2023 Antarctica and South America Cruise - Celebrity Infinity Dining Review

Destinations/Ports Series: 2023 Wilhelm Antarctica and South America Wine Lovers Cruise

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This is probably going to be my worst dining review ever, mostly because I was so busy with my group that I forgot to take pictures in the main dining room and buffet. The good news it that it was basically the same menu that we had on the Constellation for the Fall Transatlantic. However, I need to qualify that in that some of the items were missing, like prime rib and Caesar salad made with iceberg lettuce. We learned that the iceberg lettuce was not some kind of weird homage to Antarctica, but that the struggling post pandemic economy in South America was reeking havoc on the supply chain. They could not get good Romaine for the voyage, so they had to use iceberg. They were also having trouble getting the beef for the prime rib, which seems odd as Argentina and Uruguay are both know for their beef, but that did affect the food that they could serve.

That being said, the food and beverage team on this cruise was one of the most outstanding that we have experienced on Celebrity. They were jumping through hoops left and right to make everything enjoyable for us. We loved the main dining room experience and we also had the chance to do the Le Petite Chef experience with the animated chef. One thing we noticed was that instead of the animated chef making the exact items we were eating, they made specific items to the animation story. We think that they had this program to give the kitchen flexibility to serve what they could source rather than having to match the menu exactly.

Our other specialty dining experience on the infinity was in the always amazing Tuscan Grill. We had a group luncheon wine event there. The food an beverage staff invited us to try the food and wine together in a little preview dinner with just us and our wine hosts. If you have read about our wine events, we ended up having to do a destination immersive wine program with Argentine wines rather than our winemaker shipping their own due to impossible post pandemic logistics. The Food and Beverage staff knew that we needed to try the wine with the food to make sure that the wine we blindly ordered paired with the select dishes. We said, well does it matter, we can’t really change the wine at this point, and the food and beverage direct said, “No, but we can change the food.” The local Argentine sommelier who had helped us source the wine had done a pretty good of matching things up to the set menu, but they were able to change the sauce on the fish dish to make it more acidic to go better with the dry white wine we paired with it.

For our actual food and wine pairing meal, we had a fantastic experience with our Argentine wines and the Tuscan Grill Menu. The food ended up going so well with everything.

Suzanne Klasen

Suzanne Klasen is the Owner / Travel Advisor of CruiseOne Suzanne Klasen. We have combined our love of cruising with computer skills to bring you a very informative and entertaining site that follows my cruising travels and thoughts. I hope that you will let me help plan your next vacation.