At the end of February 2023 I took what many would consider a dream cruise on the Celebrity Infinity leaving from Buenos Aires Argentina going down around Cape Horn and continuing to Antarctica.
Ports
Two days before the trip, I enjoyed the port city of Buenos Aires. I stayed at Casa Lapage art hotel. A nice place! The first day I enjoyed the city sights on my own. I arrived around 2pm, so, I grabbed some empanadas and walked around near the Presidential Palace in Plaza De Mayo. The city was really welcoming and fairly easy to navigate, however, I must admit I had no real agenda other than taking in the atmosphere.
The next day, I had an all day bike ride scheduled with a local company that I booked with toursales.com. The company confused the reservation, but after a few minutes, we had it fixed and we were on our way. Our group only had two people! It was great. it was a private tour of the city on bike. The major sites we saw, one of the Soccer stadiums, Evita statue, Presidential palace, the Recoleta Cemetery and La boca. We passed a few of the colleges, a few city parks and the agricultural area. Overall we rode 13.5 miles over 7 hours. I really recommend this type of tour, its a great way to see the city sights!
Finally, the day of the cruise had arrived. That morning I opted for a small breakfast at a local coffee shop and slowly got ready to board the ship. I was notified that boarding was a mess, so I was in no hurry to get to the ship. I arrived at 1PM which was sadly, still too early. The waiting area was a mess and it felt like this was the first time they had ever had a cruise ship in port. Finally, around 2:30P, I was on board the ship. I had a lot of embarkation day plans, including a party in my room for sail away, needless to say I was a bit pressed for time as sail away was at 5P. After dropping my bag off in my room, I went to talk to the food and beverage manager. A very nice man, however, I was informed we could not get any drink service to the room. I had a feeling this would have been the case, but it was worth a shot to ask. Unfortunately, the answer of "no" to virtually any request during the cruise was the norm. I will explain over the course of this review.
After a great sailaway party, the next 3 days were at sea. I spent quite a bit of time the following day recovering from lack of sleep during travel and socializing. The Infinity is a smaller ship, so the options for activities aren't as prevalent as any larger vessel. The Infinity has a lot of neat public areas like the outdoor movie/sports screen at the back of the ship for movies or sports under the stars and the lounge at the front of the ship for bigger events and parties. The wine bar and the lounge were very popular every day. Good places to sit and listen to music and people watch. The activities club had the typical trivia hours, bean bag toss, goofy golf, things like that, pretty fun and popular, sometimes too popular. I am not sure if this was because people were lacking for things to do, or if it was because the activities were so amazing, I suppose that would be up to the participant. I personally felt a lot of the night time activities were lacking. They only did one night of karaoke, which was only 45 minutes and people were left without being able to sing their song. God forbid we miss one of the house band cover songs they sang on repeat all cruise. Another thing I noticed was a lot of the music was the exact same, sad, slow jazz, no matter the performer. Every single venue seemed like the same tone, atmosphere and type of music. Needless to say, I was not a fan.
The ship is starting to show its age a bit, mostly with the rooms. Some of the furniture seemed wore out, the couch in my room was not very appealing to the eye, either. Everything in my room worked, however, I heard from others that the air conditioning either heating or cooling wasn't working properly, sometimes hot water wasn't available and sound on the tv was not very good. Not sure if this was a satellite issue or an equipment issue. I recommend This ship be refurbished as soon as possible. The public areas to me seemed well kept and I dont remember anything out of order.
Dining - the buffet was a bit small and lacking some choices, however, I thought the burgers were good, indian food was great. The pasta was awful, this was ship wide. The main dining room had some really great options and was mostly tasty. The dining room service was pretty good, although one day they had a menu snafu and gave diners the menu from the day before. My waiter was highly confused when he took my order. Kind of funny, but it was figured out fairly quickly. I felt like the dining room was understaffed, however, they took good care of us. Id give the food overall a B on this cruise. One dish in particular, the gourmet chicken wrap was awesome, but too small! I had to get two. That dish was an A+ I gave a B overall because I felt like every pasta dish on board was undercooked, I stopped ordering anything that included pasta. I also felt that some of the food wasn't the proper temp. I ordered meatballs at the tuscan and they were luke warm. I had them heat them up for me, the flavor was great though.
