I Took a Last Minute Cruise on An Old Ship - Worth It?

I am currently on board a very cheap

last

minute

cruise

that I booked on one of the older and smaller

cruise

ship

s. I booked this cruise just 2 weeks before sailing when I saw it advertised for a price of $57 per night, it actually ended up costing a little more than that but after months of being cold in England I saw this cruise sailing from Greece and decided to give it a try . I knew there was no guarantee of good weather this time of year. I didn't know how I would enjoy sailing on such a small, old boat and I had no idea the real reason this cruise was so cheap.

He wouldn't find out until he came aboard. I didn't know either at this point we would be dropping some guests off at one of the ports but there was nothing I could have done about it anyway we flew from London to board the

ship

and after a quick taxi ride to the port , it was time to board our luggage. We were taken out of the car to be delivered to our cabins later and after what could only have been about 5

minute

s in the terminal, we were ready to board the ship. It was the easiest boarding ever helped by the fact that we had already checked in online and I even watched the safety videos on the plane just to save time.

The ship we were boarding was the famous Infinity, it was built in 2001 and is just under half the size of the largest cruise ship in the world. I assumed the small size meant there would be fewer entertainment options, maybe less food, but I was sure it had had some repairs since 2001. I didn't imagine they would still have the original 2001 TVs on board, although that would be cool. This is a picture of one of the ship's original TVs that I found in one of the very old reviews. It's so pretty that we walked to the center of the ship and were greeted with this grand staircase and atrium area that was divided into several decks. here I saw the most amazing thing you can see on any cruise and they were multiple jars of cruise cookies.

From that moment I knew I would spend a lot of time here. Our day had started around 3:00. A.M. and it was around 3:00 p.m. At this point we decided to look for some food, luckily for us that only meant climbing a few flights of stairs to the buffet. It's not uncommon on large cruise ships to have 17 or 18, 18, 19 or 20 decks, but the lovely Little Celebrity Infinity only has 12 people entering the buffet. I found something cool and it's a map of all the different food stations. Of course, I still wanted to go through everything before deciding, but this showed me how big the buffet was.

If I had to describe the buffet food in one word it would be fresh, there was lots of fresh bread, vegetables and fruits and each day they would have a different theme here, most days I would end up eating at least one or two. or sometimes even three of my meals here had so much fruit that they carved some of it into animals. I decided to call this melon because it's made from melon, but if you can think of something better, let me know in the comments, the buffet. I went around both sides of the boats with tons of seating and there was also a really nice sitting area outside where we sometimes had breakfast.

Another important part of the buffet for me was how many included drink options there were. I decided not to do it. bought a beverage package for this cruise so I knew I would make the most of the juices, tea and everything here. I usually water down the juice to make pumpkin and pumpkin has to be your British meal of the week. because I get asked about that more than anything else, I'm always drinking pumpkin on my live streams and it has nothing to do with vegetable pumpkin. Pumpkin is just diluted fruit juice and most houses in the UK would have at least a couple of flavours, my personal favorite is vimto and I always carry a couple of small bottles when I go on any cruise.

I was hoping not to spend much more on this cruise because it was meant to be a

last

minute cheap and budget type of cruise. During the break the buffet had a lot of big windows which made us very excited to leave and even a couple of what you could call windows I guess on the floor so you could see the floor, it was a little scary but pretty cool , the sky was blue and that's what I had been waiting for for so long, it was so good not to be cold that we headed out to the main pool deck to explore and found two large pools that looked very inviting, there were tons of sun loungers and each La Single sunbed had a towel and there were even some blankets we could use if we had kids.

Celebrities are definitely a cruise line on the more premium end of the scale and for me it's the little things like the blankets that show that towards. At the back of the ship we found a basketball court and an area called the Rooftop Terrace . Looking at these exterior areas, I don't think you'd ever know that this ship was built 23 years ago and yes, 2001 is 23 years ago, isn't it. It really seems possible, but that makes the ship as old as the first Harry Potter movie and also Monsters Inc, so it was a good year for movies. After dropping our bags in our cabin, it was time to set sail away from Athens.

I booked a cabin with a balcony and my brother booked a single cabin with an ocean view. I'll break down the cost of everything later in the video, but for now we were pretty impressed with the rooms given the age which of course looked like they were made in 2001 with all this. Orange wood that really dates the boat to that era, but nothing was broken, nothing was damaged, virtually the entire cabin interior has been replaced several times since the boat was launched. I've been on much, much younger boats that were in worse condition. In condition above this, there are a few cabins whose decor has been updated, but for the most part this is what the cabins look like.

