Celebrity Infinity sits docked beneath a clear blue sky, its white hull and dark upper decks rising above the water. This firsthand view introduces our Celebrity Infinity review and the ship that carried us through Greece and Turkey.
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Beautiful Greek ports are only part of the experience. Here’s what we liked—and what we didn’t—about cruising Greece aboard the Celebrity Infinity.

Bill and I spent eight nights aboard the Celebrity Infinity cruise ship, sailing from Athens to ports throughout Greece and Turkey. As world travelers who have cruised before, we were curious to see how Celebrity compared—and by the end of the trip, we had some pretty definite opinions about what we liked and what we didn’t.

If a Greece cruise is on your Bucket List and you’re looking at Celebrity Infinity wondering, “Would we actually like this ship?”, I’ve done the research—the fun way, by spending eight nights living on it. I’ll walk you through our experience, what surprised us, the things I’d tell a friend before booking, and whether we’d choose Celebrity Infinity again.

Two sailboats float on transparent turquoise water beneath a hazy blue horizon off Mykonos. The brilliant Aegean Sea was part of the classic Greek-island scenery that made Mykonos a standout port on this Celebrity Infinity review trip.

Celebrity Infinity Review: Quick Facts

  • Built: 2001, Refurbished 2026 – Part of Celebrity’s Millennium Series
  • Capacity: About 2,100 passengers, 1000 crew
  • Cabins: 1085 cabins on 7 of the 12 decks
  • Number of Restaurants: 7
  • Number of Bars: 8
  • Number of Pools: 3
  • Also has: Casino, Spa, Fitness Center, Art Gallery, Kids Club, Basketball/Pickle Ball Court, Library
  • Onboard Currency: US Dollar

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Our Celebrity Infinity Greece Cruise

Celebrity Infinity splits its year sailing two different regions. From mid-March through October, it offers 7–10 night cruises from Athens around Greece, with some itineraries also stopping in Turkey. From November through mid-March, it shifts to longer Canary Islands and Madeira cruises from Barcelona.

Our eight-night cruise sailed round-trip from Athens, visiting four ports in Greece (Rhodes, Mykonos, Thessaloniki and Santorini) plus Ephesus, Turkey, with two sea days mixed in.

Map image with a small red and white sailboat on it. Readers who click the image will see a short video showing the route our cruise ship took.
Click to watch the route our cruise ship traveled. Video created with the TravelBoast app

For us, the itinerary was the biggest reason to choose a Celebrity Infinity Greece cruise. We wanted to sample Greece and get a small taste of several destinations without changing hotels, hauling our luggage around or figuring out transportation between islands.

Celebrity Infinity stretches across the blue water while docked during our cruise. Seeing the ship in port captures how we combined days aboard Celebrity Infinity with long days exploring Greece and Turkey.

If you’re adding time in Athens before or after your cruise, our Athens 2 day Itinerary shows how we spent that time and what we recommend.

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PLAN YOUR TRIP WITH OUR
FAVORITE TOOLS

– Best Lodging site: Booking.com
– Book Day Tours here: Viator.com
– Rent Cars here: DiscoverCars.com

What We Liked About Celebrity Infinity

The Ship Rarely Felt Crowded

This was one of the first things we noticed about Celebrity Infinity. We could almost always find somewhere comfortable to sit without competing for space.

The exception was our second sea day, when the pool area and nearly every deck chair were packed. Otherwise, the ship handled its passengers surprisingly well.

An open rooftop deck aboard Celebrity Infinity has lounge seating, wood-toned flooring and wide stretches of blue sky overhead. Quiet outdoor spaces like this helped the ship feel comfortable rather than crowded during much of the cruise.

Beautiful, Comfortable Common Areas

Celebrity Infinity has attractive common spaces with plenty of comfortable places to sit, listen to music or watch the world go by.

Even the theater had padded couch-style seating instead of stadium chairs. It’s a small detail, but after a long day exploring a port, comfortable seat cushions suddenly matter!

Celebrity Infinity’s outdoor pool sits beneath a bright blue sky with passengers swimming and relaxing on surrounding lounge chairs. The pool deck was one of the livelier areas aboard the Celebrity Infinity cruise ship, especially during sea days.

