cruisefanatic2713

following along. looking forward to seeing next posts!

I'm actually trying to do this same thing for my grandmother. I'm 26 and she is almost 91 and in great shape but doesn't like to get out much. I'm hoping she'll say yes! the best gift is time spent together!

Thanks for the comment! So the muster drill is now completely different that pre-Covid. Your muster station is posted on your boarding summary. For example, our station was B5 which is on deck 5 midship near Alchemy Bar. You go to your muster location, watch them demonstrate how to put on the lifejacket. They check off your name and that is all there is to it. No waiting for 30 minutes in a big crowd outside near the lifeboats like before. Regarding elevators, unfortunately, my mom and I did not even step in an elevator until the middle of day 2. Our stateroom was on deck 1 so we got our workout in. It did not bother us because we wanted to work off the calories we were enjoying haha! But for your situation, I found a good trick, regardless of what direction you are going, to get in whatever elevator comes to your floor. For example, if I'm on the Lobby deck 3 wanting to go to Lido on deck 10 and an elevator opens but it's going down to deck 1, get in it anyhow. You'll get to the floor you want with an extra 10 seconds of riding the elevator. not a problem. But yes I did notice many people waiting a while for elevators.

This is actually new information for me! Thank you for that! Genuinely didn't know that there was a difference between real ID and enhanced.

Is this better??? Hey all! I'm about a week late but considering the amount of research and forum reading I did before our cruise, I find it only fitting to give my two cents on how our sailing went for you all to dissect how you will! For a little background, I am a 26 year old nurse and my travel buddy is my mom, a recently retired teacher. This was a last minute cruise that I convinced her to go on with me for Mother's Day. We booked in late March for a ridiculously good deal if I do say so myself. 😉 We've both been on four other cruises. This will be the second time on Carnival for the pair of us. We would be driving (what is normally a 4 1/2 hr drive from south Louisiana). We received word from Carnival the night before that the ship would be delayed arriving and all embarkation would be held off two hours. Plus, they mentioned "heavy traffic delays" between Houston and Galveston on I-95 so we decided to take an alternate route via the ferry. All in all, we left at the same time we initially planned and our trip ended up being 5 1/2 hours. Not too bad. We arrived at 11:30 to the EZ cruise parking and made our way to the terminal. It was noon by now and from what we saw, there were more people debarking than waiting to embark. We got in line and were inside getting our Verifly checked 20 minutes after. No issues with that and we headed up the escalators to the main check in desk. This is where we had issues. As our passports were expired and had to be sent in two weeks prior, we were without passports. We had to rely on our ENHANCED driver's licenses. I had done all the research I needed to be sure that we did not need birth certificates. The check in people disagreed and said everyone is required to have a birth certificate to board and that we would be denied boarding until we got pictures of our birth certificates. I showed them proof on multiple different sites including carnival.com and the Galveston cruise port website that one needs EITHER a birth certificate, military ID or enhanced driver's license to board the ship if you do not have a passport. They repeatedly ignored the obvious proof in front of them and required up to go off to the side in a waiting area to get pictures of our birth certificates. Soooo we reluctantly called my dad who was across town from our house where the birth certificate were. He went back to the house and snapped pictures for us. We owe him a big one! After the desk lady received the picture we waited another hour for our room to be" unlocked" and allowed us to board. It was 2pm when we stepped onto the ship and we were determined to put all that behind us and get on vacation mode! Luckily for us, that was the only issue we had the entire cruise. We went directly to the lido marketplace for lunch, YUM, then headed down to our cabin. Even though they didn't start boarding anyone til 1pm, all rooms were ready at 1:30 and when we got down to our room around 2:30, our luggage was already waiting for us! We unpacked, got settled, went to muster and went out to explore the ship! Of an on throughout the afternoon we got updates from our AHHHHMAZING CD KYNDALL FIRE (more on her later) that due to the traffic, we wouldn't set sail til 7:30. She assured everyone that it would not affect our first port as we had two sea days ahead of us to make up time! We enjoyed watching the Kentucky Derby before our first dinner (earlier in the day we were able to switch from late time dining to any time dining) in the Horizons Dining Room (3 and 4 aft). Most all the food we ate in the MDR was very good. We found service to be slower when we went to eat after 6:45ish and the quality of food seemed better when eating earlier. Nonetheless, using the Carnival HUB app to check in was not a problem at all and the longest we waiting for a table was the first formal night. Even that wait was only 10 minutes! The first night was the only night we were seated in a different spot than the other 5 days we ate in the MDR. We really liked this aspect as this was one concern we had of trying Anytime Dining for the first time. We always enjoy having the same wait staff that gets to know us and vice versa during the cruise. In fact, we didn't even have to ask to be seated in the same spot. It must be an automatic thing in the system. Anytime Dining worked very well for us and we have no complaints! We headed out to the Liquid Lounge (4 and 5 forward) for the first big Welcome Show. It's here that we were introduced to Kyndall FIIIIRREEE, BOM BOM BOM! There's only so many words I can say about someone before it gets redundant but suffice to say, Kyndall is the most outgoing, bubbly, joyous, charismatic, HILARIOUS person I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Yes, I said person, not cruise director! Maybe it's because we are very close in age and I am envious of someone who clearly loves her job so much, or the fact that she lets her huge personality light up any room when she walks in, but really truly, she made every aspect of our cruise better! On previous cruises, I never remember CD's, their faces, names, nothing; but I assuredly will never forget Kyndall! My mom and I both agree we will try our hardest to get on at least another of her ships in the future. Okie dokie. I think that's all for now. My goal is the post one cruise day review each day and hopefully life won't get in the way of that. I'm looking forward to any comments y'all may have! okay bye