There was a band playing by the pool as we sailed and that's when I realized how quiet this boat is. It seemed like on some cruise lines there would be hundreds or thousands of people in the pool at cruise time, but this was much more relaxing. I heard from my friends, YouTubers JJ Cru, who were on the cruise before mine, that their cruise was only 65%. Full, so I was wondering if it could be the same for this cruise. I love cruises that are not full and they remind me of the ones I

took

right after the pandemic when we started sailing again, but the difference is that now there are no other restrictions, so it's ideal, we decided to spend the night in a huge lounge which we found at the top of the ship called Constellation Lounge.

Here they would have trivia and game shows almost every day, as well as late night parties since I start at 3:00 am. I knew I wouldn't be attending the late night party, but I always enjoy playing trivia. We bought our first drinks on board and it cost us $9.60 for two cans of Coca-Cola Zero, including the free one I could have bought. a beverage package so you could have unlimited drinks on board the cruise, but the cheapest non-alcoholic package was $35 per person per day, so you would have to drink at least eight sodas every day just to break even and I don't think That's good for no one.

I could do it, but I don't think I should. If I like coffee it might have been

worth

it, but I have simple tastes and there's nothing better than a can of Coke unless of course it's a can of Pepsi, so I decided to pay as I go when we woke up The next day in Thessaloniki, it was raining and quite cold, we decided to go for a walk, but I was starting to wonder if this is what Cruise would say: Did I really come all this way just to bring the regular English rain that I would get back home anyway? ?

I hope my sunglasses aren't just worn to keep the rain off my face, that wouldn't be good. Luckily for us, we had 2 days in port so we were able to come back the next day and try again the second time. It was much better and the weather seemed to suggest it would get warmer as our cruise progressed. We explore a tower and come across some ruins, as often happens randomly in grease, as much as I love ruins. I was much more excited to see the Greek cats, but at this point I hadn't seen many in Thessaloniki.

I'm at 99.9%. I'm sure we left a couple of guests behind, which is actually not that unusual as we were back on board at All Aboard time of course, but they kept making announcements asking if these two people were on board. They scan your cruise card every time you get on and off a cruise but they're just checking that those people haven't gotten on board, there wasn't a problem with the system or something because they wouldn't want to wait for the people who were on board the whole time. time our ship waited. an extra hour, which is very generous, but then we had to set sail.

The ship can't wait forever. It has places to be and I'm sure the people who were working at the port probably wanted to get home. We saw people. running around once we left and I can't say if these are the missing people but if I had to guess I would say I probably hadn't seen much of the ship up to this point so I decided to go explore starting Inside the ship it was interesting to see the different styles of decoration and, in particular, rugs. This is one of my favorites and I call it the cinnamon roll topping.

For obvious reasons, we found a great casino where I lost $10 later in the cruise. It's an area where looking at the original 2000 rug hurts my eyes a little, even though it's nice and there's nostalgia in these photos. I'm glad they decided to change the ones that talk about shopping. We found a large shopping area and walked through it. We take us to the main theater. I'm a big fan of theater shows so I knew I'd have to come back here later, but upon seeing the layout of the room I was very impressed. I love theaters that have tables like this so you can come and go without disturbing other people and I liked that the seats were more like benches than individual seats, they were very comfortable and always good for plus size guests.

I also watched a movie here later and it was comfortable during that period of time, the ceiling was also very very impressive and there was strange art along the way. If I thought the art here was strange, I had no idea what to expect as the cruise continued every day. I usually find something weirder and weirder in my videos. I'm trying to describe what I'm showing you but I honestly have no idea that this one looks like a person being suffocated by a net and this one looks like something yellow with antlers that I have. I have no idea, but it was always interesting and certainly memorable.

On the buffet there was a strange chocolate statue that someone clearly really liked because it was on both sides of the buffet. Someone looked at this and thought it was so good. I'm going to order two of those when we got back to our cabin we found a piece of paper that said we had been assigned a late dinner. I thought it was strange since my application said I had flexible dining where I didn't have to eat. at a fixed time I'm definitely not a late dinner type of person, but I never had a problem changing it on a cruise before I decided to just ignore the problem and it actually went away.

I'm not sure it's fantastic. device, but that's honestly what I did. The app said it had flexible meals, so I just followed that and ignored the paper. I could book dinner in the main dining room on my phone whenever I wanted, so I decided to book us a table for 5:30, which is the perfect time for dinner, and I did so on several days of the cruise. The main dining room on board Celebrity Infinity was very impressive, it is divided into two levels and there are windows on three sides. Also this big bright pink light in the middle that looked like an eyeball staring at us, it felt like we were on a game show.

