CallistaSkye

We just were on the Imagination and they had it on the Sea Day there. Ours was wooden coasters, and then you could stamp an image onto the coaster, and color it with markers. They provided either felts or you could put magnets on the back instead. If you have that available, make sure you wait to use it as a coaster until after you get home and seal the surface with some clear sealant first. Otherwise the ink will bleed everywhere. The staff member running it told us that, but obviously they can't provide spray shellac on a cruise ship to use. We thought it was fun and there was a big range of ages participating.

Please do not do this! Leave the things on the beach as you find them. Imagine how much sand that it takes when 100 people all take "just a little bit" of sand, multiplied times all the cruises? That's super destructive to the areas that you are visiting even though you think that it's not. Leave things alone! Just take a photo. Or buy a magnet.

They are good, but on the Imagination I did notice they were not the same as what was offered in the coffee shop. The coffee shop ones had white and dark chocolate on them, the room service ones had just dark/milk chocolate. Also the macrons were terrible. They didn't actually put the right filling in them, they were stuck together with chocolate, and very stale.

We bought it when we sailed out of Miami. For us, it was worth it to be able to drop off our suitcases. Also since our ship had an itinerary change, we were grateful to have access to the priority line for the customer service desk. Obviously that's not going to happen often. It was nice to get off of the ship early as well. For Long Beach we just used it and were able to board at 11:15. There was no one in the lines so we just walked on and our room was ready too. So again it was worth it for us for the smooth boarding and disembarkation. But we haven't sailed Carnival w/o it so we can't speak to how it actually compares to that. If it will help you relax more then it's worth it.

We also sail Nov 10th! But I've never been on the Imagination before, so I would have no clue what was new/refurbed and what was not changed? I am curious as to what all they changed too though. and excited we managed to get on a ship after this happened! Twice on Princess we were the last sailing BEFORE the dry dock and they changed everything. Everything was still nice but we were bummed to miss out on the new things.

IMHO, it's totally worth it. We ended up with our ship helping with a search and rescue, so the ports were changed. Since we had FTTF we could just walk up to the desk and get help with cancelling excursions etc. Everyone else was stuck in a HUGE line. We also really liked being able to get off the ship early on the last day. 5 days until our cruise!

11! I just nabbed FTTF which I am stoked on too.

I mean, I can see both sides. My parents always just let me get whatever on vacation because it was a very special occasion. So I can see them getting the drink package for sodas because of that. They wanted vacation to be the one time where we didn't have to sit around counting out every last bit of our budget and actually just relax and have fun.

We sailed on her last October and had a great time! We also had a huge list of staff that we gave kudos to in the survey. The cruise director at the time, Malcolm, was so great. He had a spot on disembarkation skit that we still reference to this day. The room we had was pretty beat up.. it had lots of dings in the wood everywhere and you could tell it was pretty worn. That said, it was clean. We were super annoyed by the lack of plugs, because it meant we had to hot swap devices to charge them which is really annoying. Also the way it was set up, we couldn't charge our phones and put them on our nightstands. But otherwise, the ship itself was great, we felt it was plenty big enough, there was tons to do, and it never felt crowded to us. The food was awesome. We did not notice any weird smells.

We are going on a 4 day cruise for my birthday in 2 weeks! We went on the same cruise before and loved it. Personally I say go for it! We didn't think there were THAT many partiers. It was actually mostly families with teenagers on the one we went to, so the teenagers would come back with giant sombreros and stuff like that which was funny to see.

They don't allow homemade foods on board. Also, the cruise has already told everyone it's real butter, so taking your own on board is completely unnecessary.

17 to go! We're booked on the Imagination.

Ahh gotha. Sorry, there are people on here that "troll" regularly unfortunately. I don't need to experience Celiac, I have friends who have it. Didn't know about the straws having gluten in them. But I've been out to dinner with friends who were reassured that their meal was gluten free and then turns out.. it wasn't.. so I do understand what you mean. The straw thing bothers me, I work in the medical field, and we literally have to have straws for our residents. People with dementia can't use metal straws because it can break their teeth and it's dangerous. Plus, as you have said, reusable straws are not sanitary in a mass environment. If you can find a silicon straw to take on board that might help? It's annoying to have to wash your own straw, but I found one that has a carrying case to keep it in between uses. I plan on doing that since I don't want the edible straws either, and metal ones can be dangerous because they are so inflexible. Thankfully hospitals seem to be exempt from the no straw rules for now. We had someone call the state on us for having styrofoam cups in the facility. I wish I was kidding.

I see the sarcasm trolls are back again...

They aren't really taking anything away though. They're replacing them with more environmentally friendly versions. The straws are replaced with edible ones. The stir sticks are going to be metal ones that are washable. It's all still available in the rooms, the format is just changed.