremy said his hot pot was flavorful but could have been warmed up more.  The wontons were made by the sweet dipping sauce they’re served with.  The shrimp tempura roll was fine (it’s really a pretty hard sushi roll to mess up). 

 

Now, you guys, can we talk about the pork ramen? This is one of my favorite dishes in all of Celebrity Cruises.  I had it for the first time on Reflection 2 years ago and now it’s one of the things I start dreaming of as soon as final cruise payments clear my checking account. The broth is so rich and buttery and full of pork flavor. The pork melts in your mouth and tastes like it’s been slow smoked for hours.  I think Jeremy said some profound and extremely romantic things to me during this course of dinner (impressive given what a less than sultry sight I am while eating noodle soup with chopsticks)  but I’ve got no idea exactly what he said because in my mind I was floating away on a sea of pork ramen goodness.

 

After dinner we went to the martini bar for a bit to build liquid dancing courage and then went to one of our favorite onboard activities: the silent disco!

 

For those who aren’t familiar, the silent disco is in a dark room and each person wears a set of ear phones.  There are three different channels with different styles of music you can chose to listen to by flipping a switch on the headphones. The lights on your headphones change color depending on what station you’re listening to.  While participating, be sure to stop at some point and take your headphones off and look around. It’s the funniest thing to hear a relatively quiet room with random pockets of people singing along out loud to Cher, Justin Timberlake and Elvis all at the same time!

 

That pork ramen is dream worthy.  So savory and umami...plus the pork, the loads of noodles and the egg....ahhh!  Agree on the tempura roll.  The ramen takes the cake.  But the line sliders are worth mentioning!!!

[Blazn7]

Love seeing the pix and hearing your adventures.  Thankful to meet good folks like you in our travels.  Congrats!!!

[GenerationX]

Merry Christmas to all from the Caribbean!

 

May peace, love, prosperity and smooth sailing bless you and your families this year!

 

I have a daughter from a previous marriage (she’s spending this Christmas with her father) and the habit of being up early on Christmas morning dies hard, so I’m sitting on our balcony watching the sun start to rise over the sea.

 

We are at full cruising speed and the wind is rocking the ship a fair bit, but I’m not finding the wind on our balcony to be any worse than on the less exposed non-hump balconies we’ve had in the past.

 

I’ve also enjoyed having our bed face the balcony door but discovered one down side to it last night. Because the bed is parallel to the direction the ship is sailing, when the waves really got us rocking last night, when laying in bed, the rocking motion had my head bobbing above my feet rather than swaying left and right. For some reason this made me woozy and was much harder to adjust to than swaying side to side.

 

In a few minutes I’m going to go grab coffee (I refuse to have Rikki up at 6am fetching me coffee on Christmas morning) then Jeremy and I have some gift wrapping to do! We’ve kept a list of crew members who have been taking care of us on the trip so far and packed a box of Christmas cards. We’re going to write thank you notes to each crew member and put an extra gratuity inside and pass them out today.  We figured on land it may be tacky to dole out cash as Christmas gifts, but with an international crew who have limited living space, giving kind words and a bit of extra money was the best way to ensure we are giving something useful and practical.

 

Today we’ll have breakfast in Luminae and then both lunch and dinner in the Tuscan Grille. For lunch, they are doing a special Christmas Crab Shack meal with crab legs, crab cakes and sides.

 

While I’m drinking my coffee I’ll report on dinner in Luminae last night (spoiler alert: the food was wonderful, service was not) and I know I still have to give the dish on Cozumel as well.

 

Merry Christmas again everyone!

 

 

 

[GenerationX]

13 hours ago, Blazn7 said:

Love seeing the pix and hearing your adventures.  Thankful to meet good folks like you in our travels.  Congrats!!!

 

Thank you!  Our favorite part of every cruise is the people we meet! Merry Christmas to you guys!

[K12Guy]

On 12/22/2018 at 9:33 PM, alfredo22 said:

So happy to see this thread.  I flew into FLL a couple of nights ago to spend the week with my in-laws.  Offered to take everyone on that cruise to ... uhhh.... give them a great Christmas.  Ok, really it was to not be stuck with them in their condo.

 

Alas, it was not to be.  Have a wonderful time.  Congrats on the wedding!

I will assume your in-laws are NOT on Cruise Critic. 😎

[GenerationX]

Just a quick update: I just had to have a firm conversation with our butler...and ask that he PLEASE stop leaving food and bottles of wine in the room every time we leave (lest we gain 20 pounds and get alcohol poisoning).  Of course, when I had this conversation with him he was holding a plate of smoked salmon and Brie that he was about to deposit in our room.  Which we proceeded to take out on the balcony and consume with abandon.

[Bimmer09]

6 hours ago, GenerationX said:

Merry Christmas to all from the Caribbean!



And a very Merry Christmas to you both!

Thanks for a great read and keep the photos coming!

