Eli_6

Not on entering the building. There is a separate line for the final check in where you go up to the desk with the carnival employees at the very end once you get through security, but security was so back logged there was hardly anyone in any of the lines. I was annoyed that I paid extra for FTTF because it basically didn't get me to the fun any faster.

The lesson I have learned is that if they have one of those little count down things, stock up on gift cards. Anyone know how long they "stayed off" last time they disappeared?

Same thing for me as others experienced. I tried to log on today to buy Carnival gift cards to pay for an excursion and they are gone. I literally bought some to pay off the cruise earlier in the week.

Don't feel bad. I absolutely left my Kid's in Camp Ocean while we were on our Europe cruise and so di MANY other parents. That's a big part of the reason why I cruise Carnival because they have the option of safe, fun child care. I was able to ask my kids which excursions they wanted to go on and which ones they didn't. No point in dragging my kids on a multi-hour bus ride to see some historical site they don't care anything about and making them miserable and having to subject the other passengers to their complaining. Yet, at the same time, I am not leaving them at home while we are in Europe for 3 weeks when there are still many sites that they can see and experience. My kids actually do really well at most of them...castles, henges, anything surrounding medieval times, etc. A vineyard where we are doing wine tasting or a gondola ride through a Galician mussels farm? Not so much.

Which would you recommend for a tour through the cruise line or going out on my own from the cruise port of Zeebrugge? I am really into medieval history and so that is why I want to do go to Ghent rather than Brugges.

I think one was Stornoway and the other was Kirkwall, but now I am not sure... The reason I am not completely sure is they changed the itinerary shortly before the cruise. One of these ports was a dock and one was a tender. In the one that was a dock, there was a bus that went into town where there was lots to do. In the other (that was a tender), the tender boat dropped you off in a little town where there were things to do and see. Some of the excursions didn't show up last year until only a month before the cruise so they may still show up. Like I said, in all situations you could go out on your own with no problem...once you got off the boat.

This is entirely dependent on who reviews your OBC request. Some people get it, others don't.

@EngIceDave I admit that the reason I was hanging out on my balcony was that I was hoping to see someone make a mad dash to the ship...

Never mind about my entire post. I just realized people are saying the bookings being linked lets you check in everyone together. I guess the one time I could not do that, my bookings probably weren't linked.

One time (and one time only) I was able to somehow check in both of our rooms literally at once on the Carnival website. The two rooms were booked with a travel agent and were adjoining rooms. However, we have cruised other times and had to log in separately even when I *thought* the bookings were linked. (Although, the cruise I couldn't do it was also one where they had changed boats and rooms and put my young children on the opposite side of the boat from us so maybe the bookings where we couldn't do it weren't linked.) So, there is a way to do it...but I don't know how. If you have a travel agent, I would ask them as ours worked some magic. The only other thing I can think of is the "other room" involved my listed travel companions (husband and son) so maybe that is why it allowed me to do it. On the Carnival website, there is a way to actually add travel companions to your profile. It also saves their information in your profile with your own so you don't have to reenter all of their information every time you book a room. I do know they will let a family with young kids board together regardless of time, but that just makes sense because they aren't going to send my 8 and 10 year old to the back of the line by themself.

When we were on our last Carnival cruise a couple of weeks ago, the ship waited an hour past debark time for two people. I know because I was sitting on my balcony during the time. I was actually surprised the ship was waiting because I always hear about pier runners and have heard stories about people being left. We were in Cozumel in this instance. It seems like if the two people were on a Carnival excursion, there would have been more than two late people... It made me wonder if some of these stories were cruise line folklore. Admittedly, I have never actually known anyone who was left. Then, I saw on another cruise line's board that a ship had waited 2.5 hours past sail time for a passenger. The suggestion was made when someone asked the question of "Why didn't the ship just leave?" that the ship could not leave because the port the country was in (in that case, St. Maarten) had a law that a ship could not leave a passenger in that country unless the person's passport was left with port officials. Thus, the ship waited until they found the person. Anyone know?

Yeah, a 14 percent increase is more in line with inflation. But the prices jumping up by a third or more is what is crazy to me. But I guess everyone else is right. Cars, property, eggs, gas...the world we live in now. Sigh. Frankly, I am starting to feel like sometimes (not always, but sometimes) this is just businesses taking advantage and increasing profit margins. My husband and I own a small business and our expenses have gone up, too...but not to the tune of 33-50 percent. In Carnival's instance, I suspect that they feel like they cannot raise their cruise prices because they need to try to get people (in particular, new cruisers) on the boat, so they are trying to pay off debt by raising the prices of other things. For example, I was double-checking the price of the cruise we are going on since we have price protection and the current price of the cruise I am going on is within $100-200 of the price I paid when I booked it about 15 months ago. Considering this is a 12 day European cruise to about 9 or so ports that doesn't even have very much availability left, I was surprised the price wasn't higher.

Sorry. I made a typo. It was an increase of $350 to $500. It was 37.5 percent. The price went up by more than a third. The $400 should have been $500. And the other example I gave was an increase of $149 to $199 which is also a 33 percent increase in a short period of time.

@Carnival Cheerleader Relax. It was just a descriptive term. Picture the dudes from the movie "Grumpy Old Men" or "Statler and Waldorf"" from the Muppets and you have the men in my experiences. I guess I could have said: "The trouble-makers were old enough to know better." Or "They were in the AARP crowd." (I am in AARP so that isn't an insult.) My point was that they weren't a bunch of drunken college kids or former frat boys at a bachelor party.

