Lee Cruiser

10 hours ago, MeganGC1983 said:

Very full flight. Flight time to Nashville is 1 hour and 47 minutes. The flight crew just came from there and it’s beautiful today. Too bad we will only see the airport. 
 

We were on that exact same flight as well.  When we got home, we discovered that our luggage had gotten soaked in the heavy rain.

13 hours ago, MeganGC1983 said:

Honestly, this is the first cruise I couldn’t wait to get off of.

 

For my wife and me it was not one of our favorites either.  I will probably do a review later, but there were several incidents on this cruise that just raised my stress level instead of being a relaxing vacation.  You may not have experienced this, but our started with the embarkation.  As we were going up from the Captains Lounge to board the ship, there was a line of people coming up the way that stretched way down the hallway.  We really didn't know what was going on, so all of us just merged in and headed on the gangway.  You would have thought we had just committed a robbery.  We were called all sorts of names.  My wife just pulled me aside and we let the ones that were the most vocal on by us.  I caught a glimpse of their boarding passes and it turned out that the FTTF folks were going at the same time as many of the platinum folks, even though he had announced that it would be diamond, suites, platinum, then FTTF.  So that problem was created by Carnival.  We had priority letter K, so they went before a lot of the platinum folks behind us.

On 9/8/2023 at 5:57 PM, blarko said:

How did they get her back to the ship? And why didn’t they transport her to a hospital instead?

If this is the same one we saw, it was by ambulance.  Have no idea why they brought her back to the ship.  The ambulance came through while we were looking around the port.  They worked with her a few minutes and as we were headed back to the ship, they were bringing her back.

My wife and I are on this cruise as well.  Counting down the hours now!  We had to cancel our April Mardi Gras cruise, so it has been a long time since January.

3 hours ago, Old Fart Cruisers said:

Now just one day later, and soda results are down to 13.  Now Sprite Zero and Barq's are GONE!  Seagram's Ginger Ale & Tonic Water and Fanta Orange (which are all Coke products) are still listed.  Still NO Coke, Diet Coke or Coke Zero.  I wonder if Carnival could possibly be in negotiations with Coke and someone jumped the gun and started listing them as being available.  Now, just a day later they are being removed from the list of available products.

Just looked at ours again for a cruise next week.  Yesterday, several Coke products (including Coke and Diet Coke) were on there along with the Pepsi products.  Today it is back to just Pepsi products.

5 hours ago, LasVegasSolo said:

Also I just noticed that they have added a delivery fee for things ordered online so my question is did I just miss it before?

It's been on there. It is essentially the 18% that would be paid for gratuity if you purchased onboard.

I hope this just means they are going to do both and not switching back to just Coke products!

7 minutes ago, UGACamper said:

Had an extended balcony - lounger was already there upon arrival. 

 

Sadly, we literally went out on our balcony twice during our cruise.  There was just too much to do! Made me start considering insides or OV on the larger ships.

On Mardi Gras they were already out there as well and we spent most of the day out there away from the crowds on the public decks

14 minutes ago, wemjam said:

We have had a balcony on another ship that was larger and would accommodate a lounger but only had regular chairs.  I asked our room steward the first day and he was able to have a lounger put on the balcony for us.  

 

I don't think they would do this for a normal size balcony as there really is not a lot of room, but larger balconies a request doesn't hurt.

This is the largest extended balcony on the sides, so plenty of room for loungers

I was watching a video for extended balcony cabin 10346 and it has regular chairs on it. Our extended balcony on Mardi Gras had loungers. Is it possible to request loungers? Our plan is to spend a good bit of our time there.

It happened last night as we were preparing to check in for our Celebration cruise.  Tried to log in about 15 minutes before on two browsers and it wouldn't work.  Finally, about 5 minutes before it started working and didn't have any issues through the check in process.  Makes me think they may have been doing some maintenance before and stopped a few minutes before midnight Eastern time for those checking in.

56 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

Lots of questions.  Have you contacted Carnival?  Why did your insurance not pay the remainder?  Have you had regular correspondence with insurer?  Are they disputing the difference?    

It would probably be because it would be out of network.  When I had to go to the Carnival physician years ago, it was billed to my account.  They gave me the receipt and form to file with my insurance.  Mine was much less at around $250 or so if I remember correctly.  My insurance reimbursed me at around 70% I believe.  My current insurance would be about 50% out of network.

2 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

If the bill exceeded $2500, and the OP had a $2500 deductible, the OP would owe Carnival at least $2500.

 

Apparently the insurance company paid Carnival $1400, so the total bill must have been at least $3900.

