Tropicalis_Rex
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Posts posted by Tropicalis_Rex
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Great news! Thanks for sharing!
Was a little concerned about the wait time this time around, and that perhaps we applied too late. Just applied for my hubby (renewal) and kiddo (first one) for our September cruise because one never knows how long it will take. I applied for mine in late 2006 (estimated wait time of 6-8 weeks then) and it came a few weeks before my first cruise in September 2007. :eek: It got "buried" on someone's desk is the explanation that I got. Hoping for a quick turnaround like everyone here is reporting! 2-3 weeks would be fantastic!
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When I booked my cruise it said i am eligible for a free cabin upgrade. Now with my fingers crossed hoping no one will get a grand suite, how does the upgrade policy work is by lottery for first come first serve.
When I booked, the verbiage on the page was that "upgrades were included in price". I sort of laughed because I was already booking the lowest-grade balcony... I'm not sure how the upgrades factored in at all. The price was decent, though, so perhaps that was the upgrade.
So yep, I think the upgrade was already factored in, it sort of felt like maybe they sold me a balcony at a deluxe oceanview price or something. There's always the chance you could get upgraded, though. The upgrade fairy works in mysterious ways. I got a balcony on the first cruise when I only booked oceanview guarantee.
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We're doing a vow renewal on the 6-day Breeze itinerary also.
What I've been told is... when doing a vow renewal you'll have no idea when your ceremony is until you meet up with your wedding planner... after you've embarked. It's tough for me being an over planner and not knowing when that ceremony will be to plan other activities, but it depends on the Master's availability.
I am not sure when you're going... our 6-day itinerary has Cozumel as our last port stop, and elegant night number two is supposed to be that night. (From what I read)... followed by a sea day.
So it goes (from memory) something like this
Day 1: Miami
Day 2: Sea Day (Cruise Elegant night)
Day 3: Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Day 4: George Town, Grand Cayman
Day 5: Cozumel (Cruise Elegant night)
Day 6: Sea Day
I'm still trying to figure out if we have a choice of venues. The wedding venues are the Limelight Lounge, Ovation Theater and Liquid Nightclub.
When I talked to Carnival Weddings, they told me that it will take place in one of the public areas (which you'll have to yourselves) by the Master. That was it. Carnival_Brides was good with telling me how theirs went, she wrote a really nice review of hers, too, but it was on the Pride. Shatima got MARRIED on the Breeze, and I'm still trying to figure out if Carnival treats a wedding and vow renewal the same as far as locations.
I'll be booking ours soon, so hopefully I can let you know.
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I just wanted to tell you that I'm reading your thread and enjoying it very much. A little bit of a "late bloomer" to it since we sort of just green-lighted our own vow renewal. (Reading things like this makes me both apprehensive and excited). You've really been through it on some aspects!
I'm feeling the money crunch with our own and we're not even bringing any guests (it's sort of a correct-all from our first wedding while being VERY meaningful because of the timing, we made it through a really crappy year). The people who, I guess, thought they should be coming to a vow renewal are unhappy... no way to please everyone, or in our case, anyone, so we just left everyone out. (There are those who think a vow renewal is unwarranted and would be incensed at being invited... sprinkled among those are people who figured we'd invite them on an all-expense-paid vacay... :mad:)
Your humor and analytical nature is very much appreciated by me (bachelor-in-sales-management-and-now-MBA-student here... I'm going about planning with a mix of MBA 'just get it done' and more than a twinge of emotion and stressing lol! I'm very good at being analytical with work, my personal life is a bit different) You reminded me I should make a spreadsheet now that we've decided a few things :rolleyes::p
You've been so good with pics to this point... I do hope that you'll continue even after you're married... let us know how it all went, etc. Just a small plea!
(Reading back through this I feel sort of like I went on a tangent like drunk Aunt Matilda when she gets up to do a toast). My bad... I turn the microphone back to you now lol.
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The Dress:
So I'm between two options...
I found a way to put in a corset back on my own, there's a kit being sold by a company... as long as I can stay relaxed and feed the dress through my machine right, I can put the corset in it.
I also found... the flower girl dress in the right size for my daughter... that originally went with my gown!!!!
David's
Still haven't gone to try on gowns (waiting til my mom can go since she didn't get to the first time around) but OMGoodness! I found a really pretty one on their website!!! and it's $198.. and a mermaid and takes up way less room on an airplane than my original.
Decisions decisions... just trying to keep my progress up to date here. I want to book the actual ceremony soon so the more I keep expenditures down, the quicker that happens. I'm a little neurotic about planning, and the quicker everything is paid for/set, the happier I am.
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That is cute! :)
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Former Carnival ship the Holiday... now Iberocruceros Grand Holiday :)
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Thank you to all of you! Apparently I've been missing the posts in my own thread!
