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Kohara
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So I just discovered wedding cruises last night. I didn't even know this was an option. If it wasn't for this board, I would be on the fence about it, but after reading many posts I feel like I have a good idea of what it will be like. My number one fear is the booking process. I went on one cruise when I was 14 with parents and they obviously handled all that. So once I pick the cruise, do I tell everyone and just hope that they book before it's full? Would group booking mean I would have to pay for everyone? Do they block rooms for weddings? Help!!!!! I'm sure I will have many more questions coming your way.

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Welcome! If you are thinking about cruise wedding, this forum is a wealth of knowledge and has some great people (past, current, & future brides/grooms) to help answer questions.

 

There are multiple options for booking everyone, and some of that decision may depend on how many people you plan to join you on the cruise. We had planned about 40-50 guests (ended up with 25: 12 sailed, 13 non-sail) for our embarkation wedding. We looked into group booking. You don't need to pay everything up front, but the deposits for all rooms usually do need to be paid at time of booking (amount can vary if they have sales). On Carnival, I believe you need to book min. 8 rooms for group. And you need to know for sure who is cruising and have everyone ready to book at same time. We ended up with only 6 cabins. And everyone had their own timeframe for when they wanted to book the trip. But, we had already decided to have everyone book on their own anyway because group bookings don't qualify for the price drop guarantees, which we were hoping would lower the costs. Plus, it just seemed so much easier to let everyone handle it themselves, rather than me having to be the travel agent. We did work with an awesome Carnival Personal Vacation Planner (PVP) and gave everyone her information so they could book cruise directly through her. That worked out great for us. She made sure all our bookings were linked, we were all seated together at dinner, and she let me know when people had booked. Then everyone was responsible for getting their own flight, which most people can handle. For hotels prior to cruise, all of our guests were looking for different type of hotel (some wanted cheap, some wanted luxury, some wanted B&B), so we ended up leaving that to each person also, rather than doing room block (we only had max. of 2 rooms at any hotel).

 

Having a travel agent or some sort of booking contact is a good idea, because they can be responsible for answering questions and not leave you playing trip planner for the whole group. We still had some people come to use for all their questions, but having a professional helped relieve some of the stress from us.

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Thank you so much for your reply. Do you know how to contact a PVP?

 

If you don't already have one assigned to you from previous cruise, you can just call Carnival's main number to get one. They are just booking agents, and after you take a cruise you get assigned one so they can call you and try to convince you to cruise again. And as long as you don't book through a different method, you will stay assigned to the same person. I searched online and found a few names/phone numbers of recommended ones, which isn't easy to do because you aren't supposed to put their names & info on forums, and contacted one of them directly.

 

If you give me your e-mail address, I can send you the contact info for the PVP that I used. She was really awesome and even called me and all my guests after the cruise to see how it went.

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Before you book the cruise make sure you call carnival weddings first and go over with them the types of ceremonies you can have. There are several different options with different reception durations, some are sit down lunches and some are just 1 or 1 1/2 hour hors d'eouvers and open Bar ( yes I spelled that wrong) . also you can do a embarkation wedding or destination wedding. anyway lots of options as you can see. after you pick what type of wedding, you will then need to see if the cruise you want has wedding times available. Only a certain number of wedding can take place on a boat on a single day. after you determine if the cruise is available to have you wedding. You then book the cruise, then call back the wedding department and actually book the wedding.

Yes I probably made that seem complicated but it really isn't that bad. Best thing I can tell you is if you like to have a lot of control over your wedding and a lot of must haves and ideas then a cruise wedding may not be right for you but If you are willing to let go and let others do most of the work, and be willing to just go with the flow then it is a fantastic idea.

Good luck.

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