wemjam

I have had an assigned room like you months out, and I have had it done just days before sailing. It all depends.

Correction for you, your check in time will be a 1/2 hour window (not an hour), so I would try for the 11:00-11:30 window, you can always arrive later if you must but not before. Then from there you are correct, you can go and eat, and then find some place quiet to sit. There are plenty of places you can sit inside in the A/C if you wish. Look for areas along the Promenade, bars, Library, etc. little cubbies here and there all along the ship where seating is available.

Just wanted to say thanks for putting this out there. We are sailing on her in December for our once a year sailing with our elderly parents. In all our cruises this will be our first time on her. Good to see all the positive things people are saying. As the one who handles all the arrangements for this yearly trip, I am the one that catches the flack from my mom if she wants to gripe about anything... it all is somehow my fault lol! 😁

Yep, for years they have had the main doors closed off with signs saying to please not enter until rooms are ready after 1:30ish. They also almost ALWAYS tell you this when you are checking in too.

I love when people come on the forum and propagate misinformation. While you most certainly "can" go to your room and drop luggage and likely may not be stopped from doing so because a stewards job is to be nice and accommodating, this does not mean that you "should." You can rob a bank too, but that doesn't make it right. If everyone tries to go to their room and do this, then it just delays EVERYONE from being able to access their rooms and how fast they are ready. It is the stewards job to be unobtrusive. This means if you are going into your room to drop luggage, they will likely just leave you be even if that is where they need to be cleaning at that point. Compound that by 2000 passengers and how many times do you think they are getting interrupted when they shouldn't be. Also, while it is an added privilege to be able to access the room early to drop luggage for some passengers based on room class or tier, this does not make it acceptable for everyone (don't be a Karen). A lot of room stewards now will stop and comment to you that the rooms are not ready yet, and then you engage them to say "but I am just going to drop my luggage and leave," again multiply this time 2000 guests and how much time is being wasted. PLEASE, if do not attempt to access your room until the appropriate time unless you fall into a category that allows for this privilege. If you feel this is something you HAVE to do then buy FTTF if you don't fit into another category that allows for this option. Also, as someone else pointed out. Try to find an out of the way spot to wait. There are lots of spots around the ship other than the lido dinning room to wait with your luggage. Taking up a table to sit and wait just makes it harder for all passengers to be able to sit and eat. I fully support carrying on your luggage (we carry on all ours too as we choose not to take any chances with it getting lost or damaged), but even before we had the ability to access our room and drop it, we would eat our lunch and just go sit quietly on the Promenade, Library, or any of a dozen other spots and relax and have a cocktail or something and maybe read or play cards and wait.

To put all this in perspective. Any long time cruisers like me will remember what boarding used to be like. I remember the fist time I cruised Carnival getting into the terminal and standing in a line for the better part of 45min to an hour to actually get to a desk to check in. It was a huge cattle gate of people to get through. It was this way a long time. Even the process once we hit Platinum in the beginning was longer then now sometimes. I remember the 'special' lines/rooms we could go to but there could even be some wait there. Sometimes we would have to sit down and wait to be called back up to the desk to check in. I LOVE the way it is now. It is so much more efficient and fast for everyone! Ya there are still lines, but they move quick and we are usually in the door, checked in, and sitting down waiting to board within 10 - 15 minutes tops.

Since restart we has stuck with the arriving only during the window we selected. It amazed me how many times I have seen them waving through everyone and anyone with later times though. We were the first arrival window on the last 2 cruises, and arrived toward the end of the 30 minute window and kid you not there was already probably 200-300 people in the terminal and I was glancing at boarding passes and they were most certainly there early.

Once during a Sea Day brunch day only

OUCH! That had to miserable!

Yep, forgot Suites! 🙃

"Definitely wouldn't leave anything outside the stateroom. Several times we've been able to just drop our stuff off in the room in the room steward is there. If not, just had to carry it around, so we pack pretty light" Unless you are FTTF, Diamond, or Platinum you should not be attempting to access your rooms. While they may "seem very agreeable," this is only because they are trying to be nice. Everyone doing this inhibits them from getting their work done efficiently (constantly dodging guests that shouldn't be there).

Unless you have priority access to your room, then you will be required to carry it around the ship with you. FTTF, Diamond, and Platinum members have access to go to their room solely to drop luggage and leave; however, even at that the room doors are still open for cleaning, etc. and items left are not "secure." General boarding passengers are strongly discouraged from trying to access their room until the appropriate time (1:00pm). This only inhibits room stewards from getting all the rooms done and ready in a timely manner.

