Bound4Bermuda

After you check in with an agent to review your boarding passes/passports etc, they give you a boarding group number. Then you have to wait until they call your boarding group number. So our boarding number was technically called some point after our check in time. They will NOT let you anywhere near the gate if it’s not your boarding number slot yet. There is also not nearly enough seating for all of the people waiting, so your daughter would definitely not want to arrive hours early. I’m not familiar with what’s in the area (aside from the Intrepid) because we just ubered in/out but maybe she’d just want to go to lunch or something between checkout and arrival. Otherwise she could go near the port earlier just to give her bags to the porter without going in and then walk around the port area to kill time.

If there were any room at all between types of food, I get your point. But these are buffet dishes touching each other lined up, with people standing shoulder to shoulder dishing up their food and a tight space to begin with. There’s no opportunity to just “jump in” where you want. People got to the end of the line and realized they missed the butter in the middle and had to backtrack, and so then people would let them “jump back” if they already had a full plate of food—and only if they already had a full plate of food. But if people just started cutting around the line and jumping in, it would not have gone over well! Hell, when we had to wait on line to get the luggage tags for disembarkation, two ladies behind me thought that two other people cut the line and started shouting about “this is how you get your ass beat” and ran up to confront them. I didn’t see what happened because someone else came back out and gave me extra tags they had. But put it this way, people are concerned about the aggression on Venezia out of NYC. As long as everyone is being polite, it’s fine. But if someone thinks the line doesn’t/rules don’t apply to them…well, let us know how it goes for you. Godspeed. I wouldn’t risk it.

They do not have the karaoke booths. I believe they were up past where the tween/teen clubs are, so it is kind of a hidden area, and I don’t believe it’s any type of public space now. (Yes, just looked at the floor plans, and the area is gray crew-only.) They did karaoke at scheduled times in the Carnivale lounge.

There are no “sections” in the Venezia buffet. It’s all one row. The only areas that are sectioned off are the deli and dessert sections. But say you want a continental breakfast, they have the fruit in the beginning of the line and the pastries at the end, so you have to also wait while everyone gets all the hot foods in the middle.

On Oasis you need it for Aqua 80 and the ice show. But not for the basic production shows or on smaller ships.

On my cruise, yes, cereal was off on a stand near the tables and the omlets were in the middle. However, the fruit was at the beginning of the buffet line and the croissants were at the end of the line, so you had to wait on the full line to get both. I also went around to all 4 lines, and none were better. Also not all 4 lines were always open, depending on the time, so you might need to walk around until you found the food. But I probably went at peak times or later. Also, since some people have chimed in that my opinion on the food is somehow “wrong”—instead of just a different opinion than their own. I’d like to point out that I often chose entrees from the MDR menu that had the Italian flag next to them, which means they are exclusive to this ship, and so the posters who haven’t yet sailed Venezia haven’t had these entrees yet. There were definitely things I liked. (my husband had the bigger problem with the food.) It was just more like they had a few ingredients that they just kept serving and claiming were different dishes. As I said, I had beef braised in red wine and served with polenta and green beans several times!!! It wasn’t bad per se, but not what I want to eat in the Caribbean. Yet, not much else sounded appealing since they only have a handful of options each night. I wish there were more lighter or fish options. Besides the various heavy beef dishes, my kid had fried chicken and mashed potatoes twice (though really liked it). So maybe the menu is geared more to the “stick to your ribs” kind of eaters? And, yes, if you are a meat-and-potatoes kind of person, you may prefer Carnival MDR. Yet, I do agree it was nice having other lunch options with the various stands to avoid the buffet lines. And the stand foods were better than the MDR or buffet in comparison. I mentioned I liked La Strada. I also had a burrito from Tomodoro that was very good; similar to the burrito stand on Oasis. The pizza is also better on Carnival than Royal.

No, What would they do—hang a whole new shower door install because this was was installed wonky? It would have been obvious to the steward that it was unable to close and would be swinging in his way every time he entered the bathroom. Like I said, there was a number of broken things as you looked around the ship, so I doubt this shower door will be fixed.