The Crew Was Outstanding

One of the best things about Celebrity Infinity was the crew. Everyone we encountered was friendly, helpful and genuinely seemed to want guests to be comfortable.

Cruise ship crews work incredibly hard and put in very long hours, and their efforts showed throughout our eight days onboard. The excellent service was definitely one of the things that made our Celebrity Infinity experience so enjoyable.

Entertainment Was Better Than We Expected

Entertainment was one of our favorite surprises. We saw production shows, aerial performers, live music and an adults-only comedy show that had both of us laughing out loud. There were also plenty of activities throughout the day and evening, including trivia, dance classes, active games and even water volleyball against the captain’s team. We certainly weren’t bored on our two sea days.

Singer Tanya Edwards was a particular favorite. We enjoyed her theater performance so much that we went to her encore performance later in the cruise. I know she’s not on every sailing, but if you are lucky enough to have her on yours, don’t miss her show! And Rich Wilson was a hilarious comic.

Performers take the stage beneath colorful theatrical lighting during an evening show aboard Celebrity Infinity. Production shows, aerial performers, comedy and live music made the entertainment one of our favorite surprises.

The Solarium Became One of Our Favorite Spots

The adults-only Solarium was our escape from the busier outdoor pool. Bill and I spent several afternoons relaxing in the hot tub and therapy pool, especially on sea days.

The indoor Solarium offers several hot tubs and a therapy swimming pool, plus tons of deck chairs to relax on. This adults-only retreat became one of our favorite places to escape the busier outdoor pool.

Plenty of Choices at the Oceanview Café

The Oceanview Café (also known as the Buffet) had plenty of choices during traditional meal times, and we could almost always find a table—even when the buffet itself was busy.

Multiple dishes fill the brightly lit serving stations at Celebrity Infinity’s Oceanview Café buffet. The buffet gave us plenty of choices during traditional mealtimes, although options dropped considerably between meals.

What We Didn’t Like About Celebrity Infinity

Dining Hours Felt Surprisingly Limited

This was probably our biggest frustration. Sleep past 9:00 AM and breakfast choices became very limited. Return from a port after 2:30 PM and lunch choices narrowed too.

We were on vacation—we didn’t necessarily want our day dictated by restaurant hours. Pizza and Pasta were available all day, but didn’t offer much variety.

The Food Was Good, But Rarely Memorable

We certainly didn’t go hungry, but food wasn’t really a highlight of our Celebrity Infinity cruise.

We ate several dinners in the Trellis Restaurant and frequently used the Oceanview Café Buffet. Most meals were perfectly fine (and always presented beautifully), but only a few made us say, “Wow, that was fantastic.”

Neatly set tables fill the softly lit Trellis Restaurant aboard Celebrity Infinity. The dining room was attractive and meals were beautifully presented, even though the food itself was rarely a highlight for us.

It Was Harder to Meet Other Travelers

On other cruises, having shared dining tables made it easy for us to meet people. On Celebrity Infinity, this wasn’t available and we found fewer natural opportunities to meet other passengers.

The bars and entertainment venues were busy, but spontaneous conversations seemed to happen much less frequently. Overall, the ship simply felt less social to us.

The Constant Upselling Got Old Fast

The sales pressure started within five minutes of boarding and continued throughout the cruise. We finally figured out routes around the ship that avoided the shops on Deck 5.

It didn’t ruin our experience, but I would have preferred fewer sales pitches while we were trying to relax.

Wondering what to pack for your cruise? My guide to What to Pack for a Greece Cruise covers the clothes I actually wore for hot port days, casual time onboard and Chic Nights—plus the things I’d pack again next time.

Our Celebrity Infinity Cabin

We stayed in Room 7031, a 171-square-foot cabin on Deck 7, forward on the port-side. This is a Deluxe Ocean View Stateroom with Veranda (Balcony), classified under Category V2 Veranda Standard. The veranda added another 38 square feet.