I actually prefer gratuities not being part of the pricing. There have been times that I have had to adjust my gratuities for poor service. Not often, but it has happened in my 50 cruises. I would be very upset if I had to "pay" for services rendered and had no control if I received poor service. That's like saying...... just go ahead and mandate an 18% gratuity on my check every time I eat out regardless of the service I receive. Also, think about this. If ALL those staff members KNEW they were going to get their gratuity (because it was already paid in the sailing price), where is the motivation to provide that exceptional customer service? I guarantee services would start going down hill in a hurry. As far as singling out "Carnival" in the heading and prices going up, and also comments about Carnival charging more and more and things getting less and less. There are numerous debates on this, but my personal opinion is (as someone who has cruised for like 25 years). I certainly can NOT expect that I am going to receive the same services all the time over 25 years, and that prices will never increase. Things are going to change over time.... and most who complain are comparing it to "yester year." I would be unhappy if my cruise experience was exactly the same as it was 25 years ago. Yes some things have gone by the wayside, but lots of new things have also been added. And to expect costs not to be high now is just ridiculous. Have you been to the grocery store lately? Bought Gas?

Just curious, if the cabin is sold out, how do you really know the price has dropped? The only way to know if there is a price drop would be to do an actual mock booking and compare pricing. As others have said to get a price match your cabin type must be available at the time you are trying to reprice. If it is not, they will not price match (as there is nothing to price match too).

$64.99 for an excursion these days is on the low end... most times you are going to be looking at almost $100 or more for anything decent. We love ports with Cabanas, but booked our last one of these for a while in HMC We used to pay like $249 for the day... then it was in the $300 range, then in the $400... it is $600 now! 😱

Excursion sales are limited, and happen once in a while. No telling when they might do it again. Excursions have been going up in price tremendously so I would not hold my breath. There were whole threads on this. To cancel is easy. You go into your booking under booking order and details, find the excursion and click on the edit button, In the next screen click on the "check" boxes next to each persons name under the "Remove Item" header, and click confirm. You will be refunded in the form you paid with, which will take varying amounts of time depending on if it was a credit card or gift card. If you used OBC to purchase it will show back up in your OBC total immediately. Note: I would take a screen shot of the cancellation page, sometimes you will get an email confirmation for the change and sometime you will not. That way you are assured you have documentation.

I started down the Supervisor road and decided it wasn't worth my energy at this point. We have no intention of cancelling, and as long as the other coverages are in place "just in case" something goes wrong medically or something, I am not going to exert any more effort or frustration. IF for some reason something absolutely crazy happens and we were forced to cancel, at that point you better believe I would be fighting them all the way on covering my cancellation. It is a short 3 dayer and wasn't super expensive to start with so going to pick the hill to die on. At this point it has not affected me financially in anyway so I will retreat and prepare for battle another day. As I said, I KNOW it has to be internally something they were doing (same reason they issued some kind of refund at the same time for a cruise from last September). I couldn't have cancelled it if I wanted to myself, the option just isn't there once you add it, so know it isn't a weird case of someone hacking my account either. Nothing else on any of my bookings is messed with, they all look good.

Yep be prepared if you stay in that room. Biggest thing is chairs being dragged across the deck.

Just a little info for others to heed closely (apologize for the length, but lesson learned!). A few weeks ago I was posting asking about a refund I had received via e gift card to make sure it was legit. A couple individuals were kind enough to confirm it was. I also had reached out to Carnival about the refund as well, because I was completely baffled as to why I had gotten it. At the time I thought MAYBE it was tied to a complaint I had made about an excursion we were on in March. I had received an unknown $49 refund via my credit card, and then within a week a $69 refund via e gift card. The E gift card at least had a reference number I could trace back to a cruise last September! Again, by my accounting (and I know where EVERY penny goes usually), I should not have been owed anything. Was told after getting passed around for 1/2 hour on the phone by Carnival can only be handled via email. So I did as instructed and emailed. I simply received an email back after a couple weeks indicating that the refunds indeed were legitimate and were processed for monies owed. No other explanation as to WHAT? monies owed. Figured OK - maybe I missed something from our cruise last Fall they owed me and let it go. Fast forward to yesterday afternoon. I call Carnival about my upcoming cruise at the end of August about possibly upgrading my room on the Conquest (I saw a new room we love had just opened up). In discussing pricing with the Diamond desk she advise what the total would be, which is more than what I was coming up with. Long story short after going back and forth, she says "well if you want to 'add back' the insurance for your husband that is the difference." I was like what the H#LL, what do you mean "add back." I told her the insurance was prepaid for both of us months ago, along with gratuities and such when the cruise was paid off (again this was like 4 or 5 months ago I had it all paid off). She advised me that she showed just his insurance was cancelled in April "on line" which means I must have cancelled it. So, come to find out THAT is where the $49 refund came from to my Credit Card! Now mind you - I Made NO changes to the booking. I told her I made not changes and authorized no one else to do so either!, I also told her that once the insurance is added I can not remove it myself on line even if I want to, there is NO option to do this! I pointed out examples of the cruises we have booked in December and in April of next year and how there is no option for me to remove it (there is a button when you want to add, but once you do there is no button to remove like gratuities). She said, "well I don't know." I also told her that when these random refunds showed up I called, spoke to 3 different people, and emailed and only got a vague answer as to why it was refunded. I did NOT get an updated booking confirmation when the insurance was removed so there was NO way I would have known (and that if I hadn't happened to have called about an upgrade and talked to her about the price difference I would have left for vacation and he would have had no insurance unbeknownst to me). She said I can add it back though for you. I asked about the fact that we are just a couple weeks from our cruise and what impact this now has to the actual coverage. She said I will have to check, put me on hold, and came back and basically told me - while all the medical and such is still applicable - Carnival's Coverages such as Cancel for Any Reason would not be because I was adding it after the final payment date. I almost lost my S4!T with her. I said, some how, someone at Carnival had to do something to my booking and now I am paying the penalty for that. She told me that if something happened and I did need to cancel, I could dispute it and an investigation could be opened. FUNNY thing is she specifically asked me if I had "gotten an room upgrade offers." I told her as a matter of fact I had. I had received an upgrade offer three different times on this booking and went in to review what was offered, and then refused them. She asked me when that was, and I start thinking about it and say it was around April. I said, OK does my husbands insurance getting cancelled in April have something to do with a glitch related to the upgrade offers? She says, no I wouldn't think so. But here I sit wondering why would she ask me that very specific question, then I correlate that it indeed did coincide with the timing of my husbands insurance randomly being dropped, but she says it's not relevant. Such a HOT mess and I am so confused! I told her that I wanted to know exactly how my booking was changed without my knowledge or permission and they most certainly should be able to ascertain exactly who made that modification to my booking (because I sure as H#LL didn't) she said she was going to send an email to the back office but in so many words told me not to hold my breath for an answer.