More modern cruise ships have moved away from this idea of ​​one large main dining room and you will usually find several smaller, more intimate ones. Restaurants When I sailed on the younger brother of the famous Edge Infinity, there were four main dining rooms on board, but the cruise I

took

on the Celebrity Edge tripled the price of this one, so it's not fair to compare them if we have gone from having a dining room on the year 2000 to four dining rooms in the year 2024. Are we going to have four times as many in another 20 years? Are we going to have 16 main dining rooms on each cruise?

I know I will try them. I will try them all. Most dinners lasted about an hour and a half, which was great. The bread baskets were great, as was all the food we had. We even ordered off the menu sometimes, like when I really wanted a plate of fries and that was no problem. Our cruise lasted 11 nights and I definitely noticed that the starters were generally the same most nights. If you are someone who wants to eat snails every day, you were in luck. This is the absolutely perfect cruise for you personally. I can't think of anything much worse than eating a snail, but I enjoyed things like the Greek salads.

Usually there was onlya vegetarian main option but the allergens were clearly marked which was good. see the menu on the app ahead of time and outside the restaurant, which I love. I always like to know in advance that our waiters were fantastic and we really couldn't have asked for anything better from our dinner at this point we were still on a casual evening. so I was a little curious about what the formal night would be like and if there would be any other topics, I packed a couple of dresses just in case because we started our dinner at 5:30, that meant we were done in time to leave. at 700 p.m. show at the theater every night there were two shows here and we saw all kinds of things, we had magicians, comedians, a ukulele band, solo singers and my favorite kind which are the theater cast performances where they sing and dance a couple of the shows had very impressive acrobatic performances and the only disappointment for me was that I went to see a Phil Collins tribute act and he didn't sing a single Tarzan song and the Tarzan soundtrack is amazing if there was a show.

Those were entirely Tarzan songs. I would go if there was a Taran themed cruise. I would probably go. It always felt pretty quiet at the first few shows, but when we went to the later shows, they were definitely a little busier. In no world could this ship be. Described as full and later found out we were about 75% full. We had a mix of people on board from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Spain, Greece and all over the world. After the show, we decided to go swimming. the indoor solar pool, this space was very bright and light with huge windows and lots of seating, there is also a small cafe here and the pool is actually a FASSA therapeutic pool.

I definitely can't spell I can barely say it, it was basically like a hot bubble bath, but you share it with other people and I'm not sure I'll ever be someone who likes that idea, but I'm glad I tried it, There were a couple of kids in the pool. when I walked in, but I think in total I saw less than 10 kids on this cruise the entire time we were sailing after the school holidays and Celebrities are definitely mostly an adult cruise line so that's what I expected . Celebrities are actually owned by Royal. The Caribbean and Royal Caribbean ships are the family versions of these.

You won't find big slides or surf simulators on a celebrity cruise, but you'll find all those things and more on a Royal Caribbean ship. The next ports on our itinerary were comfortable. in Greece and limo in Cyprus, the most popular thing to do in cusy is visit Ephesus, but since I had already done that before deciding to stay closer to the port, we did our thing in limo 2 and the celebrities got on free buses . free to take us into the city, this is one of the big differences between budget cruise lines and more premium cruise lines.

If this were a budget cruise line, they definitely would have charged $10 or $15 for the shuttle bus when we visited these ports. She told us we needed to bring our passports with us, it really depends on where you visit, but if you're like me and wearing a summer dress you're unlikely to have pockets so you're probably going to need a bag. I almost always carry my moui backpack on my back, it is strong, comfortable and has a shiny lining with lots of pockets so you can store important things like Captain Hudson. You will see my mouille bags in every video.

I've been on this channel since about 2017 so I asked if they would sponsor this video and I'm so happy to say they said yes, that means I can offer you a discount on everything you've seen over the last few years. Some years, from my luggage cubes to my toiletry bags, my side bags and the foldable bag that goes over the handle of my suitcase, ideal for walking through airports or walking down icy streets like I did on my last cruise. Thanks to mouille for sponsoring this video. use code Emma Crues for 15% off everything Wandering around made us hungry so when we got back to the ship we decided to visit the Poolside Grill.

Most cruise lines have something like this included in the cruise fair and the food was actually very good. Well, of course, there are restaurants on board that cost more, called specialty restaurants, but I didn't go to any of them during this cruise. My goal was to keep this cruise as cheap as possible. One of my favorite things about this ship was the coffee shop and I can't comment on the coffee because I have never had a cup of coffee in my life, but I can comment on the cookies and believe me, I have eaten many cruise ship cookies, the cookies were here all day, every day. with cakes and there were usually three types.

I would often skip dessert in the main dining room or at the buffet and instead just buy a cookie here because they were pretty impossible to beat, they were soft and gooey and I even wore my cruise cookie on a t-shirt in honor of them, sometimes I take them back to my cabin at night for a snack before bed. One celebrity put small chocolates on our pillow before bed each night, which was very nice, but my brother, who was sailing alone one night, received four chocolates, four for himself hit the jackpot for most of this cruise .

