Celebrity Infinity

Celebrity Infinity was delivered in February 2001, eight months behind Celebrity Millennium, and for most of her career the two ships were interchangeable. They are not interchangeable now, and the reason is a calendar. Millennium was the first ship into the Celebrity Revolution program in January 2019. Infinity was the last of the four sisters to get comparable work, and it did not happen until January 2024.

Six years of pod trouble

She has the same machinery as the rest of the class: two General Electric gas turbines, a waste-heat steam turbine, and two 19 MW Rolls-Royce/Alstom Mermaid pods instead of shafts and rudders. And she had the same trouble with it, worse than most.

The record is unusually specific. Emergency dry dock at Victoria, British Columbia in June 2001, four months into her career, with sailings canceled. Bearing wear in April 2002 that stopped her reaching full speed. Every ball bearing unit in the ship replaced in February 2003, costing two more sailings. A thrust bearing unit in April 2004, the starboard thrust bearing in March 2005, and further pod work in September 2006. Royal Caribbean sued for three hundred million dollars over the class in 2003 and settled in 2010.

That is history rather than a warning; the pods have been reliable for two decades. It is worth knowing anyway, because it explains why this ship spent her first six years being fixed rather than improved.

The refit that came late

The modernization arrived in January 2024 and lasted a little over two weeks. The aft Ultra Deluxe and Family Veranda staterooms were converted into Sunset Suites with oversized private balconies, the Retreat Lounge was rebuilt and Luminae enlarged to serve the growing suite population, and the public rooms got new carpet, wall coverings, furniture, lighting, deck surfaces and whirlpools. Earlier drydocks had already given her the Oceanview Café, Café al Bacio and Cellar Masters in 2007, sixty extra cabins in 2011, and the Rooftop Terrace plus Tuscan Grille in place of the old SS United States restaurant in 2015.

Add it up and she is thoroughly maintained and genuinely dated. Two weeks buys soft goods, suites and finishes. It does not buy a new layout, and hers is the one Chantiers de l’Atlantique drew in 1999.

She has also had a bad recent run. On February 15, 2026, she lost power completely off Piraeus and was towed in by four tugs; the Hellenic Coast Guard attributed it to a fault in her electrical distribution panels. Guests were put ashore a day early into hotels, the following cruise was canceled outright, and she returned to service from Athens on February 27. It was preceded by weeks of smaller outages affecting air conditioning, plumbing and wi-fi. One failure does not make a ship unsafe, and she was repaired and back on schedule inside two weeks, but if you are booking a twenty-five-year-old ship it is the sort of thing you should be told before you book rather than after.

Where she actually sails

Europe, year-round, which is unusual in a fleet that mostly chases the sun across the Atlantic each autumn. The bulk of her program turns at Piraeus for Athens on seven- to thirteen-night runs through the Greek islands, Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean, with a second block out of Barcelona covering the western Mediterranean and the Atlantic islands. Ten nights is the typical length, and the schedule runs into 2028.

Her size is the argument. At 965 feet she berths in Aegean and Adriatic ports where the newest ships have to anchor and tender, and 2,170 guests come ashore in a town far more gently than four thousand do.

Who she suits

Port-driven travelers who want a comfortable, quiet, mid-sized ship as transport and hotel. The Mediterranean itineraries are dense, often a call every day, and after a day in Rhodes or Kotor a manageable ship with a proper dining room and a solarium is worth more than a water park.

She is wrong for families wanting activity, for anyone expecting Edge-class rooms or cabin sizes, and for anyone who will resent an older vessel’s small bathrooms and dated fittings. She is also the oldest hull on the site’s European program by some margin, and 2026 showed what that can mean. Book her for where she goes and for what she costs, not for what she is.