A large white bed fills much of the veranda cabin, with mirrored closet doors, a small sitting area and bright balcony doors visible beyond it. Despite its compact size, the cabin included enough seating and storage to make an eight-night Celebrity Infinity cruise comfortable.

It wasn’t spacious, but we’re used to living in small spaces. Thank goodness Bill and I are so compatible!

A compact Celebrity Infinity veranda cabin has a large white bed, red accent pillow, light-wood cabinetry, television and a narrow walkway leading to the door. This view shows the cabin’s somewhat dated styling and limited floor space discussed in the Celebrity Infinity review.

The king-sized bed took up most of the room, but it was SUPER comfortable. There was also a small sitting area, desk and plenty of mirrors, which helped make the room feel a little bigger. The bathroom was very small, but functional.

A small cruise-ship bathroom contains a curved sink and vanity, mirrored storage, toilet and a narrow shower along one side. The bathroom was tight but functional, matching the overall compact design of the Celebrity Infinity cabin.

One thing I was glad I planned for was the limited number of places to plug things in. All of the cabin’s electrical outlets were grouped together in one panel by the desk, with two U.S.-style and two European-style outlets. I brought my Ceptics adapter kit, which let me turn one outlet into two plugs plus separate USB charging ports. With phones, cameras and everything else we travel with, it came in very handy.

Two U.S.-style and two European-style electrical outlets are grouped together in a panel beside the cabin desk. Because this was the only place to plug things in, the adapter kit we brought was particularly useful.

My favorite part was the veranda. With two chairs and a small table, it became our private spot for watching the Aegean Sea, arriving in ports and catching sunsets.

Two chairs and a small round table sit on the private veranda overlooking vivid turquoise water and the shoreline beyond. The balcony added valuable outdoor space and a private place to enjoy port views during the Celebrity Infinity Greece cruise.

Cruising Celebrity Infinity Without a Drink or WiFi Package

On our previous cruises, we have bought the whole enchilada – unlimited drink package, unlimited WiFi package and a bunch of other perks. I have a serious Diet Pepsi/Coke addiction and I enjoy having a rum cocktail before bed. But Bill doesn’t drink any of those things and the cruise line always makes both people in a cabin get the same package.

This time, we deliberately skipped all the packages. No drink package. No WiFi package. We wanted to see whether we could enjoy the cruise just as much without paying for extras we might not use enough to justify the cost.

A plastic-wrapped set of four Pepsi Max cans of soda pop sweat with condensation. Bringing these on board saved Kari hundreds of dollars instead of buying them from the cruise line.

For drinks, we brought 30 cans of PepsiMax onboard that we purchased at a MiniMart in port. On our sailing, that saved us from paying about $6 per can once the automatic gratuity was added. When I wanted rum, I simply bought it by the ounce at the bar. At roughly $14 an ounce during our cruise, it definitely wasn’t cheap.

But as the cruise went on, I became convinced we’d made the right choice. We weren’t trying to “get our money’s worth” from a package, and we could buy a drink when we actually wanted one.

We skipped the ship’s WiFi package too. Instead, I used a $19 Airalo Europe eSIM for 15 days. That meant I had internet access when we were in or near port, but not while we were far out at sea. I thought I might hate being disconnected, but I really didn’t miss it.

Would we cruise without the packages again? Absolutely. We spent less and didn’t feel like we sacrificed much at all.

In my Cruise Drink Package Guide – Buy One or Go Without, I share exactly what it was like (and cost) cruising Greece without a package compared to having the all inclusive Princess Premier package for Antarctica, plus the pros and cons of each decision.

Kari’s Travel Tip: Before automatically adding packages to your Celebrity Infinity cruise, do the math based on what you’ll actually use. A package may be a great value for someone else and a terrible value for you.

Kari’s Travel Tip: Pay attention to whether you are buying an unlimited Airalo package or one with a specific data amount. They automatically steer you to the more expensive unlimited package – I chose the 5GB for 15 day $19 package instead. I chose the Europe package because we were also going to Turkey.

What Were the Greece and Turkey Ports Like?

One of the biggest reasons we chose this Celebrity Infinity cruise was the itinerary. We wanted a taste of several destinations without packing up and moving every few days. Some ports became highlights of the trip, while one didn’t tempt us off the ship at all.

