RaiderDuck

12 minutes ago, Drazil65 said:

$49.95 per cabin.

 

When it does in fact come back, I doubt very much this will be the price considering it was up around $90 I think pre covid...

IIRC, the price was based on the length of the cruise. $50 would be for a four-night Catalina/Ensenada run, where $90 would be for a seven or eight-night cruise.

My wife and I will be sailing on the Carnival Splendor out of Sydney on November 10, boarding at noon. Current Carnival Australia policies require a rapid test within 24 hours or a PCR test within 48 hours of boarding, which will be impossible for us to get in the United States due to travel times, etc. The night before the cruise, we'll be staying at a Marriott near the harbor. Is there a good place nearby to get tested, or should we just buy two tests at a store back home in the US, pack them in our luggage, and take them the morning we board?

The Premium plan now says it doesn't support music streaming. My advice would be to download whatever albums/playlists you want before boarding.

3 hours ago, Dadofsix said:

The real kicker is the data these apps use just running in the background can sneak up on you also. MaBell knows how to make a quick buck and this package is easy pickings for them.

Same here. Every time I've looked at AT&T's cruise package, I've come away thinking "MY GODS what a ripoff!" My wife and I just get his and hers Premium Wi-Fi packages instead.

My wife and I have just booked a cruise for the Miracle later this month. When we sailed on the Panorama last fall, we attended the Chef's Table and loved it. This was the second time we'd done the Chef's Table; the first had been on the Inspiration two years before. Obviously, between those two voyages, the menu had changed. Does anyone know if the CT menu has changed between last year and this year? We'd love to go if the food has changed, but the experience is a little pricey if it hasn't.

Has anyone attended the Chef's Table in both 2021 and 2022? If so, did the menu change?

We got a balcony cabin on an 8-day Australian cruise for a total of $577 for the both of us ($164 per person plus the port fees, blah blah blah). Unbelievable.

On 3/25/2022 at 10:29 AM, Indytraveler83 said:

The idea that Carnival could be positioned to cannibalize ships from other brands is an interesting one.  It's already doing so with Costa...

It already has done so. The Splendor was originally built for Costa and transferred to Carnival pretty late in the building process. That's why it's so different layout-wise from other Carnival ships.

As for retiring the smaller ships: It's a matter of economics. It doesn't cost that much more to sail a bigger ship than a smaller ship (some more fuel and some more personnel), but since you can fit a lot more paying customers on one, you make a lot more money. If you can sail a big ship for 125-150% of the costs of a smaller ship but you make 250% of the revenue, that's a big win. Also, big ships can have more extra-cost dining venues and other profitable amenities. It's not beyond reason that Carnival could even copy NCL at some point and starting having a "Haven" area on the bigger ships, as those are pure moneymakers for the cruise line (i.e. for the cost of a few more concierges and some nicer areas and food, you can charge 4 times as much per cabin).

Never done it on Carnival, but we did the sushi-making class on board the Empress of the Seas five years ago. It was a lot of fun, as was having people stop by our dining room table afterwards and ask where we'd bought we sushi. 😛 

1 hour ago, dianef said:

Does any of the passengers on the Panarama now how many passengers are on the ship this week?Wondering if they are limiting capacity as I am going in 3 weeks and hoping for a limited capacity. It many cabins look available so don’t k ow if they are holding back cabins.

The ship has about 2,900 passengers on this cruise. It's considerably under capacity.

C'est la vie. Guess $50 is all we're getting. At least we have a balcony to enjoy for the afternoon. Thank you to everyone for your replies and advice! 🙂
 

5 minutes ago, purrlinda said:

Do you know why the cruise was raised to yellow?

No. The only reason we know it's Yellow is from checking the CDC website. This morning, they first announced that everyone debarking would have to get a rapid test. An hour later, they canceled the port altogether. They're claiming they have no idea why we were refused debarkation.

My wife and I are currently onboard the Panorama. This morning, the ship's status went to Yellow, and the port of Cabo San Lucas denied the ship permission to debark. Carnival is refunding everyone's Cabo excursions and giving out a puny $50 OBC per cabin. Should my wife and I ask for more, given that 1/3 of our ports just got canceled, or are we hosed?

