Infinity Panama Canal MIA-SFO 05/01/2005

[mike@sea]

Anyone going on this 15 night Celebrity cruise from Miami to San Francisco on May 1st next year?

 

Michael

Frankfurt,Germany

[CelebrityMan]

Hi Mike@sea,

 

My partner & I are booked on this cruise, stateroom 9094. We've done the Canal on Celebrity before and loved it. Can't wait to go again!

 

Love the fact that we know, now, of at least one other family member going. Hooray!

 

BTW, the cruise was originally listed as a Miami departure, but is now from Ft. Lauderdale.

 

Looking forward to chatting more with you.

 

 

Calvin & Marc

[mike@sea]

Hi Calvin & Marc,

 

thank´s for your reply. Good to know we are at least four on this particular cruise already. I guess with SFO as the final destination we will end up with quite a few other gay cruisers on board. We will definitely have cocktails on our aft balcony (#9162) which I was lucky enough to get. Had an aft stateroom on the Millenium last year in the Mediterranean on deck 8, which is even better than deck 9 because it is even bigger, and we had quite a few little cocktail parties with usually around 16 other "family members" from all over the world. Deck 9 aft balcony is smaller but still big enough to invite friends over which we will happily do! So you are the first to be invited... Dates and times to be advised... :-)

Can´t wait to do this particular cruise. Had 7 cruises so far, 6 on RCCL on one on Celebrity. 3 of them in the Caribbean, 3 in Europe (Mediterranean) and recently Alaska which I personally liked least (besides the 3night one to the Bahamas) due to the overcrowded ports of call. I also prefer longer cruises. 7 nights is just not enough.

 

What do you think of Celebrity changing all 1A/B/C cabins to CC cabins? I wonder if they are gonna cut back on the little enhancements they added to the CC cabins now that they will be having so many more of those... Oh well, doesn´t really matter I guess.

 

I will only be checking these boards every once in a while so don´t be surprised not te receive an instant reply from me.

 

Looking forward too to future chatting and getting to know you guys next year!

 

Regards

 

Michael

[CelebrityMan]

Michael,

 

How delightful to open Cruise Critic and find a response from you! We'd begun to wonder if you'd given up and decided not to book. And, then, seeing you're from Germany (which my partner, Marc, is quite familiar with), we speculated you might be an overworked businessman or someone military without a 'secure' access on a regular basis.

 

Neverthless, good to see you on the boards! Now we're even more excited about going, knowing for sure that we'll have 'family' to share the trip with.

 

Yes, we've expected that with SFO being the disembarkation point there'd be a fair number of gay cruisers. So far, that hasn't proved true on these boards. Evidently not too many of our fellow gay travellers frequent Cruise Critic. That'll just make for a higher sense of discovery once on board. Fine tune your Gaydar, now. Hehehe.

 

Thanks for the invitation to cocktails. Those aft staterooms are marvelous for hosting events, as I see you found out on your Mediterranean/Millenium cruise.

 

We had stateroom 8166 on our last sailing (on Summit) and were totally spoiled with it. The corner balcony is large enough to feel like an exclusive private deck retreat, and we made good use of it.

 

You must have enjoyed your prior Celebrity-Millenium experience. We're Celebrity veterans and thoroughly enjoy the line. We've never had a bad experience with them, always finding their clientele to be generally sophisticated enough to enjoy gay travellers in the mix, or at least mature enough not to make brazen fools of themselves if they don't "approve." Over the years we've met some wonderful straight couples at our dinner table, some of which have become dear friends.

 

We, too, definitely prefer the longer cruises. We'll never do another 7-nighter. Our jobs require us to get away and relax, and there just isn't time for that on a week long cruise. Plus, the longer the cruise the better one gets acquainted with new friends, the more pampering Celebrity can do for us, and the more spoiled we can become. Never a bad thing. Ha, ha!

 

Changing some staterooms to Concierge Class was a strong marketing tool, and I'm sure the success they've had is why the entire category 1 is being changed. We're not sure about the effectiveness of the proffered perks, though. But, the only negative impact on perks I could see would be in the various "priority" enhancements. Luggage handling probably won't be too difficult to maintain, but I'm not sure priority embarkation and disembarkation can. We'll just have to see how it pans out.

 

As to the particulars of the Canal cruise, I'm sure you will enjoy it as much as we do. There is such interesting variety in the ports of call, the incredible Canal transit, and all the relaxing days at sea! Our favorite stops are Oranjestad, Aruba and Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Granted, the latter isn't a good port, but the shore excursions into the wonderful country of Costa Rica are (IMHO) among the best we've seen on any cruise.

 

Best wishes to you. Keep in touch.

 

 

 

C&M

[CelebrityMan]

Hi,

 

Just bringing the thread back to the fore in case others might be interested in a last minute booking.... ;)

 

 

 

CM

[iandjm]

Hi Guys,

 

I have found this thread now lol. Just thought I would say hi to you. I am on the cruise with my best friend Finn/ Hope we can meet up. If you want to email or chat on messenger my email is iandjm28@hotmail.com

 

Cheers

 

Ian