This exactly. Most times people will only post if they are disgruntled and want to complain about something. There are those that take the time to post for all they do and give honest opinions good or bad, but the majority of people don't do this. So when you think about the handful of negative reviews you see, and compare that to how many people are cruising that ship weekly, it really is a very small percentage.

I have never seen anything for makeup. Facials and such, but no makeup.

I am so very sorry to hear about this, it is hard enough to lose something, but a sentimental piece is always irreplaceable. I am in the minority here probably, but I always wear nice jewelry on my cruise. That is the one place I feel I CAN wear it safely - on the ship. It is part of my packing ritual, I select my jewelry to wear just as I select what outfits to wear. It ALWAYS stays with me, like my purse. It is in my shoulder bag at my feet on the plane, at my side with the strap under my backside or in my hand, or on my or my husbands shoulder. In the room it goes in the safe. And before people get started, I KNOW there are ways to break into the safes on the ship, but I also know after 50 cruises that the room stewards do not have the time or inclination to jeopardize their jobs by breaking into the safes. I have accidently left things sitting out, and even on purpose that I wasn't overly worried about, that could easily be picked up and they are ALWAYS still there when we got back to the room after they had cleaned. I will say things easily happen, I found an amazing REAL diamond ring one time in our safe (expensive piece). It was like day 2 of a cruise and I was reaching in feeling around for our shore excursion tickets and it was tucked under the lip edge of the front of the safe. I am sure someone set it in there and didn't check completely enough and forget it when they left. Luckily I am honest and turned it into guest services (Hope it made its' way back). This is also why I only put my jewelry in the safe IN a closed container where it can't fall out (too easy to set something in there loose and miss it!) I found the perfect solution (after years of trying everything under the sun) for carrying it. I use a little divided box from the dollar store meant for little screws and such. Very flat and small, each has it's own section, and the lid keeps it all in place safely without everything getting all jumbled up. Kind of like this one (just found a picture as an example), but mine is configured slightly different. Easy to travel with, easy to see what you want and pull it out to wear. This is even how I store all my pieces in my safe now for easy access and viewing.

Ok, that was wrong on so many levels! FUNNY as H#!! but just wrong 🤣

Can't exactly answer this, but my suggestion is to avoid leaving anything in your account of any substantial amount. Dealing with refunds of any kind AFTER the cruise can turn into a bit of a major headache. I just got a refund for something for a cruise I took in SEPT 2022! It wasn't a huge amount so I wasn't worried about it that much, but still gives you an idea of what can happen. Better to try to plan it the last night that you have no real balance to speak of left on your account. If you find you have money left on account the last night the best 2 options (IMHO) are: Cash it out in the casino Buy new gift cards in Cherry on Top to use for next cruise

I have only ever had 1 issue when using gift cards of any kind (hard plastic & E gift). I was only allowed to apply $1000 and no more (and this was hard plastic cards). I wanted to put more on my account at guest services but they advised that was the "limit" of what I could apply at one time. I have personally seen no difference in using either e gift or physical plastic cards in my usage (and I use a LOT of gift cards).