Thank you to everyone for the well wishes! The French Toast seemed awfully mushy in the middle, but that may or may not mean it wasn't fully cooked. Complicating the matter is the fact that my wife and I had all of the same food and drinks in Ensenada, and she had no ill effects. She did not, however, have the French Toast (except for a small edge piece that I cut off for her to sample).

I agree that the Carnival Inspiration's kitchens are spotless. I've toured them twice, once on a Behind the Fun tour a couple of years ago and again on this cruise for The Chef's Table. In any case, there's no way to know for certain what caused my sudden evening-long conversation on the Great White Porcelain Telephone.

Thursday evening, whilst waiting in a huge line for the Thanksgiving dinner in Mardi Gras, I became sick from food poisoning and collapsed on the way back to the cabin. A couple of people in line next to my wife noticed (through the promenade decks) me being wheelchaired down to Medical and accompanied her down there (I was the guy in the loud orange Curacao shirt sitting, barely coherent, and bazooka-barfing in an Empress hallway). I have no idea what their names are (although one was the husband/father in a family of frequent cruisers that had just moved to the west coast). If any of them are reading this, I just wanted to thank them for alerting my wife and walking her down to Medical. As it turned out, my food poisoning* was much better the next morning and I was able to safely exit the ship along with the other FTTFers.

*The nurse who treated me in Medical was quick to blame the Ensenada cuisine of the previous day, but I'm convinced it was the 12-Hour French Toast I'd eaten in Mardi Gras that morning. No way to be certain, of course.

We love not having to drive to dinner, find a parking space, watch what we're drinking because somebody has to drive afterwards, etc.

Similarly, we love getting out of our show and just being able to walk to wherever we want to go next.

We also love not knowing or caring what our food or shows cost. It's all paid for.

Pretty sure OBC can be used for the art auctions, as the Park West people just bill your stateroom account.

Country music can be pretty divisive; the people who hate it really hate it. The major cruise ships are all about appealing to the broadest demographic, which is why you don't hear a lot of metal or gangsta rap either.

We did the Croydon Plantation expedition three years ago. Our opinion is that something sketchy may be going on there. The "tour" involves being taken to several different touristy areas in one section of the plantation, given an oral history of Jamaica, trying several different kinds of pineapple and juices, and given a chicken lunch. But you get no sense whatsoever of the plantation's operations. We spent three hours or so there and couldn't even tell you what kinds of plants the plantation grows or harvests.

Contrast that to the banana plantation tour in Nicaragua where you're taken through the entire operation and know exactly what they're doing and how.

Don't count on there being more than one usable outlet in the room. My recommendation would be to bring a power strip, but make sure it is a plain power strip and NOT a surge protector, as those will be confiscated because they are incompatible with the ship's wiring and could be dangerous.

We're going on this cruise (or rather the Seward-to-Vancouver version of it) next week. Thank you for the information and the daily program pics!

We're cruising Alaska for the first time next week, and this is the first cruise where the majority of our shore excursions will be non-NCL. The NCL ones are WAY too expensive and since Alaska is in the US, you have American protections against fraud, etc. We used Viator or Shore Excursions Group for ours.

1 hour ago, mapleleaves said:

Only the cruise contracted trains stop at the airport.

If you booked with the Railroad, you'll board at the depot downtown. 

 

And if you're boarding your ship that same day, let the baggage handlers know ( the next time you see your luggage it will be in your cabin).

Awesome! Thank you!

If we're taking the early morning Coastal Classic train from Anchorage to Seward, do we board at the depot in the airport, or the depot on 1st St? We'll be staying at the downtown Hilton beforehand.

The bickering in this thread makes me want a drink...

This is why I, a casual drinker, have never taken advantage of the "free" drink package. On a seven-night cruise, I'm unlikely to even drink $138 worth of booze (which would be about two drinks a night, give or take), let alone enough to build up $138 in tips.