Norris

[GenerationX]

When we got back to the ship from Cozumel yesterday,  the temperature had dropped and the skies had gone gray, so we hunkered down in the hot tub with a glass of bubbly.  One of our fellow passengers then bought us an entire bottle as a wedding gift (if you’re on CC, thanks again Marco!)  and the pool bartender brought it over to the tub in an ice bucket with plastic glasses so we wouldn’t have to get out for refills!  We shared the bottle with 2 young couples  who were in the hot tub with us.  They were both on family vacations with parents or grandparents who are regular Celebrity cruisers and it was their first time.  It was great to get newbie 20 and 30 somethings’ impressions of the cruise line.  The demographic overall has been very different on this cruise than our prior Celebrity sailings.  With the extended families sailing for Christmas, there are a lot more kids (for the most part well behaved) and younger couples and we’ve noticed the pool deck, martini bar and disco are packed well into the night.

 

Last night we had our wedding dinner in Luminae. We arrived a little earlier than our usual 8/8:30 dinner time (about 7:45). The restaurant wasn’t even half full, but all the servers seemed very hurried and stressed.  We stood at the maitre d stand for almost 10 minutes before being seated.  Jeremy asked to see the MDR menu and it took almost 15 minutes before we got it.  The sommelier didn’t arrive to take our wine order until we were well into our appetizer.

 

It was definitely not the service that we’ve gotten in Luminae in the past and was surprising. I wonder what might have been up.

 

While the service left a lot to be desired, the food didn’t disappoint! For appetizers I had the gnocchi and Jeremy had the scallop carpaccio. Then we both got the strip steak for dinner.  The palette cleanser was a piece of deep fried artichoke.

 

The gnocchi really could have been it’s own entree. The portion was generous and the beef was very rich.  After finishing it I could only eat half my steak before I felt like I was going to burst.

 

Jeremy’s scallop was one of the best dishes we’ve had so far in the trip.  It came with a sweet and light cream sauce that I’d love to dip every shellfish I ever eat into.

 

I’m normally a ribeye person when it comes to steak, but I was pleasantly surprised by the strip. It was perfectly cooked to he medium rare that we requested and came with pieces of crunchy garlic on top and a brown sauce.  I’m a firm believer that if a steak needs sauce, there’s something wrong with it, so I asked for the sauce on the side instead of poured on top.  I’m glad I did because the sauce was very salty and didn’t add much to the already great flavor of the tender meat.

 

We had “liquid dessert” and ordered a bourbon and peaches cocktail for after dinner drinks instead of eating a third course. It’s only on the bar menu in  Luminae but I’ve heard you can get it other places on the ship if you ask. It’s Jeremy and I’s favorite cocktail onboard.

 

We were exhausted from the long day in Cozumel so after dinner we just went back to the room, had one more glass of wine and went to bed early.

 

Some food and menu pics below.

[GenerationX]

The pool deck is packed on our Christmas Sea day. The pool butlers are desperately trying to keep up with demand for towels.

 

There are servers from OVC walking around offering little cups of complimentary chilled fruit or coconut sorbet. (Because OMG we MUST BE FED AGAIN!!!!)

 

Drink service also seems to be keeping up.  The waiter from Trinidad found me again and  I’m once again terrified for the health of my liver.

[alfredo22]

10 hours ago, K12Guy said:

I will assume your in-laws are NOT on Cruise Critic. 😎

Yea... that’s a safe bet.  They are good people, but drive everyone crazy!  10 people in the condo tomorrow (4 of which are young kids) and my F-I-L wants to just stay inside all day

 

Sorry about the spotty service in Luminae.  Bummer for your special meal. They better make it up to you!

 

your butler sounds awesome.  Be careful about discouraging him, you might only gain 10 pounds instead of a full 15.  Hope I get him next year on Millie.

[GenerationX]

Tonight as I was in the bathroom doing my hair and makeup for formal night I heard it from the bedroom: my new husband releasing the unmistakable sighs of frustration that come with putting on an article of clothing that fit fine 2 days before the cruise and having it not button/zip.  

 

Jeremy’s had the good fortune of avoiding his mid 30’s metabolism slow down for almost 3 years longer than me, so this was his first cruise experiencing this problem.

 

After our Tuscan Grille dinner tonight, I have a feeling I may have company in the gym tomorrow morning.

[PhoenixCruiser]

Congratulations newlyweds!!

 

Really enjoying your live review

[CHEZMARYLOU]

It's really hard discouraging the Butlers.  They don't want to take NO for an answer.  You have to be persistent or just go with the flow.

[canadianbear]

14 minutes ago, CHEZMARYLOU said:

It's really hard discouraging the Butlers.  They don't want to take NO for an answer.  You have to be persistent or just go with the flow.

That is a real concern for me for our first Celebrity cruise in March.  It will annoy my husband a lot-is it proper to ask politely of the butler that we not be bothered and will call if we need anything that we can’t get ourselves?  

[CHEZMARYLOU]

8 hours ago, canadianbear said:

That is a real concern for me for our first Celebrity cruise in March.  It will annoy my husband a lot-is it proper to ask politely of the butler that we not be bothered and will call if we need anything that we can’t get ourselves?  

Yes, you can do this.  It would be easier to be up front instead of letting the butler start with afternoon snacks and then stopping them after a few days.  If you order from room service it will be the butler bringing the food.