Entertainment - I wasn't a big fan overall, but that may just be a personal choice.
Events - Good events, I wish they had more of what people really liked, such as live karaoke and games (bocce ball was popular!) They had no cards or games in the library, not even checkers!!!
Casino - A typical casino, however, I felt they had a lot of new staff and the vibe i got wasn't really that great. The host wasn't around much, the manager never smiled.
Staff and service - Really good. I had my favorites, David (an absolute rock star) Eileen (never stopped smiling) and my cabin steward, Alex all made my trip better.
Port stops and Antarctic viewing
Ushuaia -
Our first stop on this cruise was Ushuaia, Argentina. A small city right at the southernmost point of Argentina and on the border of Chile. The port was small, 3 small ships maximum. There were two ships docked there, both from Quark Expeditions. The weather was cold and it even snowed for a few minutes that afternoon! I did a tour to the national park, Tierra Del Fuego with a stop at the most southern Post office in Argentina! This port was a great stop with both nature and a cool little town to get some coffee, ice cream and a lot of people went for the Crab lunch!
Antarctica -
Next up the cruise sailed through the Schollart Channel and Paradise Harbor and Elephant island. Really great viewing of icebergs, glaciers and rocky mountain terrain! More beautiful than I anticipated. Really hard to put into words the majestic scenery and atmosphere. the weather was cold and crisp, but extremely beautiful. We saw a Silversea ship on an expedition cruise as well, with guest going off in zodiac boats to view wildlife closer than we were allowed. We saw penguins, whales, sea lions and tons of different birds during our journey.
Falkland island
As we turned to go back north we stopped at the Falkland islands. This was an amazing port to visit. There are tons of historical reasons to visit this area, but amazing adventure and wild life viewing as well. I went to see the king penguins, and it did not disappoint. After a 10 mile or so back country drive, we made it to the habitat which is right on the beach. There, we saw a sea lion waiting for a penguin to come into the water. The penguin would spot the sea lion and run away as fast as they could. A very interesting and hectic sight! Some of the penguins fell over! After a long day of driving and wildlife viewing, there was a neat little bar right at the port area to enjoy a pint before heading back out to sea. For history buffs, there are a ton of sights for wartime memorials and sites.
Puerto Madryn, Argentina
A great port for those looking to enjoy wildlife viewing. Penguin, whales and sea lion are all sights to be seen here, with exclusive excursions to do so. You will also see some sheep and other animals along the way. The port city itself doesn't have much, typical restaurants and bar selections which I stopped in, decent coffee and beer that I enjoyed.
Montevideo, Uruguay
The Capital city of Uruguay - A great place for wine tasting, for sure. I explored a local winery about 30 minutes outside of the city and loved the food and wine. After the wine tour, the city has an open air "market" with different food, wine and beer selections as well as shopping. This was a favorite stop of mine, i'd love to go back. Tons to see and do, clean and safe as well!
All in all it was a great cruise. The itinerary was great and the friends I met on board made the cruise so much better. I highly recommend Antarctica! The ship and the staff I feel need some work, the culture on board seemed as if they were just going through the motions. A few crew were absolute stars, but anytime we needed something "more" or "extra" it seemed as if they didnt want to go out of their way. I hope it was just me that felt this way. One major example is we asked for a photographer to take some pictures from the balcony, the first two people we asked said no! Finally, we were able to get two photograpghers, but not without a lot of hassle. That seems like a good example of how things went with what seemed to be simple requests. I highly recommend Celebrity for any cruise itinerary!
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