I'm stoked about the whale tail so much lol. The blowfish is cute but I can't see me keeping them out, like I would the tails. We'll likely keep them on the "cruise shelf" and save money in them for our future cruises, like some others said.
Looking like I'm going to either buy a gift card or some cruise cash, too. I did like that idea, just to be sure it's on the account or available.
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Subbing, I enjoyed your other review and your level of pre-cruise detail lets me know you'll do a great post-cruise review! We're sailing sister ship, to Dream --- Breeze, in September.
That being said, the "hook" for me were the photos of Legend. I love that ship, and I hope the Aussies enjoy her as much as we did. There's just something enchanting about that whale tail!
You're giving me some great ideas for how to document this cruise, our daughter's first. All those little details add to the excitement and I want to remember the stuff she said to me about everything :) (You're also making me want to move closer to a port! LOL)
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http://johnhealdsblog.com/ask-john
That is for a question unrelated to the post at hand. Conversely, you can send him questions on his Facebook, which he's on more frequently from what I've seen.
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Here is the Carnival FAQ on it. http://www.carnival.com/CMS/FAQs/On_Board_Internet_Cafes.aspx To my knowledge, visiting Carnival's websites are free.
I need to do this sometime during the week on our cruise as well (submit assignments to my university), so I'm at the mercy of whatever it costs me to do so.
I read somewhere that there will be a list of the prices for internet packages in your info in your cabin, I believe, but that link gives them. I hear that it is painfully slow, so I'm also prepared for the fact that my assignments may not go in until we get back to the point of origin (at which point they'll be late). If I could submit them early, I would. :rolleyes: Hope this helps.
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A Carnival cruise is cheaper than a land vacation for us. I personally feel like I'm getting 4-star treatment for the 2-star price. I don't mind if the cruise line wants to charge for some things, because we'll pick and choose what we're willing to pay for. We don't drink alcohol, but I may have a few specialty coffees. It isn't an everyday thing for us, we're on vacation! :D
Much like choosing whether to pay for a shore excursion or do what you want in a port, my thought is that there are options for everyone, and some want to scale it up while still having a reasonable base fare. For the most part, the base fare includes everything I could need or want.
We can't afford a vacation every year (in fact, our last was 7 years ago). The fares we're paying for this cruise are actually less than the last cruise we took, per day. So I need and like that the fares are low, and for that, I expect to have to pay for the little "extras", if I want them. That being said, the food in the MDR is awesome, I doubt we'll do any specialty venues at all, unless the caliber of the steakhouse is Ruths Chris lol.
We bought Faster to the Fun because we feel it will be worth it to us - perhaps it won't, I don't know until I try it. We had to wait 2 1/2 hours to get a tender in Grand Cayman the last time, and that's the port we booked the cruise for - my daughter loves sea turtles (I know the ports aren't guaranteed, we're prepared to enjoy life anyhow if it would get cancelled). So for me, not having to wait so long for the tender this time is worth $50. The added bonus of not having to schlep my luggage around with me until my room is ready later is awesome, too. I try to pack light but have realized it's essentially not going to happen with me --- not even my carry-on.
Basically? We rarely get to vacation, so I'm going to be "extravagant" with some stuff and forget the rest. Perhaps a lot has changed with Carnival in the past several years. I know that it is disconcerting to have to pay for what we once got included in the fare, but such is the way of life, unfortunately. When booking, I investigated other lines, which were all quite a bit more expensive for the dates we have to travel and, IMO, didn't include anything earth-shattering in their fare to make it worthwhile to us.
Perhaps I'm in the minority and I know I'm not a very experienced cruiser, but I can't buy the same experience on land for the same money. Has cruising lost some of its glamor? Certainly. Is it still a lot of fun at the right price? For us, most definitely.
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Very cool ideas, everyone! As for the cruise cash... I know there are three kinds... is it basically like pre-paying for onboard credit? I have some big expenditures on the ship this time so I had been thinking about cruise cash or gift card. :)
I appreciate everyone's replies!
The idea about cashing out the change in the tails for the next cruise is awesome! Some photos or another souvenir cup haha!
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Awesome date! Congrats on your booking!
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If you really want a new gown and it's in your budget, you might try David's Bridal.
Please keep us up to date on the details--I love coming back and reading reviews.
Thank you for the pinterest link! That's awesome! I guess I never thought of it but perhaps combining "fall" and tropical is perfect because it's September! Not a fan of pink, but there is a pink, burgundy and orange bouquet on that link that is STUNNING and pulls it all together. Hmmm.
