Carnival Cruise Europe Question

Has anyone had any experiences (good or bad) with having Carnival PVP's book airfare &/or hotels for their European Cruises? I know that they will protect against fight delays, etc., by getting you to the next port of call if your flights are delayed and you miss the departure of your ship? I would appreciate hearing your thoughts.

We did a Vista European cruise last summer and booked our air through our PVP with Carnival. It was a great experience. They are a lot more flexible now with booking air for the cruise.

The cost we got was better than I could of gotten through booking by myself.

Originally they had us coming back through Abu Dhabi but I did some checking and found a lower cost leaving the next day through JFK so I called the PVP and she booked it for us. No problem.

We were able to upgrade to Delta plus which is nice for the international flight. I got online with Delta and booked as soon as we booked the cruise. This was before final payment. I was talking to another person on the cruise who said they could not upgraded with the airline until final payment and by that time the seating was limited. Anyway this did not happen to us and it worked out great.

We are just going through this right now for a Horizon trip next year.We dont use a PVP but just called carnival to get some quotes.Delta quoted me $1181PP from Miami to Barcelona and carnival got me the exact same flight for $518 per person.The quotes from Orlando weren't quite as big a discount but around $200 per person cheaper.

Thanks for your replies. Any others?

Also, does anyone know if they will book hotels, if you go in a day or two early?

Carnival has tremendous bargaining power with airlines on international flights since they purchase thousands of tickets each month for crew members. We booked our airfare with Carnival last year to sail on the Vista from Athens, Greece. This worked out well when the Greek air traffic controllers went on a brief strike the day of our flight and our flight was cancelled. We called Carnival's in-route travel hotline and they rebooked us on a different airline at no additional cost, and we arrived just 5 hours later than originally planned. We also booked our hotel in Athens through Carnival and stayed there for two days before the cruise departure.

Thanks, TomCruise48!

So, they will book your flights either a day or two or three before the cruise if you want to see the departure city before the cruise? I assume they would do the same after a cruise?

I called carnival to get info. on their Fly2fun program but they could not get the flight listings so i went direct on the airline website and got a direct flight for 2 $685 and hotel in Barcelona 4 days for $548 so a little over a thousand dollars for flight and hotel i think is great. Since the airline just open the flights i was able to reserve the seats i wanted.

Thanks, TomCruise48!

So, they will book your flights either a day or two or three before the cruise if you want to see the departure city before the cruise? I assume they would do the same after a cruise?