ProgRockCruiser

This does bring up the point that the hot tubs get sanitized/cycled every night, so maybe if you check too early the water won't be hot yet. So check again later. :shrug:

I am really quite enjoying your cruise vicariously through you! I had asked earlier about the lack of pool in the Havana-esque Terrazza Carnevale area, since that was an option for a possible future sailing. But we've decided to take a break from cruising (at least the big annual cruise we try to do) for a couple of years and instead will be traveling abroad to see other parts of the world for our big trips. So threads like this are vital for still being able to experience some element of the fun, even if indirectly! Thanks for all you do in threads like this!

I agree with your conclusion, but it is curious that: 1. Luggage tags are provided with very obvious and vibrant color coding 2. The colors do not seem to be consistent and change over time for the exact same cruise and cabin So why send them out in color if it is meaningless? Seems like a weird thing to bother encoding. Maybe they had intended for the colors to mean something (and be consistent) but Something Went Wrong in the script/code...

Hot tubs are usually quite hot, but occasionally I have found one or two to be "warm but not hot". Pools don't get heated usually, AFAIK, but will warm in the sun and of course through body heat transfer from people in the pool. (A pool crowded with humans maintaining 96degF will eventually warm up.)

Right, that was the basis of my whole question. So...is it worth it to you to book in that area?

I read this half-paying attention. I thought it odd that you'd somehow sailed all the way to Oregon from NYC, and that you were also able to see the clouds and blue sky of Norway from there. Note to self: finish your coffee!

I'm not much of a golfer, so maybe what I thought they resembled says something about me more than anything else... 😵

Oh, the other option is not fill in any details about "his" booking until close to final payment date (leave it as TBA) - if he can't make it, maybe someone else can come along in his stead.

Thanks!

From what I gather, if your son is a no-show then you get no cruise fare refunded, but you will get port taxes/fees refunded, and I guess his portion of the auto-grats refunded or not charged. I'm not familiar with "additional charges" for a no-show.

Thank you also for this remark. I'm definitely leaning towards a Cove balcony, perhaps - we loved ours on Breeze...

OK, so I've never seen NYC from the water, or anywhere useful, really - just from the air flying in/out and the highways driving out. (That will change next year.) So what's up with the giant mushroom planters in the river, the leaning towers of pizza boxes, and the mid-game jenga building? (Nice shots by the way - the weather gives it a moody feel.)

Check out the East Coast -> Florida Port of Departure forum (where this will probably get moved), since you aren't the first to ask: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/386-florida-departures/

That is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. Thanks! And I look forward to the details and other further reading from your trip report!

Hey @Jamman54, as other have said, I always enjoy your reviews! I'm checking out cruises on Venezia for when she comes to Port Canaveral. I asked this in another (less recent thread), but what are your thoughts of the Terrazza Carnevale area, and the lack of a big pool (compared to the traditional Vista class ships)? Does it still make the Terrazza cabins worthwhile? I believe you are a strong supporter of the Havana areas on the Vista class ships. We like to lounge in pools, and the allure of a semi-private pool is what makes the Havana cabins appealing, but Venezia is missing that key ingredient (acknowledging hot tubs are still present).

Not sure if it is useful to bring this older thread back to life, but it seems so close to the original topic: The Terrazza Carnevale area doesn't have the large-ish pool that the regular Vista class ships have in their Havana-exclusive area. Is this exclusive area on Venezia still worthwhile as a result? Sure, there are still hots tubs, but now all the people who would hang out in the pool are likely to migrate to the hot tubs, thus overfilling them. Are there any other aspects of the Venezia that differentiate from the Vista class that you'd feel make the Terrazza Carnevale "upcharge" (a la the Vista-class Havana area) more or less worthwhile?

That is a good question: the qty 15 limit used to just apply to Cheers, and you could purchase (essentially) unlimited amounts off-Cheers, like those buckets. I'm curious for curiosity's sake as to the answer (because I would probably never do that).

How much sea life is killed by getting rammed by cruise ships? I bet no-one really knows the exact figures, because I also bet no-one voluntarily reports that, but it is reported that 20,000 whales are killed by ships (all types) per year: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23641422/whales-ship-strikes-climate-change-douglas-mccauley-benioff-laboratory Halting all cruising (which is totally a recreational activity) would have to have some impact there. Everything is a trade-off. Hydroelectric dams destroy salmon runs and drown entire valleys. Nuclear energy is great until you need somewhere to put that waste. Solar energy uses up a lot of real estate, costs a lot to manufacture (not sure of the energy payback times similar to what @aborgman noted for windmills), don't work everywhere/always, and have difficult-to-recycle materials. Fossil fuels are (by definition) ultimately limited in supply, relatively dirty, adversely affect the environment where they are "mined", and are otherwise problematic. Windmills might be the best solution for now. Or not. :shrug: Any way...back to the straw (man) argument!

