tacticalbanjo

I was intrigued by those Deluxe Oceanviews on deck 1 too. They can sleep four in two king beds and have a bath and a shower room. The big downside is that they are clearly below the galley for Britannia. I'll be keeping an eye on reviews for those rooms because they look idea for families.

Taylor the Technician looks very cute. I'm sure my toddler will love him just as much as her existing bears. You'll all be happy to know that the Cunard bears are preferred to her Princess Stanley bear and her P&O Britannia bear 😁

I still don't follow your point though. How does delaying the renewal of shareholder benefits encourage people to pay their full balances when they still wouldn't be apply for shareholder OBC at that point? Anyway, now we can have fun speculating as to why Carnival Corp have only chosen to extend shareholder benefits to the end of December when in previous years (I've checked each annual report going back to the 2015 report) they've renewed shareholder benefits for a whole calendar year. 😈

Not really. In the UK, at least, the rule is that you can't apply for shareholder benefits until you have less than 90 days until departure which is final payment anyway. Whether they let you apply before then is neither here nor there when the advertised rule per the FAQs is to apply between 90 and 21 days before departure.

To be fair to Alan Cumming, when I did my first TA for my honeymoon back in 2015 when I was still in my 20s, lots of our friends and family did express surprise that we were going to voluntarily lock ourselves on a ship for a week with a bunch of old duffers. Especially because we were known for all day drinking and general hellraising. And yeah, most people were decades older than us but we had a blast and we will both hit Diamond by the end of the year. Maybe being real ale pub type people we already knew that age is not a barrier to being fun or interesting to be around. I hope Cunard continue to be able to bring in new passengers who are willing to overlook the stereotypes - so long as they're willing to abide by the dress code!

The proxy statement can be found here. Shareholder benefits does not appear to be mentioned in any of the proposals unless I've been daft (high possibility!). It would be great if those who've managed to find the reference can tell the rest of us where it is. Or is the online version available through the investor relations site not what you have been sent?

Does this mean that Carnival amend the annual report after it's published every year? Without changing the date they were published? Because previous annual reports which are ostensibly published before the AGM have the Shareholder Benefit sections even though it has apparently not been voted on at that stage.

I suppose it might make a difference to the number of retail vs institutional investors but I don't know enough about the stock market to comment on that.

You need to have booked by the end of the tomorrow to be able to claim as per this extract from the 2022 annual report. If you book from Thursday onward, even if it is for a trip sailing before the end of July then you can't claim for OBC according to the terms of the shareholder benefits deal.

Just to add that as of right now, the last date that you can book a cruise and claim shareholder benefit is tomorrow, Feb 28. So you can book a cruise next week to sail before the end of July and not be able to claim shareholder benefit unless Carnival Corp renew the shareholder benefit.

It's unlikely that anyone on the social media team or in the call centre knows the answer. They might pretend to I suppose. Typically the renewal has happened when the annual report was released. So in the 2022 annual report (released early 2023) it was pushed to 2024, in the 2021 annual report it was pushed to 2023, in the 2020 annual report it was pushed to 2022 and so on. But this year there is no shareholder benefit statement in the annual report pushing is back to 2025 as we would expect to see.

We've booked for Alaska 2025 with my parents (going to be a 40th birthday, a 60th birthday, a 65th birthday and a 10th wedding anniversary all within 2 months of our sailing so lots to celebrate!) and have also found the flights very expensive - £1.5k pp from London to Seattle including for our toddler who wouldn't have to pay full fare if we booked separately. On advice from our TA we're holding tight until the flights are available and having another look then. They have said we can get Cunard to add the flight to the booking at that stage. We will fly out a few days in advance just in case of any delays and so we can explore Seattle before the cruise.

Prompted by this being mentioned on Facebook, I've noticed that the Shareholder Benefits section of the Carnival Corp and plc annual report is absent. In every annual report going back to 2016 it was in the first few pages but is nowhere to be found at all in the latest report released last week. https://www.carnivalcorp.com/financial-information/annual-reporting But this doesn't chime with the fact that Carnival have been busy introducing a new way of claiming shareholder benefits, does it? So do we think that this is simply an accidental omission or Carnival really are taking away a big factor in a lot of us becoming shareholders?

Great write ups. A Coruna and Lisbon are some of my favourite ports for relaxed exploring. Both are really accessible on foot. And there are many delights for anyone who likes to taste local flavours in both ports.

I agree with you that they should just fold it into the price like P&O do. Perhaps one thing Paul Ludlow could bring it that would go down well!

I suspect the grumbling is from people who probably will pay it but see the increase eating into holiday budget at a time when they're being squeezed from all sides as it is. The people who just won't pay probably never intended to pay the service charges anyway. I do feel a bit grumpy at having to pay full service charges for the toddler especially since we're using our own travel cot for her so the extra servicing in the cabin consists of an extra towel here and there. On land she would be eating from a kids menu and we would be tipping appropriately for that. It would be nice if we the service charge were discounted at the same rate as the fare for children. But we knew that it wasn't when we booked and we know we can self discount if we want to.

I'm sure it will be a lovely day in Liverpool but I can't help but wonder if whoever arranged it thought they were booking for P&O because Matt and Emma Willis don't seem like the right people for the Cunard demographic. And I'm also a little disappointed that she isn't being named ahead of her maiden voyage. It seems a little strange to me but I don't know how normal being named after the maiden is.