[canadianbear]

2 hours ago, CHEZMARYLOU said:

Yes, you can do this.  It would be easier to be up front instead of letting the butler start with afternoon snacks and then stopping them after a few days.  If you order from room service it will be the butler bringing the food.

Oh thank you-that’s good to know it can be done!   

[GenerationX]

1 hour ago, CHEZMARYLOU said:

Yes, you can do this.  It would be easier to be up front instead of letting the butler start with afternoon snacks and then stopping them after a few days.  If you order from room service it will be the butler bringing the food.

 I agree that it’s much easier to start at the outset.  Mere hours after our conversation on unsolicited food, I came back from shopping to find this holiday wine and tray of Christmas desserts.  When I saw him later, Rikki did apologize and say that the food and beverage team are pretty insistant on the butlers delivering the Christmas Day goodies.

 

Our butler on Silhouette in February was much more hands off. He was happy to bring anything we asked for but there was much less “surprise treats”.

 

I think Rikki also has the Royal Suite next to us so he may just be used to giving more attention.

[GenerationX]

Good morning from Key West!  

 

It was a late night for us yesterday. We were picked  to participate in the marriage game show (didn’t win, but got a participation prize bag with Celebrity t-shirts and towels)  and then were up drinking T&T’s and dancing in the constellation lounge until 2am.

 

This made for an especially brutal 7am wake up to go for the immigration inspection in the rendezvous lounge.  We had a medical emergency onboard and the customs officials couldn’t board and start the process until the ambulance left, so the process was delayed. It took us almost an hour to make it through the line and have our passports checked.  Staff told us that if the medical emergency hadn’t happened, the process would have been more like 15-20 minutes.  Our wait in line with hangovers is small potatoes though compared to having to spend the last day of a Christmas trip in a Key West hospital, so I hope the sick passenger is ok and feels better soon.

 

My dear husband forgot to take the do not disturb sign off our door before we went down, so when we got back to our room I was disappointed to find Rikki hadn’t dropped off my morning coffee and Evian on ice. Again, first world problems....it’s anazing how spoiled I can get in 4 days on a ship!

 

Jeremy went into port to get some souvenirs and I tried to go back to bed but it was impossible with the PA system going off every 10 minutes paging people who missed the immigration inspection.  So I went up to OVC to grab some breakfast.

 

I’ve been to Key West several times and will be here  for a week for a bachelorette party in March, so I’m not planning to go in to port. Instead I’ll be doing a few catchup posts today so stay tuned for all about Cozumel and Christmas Day on Infinity!

[GenerationX]

Christmas Day at sea was a great time!

 

We went to Luminae for breakfast so we could take a Christmas gift to our waiter, Henry then went to watch Santa’s arrival on the pool deck.  For lunch, Tuscan Grille has a special crab lunch.  The crab cakes could have used more meat but the crab legs were great.  They pre-cracked them for you so you didn’t have to do all the work.  I was going to pass on dessert then I saw the strawberry cake go by.  It was just as good as it looked.

 

Even though I had no desire to look at anymore food after all that crab, I did stop by OVC to take pictures of the Christmas lunch buffet. I don’t think pictures do justice to just how impressive it was!  I bumped into two of the chefs and asked them if they’d gotten any sleep last night with making all that food. They said they don’t really get to sleep on Christmas Eve or NYE with all the preparations. 

 

For Christmas dinner, we went back to Tuscan Grille.  We started by splitting the antipasto board then had Caesar salads. I thought the salad had too much dressing but Jeremy liked it.  I had the ribeye and Jeremy had filet mignon and we split a half portion of the short rib papardelle as our side.  There’s a glass wall to the kitchen in Tuscan Grille and while we were there for lunch I watched a chef spend an hour making this papardelle fresh.  We are both very sad to be going back to Monday night boxed Barilla noodles and jarred sauce next week.  My steak had great marbelling and was cooked well, but after I had a bite of Jeremy’s filet I immediately had buyers remorse.

 

For dessert we had pistachio creme brûlée and fig gelato.  The creme brûlée was a bit rich and dense after 3 courses and I could only handle a few bites, but the fig gelato with a shot of espresso was a perfect end to the meal.

 

Our assistant waiter at Tuscan both at lunch and dinner was a super sweet and very attentive young lady named Sierra from the Philippines.  Her service was fantastic and she was more on top of things than our head waiter.  She has 3 kids at home staying with family while she works and the youngest is only a few years old.  She said she’d get to talk to her family “later after my shift”. We realized that with her working the lunch and dinner, she probably came on at 8 or 9 am and wouldn’t get to stop working and wish her children a merry Christmas until midnight!  I am always amazed at the amount of hard work and sacrifice that the crew put in just to give folks like me a nice vacation!  We will definitely be sure to mention her in our post cruise survey. She deserves a promotion to full waiter!

[George C]

Great pictures, we also love the Tuscan grill, enjoying your review.

[canadianbear]

You are sure making me want to get on our cruise to try out Celebrity, it all looks amazing!  What a wonderful celebration for you both.  Really enjoying all the information and photos you are sharing.