Bostwick girl

4 minutes ago, coevan said:

 

 

what is a doctor in a box, like bubbly boy? How would "tele-doctor" (never heard of this either) know what your physical condition is?

I think he's probably talking about the urgent care centers, or minute clinic things. I doubt very seriously someone from there would do something like that if they didn't know you. I also agree with you on the teledoctor, if you do have one, they can't help you out with a letter! Telemedicine is catching on a little lately. Rather than going in to see your doctor, you can see him via internet.

1 hour ago, ashleycrew said:

They will be in your VIFP offers. Usually is a last minute casino offer, I only spend about $100 per cruise in the casino but somehow still qualify for offers like this 2-3 times a year. 

I check my offers at least once a day, never saw anything like that. I currently gave a Premier Cruise offer, but the prices start at $328. I also have a Premier booked March 21 and it wasn't cheap, either. We don't spend much either, no more than $500 each. Guess you just have to be really lucky to get offers like that. I guess Carnival knows after 34 cruises, I'm going anyway so don't have to lure me, lol

Where do you find these last minute cruises? Must be something other than Carnival's website.  I would jump on something like that in a heartbeat if it was close enough to me.

I got the same messages earlier today, I figured that would be the case. I emailed (as I usually do) my PVP around 1:30 this afternoon. In the subject line, I put my booking number and my last name. I told her what I was calling about and to call me when she can. She called me back around 3:30. She sounded exhausted, said they had been really slammed. She said she worked till after 11 last night returning phone calls.

im on Breeze March 21 sailing. Was checking Saturday to see if there were any rooms left, at that time I counted 10 or so. I looked this morning and there were over 200 rooms available, so lots of cancellations. I did manage to have her move us to a better cabin location.  Going to be a really busy time for them, so please try to keep that in mind.

My friend is visiting her family in California. Today they are a Disneyland, she said there's no shortage of people there. You would think places like that would be just as bad, if not worse, than cruise ships.

My friend talked to our PVP yesterday, she said they were totally overwhelmed! I had made a request from her by email yesterday morning, and got my change email at 8:40 last night! I'm sure they are all on mandatory overtime!

I use a PVP  because she tells me if the room I was looking at is good, like not below the galley type things. Also tells me how many people are in the cabins next door, kids or adult, links our group for dinner if not cruising by ourselves. I pretty much know what my fare will be when I call her. Some travel agents can give you some perks as incentive to use them. I just prefer going directly to the source.

If you can't or won't go, I'll take it, lol

1 hour ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

So they put the $2 back on that gift card? The only reason I ask is because not too long ago, a couple people said that Carnival's system wouldn't allow them to make a balance payment using a gift card that had less than $10 on it, even when they tried to use a second card along with it that had a bigger balance. For whatever reason, it seems Carnival won't accept gift cards under $10 to pay on the cruise balance. If that happens to you, you'll have to use that $2 card for other purchases (excursions, online Fun Shops, etc.) or take it with you and deposit it into your S&S account. Good to hear you got it resolved, though.

No, the $2 went on my cruise balance.  I read that same one you're talking about though, so no worries on that part, it's all spent and properly applied now. I'm glad I started reading this thread though, otherwise I may have just let it go.

Thanks to all for their help, and Happy Cruising!

1 hour ago, ngrund said:

the fee had to be glitch- fyi no need to wait to the next day unless you want to-

 

I just bought my 3rd gift card from AARP, about 20 minutes ago, as soon as I got the link, applied to the balance on carnival website

Lol, yes I know you can apply it immediately, I just wasn't in a place or have the time to do it until the next day or so.

21 minutes ago, bury me at sea said:

 

I have just read through the faqs on Carnival's gift card website and couldn't find any mention of fees.  The faqs also specify e-cards are accepted.

 

What does it say in the faqs you mentioned?

Ok, this is resolved! Called Carnival. They said first time I called that they do not charge any fees, etc which I totally agreed with. They suggested calling AARP to make sure they didn't charge a fee. AARP researched and they said the card was redeemed for $98, and they don't charge any fees. So I called Carnival again, explained what happened, what I was told by them and AARP. the agent got a resolution specialist on the line, gave them the card number and PIN on the card, after a minute or so, they credited my balance with the $2. They had no idea why that happened, just a glitch in the system. They said they've received no calls about it other than mine. Just glad it's resolved, and hope it doesn't happen to anyone else.

A good idea to always save your gift cards until after your cruise!

10 minutes ago, n6uqqq said:

Was your payment on the Carnival website? If so did it mention a fee? Per their giftcard website there are no service or dormancy fees.

Yes, it was on the Carnival website.  I was just reading all the FAQ's and saw that same thing. I'm going to call them and see what's their reason. 