I just wore normal t-shirts or dresses, but there were some dress codes on board every day. There is a dress code for the main dining room and that means you have to wear pants. With a collared shirt or something like a dress, a polo shirt and a decent pair of jeans are fine, but you can't wear shorts in the main dining room for dinner, which is more strict than many cruise lines. I find it really strange. when the cruise lines have rules that say no shorts or t-shirts allowed, but I can wear a dress that is basically a giant t-shirt and shorter than shorts, but I guess they have to draw the line somewhere, at At some point there wasn't.

There was a lot of difference between the informal nights and the previous nights. It was more of an invitation to dress a little better if we wanted. If we didn't feel like changing at all, we just used EA at the buffet. There was also a white man. Gentleman on board and bought my trusty white dress. I also remembered to bring a cardigan because it's almost impossible to dine in a white dress without spilling something down the front. It seems like white clothes are just a magnet for food. I'm not. I'm sure what it is, but it always happens that information about things like the dress code can be found in the daily schedule that is delivered to our room each night and also on the cruise line app, in the app we can check our account on board.

Let's see what the schedule was and we were even able to message other people for free. Some cruise lines charge for that luxury, so it was much appreciated again. It's the little things like that that really make a difference. The next two stops on our cruise were roads and streams. where the crew had a safety drill, they do it regularly on cruise ships and it's always fun for me to see how each crew member has a job to do in case of emergency, it doesn't matter if you're the captain, if you're a waiter. If you work in a store in an emergency, you have a job to do and you have to practice it.

The chefs on the prominar platform still had their chef hats on, which always reminds me of the movie Ratatouille that I actually made. Download the movie Ratatouille to watch at some point during this cruise I thought we might have a lot of downtime and I was prepared to entertain myself but I didn't have time to watch Ratatouille at all, maybe that should be my new stopover to see how busy it is a Cru. I either had time to watch Ratatouille or not, and the word Ratatouille doesn't sound like a word anymore. I was working on board the ship so I bought a Wi-Fi package which cost me £120 which is about $150 for 12 nights and I always find it a pain to pay but it worked perfectly, it wasn't as fast as the internet at home , of course, but I got everything I needed, including a live broadcast from the ship when I was in poverty.

I usually only use my 4 or 5G phones as I can get around most of the places we visit without any additional charges and I can actually share the internet from my phone with my laptop. Our next port was Napon and this port was a real surprise. For me, I had never heard of it before, but it was a great place to spend the day; It was actually a tender port and that meant we had to use the cruise ships to get to land, but we never had to wait for it to arrive. tender I'm sure we would have had to wait a bit if we had rushed as soon as the boat dropped anchor but that's not my style, the weather was splendid, around 18 or 19C which is 66 fit, I understand.

It may not be warm for everyone, but for me, coming from England, it was beautiful. I couldn't have wished for more. I'm a big fan of off-peak cruises for this reason and also because it's usually much quieter in the ports. I visited some Greek islands in the summer on cruises with six other ships docked at the same time. It's really strange to be around so many people at once and in places like Santorini. I definitely wouldn't recommend a visit in high season unless you're okay with it. crowds and it's also okay to go with the crowd because you can't really fight that.

This was much, much better. I loved our itinerary, but found out later on the cruise that this was the reason it was so cheap until recently. A couple of months before the departure date this itinerary was to go to Israel and Egypt, a celebrity decided to change it and I'm sure some people decided not to go ahead with the cruise after the change which meant there were a lot of spaces to spare. board. available and celebrities were filling them up by selling it cheap at the last minute, which combined with the time of year and the fact that we were sailing on a smaller, older ship meant this cruise was about a third of the cost of what I would have been sailing. on a newer ship in summer, you can see the full cost breakdown for this cruise including my brother traveling solo at emac cruises.com, slinin costs which also include how much I spent on everything, in short the total price I paid for this cruise it was 1,288 61 which is $1,623 which includes my flights from London, transfers and tips, the cruise lasted 12 nights and is based on two people sharing a balcony cabin when I sail.

I am very happy if I can meet my 100 per person. budget per night, but that budget usually doesn't include flights and that's usually with a budget line, not a premium line like a celebrity, so I was very, very happy with this price. I enjoyed my cruise on the 2001 Celebrity Infinity as much as I did the 2023 Celebrity Edge. but the experiences were like chalk and cheese and that's British for another video, the Celebrity Edge actually had one of the strangest cabins I've ever had , it was not a balcony, but it was not a balcony to find. find out what that was like and if it was

worth

paying three times more for that boat than this one watch this video below, see you there