Infinity 09/12-09/19 Review - Day Two

[flagger]

Day One

 

DAY TWO

 

When I posted my first installment, I was left looking over the balcony at the source of the noise. It turned out it was a small cutter from the Canadian Coast Guard sailing off the port amidships. I looked out the balcony towards the aft and noticed several others looking out from their staterooms. As we continued to watch, the cutter moved in closer to the port side of the ship. Off came a man carrying luggage with the tags still attached. A woman wearing one of Infinity’s left vests followed him. A few moments later two men carrying an older gentleman in an international orange basket stretcher came onto the ship. It was obviously some type of medical emergency that required evacuation. The man was covered with a blanket, as there was no room for the basket in wheelhouse and the cutter pulled away from the ship and turned back towards Vancouver Island.

 

Our daughter decided around 5:30am was a fine time to get up. Her body, as ours, was still on Texas time (two hours ahead). The night before, we had Marivic put a sheet over the sofa without pulling out the sofa bed. We brought the collapsible bed rail from Safety 1st. It worked perfectly as our daughter is almost ready to move to a bed anyway. The crib that had been left in the room was a rather ratty Graco Pack N’ Play. In fact there was a rip in the bottom section on which the mattress would lay. We had Marivic take it away the night before as it was just taking up space.

 

The night before we had filled out the Concierge Class expanded room service menu and left it hanging outside our stateroom. As all three of us snoozed in the bed, I reflected on how long we had been waiting for this adventure to begin. I felt the bed was tremendously comfortable, and the duvet was divine. We had arranged for room service delivery between 7:30-8am. Around 7, we decided to shower and be dressed before room service arrived. I turned on the in-cabin television, watched the daily update from John the cruise director and tuned into CNN for the latest information on Hurricane Ivan. I am a bit of a weather junky and really began to miss The Weather Channel.

 

Around 7:35, we received a phone call advising room service was on the way. Not a minute later, there was a polite knock on the door. I will admit here that I have pretty particular tastes as how I like my breakfast cooked; bacon, crisp…eggs, scrambled well…hash browns, cooked well. I found the bacon limp, the eggs runny and the hash browns to be warm but certainly not cooked to my liking. I had put down my special requests on the card, but after later seeing the buffet upstairs I feel this was just scooped from the buffet and brought down. It certainly didn’t feel to me as being cooked to order. What I also found amusing was that we had indicated three people in our stateroom, yet only received silverware for two. Not a big deal to share a fork with my young daughter, but it would be certainly impractical for an older child.

 

This morning would not be among the first that my research on Cruise Critic and other websites had helped me out. As we left our stateroom not particular satiated, I remembered the omelet and waffle station far aft in the oceanview café. About an hour after our room service, there we were in the buffet and at the omelet station getting some hot food, as well as Cheerios and fruit for our daughter. We found a table on the starboard side far aft not next to a window that would become our regular morning repast enclave.

 

After breakfast, I headed back to the cabin and my spouse took a separate route. A few minutes later she came in the room and informed me that it was raining. Honestly, having sat on the balcony that morning and looked out when we came back from breakfast I hadn’t even noticed. If you look on the map of the ship, you can see that #9125 sits on the port side three staterooms aft of the midship elevators. We are right below the Oceanview Café, but there is a notch in the overhang right above our stateroom. Yes we did have a bit of an overhang, but not as much as the cabins further forward. The overhang we had served us well as our balcony was never rained on during our cruise.

 

The day before, Jody, the youth program coordinator, told us about the program where we could check out a treasure chest of toys to take back to the room. We would not be able to take our daughter into the Fun Factory (not potty trained), but we could have some toys to take back to our room. After picking up the treasure chest, all of the toys being checked off a list to check upon return in case of missing items, we headed back to the cabin. On the television, we had seen the port talk for Ketchikan and Ms. Flagger was determined to pick up the $20 “VIP shopping book”. She headed to the port talk while my daughter and I napped. I knew it was going to be a waste of $20, but there are some things that Ms. Flagger needs to discover on her own. We were asleep for about 1.5 hours when we heard Ms. Flagger return. She commented, “Well THAT was a waste of $20 and the talk was the same as on the television!!!” ‘I told you so’ was just mumbled under my breath.

 

We have noticed today that the ship is completely full, not just with the group of 900 or so, but many had come over from the cancelled Summit. We met quite a few who didn’t find out about the cancellation until the week before they were to leave and only through an email advising them all of their shore excursions had been cancelled. One couple received no notice whatsoever and went to Canada Place expecting to see the Summit. It really is inexcusable for something like this to take place as far as no notification, but they were making the best of their situation.

 

While cruising the inside passage, I saw my first ever bald eagle. One of the things I had always wanted to see had been checked off the list. While friendly, we have noticed that several of the staff seem to be sick of Alaska and are ready for warmer climates. It was cool and rainy most of the day until right after dinner where we saw what I noted “a semi-beautiful” sunset.

 

I also made a note here based on something I had read on the boards. We brought along a plug in digital clock and late this afternoon we noticed it was running 15 minutes fast. It was reset and we never noticed a time discrepancy for the rest of the cruise. I also put a note in my book with the comment “There are things I should not have to ask or report”. I wrote this down when I noticed mold in the grout of the shower stall. This is not something worth demanding a free cruise over, but I found it to be rather “Ick”. I make a mental note to mention it to Marivic in the morning, but honestly feel this is not something I should have to mention. We both feel it should be something that she notices and takes care of.