2 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

Was that recently? I used an e-card to put towards our balance late last year (November I think) and there wasn't a fee. Then I used a couple more e-cards to purchase Cruise Cash in Dec. or Jan. No fee there either. Very strange.

2 hours ago, n6uqqq said:

I just bought 17 steakhouse reservations about a week ago with gift cards for my daughter's wedding cruise and no fees.

I bought the ecards  on the AARP Rewards site early last week, got the card within minutes. Waited about 24 hours to apply to my balance. Maybe it was because it was an ecard? Maybe that's Carnivals processing fee for using an ecard. I don't know. I have bought several thousands of dollars in gift cards, both hard and ecards, over the past few years and have never had this happen. I'll be interested to see if others have this happen now.

Just googled it. Elation is going into dry dock from March 2 thru 20. They're supposed to add 30 new staterooms on the Promenade deck. Hope they add some sofas or at least a decent chair to the balcony rooms while they're at it!

I just looked on the cruise ship tracker and it's showing Elation is still moored in Port Canaveral as of 5 minutes ago. Very interesting, surprised no one has responded here.

An interesting thing with the AARP gift cards I had happen for the first time ... I purchased one ecard, first one since the new rules. Got the ecard pretty quick. Next day I used it to apply $100 to my balance for November cruise. To my surprise, Carnival took $2 for a fee to apply the card to my balance!  So actually applied $98. Guess they're going to dollar us to death!

My vote goes to Liberty! We've sailed on her 7 times with #8 coming in November. It's bigger than Ecstacy, newer and more things for the kids to do. We were on her in December when everything was decorated for Christmas, it was beautiful. Cant speak for the suites, but the balcony and Ocean view cabins are much, much better than the Ecstacy/Elation. It would probably be around the same price to do two cabins, say a balcony with an interior across from it, as it would be the suite. We live about an hour from Jacksonville and about 2.5 from Port Canaveral. To me, I'd rather drive to PC. Never had any problems there, most of our cruises have been out of PC. Whichever you choose, you will have a great time!

When I open my cruise planner, there's a list of items, one is booking and order details. Click on that and you page with the cost of the cruise and anything you've prepurchased will show there. If you have OBC, it's usually the last thing on the list. 

As as others have said, you can't use OBC until you're on board.

If the hot streak is a casino promotion, that's probably why yours was more expensive. Just guessing.

I for one (and the other 3 couples who were sailing with us) will never go on Elation again. While I love the smaller ships, I'm getting too old to have a balcony room and not even have a chair to sit in! We ended up (all of us, side by side cabins in the new section) bringing in a chair from the balcony so at least one of us would have a place to sit! No sofa, no chair, just the little stool under the desk! Sad part is the fare was just as much as most balconies are. I'm sure it doesn't matter to you younger folks since you're never in the room anyway, but it does to some of us older folks.  Was going to try a Ecstacy when she came to Jax, but it's the same thing, so didn't even bother.

We were just ahead of you  on the December 2 cruise. The ship was decorated so pretty, just loved it. This was about our 4th or 5th time on Liberty, it's a great ship! This cruise we just did an OV but the Bermuda cruise in September we had a balcony on Deck 8. This cruise ended up being a back to back, our first, our friend wanted to go, but couldn't until the Friday we were supposed to get off, so we just made it a back to back.  Were you in the aft dining room? Our wait staff was really good, and our hostess Rico Rose was also. The best was our Maitre d, Aaron! Never had one who made it a point to go around the dining room and talk to people every night. He also had a little show every night where not only did the wait staff sing and dance, so did he, even dancing on the round table! He said he was working on singing, but not quite ready yet. The whole trip was great and happy to see you and DH enjoyed it too. Then to our surprise, our sons gave us another cruise on her this past January! Totally shocked us, and we enjoyed it just as well. I just booked yesterday for November 16, can't wait! Thanks for sharing your review, brings back good memories!

We only need 11 more days to be Diamond, sure hope it doesn't change any time soon! When they changed from number of cruises (10) to number of days(79) for Platinum, I was fortunate and grandfathered in as we were about to take our tenth.  I went to Diamond party with my friend who is Diamond earlier this month on Legend and some guy there was saying he had a friend who works in that department and they said they were going to base it on cost. I sure as heck don't see that happening. No way in the world that could ever be fair. Guess they'll let us know.

My premier offer was supposed to be there until March 3. I was looking at my offers today and it was gone. That was early afternoon, and haven't checked since.

Just remember if it's not a checked bag, you're the one who has to lift it up on to the scanner.  

We had it like that on Legend last week. It was good, certainly saving on butter!  I agree it wasn't nearly as garlicky.