 

 

I'm guessing the OP would understand his deductible.  Having been to the medical center before, I know Carnival requires payment upon service and does not file or wait on insurance to pay.  I read it as the total bill was $2,500, which they would have been required to pay in entirety before debarking.  He then filed it with his insurance and the insurance ended up sending the reimbursement to Carnival instead of back to him.

5 hours ago, nancy1031 said:

so if i want to dine at 7pm- get to  either the festival or carnivale  by 6:45pm to check in  - correct? 

The 6:30-7:30 time frame is a pretty busy time, so just be prepared to wait after you check in. Was there a particular reason you chose YTD?  Since you can't check in on the app, it would be much easier to do an assigned time.

5 hours ago, nancy1031 said:

life was sooo much easier when we had to go the mdr for dinner in the old days!!!

The app has made it so much easier than before.  We've done it both ways and prefer the app so much more than having to go wait in line to check in.

We usually do excursions when we go there, but we are considering just doing the beach this time.  Does anyone know if the chairs past the cabanas (near the scuba pier) are for staff only?  We have seen a couple of videos and one has people talking about hanging out there with good shade, but another said it was a staff area.  Just trying to get some clarification.  Thanks

On 8/11/2023 at 5:36 PM, fyree39 said:

We’re slowly working our way toward AI cruising with EVERYTHING included: drinks, tips, dining, excursions, everything. 

I certainly hope not. For those of us who don't drink, having drinks included would just means paying a lot more for the same.  Also, not sure  excursions will ever be included as these vary  greatly.

8 hours ago, rizkeeper said:

I pushed the issue up the ladder with AT&T however they never removed the charges.  After several calls and hours on the phone, I just gave up and ate the $375.

Their horrible customer service is the reason I switched away from AT&T a few years ago after having them for over 20 years.  Just got tired of having to spend hours on the phone and never getting my problem resolved.

Non-refundable doesn't necessarily mean you lose it all, you just can't get a cash refund.  For early saver fares you can transfer them to another cruise less a $50 per person penalty.  We did this last year when we received one of the 50% off anniversary deals.  We decided to cancel the cruise we had booked for April 2023 under a more normal rate and re-book it under the 50th anniversary deal.  Even if we would have lost all of our deposit we would have come out several hundred dollars ahead.  After cancelling I called and had the remainder of the deposit after the $100 penalty to a cruise later that year (2022).  Never tried to get the full deposit transferred, so not sure how much luck you will have at that.

The article compares the cost of a cruise with the cost of a Disney vacation.  I certainly don't think you can compare a Carnival cruise to going to Disney.  It's a much different type of experience.  The article also talks about closing the gap between a land vacation and a cruise.  For us, that gap has already been closed considerably.  We can do a land vacation for less now.  We have a cruise booked for November on Valor that we are probably going to end up cancelling.  We can do a trip to the Smokies Christmas and Dollywood Christmas for about $400 less after considering all costs.  That is also allowing a generous amount for meals.  We typically would have at least one cruise booked for the year after next by now, usually two which would be Jan and April 2025.  We don't have any booked right now and probably won't book more than one for that year.

When a cabin on a certain deck has been sold out, I have been able to find another cabin on another deck that is still in the same category.  For instance, if I have a mid-ship balcony cabin booked on deck 7 making it 8C, I was able to find a balcony cabin on deck 8 forward that was the same category. Not sure if that will work for your case or not.

On 7/10/2023 at 11:51 AM, TexasJohn82 said:

I wonder if we will see a price drop on Wifi (will have to happen industry wide) as Starlink should be cheaper.

It's doubtful that we will see any price decrease.  Everything on cruises seems to be going up steadily of late.  Even if it is less expensive, Carnival isn't likely to pass that along with all the debt they are trying to pay off.

Though we would prefer HMC over Nassau, if the price difference is only $300, we would choose the Mardi Gras.  It's an extra day of cruising, the food options are much better and it has better entertainment, especially much more comedy.

As far at the balcony in December.  We cruise just about every January and still love our balcony.  The main time it is very cool is later at night.  During the day it is usually good.

1 hour ago, MagnoliaBlossom said:

Once you have the card(s) how do you use them?  Call ahead with card number and attach to your account as OBC, or is it done after boarding?

Thank you.

If you want it as OBC, then you do that onboard.  If we know that we will spend a certain amount, we go ahead and purchase cruise cash ahead of time to avoid having to do it onboard.  But, you only want to purchase what you will use, because it is not refundable.

We also use them to pay for the cruise, internet and excursions that we book beforehand.

We always choose YTD, but I believe I've read that you actually have to wait until 7:45 to request a table because it's based on when tables become available and not actually a set reservation time.  It works the same way with YTD, except YTD can request a table as soon as the window opens. With YTD, you request a table and you are notified when your table is available.