I was on the July 17-25 sailing of Carnival Venezia--my first Carnival cruise--with stops in Dominican Republic, Grand Turk, and Half Moon Cay. I've sailed Royal Caribbean a few times, most recently last year on Oasis but also on smaller ships such as Brilliance. (And Princess once a long time ago but won't factor that in.) Since reviews on Venezia are only just getting started and I, like many others, was desperately looking for info on how the two lines compare, thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. I might be a little nitpicky here, but I'm not writing any letters to corporate or anything--just between us. The NY/NJ Cruising Market Now, you might be thinking it's not really fair to compare Oasis (a much larger class of ship) and Venezia. But for locals such as myself, these two ships are direct competition at this time: Carnival Venezia out of NY or Royal Oasis of the Seas out of NJ. To be fair, the $2,000 price difference mentioned in my TL;DR at the bottom was not only for the larger class of ship but also one extra day (total for 3 people in one balcony room). Your pricing may vary, of course. To be even fairer, I will compare Venezia to my experience on the smaller ships, when more applicable. The Ship Decor/Building Materials You've probably seen the pictures. Venezia looks very nice. However, if you look too closely, you'll notice how fake everything looks. It's like it has "builder's grade" materials throughout. All of the marble, wood, brass, and glass is just plastic. For a ship that's only a month out of drydock, it's very apparent that Carnival had a budget for specific items, and everything else was exactly as it was from when it sat vacant since 2019 or 2020--cracks, rust spots, and broken things be damned. All throughout the ship, you'll notice pieces of the gold floorboard molding missing, laying on the ground, or not making it to the corner. The little plastic covers that are on the room key scanner were off or kept falling off many room doors as you walk through the halls. The most annoying was that my shower door would not close at all. If we were docked, you could get the top to rest on itself and only the bottom half was open like a half inch, but moving, forget about it--swinging all over the place and soaking the entire bathroom. I was also irrationally bothered by the seats in the theater. The outside ring of seats faced across the auditorium rather than toward the stage. I suppose they fit more in that way. But again, super nitpicky, but if you start looking at the rows they weren't carefully laid out and seemed haphazardly installed. So, just looking at the ship it was hard to consider this a "new" build, and if it looks rough one month in, I can't imagine how it will look after a few years' of use. Again, not something I would normally even pick up on, but once you start noticing one thing that's off or broken, more was jumping out. The Lido Deck If you like to lounge on the lido deck by the pool, the Venezia is not for you. Hell, if you like to go into the pool, the Venezia is not for you. We avoided the lido at all costs. It was just a mob of people with nowhere to move. (The day we were waiting for our tender to Half Moon Cay, we managed to jump in the pool for a few minutes just to say we did it since most people were already off the ship.) There was only a handful of loungers, surrounded by enclosed seating areas to the side and the deck above that had tables/chairs and patio furniture upstairs. It was a very strange layout, and I don't think the patio furniture was used. They definitely could have made better use of the space. However, I'm going to let you in on the biggest secret of Venezia that somehow only a few other people other than myself seemed to have found. Get yourself a private "cabana" nook with loungers on deck 5--the best spot was port, forward. Royal for sure would have charged to rent those spaces--but here it was just open, and not a soul around! The Lido Buffet We only ate lunch here once and a couple of breakfasts. The layout is terrible. You have to wait in long lines without even knowing what's there. Royal's buffet setup is SO MUCH LESS HECTIC--the stations are in circles so you can wander around to see what they have and jump in and out to just grab the one thing you want without having to wait on an entire line. Not to mention, the food in the buffet of Carnival was atrocious. I don't think I ever had anything bad on Royal. The best lunch option for me on Venezia was just going to the La Strada Grill for the salads and sandwiches. My teenager liked Guy's, but I wasn't a fan of the greasy sheet-pan baked burgers. The Dining Room As with the buffet, the food in the dining room left a lot to be desired. Overall, the poor quality of food is the #1 reason why my husband and kid don't want to go back to Carnival. While on Royal it came down to having to select which of many yummy options you wanted, here it was like what's the least worst option. I've never had so much beef braised in wine in my life in one week, which might have been okay if this was a snowy Alaskan cruise, but who wants pot roast on a 95-degree day in the Caribbean. All of the descriptions of the food were just strange; if you thought you knew what you were getting, you were wrong. Like, a description of what sounded like eggplant rollatini to me ended up being an inedible tough undercooked grilled eggplant specked with feta and smoked provolone. But, then conversely I rolled the dice on a mahi mahi with sweet tomato relish and a hash of okra, pumpkin, and jalapenos--and that actually ended up being the best thing I had all week. I don't think my husband had one thing he liked. The Entertainment Okay, here it is definitely not fair to compare Oasis's entertainment--such as the diving and trapeze extravaganza that is Aqua 80, but they also have Cats on the negative side. But the entertainment is very similar to what you'd find on the smaller Royal ships. We saw a production show and went to the piano bar pretty much every night--and had a blast with both. Everyone was very talented and engaging. (Special shout out to Misso in the piano bar!) I'm going to give some bonus points here to Carnival also specifically for MarQ the cruise director, who was very funny and outgoing. And, I can now see what people mean about the "fun ship" as all of these cruiselines have the same games, activities, and shows--even down to both having Quest and Love & Marriage. But I do see what people mean about the fun squad REALLY trying to get people to have a good time. I also liked that they had the comedy shows day and night to give us something to do on sea days (since you couldn't get to the pool, lol.) They also had a few different parties that seemed to be more fun/organized than on Royal with MarQ leading crowd dance moves, etc. So for as much as my family wouldn't cruise Carnival for the food, I would consider Carnival again just for the entertainment. Private Islands But for all of us in my family, it's Royal's Coco Cay a million times over Carnival's Half Moon Cay! I was super disappointed because I read reviews that Carnival's island is always rated #1, but whoever does the rankings must go when there's no one there or something. Indeed, HMC had white powder sand and tranquil turquoise waters, compared to Royal's somewhat rocky ground, but that's where the advantage ends. First, the tender off rather than a dock was annoying. We are normally early risers, but we got tender group 41(!) so even though they started bringing people over at 10:15, we didn't get on the island until nearly 1:00. Of course, there were no chairs and people were all crowded on top of each other laying towels in the sand, but we managed to walk all the way down the crescent and found one at the very end--and I think it was because we got there so late that others already started returning to the boat. However, it was better being way far down because it was quieter and actually had room in the water. They were packed in closer up to where you get on the island. Royal's island also has a very large pool, and that's where the DJ and "party people" are at. So the beach is very tranquil; Carnival's beach was just blaring with the DJ there in the middle. No shade, unlike the palm trees all over Royal's beach. I don't even have to tell you how terrible the buffet was compared to Royal's; I still think about Coco Cay's cheesesteaks with shaved steak and perfectly chewy fresh-baked rolls. But, anyway, back HMC...knowing what I do now, having an "excursion" gets you on the tender earlier, so if I had to do it over again, I would totally pay for a clamshell to get 2 chairs and a early tender ticket. Security/Passengers I'm feeling a little uneasy commenting on the clientele of each of these cruiselines, but I know this question comes up a lot. I didn't witness any altercations--then again, I was never on the lido or in the nightclub. As to be expected, there did seem to be a demographic and socioeconomic difference between the average passengers of Carnival out of NYC and Royal out of NJ--but no judgment on that, just like "census facts" here. Everyone I met was very nice and friendly. I did smell pot the first 2 days but saw the drug-sniffing dog all around the ship. In fact, we saw him pointed outside a room with security calling it in that had a "Happy 50th Anniversary Grandma and Grandpa" sign, so we got a good chuckle out of that. But that dog was a very good boy and a hard worker, because there was no discernable pot smell for the rest of the trip. TL;DR (i.e., the "too long, didn't read" summary that's popular online): My husband and teenager say they will never go on Carnival again. But as the person who paid $2,000 less on Carnival over Royal, the quality difference was to be expected, and the lines have more in common than not. We'll either go back to Royal or maybe try some other line in the future.