On most port days, we had roughly 9–11 hours to explore. That gave us plenty of time for an excursion or to wander around on our own without feeling like we had to race back to the ship.

Rhodes

Celebrity Infinity docked about a 10-minute walk from the medieval walled Old Town, making Rhodes easy to explore independently. We wandered among castles, churches, shops and narrow alleyways without booking a tour.

Stone towers and crenellated medieval walls rise above leafy trees beneath a brilliant blue sky in Rhodes Old Town. The remarkably preserved historic center was easy to explore independently from the Celebrity Infinity cruise port.

Massive gray-stone fortress walls and rounded defensive towers dominate the entrance to medieval Rhodes Old Town. Sights this impressive were only about a ten-minute walk from where Celebrity Infinity docked.

A narrow cobblestone passage curves beneath a weathered stone archway inside Rhodes Old Town. Wandering through hidden lanes like this was part of the appeal of exploring Rhodes without booking an excursion.

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Ephesus from Kusadasi, Turkey

The Ruins of Ephesus Turkey was one of the highlights of our cruise. We booked a private independent Viator tour and our guide met us at the pier for the roughly 25-minute drive to the ancient city.

This ancient UNESCO Heritage site was once a prosperous port town in Turkey. It is in the process of being meticulously restored, stone by stone.

The remarkably well preserved Library of Celsus was the showstopper for me. Our guide offered us additional optional stops such as the House of Mary where Mary Magdalene lived for the last years of her life, but we declined and concentrated on Ephesus itself. That’s one advantage of having more control over a private excursion.

Click to See the Ephesus Tour We Booked
Kari and Bill stand together before the towering stone façade of the Library of Celsus at ancient Ephesus. Our independently booked Ephesus excursion became one of the biggest highlights of the cruise.
Ornate columns, statues and carved stonework cover the two-story façade of the Library of Celsus at Ephesus. Seeing this remarkably preserved ancient city up close made the short trip from the Kusadasi cruise port worthwhile.

Mykonos

Mykonos was where I finally felt like I was in Greece. We wandered through maze-like whitewashed alleyways, climbed to the famous windmills, visited art galleries and looked down over boats floating in that gorgeous blue water.

We docked at the new port and took the shuttle into town, making this another easy place to explore without an excursion.

White cylindrical windmills topped with thatched roofs stand against a brilliant blue sky above Mykonos. The windmills, whitewashed lanes and blue water gave us the classic Greek-island scenery I had been waiting for.

Colorful balconies jut from whitewashed buildings along the rocky waterfront of Little Venice in Mykonos. This easy-to-explore port delivered some of the most photogenic scenery of our Celebrity Infinity Greece cruise.
A small white Greek Orthodox church with a vivid blue dome stands beside the rocky Mykonos waterfront under a clear sky. Spending several nights on islands like Mykonos gives travelers more time for slower mornings, evenings and independent exploring.

Thessaloniki

We didn’t get off the ship.

Nothing we’d researched intrigued us enough to go ashore here, so we gave ourselves permission to skip a port and enjoy a quiet vacation day onboard instead. The Solarium was almost empty so we enjoyed having the hot tub to ourselves.

We know other people who have really enjoyed Thessaloniki, so don’t skip it just because we did.

Kari and Bill soak in the Solarium hot tub instead of heading ashore for another day of sightseeing. Skipping Thessaloniki gave us permission to slow down and simply enjoy being on vacation.

Santorini

We splurged on a private Santorini tour from Viator, and I’m so glad we did. Our guide George met us at the top of the cable car in Fira and took us by private car to Oia, Megalochori, a monastery and several quieter viewpoints that the big tour buses couldn’t easily reach.

Oia was beautiful but absolutely packed. I actually enjoyed the quieter neighborhoods and coastal viewpoints more.

By late afternoon, we were hot and tired, so we simply asked George to take us back to the cable car in Fira. That flexibility was one of my favorite things about having a private tour.