 

It was the first formal night tonight. We dressed up and headed down for pictures. I certainly wanted to get pictures taken before spilling something down the front of my shirt. Our daughter is feeling very tired at this point and just wants to nap in our arms. Aleks, our assistant maitre’d calls her “Uspavana Lepotica” (Le-poe-teetza). He says it means “Sleeping Beauty” in Serbian. He was wonderful as he noted to have a plate of fruit arrive at our table shortly after seating for our daughter to begin to work on. She really loved those big black grapes. We did have a bit of an issue with our assistant waiter constantly having to be asked for a children’s menu. Another thing that we felt should have been anticipated, but, as I noted before, we felt this was one of the reasons Sumerta was an assistant waiter. We are still seated alone at a table of four. It would have been nice to sit with other couples, but it would work out well as one of us later in the week would leave with our daughter as to not disturb other diners.

 

I have fallen down on the diary a little bit here, as I honestly couldn’t tell you what was served for dinner. We honestly have not yet been impressed with the food. I like my food piping hot and mostly it has come out warm to lukewarm. My wife tells me that all her mom can talk about after her cruises is the food (on Carnival no less). Ms. Flagger is a cook and really is not blown away. Of course, she will later say she does not cook for 1100 people at a time. For the most part, we never found the food to be outstanding, however all three of us did try dishes that we had never tasted before. Before we left, I asked Aleks about chocolate desserts served on longer voyages. He informs us he would talk to the pastry chef on our behalf. I also informed him and Vernon to not expect us tomorrow, as we would be dining in the SS United States.

 

Ms. Flagger and our daughter went back to the cabin and I headed to the theatre for the captain’s welcome aboard speech. After his speech and introduction of officers, I headed back to the cabin to settle in for the night as we had a busy day in Ketchikan planned. We pland on shopping as well as a flight with Island Wings. We are tendering instead of docking tomorrow.

 

Our assessment of day three and that flight will follow soon.

[flagger]

I ran out of space above. I should add that at 11AM a party was held for those celebrating a honeymoon or an anniversary on this cruise. It was held in the Constellation. In attendance were about 30-40 couples varying in marriage length from a few weeks to 57 years. Two couples were celebrating 50 and 51 years respectively. We filed in and had our picture taken in front of a cake that said either Happy Birthday or Happy Anniversary. At the formal night dinner that evening, we were served a happy anniversary cake and several members of the staff sung to us.

[excitedofharpenden]

Enjoying the story so far, Flagger and looking forward to the next installment.

 

Phil

[starsjohn]

For heavens sake, do not stop now!

 

John

[flagger]

One other thing of note from this day was the two men outside in the aft of Deck 10 complaining loudly to whomever that would listen how outrageous it was that they could only smoke their cigars outside in this area in "Alaska no less". They went on and on how other lines including "Royal who owns Celebrity" have a cigar smoking venue.

[nannyny]

Michael's Clubs was formally a cigar bar but got very little use and was converted. Looking forward to day 3. Laundry all done and picking up some pics tonight. Regards to Ms. Flagger.

N.

[SusieQT]

How was the toy selection? I didn't even know this was an option. We will be on Galaxy in January with a 16 month old & 3 year old (who will be able to go to the kids club if she wants to).

 

I think we'll bring our bed rail also! The pack-n-play sounds gross!!

 

Thanks!

[flagger]

We found the toy selection, at least on Infinity to be more than adequate for our needs. I have a story that will come up in the diary for Day IV that you might want to catch. Quite frankly there were so many new things to discover on the ship (that were no destructive or in anyone's way) that kept her occupied.

 

We had brought our own PNP sheets with us, but frankly even folded up it just became another THING along with the stroller, etc. taking up space in the stateroom.

 

Here is a photo of the couch with the sheet, you can see the bed rail at the bottom of the picture. We used a borrowed Sit&Stroll as our car/airplane seat stroller. With it's wheels folded up and handle pushed in, it didn't take up too much space.

 

 

I carried her around in different ports using a borrowed (from the same people as the SNS) Kelty backpack carrier. Quite frequently she would fall asleep.

 

[emptynest1]

Flagger, I have enjoyed your review. Your little darling is precious.

[RodPat]

Flagger, Your daughter is beautiful. Since I became a grandma, I love little ones. Glad that you are showing people that traveling with little ones is a challenge but one can do it if you really want to. So many of the people on this board sound like they hate to see children on their cruises. While I don't like ill behaved children, I love to see youth and enthusiasum. Love reading your review, it brings back memories. Pat

[SusieQT]

Thanks! Our bed rail looks very similar. We will be an extended family with 3 cabins, I think the bed rail will be easier to move from cabin to cabin also. We will be in a Royal Suite, did you have any use for a high chair in your cabin? We will have a full dining table to use in the cabin and I was wondering if this would be a smart request.

 

I agree that so much of the baby stuff ends up just being in the way and not as useful as you had hoped!

 

Thanks again!