Hey all! I'm about a week late but considering the amount of research and forum reading I did before our cruise, I find it only fitting to give my two cents on how our sailing went for you all to dissect how you will! For a little background, I am a 26 year old nurse and my travel buddy is my mom, a recently retired teacher. This was a last minute cruise that I convinced her to go on with me for Mother's Day. We booked in late March for a ridiculously good deal if I do say so myself. 😉 We've both been on four other cruises. This will be the second time on Carnival for the pair of us. We would be driving (what is normally a 4 1/2 hr drive from south Louisiana). We received word from Carnival the night before that the ship would be delayed arriving and all embarkation would be held off two hours. Plus, they mentioned "heavy traffic delays" between Houston and Galveston on I-95 so we decided to take an alternate route via the ferry. All in all, we left at the same time we initially planned and our trip ended up being 5 1/2 hours. Not too bad. We arrived at 11:30 to the EZ cruise parking and made our way to the terminal. It was noon by now and from what we saw, there were more people debarking than waiting to embark. We got in line and were inside getting our Verifly checked 20 minutes after. No issues with that and we headed up the escalators to the main check in desk. This is where we had issues. As our passports were expired and had to be sent in two weeks prior, we were without passports. We had to rely on our ENHANCED driver's licenses. I had done all the research I needed to be sure that we did not need birth certificates. The check in people disagreed and said everyone is required to have a birth certificate to board and that we would be denied boarding until we got pictures of our birth certificates. I showed them proof on multiple different sites including carnival.com and the Galveston cruise port website that one needs EITHER a birth certificate, military ID or enhanced driver's license to board the ship if you do not have a passport. They repeatedly ignored the obvious proof in front of them and required up to go off to the side in a waiting area to get pictures of our birth certificates. Soooo we reluctantly called my dad who was across town from our house where the birth certificate were. He went back to the house and snapped pictures for us. We owe him a big one! After the desk lady received the picture we waited another hour for our room to be" unlocked" and allowed us to board. It was 2pm when we stepped onto the ship and we were determined to put all that behind us and get on vacation mode! Luckily for us, that was the only issue we had the entire cruise. We went directly to the lido marketplace for lunch, YUM, then headed down to our cabin. Even though they didn't start boarding anyone til 1pm, all rooms were ready at 1:30 and when we got down to our room around 2:30, our luggage was already waiting for us! We unpacked, got settled, went to muster and went out to explore the ship! Of an on throughout the afternoon we got updates from our AHHHHMAZING CD KYNDALL FIRE (more on her later) that due to the traffic, we wouldn't set sail til 7:30. She assured everyone that it would not affect our first port as we had two sea days ahead of us to make up time! We enjoyed watching the Kentucky Derby before our first dinner (earlier in the day we were able to switch from late time dining to any time dining) in the Horizons Dining Room (3 and 4 aft). Most all the food we ate in the MDR was very good. We found service to be slower when we went to eat after 6:45ish and the quality of food seemed better when eating earlier. Nonetheless, using the Carnival HUB app to check in was not a problem at all and the longest we waiting for a table was the first formal night. Even that wait was only 10 minutes! The first night was the only night we were seated in a different spot than the other 5 days we ate in the MDR. We really liked this aspect as this was one concern we had of trying Anytime Dining for the first time. We always enjoy having the same wait staff that gets to know us and vice versa during the cruise. In fact, we didn't even have to ask to be seated in the same spot. It must be an automatic thing in the system. Anytime Dining worked very well for us and we have no complaints! We headed out to the Liquid Lounge (4 and 5 forward) for the first big Welcome Show. It's here that we were introduced to Kyndall FIIIIRREEE, BOM BOM BOM! There's only so many words I can say about someone before it gets redundant but suffice to say, Kyndall is the most outgoing, bubbly, joyous, charismatic, HILARIOUS person I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Yes, I said person, not cruise director! Maybe it's because we are very close in age and I am envious of someone who clearly loves her job so much, or the fact that she lets her huge personality light up any room when she walks in, but really truly, she made every aspect of our cruise better! On previous cruises, I never remember CD's, their faces, names, nothing; but I assuredly will never forget Kyndall! My mom and I both agree we will try our hardest to get on at least another of her ships in the future. Okie dokie. I think that's all for now. My goal is the post one cruise day review each day and hopefully life won't get in the way of that. I'm looking forward to any comments y'all may have! okay bye