My toddler caught noro and at nursery in my haste to comfort my poorly child, I caught the 'illness' with my face. Guess who had noro the next day! She's given me gastric bugs three times now. I don't know when I will learn not to offer cuddles while she's afflicted.

Noro is always going to be a problem on cruise ships not just because there are grubbers who don't wash hands but because if you report symptoms then you are confined to cabin for at least 24 hours after your symptoms resolve. If you are on a shorter itinerary that's probably half your trip spent in your cabin. Or you can keep your mouth shut and carry about your business merrily spreading noro everywhere and causing a big outbreak. Even if you do isolate for the required time you are most likely infection for another 24 hours plus which is why UK protocol forbids gastro afflicted passengers from the buffet for 48 hours after the symptoms stop and recommend that guests stay away from the buffet for another 24 hours after that so 72 hours of room service meals plus the day or two that you are sick. Obviously passengers should isolate but I can certainly see why people don't want to volunteer to ruin their own trips.

According to the UK FAQs: While we do not encourage food and drink to be brought on board, we recognise that some guests with dietary requirements may need to enjoy your voyage and feel more comfortable onboard. You are advised to carry such items on board yourself rather than placing in your check in luggage to avoid any damage in the loading process. Although there are fridges in cabins, these are not temperature monitored and we cannot guarantee that they will keep foods at the correct temperature for safety. All items must be strictly for personal consumption, kept wrapped or sealed and not allowed to create any risk to health or likelihood of pest infestation in cabins or any other areas. Personal items may not be cooked for you on board, stored in the main stores or in any food room refrigerator or freezer. There is probably something similar in the US FAQs. Please be careful with the milk - you do not want to get sick on board because your milk spoiled.

I think this is what is great about all the cruise blogger on YouTube. Potential customers can see what they are getting before the commit. Cruise Monkeys (Millennial looking couple Gavin and Luke) seem to love Cunard and always look the part. And more importantly, they always look like they are having fun albeit a tad more ‘refreshed’ than I would be! We did our first voyage and first cruise ever with Cunard because I really wanted to do a TA back when I was just 27. It was supposed to be once in a lifetime but I’ll have 16 trips with Cunard done by the end of the year and not once have we been made to feel out of place. Well, except for that one time someone thought we were wait staff and tried to order drinks 😂 We love the relaxed atmosphere and just sitting watching the waves with a book. And we love that every night is an event. I did P&O and Princess last year as well as Cunard and while we enjoyed ourselves, we’ve got nothing but Cunard booked for the next two years.

Millennials actually travel more than Boomers do according to the CBI, Statista, and a few others. Hence travel companies trying to attract that demographic. Many millennials aren’t having children so are able to travel more at an age when their parents were in the midst of child rearing. Their travel priorities are generally about experiences rather and destinations but I don’t think that is incompatible with Cunard especially if they can get the messaging right about that formal evening experience making every evening being an event. At least that’s how it feels for this mid-thirties millennial.

In November on QV the sachets in the buffet had gone and were replaced with glass jars filled with unbranded instant hot chocolate powder. I can't say that the hot chocolate in the Commodore Club tastes much different. I suspect it's probably made with the same instant powder they provide in the buffet.

After a whole load of emails and many, many hours on the phone we have got our issue resolved and do not have to pay for the toddler to go on the Queen Anne maiden. It was a very stressful few days worrying that I was either going to have to come up with an extra 25% of the fare rather unexpectedly and have a real fight to get it back or risk getting my trip cancelled because the contact centre staff couldn’t guarantee that Guest Relations would even look at my email before their 28 day max response time. I really had to push for the problem to get escalated. The contact centre staff did not want to put me through to a supervisor. It’s like they are told to just get you off the phone at all costs. The staff member I was speaking to just kept repeating that she couldn’t put me through to a supervisor, the supervisor would have the same answer anyway (to pay up, email in and no they couldn’t escalate) and they couldn’t help me further. I kept reiterating that I wasn’t getting off the phone without speaking to the supervisor. Eventually the staff member capitulated to opening a complaint and escalating it to a 48 hour call back. I kept insisting on speaking to a supervisor and sometime later, after making absolutely clear that I was not going to hang up, they put me through to the apparently only supervisor on shift who definitely wouldn’t be taking any calls. The supervisor was immediately much more helpful, promised to look into the issue personally and personally give me a call back by the end of the next day. She called late afternoon today with the good news that the problem has been looked at and our fare reset to the fare as detailed in our original booking confirmations which we had fully paid. We have a reissued booking confirmation to say that we’ve paid in full. I’m still a bit nervous that the issue might pop back up without us noticing because we don’t know exactly what went on in the first place. The amount of hassle this has caused has soured my relationship with Cunard a bit and taken the shine off a trip we had been looking forward to since we got that slick card marketing pack. No one likes to feel ripped off and the fact that the contact centre staff completely refused to help and wouldn’t put us through to someone who could help until I’d made a total nuisance of myself makes me totally let down. It’s so far from the levels of service you get on the ships. I don’t think we will be booking directly again and instead book through our usual travel agent so that they can enjoy being a pain on the phone instead of me.

We’ve already emailed the exec correspondence address as well as the normal email address (not that we’ve had a confirmation of receipt for either) but will try the presidents too for good measure. And maybe messages on LinkedIn plus ringing the call centre every day just in case someone can help us.