I think I'll stop in at David's this week or next. Who knows, perhaps I find something awesome at the right price! I was hoping for mermaid with organza ruffles. Worst thing that can happen is I get to have fun trying on dresses again! My mom was busy on the only day I had off to go pick mine... it might be nice if she could come.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate all the help! I contacted Carnival Weddings this morning and am waiting for an email about how to book but um... so far nothing. She said they're in til 7, so I may have to call again. Mayhaps my email address was difficult to understand over the phone.
I'll try to keep this as a documentation of my process/planning, and afterwards I intend to write a review. The ones I've read have helped me a lot.. especially the photos are great!
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Oh my word! Blowfish and disco balls? I could go broke on cups! Does anyone have any photos of these treasures? LOL. I should change the title to show me your souvenir cup!
I'm still geeking over the whale tail though. That's my number one priority!!!!
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Thanks for your ideas!!! And thanks for backing me up, I was starting to feel like I was being overly ridiculous about needing to do it this year. This cruise is our anniversary present to one another for this year, too. Even though our anniversary was last week lol.
DH was like well you're not planning on doing a vow renewal every 8 years are you... hmm don't give me any ideas! LOL Bring on the weddings! :P
Now about the details:
I was attached to this idea of buying a Chinese-eBay dress and fell in love with one... but I'm pretty sure it won't come and be the way it looks in the photo (I found out later it's a designer gown they stole the photo for). I was thinking a new custom-made gown would cost the same as having alterations done on the one I already have but it's looking like it comes then you have to pay to have it finished or altered anyhow, if it even looks anything like what you wanted.
Why did I want a new dress other than fit? I HATED my flowers at my actual wedding. And for this, I wanted orange tiger lilies with callas (realtouch/silks). My dress has burgundy applique all over it:
(This is one of the BEST photos I have from my wedding... not bad, but that's why I want more. They're all candids, which is fantastic unless you want a framed one lol).
So orange and burgundy... I'm thinking not so good together. But that's okay; not worth getting a new dress if I can make this one work. I'm thinking I might even be able to do a corset back on it and fix my main problem, and it might not cost a whole lot to do.
I love your ideas about doing our own thing, too and just hiring the ship's photographer. I have to really prioritize my expenditures and determine what's most important. We don't eat cake, and I think I'm just in love with the romantic notion of the Master of the vessel officiating.
I have the money spent about 10 different ways right now! LOL. I wish it wouldn't cost so much to have our photographer go.. but I can't afford to pay for cruise fare and the their fee, and I'm not willing to go the family/friend route again because that's what I did for our wedding and it didn't work out. I kept thinking, how many photos of our wedding will we put on the wall, anyhow? ONE? I wanted to do a scrapbook, so only one on the wall but maybe a lot in a book.
As to what happened at my wedding about photos:
For the record, they did it out of the goodness of their heart, I don't fault them, I don't want to sound like bridezilla. Someone else took it upon themselves to also be a "photographer" for the day (fancied herself the best at everything... married to a family member at the time, divorced him a year later). Because I wasn't aware of it beforehand, the one I TOLD to take photos stepped back and thought I wanted someone else to do it. So two people were competing and no one got close or took charge and I couldn't. I just told "MY" photographer to be more assertive, but he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. So all my photos are from far away with no telephoto lens, and were film so not as easy to manipulate after the fact, although one day I might take to editing them (I only have 5x7 prints, not the negatives, so I have to scan and hope for the best lol).
Besides a DJ for dancing, the photography and flowers are my only regret. I definitely want to "fix" the flowers and photography for this. :) Plus DD will be there and she is really excited because she still doesn't understand why she wasn't there for the first wedding lolol.
Other random thoughts:
I guess I wasn't thinking how much planning I'd need to do for this --- it is, to us, nearly another wedding (I only had 5 weeks to plan mine. We just didn't want to wait any longer.) No, I have no guests besides DD, but we still have flower and clothing choices, as well as the cruise formal nights (we do it ALL up). Formal nights are some of my favorite (LOBSTER!) lol. The money aspect is the thing I need to plan most for, I guess. Which is why the decisions are probably hardest.
I'm great with decisions in the business realm, decisions for the future direction of my life... concrete goals there. Comes to vacation and I lose it lol. Back and forth back and forth. That way I can relax and know everything's taken care of when I get there.
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Tima, just stopping in to thank you for the thorough review of your wedding experience and the public photos that you shared with us. Your hair is amazzzzinnnnggggg :) The whole day, beautiful.
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For some reason, the Whale Tail cups, and other specialty cups, aren't always made available on every cruise. Two years ago, on the Liberty, I wanted two of the Whale Tail cups. Each day, I would check to see if they were available for sale. By Thursday, when I still hadn't seen them, I finally asked one of the bartenders about them. She said she didn't think they were going to be offered on that cruise, but she would check the inventory, and if there were two available, she would get them for me. So, on Friday, Taa-Daa!, she was able to get a couple for me.:) So, I would suggest you ask your bartender. Be persistent, but be polite. "Please" and "Thank-you" (plus an extra tip ;)) really go a long way.
