mjmini

I'm a novice on this site and have been learning a lot about the cruising world while waiting for my Princess cruise in December. I hope I am not out of place here, maybe someone can direct me to the right thread for this question but here goes... I agree with and understand the many opinions on prepaid gratuities for the staff we don't "see" but who do a lot of work for us. So when a Cruise line offers free gratuities promos, isn't that kind of wrong, shouldn't they just discount the cruise by the same amount? Am I missing something here, does the Cruise line "pay" the gratuities for you or do the behind the scenes staff get stiffed?

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while booking for a group of 24 people, the last 2 were not able to purchase fttf. We have diligently watched for months. We are now 12 days out with no hope of getting FTTF for the last two. We really want to board as a group for a picture. Any suggestion?[/

 

I am sorry, I got side tracked in my previous post and missed the point of your post, you asked for suggestions... what I should have said is that with your party who did not get the FTTF but have an 11:00 check in slot, you will most likely get in at the same time if your experience is the same as ours was, good luck, I know that group picture at the beginning is truly a memorable photo and one we usually buy especially when with a group! Plus boarding together is special and that kind of stuff is what you remember! Enjoy!

 

 

 

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while booking for a group of 24 people, the last 2 were not able to purchase fttf. We have diligently watched for months. We are now 12 days out with no hope of getting FTTF for the last two. We really want to board as a group for a picture. Any suggestion?

Not sure if it's the same everywhere, but our group of 6 cabins went on the Inspiration in June out of Long Beach. Each cabin got FTTF for the first time and we have agreed that we would probably not buy it again. Getting checked in was not faster for us, getting the room early was not that important and there was only 1 tender port- it did help there, but it wasn't a huge line anyway as we didn't get off at peak time. At check-in there were 2 agents assigned for priority check-in and we got there at 11am, well an agent got tied up with an issue and that left only one agent for FTTF, the regular lines were going faster and we noticed A LOT of people getting through check-in who had been in line outside that we had walked past. Yeah, we had virtually no line but the regular line was moving and we weren't. We asked the agents who were sending people to the check-in desk to just let us go to any open agent and they said we had to use the FTTF line! The same kind of thing happened at the guest services, 2 agents and only 1 helping Priority, the other line was way faster. Anyway, I have emailed Carnival with my suggestions to make it better, then I might try it again on a tender heavy cruise. Other than getting to the front of the line to get on a tender, we didn't see the value. Hope others have a better experience after spending money on it.

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