Actually, New Zealand is looking at exactly this issue, and proposed (then canceled after backlash) a feral cat hunting program for kids. Seriously. But the problem is real nonetheless in NZ: far too many native birds getting closer and closer to extinction because people let their cats out. We have a cat - he's an indoor cat, he gets to explore the screened-in pool area and hunt anoles (lizards) there. Birds are safe.

Well, I think it is a thin-end-of-the-wedge type thing. Plastic bags and single-use plastics are now being phased out/banned in many places. Once you make people aware of an idea and get their buy-in, making further changes is easier. The trick will be spreading that mindset to the entire world, including some places in east Asia that are huge consumers (and poor recyclers) of such items. Amusingly, I remember when paper bags were being phased out in favor of plastic "to save the trees". Nowadays there is a concerted effort to emphasize managed wood pulp production (and maybe even mass-production sourcing from hemp), and paper is the preferred material. Oh, and reusable grocery bags (often made out of "man-made" materials) are often more intensive for production and then as eventual waste compared to just using the equivalent single-use plastic bags. Or, if you want to be paranoid: it is all part of the global conspiracy to brainwash you into giving up cheap plastics in favor of bespoke artisanal multi-use items to keep you under "their" thumb. 😉

I will admit I sometimes ask why didn't you look it up on the website (but usually after the answer is provided either by me or someone else). Because IMHO it takes just as long to post a question here as it would be to go straight to the authoritative site, where you will get your answer immediately, vs waiting around here some undefined period of time (and potentially for a wrong answer - because I've seen plenty of those!). So it seems very inefficient if your true need is an accurate answer. While this is a great site, it is, by definition, "untrusted and unverified" information. The best types of questions to ask here, IMHO, are the types that rely on cruisers' personal experiences or opinions, vs hard facts that have (usually) a single definitive trusted source elsewhere. For example, Carnival will tell you where you cabin is located on a deck plan (i.e. the factual matter), but cruisers here will be able to tell you whether that is noisy because it located below the galley or above the disco. Those can be useful and enjoyable (and/or amusing) threads. In this thread alone there are varying opinions of whether the Arrival Appointment timeslot is enforced or not, and having that wrongly described as your "boarding time". The first is user-experience, though potentially misleading if the person enquiring takes the answers too factually: one person/party being allowed into the Priority line with FTTF two hours before their official "arrival time" appointment as one particular instance "last weekend" doesn't mean it will be allowed at the same port the next week. The second element (mis-describing "boarding time") is misleading, even if not intentional - the intended-to-be-useful information is tainted by the erroneous language. If I want to check on the EPA-rated mileage of a new car, or the MSRP, I would go to car manufacturer's website, not ask an enthusiast forum. But if I wanted to ask whether owners get anywhere close to the EPA mileage, or to find out whether anyone is getting any good discounts compared to the MSRP, then I would go the forum. EDIT: I will go on to say that if you come here and ask a question such as "The Carnival website says blah-de-blah, but that makes no sense because la-de-dah, can someone tell me what their experience was?" then that is a great use of this CC forum site.

Plastic straws are the popular "target" for elimination because of two reasons, IMHO: 1. The visual evidence that turtles and other wildlife confuse straws for food (seaweed and other tubular plant life) is very compelling, so it makes for an easy explanation of "why plastic straws are bad". 2. Plastic straws are very "optional" in use - e.g. they get dropped off whenever I order a water at a restaurant, and I never use them, and I try to say "keep the straw" nut it doesn't always work. And they have a variety of replacement options - the apparently unpopular candy straws, but also pasta-based straws, paper straws (some I've used last quite a while), and of course re-usable metal straws (my wife likes to use them). In Carnival's case, they got hammered over their "accidental" dumping of plastic in the ship waste. Straws seem to be the difficult item to sort out, so maybe they picked that because it is the thing that makes it easiest to comply for them - the vast majority of the plastic waste created on-board is dealt with by the crew (behind the bar, etc), whereas straws are the one frequent item that are the "responsibility" of the pax, and therefore least controllable. Specifically: This is happening in many places. But onboard, how much of that waste is created and likely to end up overboard accidentally? EDIT: forgot to add: so straws are the easy target that provides some nominal impact yet in theory doesn't inconvenience the pax. Except it obviously does, since the acceptance of the candy straw replacements is not exactly universal...

Yeah, that is true too. I don't use straws in general, even for frozen drinks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As noted, the "rules" say you should show up according to your arrival appointment time, so 2:00 to 2:30pm, and you can go directly to the priority line. As also noted, sometimes the rules don't get enforced. So YMMV. You should have been able to do your online check in two weeks prior to sailing - what delayed you to just a few days beforehand? That's why only the last check-in time is available - all the other earlier slots are taken.

This was suggested in a previous thread (one of many, of course) about the candy straws. I wonder whether the wax the was once used is now a California Prop 65 substance, so not able to be used? As noted, that goes directly against the concept of eliminating single-use plastics (which are now significantly restricted in UK restaurants, for example). Why do you not like paper straws? There are plenty of variants that apparently do not get soggy, and are "cheap enough" to buy in bulk - a 200 pack for $8 on Amazon for one type I randomly looked at, for example. And that one was a flexible straw too.