Click to See the Santorini Private Tour
Kari and Bill stand beside a whitewashed wall overlooking a blue-domed church, the deep-blue Aegean Sea and volcanic islands below Santorini. The sweeping view captures the dramatic scenery that made Santorini one of the most memorable stops on their Celebrity Infinity Greece cruise.

Brilliant pink bougainvillea spills over a peach-colored building beneath the intense blue Santorini sky. Colorful details like this added to the charm of exploring Santorini beyond its famous caldera views.

A bright blue church dome topped with a white cross rises above a cream-and-white building against a cloudless sky. Santorini’s blue-domed churches deliver the iconic Greek-island scenery many travelers hope to experience on a Celebrity Infinity Greece cruise.

An ornate cream-and-white bell tower rises dramatically into a deep cobalt-blue Santorini sky. Architectural details throughout the island made the Santorini port day about much more than just the famous caldera views.

Celebrity Infinity Tips From Our Cruise

These are the little things I’d tell a friend who was considering or had just booked Celebrity Infinity:

  • Don’t stress too much about the rules. On our sailing, Celebrity listed plenty of rules that weren’t strictly enforced. We boarded early, disembarked later than our assigned time and saw a wide range of clothing in the dining rooms. I wouldn’t deliberately break an important rule, but our experience onboard was much more relaxed than some of the warnings I’d read beforehand.
  • Learn the ship layout early. Find the dining areas, theater and pools, and learn forward vs aft and port vs starboard. The fast midship elevators became our favorite reference point for getting around.
  • Head toward the back of the Oceanview Café to find a table. We almost always found less-crowded seating on the starboard side toward the back of the ship.
  • Try the Solarium when the outdoor pool is packed. The covered adults-only pool area was generally quieter and became one of our favorite places to relax.
  • An eSIM can be a cheaper alternative to a WiFi package. My Airalo eSIM worked whenever we were close enough to cellular service, although not when we were far out at sea.
  • Be skeptical of some “activities.” Presentations about skincare, jewelry, watches, art, shopping or spa treatments were often sales pitches disguised as activities or educational sessions. There were plenty of genuine activities too—just know the difference.
  • Compare independent excursions with Celebrity’s shore excursions. We booked our tours independently off-ship and were happy with that decision.
  • Decide what’s worth paying extra for before you board. Drink packages, WiFi, excursions, spa treatments and shopping can add up quickly. We spent money on the things that mattered to us and skipped the rest without feeling like we missed out.
Passengers gather together for an organized activity aboard Celebrity Infinity. Dance classes, trivia, games and other activities meant there was plenty happening onboard, particularly during our two sea days.

For the practical Greece details that have nothing to do with cruising—Euros, Schengen rules, safety, Uber, eSIMs, tap water and more—see my Greece Travel Guide for First-Time Visitors.

Celebrity Infinity FAQs

Is There a Formal Night on Celebrity Infinity?

Celebrity calls its dressier evenings “Chic Nights,” but we found them much less formal than traditional cruise formal nights. I wore a nice dress with a little jewelry, while Bill wore khaki pants and a polo shirt, and we fit right in. We actually saw a pretty wide range of clothing in the dining rooms, so I wouldn’t stress about packing formalwear unless dressing up is part of the fun for you.

Kari wears a dress and jewelry while Bill wears a polo shirt and khaki pants for Chic Night aboard Celebrity Infinity. Our outfits show how relaxed Celebrity’s dressier evening felt compared with the formalwear some cruisers might expect.

Is Celebrity Infinity an Old Ship?

Celebrity Infinity was built in 2001, which apparently makes it an old ship in the cruising world! I wondered about that too, but we thought the ship was very well maintained. Our cabin felt a little dated, but the common areas felt updated, attractive and comfortable. I wouldn’t let the age of Celebrity Infinity stop me from booking it.

Is Celebrity Infinity Worth It?

After writing this Celebrity Infinity review, my answer is yes. We had a great eight-night cruise and would happily sail on Celebrity Infinity again if the itinerary, timing and price were right.

If you’re considering a Celebrity Infinity cruise, I hope sharing what we liked, what we didn’t and the little things we learned along the way helps you decide if it’s the right cruise ship for you.

More Greece Guides

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