I have never noticed the prices fluctuating before on excursions with Carnival. I also rarely see sales on them. Only sale I have ever seen was you can book three excursions for 10 percent off shortly after booking if you book all ports with them...and it is usually only available for select excursions. With that said, I am not at all surprised they raised their prices. My shock is more at how much they raised their prices on some of the excursions. Some aren't that bad - like the $150 to $170 example I gave is tolerable imho. But others have gone up 40-50 percent like the $350 to $500 example the poster above gave.

I don't know about those ports. I was on the British Isles cruise last year. We went to Edinburgh, two islands that were north of Scotland (I think they were in the Orkney Islands), Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Wales. However, there was not a problem getting to where you wanted to go once you were off the ship. The problem was getting off the ship. All the ports were tender ports except 2 and it was a huge mess. They unloaded the whole boat (2600 person guest capacity) with only 2 or 3 tenders. It took hours. They had the same problem in Iceland, too, from what I heard from other guests.

Also, when I was on a Europe cruise last year, there were MAJOR problems getting on shore in most of the ports because all but two were tender ports and they didn't have tender companies. They were only using two or three life boats that held about 40 people each to unload the Carnival Pride which has a guest capacity of 2680 people. It was taking some people 4 to 5 hours to get off the ship. They literally only had two or three life boats unloading the entire ship. And they were unloading the "Carnival excursions" first...followed by the platinums, diamonds and suites which was at least a quarter of the ship. Then you have the fact that a large number of the people cruising in Europe are older and mobility impaired and take a long time to get load/unload on the tenders. I am going to have to make sure the port isn't a tender port before I book an excursion or go out on my own. If it is a tender port, I feel like my option (after my horrible cruise last year) is to either take a Carnival excursion or just stay on the boat...which is not what I want to do considering I am flying my family of 4 across an ocean to go on a European cruise.

I actually know several people who have been enticed to take a cruise for the first time by the new Celebrity ships (Apex, Beyond, etc.) who previously would have called themselves "not cruise people." They are all 30s-40s professionals who either don't have kids yet or have kids that are older (teens/college) and they are leaving behind. My husband's aunt took her first cruise on a smaller, "luxury" line ...but she is late 60s and it was booked through one of the college alumni groups that travels together. My friends with young kids (jr high, elementary and younger) are almost universally cruising Royal, Carnival or Disney for their first cruise regardless of income.

As an aside, I likely never would have gone on a Carnival cruise on my own accord, but I went with a group of people who were like "this is the cruise our group is going on"...so I went and I had a blast. I had so much fun that I booked a Havana room on the Vista for my husband and I. It was great. The Vista was almost new then and it went right out of our home port...and from there on out, I was hooked.

My first three cruises were Royal, NCL, and Carnival in that order. So...those were my "starter" cruises. But I have no idea what makes a "starter" cruise line for the general public. It probably heavily depends on your location and age and what you are looking for. I doubt that many first time cruisers with young kids are hopping on Viking or Silver Seas. And I doubt too many 70 year old first time cruisers are getting on Disney...unless they are taking their grandkids.

The way I read what you posted, it seems to suggest that inflation is less in Europe that the US. Am I reading this wrong? Granted that is now a year old and before the Russian invasion... But if inflation is less than would not that mean that prices shouldn't be increasing as much in EU countries as what we are seeing in the US? At any rate, I am not arguing that inflation doesn't exist or isn't impacting prices. I completely agree that it is. I just suspect that some of the more dramatic increases (like the$149 to $199) is more about Carnival paying down their debt and less about what the cruise operators are charging. I doubt that the people on the ground driving the buses and conducting the tours are seeing a 33 percent increase in their wages. But I guess it is either increase the "extras" or increase the fares and they don't seem like they are increasing the fares much...

That's not a valid comparison and you are smart enough to know it isn't. Gas and groceries are always based on market price and airfare has always been variable based on demand. Airfare can even vary depending on the day you book it and certainly food prices vary based on market conditions and season. But many of these other items (CHEERS, steak house, gratuities, certain excursions that are always available on given sailings, etc.) have long had a "fixed" price on the carnival website. One of the excursions we regularly take out of Cozumel has been the same price for years...although, I am sure it has gone up now, too. And I strongly suspect that the tour companies aren't suddenly charging 30 or 40 percent more. Maybe in Alaska, but not in some of these more depressed countries. Heck, I don't even fault Carnival for raising the price, but if they were going to raise the prices so significantly and not just to account for inflation, some advanced notice would have been nice...like what they did with wifi, etc. And with respect to my specific situation (i.e. European countries), the dollar is stronger than ever in those countries so if anything the price should be going down for us. I paid less in tuition last fall than I had ever paid before because the dollar as compared to the GBP was so strong.

Try looking at Sandras cruise tours for Norway. She hasn't posted them for this year yet, but check in a couple of weeks. But, yeah, same here on the prices being ridiculous. If I booked all four of us on a Carnival excursion at every port of call we are going to for our 12 day cruise, I would be looking at an extra $4k+. The prices were already high and with these increases, I am definitely going to be looking at outside options in the ports-of-call that I don't already have booked. About half of the ports I went to last year on my Europe trip ended up having a bus or shuttle or something at the port to take you into the main town if the port wasn't located right there either for free or a very small charge...only they didn't tell us that was an option until literally right before we got off the ship.

That's my point exactly! Inflation is 8 percent. Not 20 to 40 percent. The mark ups were already crazy ridiculous considering how many people they stuff on a bus. One of the excursions is to a castle. The castle admission is $8.50. Train fare to the castle is $24 round trip They are pricing the excursion at $199. I am nearly positive it was $149 a few months ago which is already too high for something that you can do on your own and at your own pace for under $35 per person.

Carnival has announced many other price increases. They announced they were going up on wifi, bottled water, gratuities, CHEERS, steakhouse, etc. And, yes, when prices for either of the two businesses I have either owned or been involved in the management of were going to go up, we notified our customers rather than trying to sneak in a price increase.