It’s a vast cover-up by Carnival. They took away the ice buckets because it’s so hot and humid on Venezia that the ice immediately melts. (Joking if anyone missed that one-day barrage of postings.)

Seems like a lot of work to give everyone 1/6 of an ear of corn!

My husband also just started a new job and told HR about the vacation when he received the offer, and they said no problem. Granted, some leaders are griping a bit that they can’t lose him out on vacation already. Buuuut, he just keeps reminding them that it was approved when he was offered the job, so he’s going. Likewise, your hiring manager might be a little miffed that you’re going out already, but big picture if they want you for the long haul, they’ll make due for week.

Thanks for the report! I’m 10 days out from our Venezia cruise, and I’m very nervous, namely because my 15-year-old is going to want to be off on their own making friends, and this just does not seem like a safe environment. I knew I was taking a risk trying Carnival but wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe the reputation isn’t warranted or is outdated. But this is exactly the kind of guest behavior that I was afraid of. Maybe there’s a chance that this was an especially rowdy group for the 4th of July. But if we experience a single incident like this on our sailing, I am one-and-done with Carnival and back to Royal Caribbean—and potentially any other cruiseline in the future.

Wow. Now I’m nervous again for our first Carnival cruise on Venezia (July 17). Just when I was convinced by this board that Carnival’s reputation for drunken, brawling behavior was exaggerated and that it was all fun to be had. I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t have any “tough guys” in my traveling party, so if we see anyone starting to act angry, agitated, and obnoxious, just get the hell away from them.

I just completed my check-in for my first Carnival cruise, and there’s one difference already Royal customers should know about. The Carnival luggage tags are wider, so if you have the narrow reusable plastic luggage tag holders that work for Royal, you’ll need to get new ones for Carnival. Just a heads up in case anyone waits until the last minute to print the tags.

How strict is the boarding window? We’ll be ubering from Jersey so feel like there could be a wide disparity in estimated and actual arrival time between waiting for an Uber willing to take us and getting through the traffic.I know you’ll need to wait until your scheduled time if you get there early. But what happens if you get there late? Just get on the next line to go, or will it be an issue?