Oh dear Beachbum!! Okay. I'll be sure to ask about them politely. :D I sure hope they offer them on our cruise. Thanks for the info! I envy your whale tail in the signature, too! LOL!
I had zero expectations on my first cruise, and this one I am trying to figure out what I want to get on the ship because I figured last time the stuff in the Fun Shops, etc, would be available online - NOPE! LOL. I wanted some scrapbooking stuff but DH was being a tightwad! Haha. That's why I'm planning ahead this time so I can save up enough money to cover what I know I want and then some.
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Thanks JD! I was sure hoping so... all the threads I found were from 2010-ish.
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It's been a while since I've been on a cruise and I never noticed on our last cruise if anyone had these, but reading around the boards alerted me to their existence.
I guess my question is, do these cups still exist on recent sailings? I'm kinda really partial to the whale tails. (As an aside, the Spirit class is my favorite :cool: But I know the cups are the traditional tail).
If they do exist still, can you get a virgin DOD or something in them? We aren't big drinkers. I don't care either way, I'll buy it no matter what; but it would be nice to have another option, especially if DD or DH want one.
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Wow, this is great! You're obviously much more adept at Excel than I am! I didn't know you could pin the first column so it didn't move!
Thanks for taking the time to create and post this! Great help when booking a cruise and trying to satisfy everyone's requests!
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Thank you very much to both of you for all the good info. I wasn't aware that the PVP got "traded out" when you booked online, either. I tried to give mine a fair shake but it was constant calls then *poof* when I needed him to book, which was more of a "favor" to him...
I like to "be in control" of my booking and see the deck plan and go back and forth splitting hairs over staterooms for 20 minutes before choosing (I know, I know... I'm odd lol).
I guess I just would have preferred if he would have been like "hey sorry I can't help you with that"... or any response would have been good... as it was before I even booked. I am happy that you explained it to me. I should maybe just answer every time a PVP calls and tell them, quite nicely, to focus their efforts elsewhere because I usually book online. That way maybe they don't waste their time. IDK.
As for the wedding stuff... we're still going back and forth on it. Very likely have decided to renew vows on the ship, not on land while in a port. It's just a better fit for us. We need to decide if this is a priority for us. It is certainly MEANINGFUL to us this year but I can't help but wonder if it would be better on our milestone 10th... which we almost didn't make it to 8 so I can't think of a better time. Besides, we don't do anything "traditionally". And our kiddo will be along for this one and the next one is just us! (She really wants to be in on it!)
Some family drama has happened with his side of the family (people canceling their own wedding a few weeks before our cruise). It's always drama with them and having a vow renewal for ourselves will create more if I mention anything about it on the FaceSpace. The easy answer is don't post anything or block them from it I suppose. Sad that even factors in.
The other factor is that my wardrobe no longer fits (seriously none of it). I need to buy some different clothing to even go on this (so there's $$). So I need to find out whether my wedding gown can be altered or I need a different dress (hate to say I'm actually considering a Chinese eBay gown). My computer for university just broke too, so now that adds to the list. Sometimes you go two steps ahead and one back (or one ahead and two back! LOL). I haven't even called Carnival yet because Carnival_Brides sent me so much good stuff and all this stuff happened Monday and Tuesday.
*Sigh* lots of decisions to make. Thought it would be LESS stressful the second time around.
Thank you to all for your help. I'll try to keep you apprised of our decisions.
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We stayed at the Westin Ft Lauderdale in October, and the beach in front of it was lovely (North Fort Lauderdale). A bit narrow, but most of the strand is. So clean and beautiful, though, by far one of my favorite beaches. It is public along the whole strand, although parking on the street will cost you (I think). I believe I read that you can park a block away or so and the parking is free, though. (You may need to google)
We loved Ft. Lauderdale so much we're seriously looking to move there. It was easy to get around and plenty to do (and eat).
No more adult only aft pools?
in Carnival Cruise Lines
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Same here.
I used to really love Carnival; still enjoy them, but we're gonna branch out. We've been striving to gain increasingly-hard-to-get "status" on Carnival, I won't rule out more Carnival cruises but I won't be looking at them first any longer. Seems they're moving to some sort of a customer profile that is increasingly less me....
I don't mind kids, I love mine... but when mine enjoy the kids area of the ship, I enjoy the adult areas of the ship... It's nice to have the option. And the aft pool is my favorite. I find the serenity deck on most ships we've been on that have one to be stiflingly hot and overcrowded.
Disappointing news, indeed!