cruisingguy007

Sounds like an actual accident but who sits on the railing? I'd be way too scared to do that, even if tipsy. It's just way too dangerous. There are some colorful comments in the comment section though lol.

Well that ought to reach some people. 🥳

I've seen these on the ship lots of times but not on any other advertising platform. Granted, I haven't had cable TV in years and don't watch many commercials unless they are part of a live sports stream from a network source but even within that limited scope I saw a NCL and RCI ad within the last year or so.

I've had the same experience, got there a bit early and the cards didn't work, waited the few min and then they worked. Controlled assess would be my guess as well.

Smart, this would work out west for sure. A campaign reminding folks that cruising isn't just for old folks by highlighting some of the new features on the ships, specifically reminding folks that a passport isn't required and talking up the all-inclusiveness would certainly yield dividends. I don't think I've ever even seen a Carnival cruise commercial. I've seen a couple of NCL commercials (I think it was during sports) and one RCI commercial. Raising awareness in certain markets makes a lot of sense, new cruisers that have a great time will tell others. We've only been cruising a short while and have introduced several cruise newbies and all have instantly loved it but had no idea about it.

Kinda ironic that they call it "cheers" when you can't even buy others a drink lol. Say you're traveling with a group but you bought cheers and want to buy everyone else a round, can't do it because it counts against your total? What if they are a group of beer drinkers, a bucket would save a little over an individual rounds, sorry can't do that. I guess it makes for a good excuse not to pay for drinks for your traveling companions but it's the antithesis of cheers lol. I guess they mean you can order a drink, wait 5 min, order another and then cheers yourself double-fisted. 😁

Never tried to buy a fishbowl but have bought buckets and multiple bottles of wine in addition to the 15 with cheers. I'm not entirely sure it's all about the 15 limit or else why offer discounts on bottles of wine? Is it alcohol discrimination lol? It seems strange and not a smart move to limit these additional sales, very few folks are going to drink 15 and be looking for sharables just to consume all by themselves (and at full price w/added auto grat). It also causes a issue for folks that are traveling in groups and some may want cheers but also want to buy drinks for their friends/family to have (ie buckets, pitchers, tubes, bottles of wine etc) or just simply buy someone an individual drink. Not everyone has the same budget and this gets Carnival all up in folk's financials by trying to nanny up in folk's business. It just doesn't seem like it would be that big of an issue to have these random blanket bans on purchasing only certain additional alcohol types. The whole concept is odd.

With the electronic key cards, they can control to the min when they work, so maybe they are doing that to attempt to cut down on the folks that are trying to bogard the cabins when they don't have first access privileges.

“I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”

You can check the online cruise discount sites for last min cruises as well, they can be a valuable resource for exactly what you are looking for. If the ship still has plenty of availability, booking a pack and go rate a few days before direct with the line can work as well. Either of these will generally yield good results if you don't really care much about cabin location/type.

Preach!

Sharables don't count towards your cheers count and you'll pay full freight for those and they generally won't sell you a double because they can't separate the first free drink and the topper pour so that is out, plus a double isn't really meant as a sharable like the buckets, pitchers or diabetesbowls. There also won't be much that isn't covered, you'll have to go out of your way to find anything over $20 and the few options they used to have regularly have pretty much vanished. I always thought is was $20 was covered and you paid the difference and got 25% discount on that overage amount.

Then they wonder why folks aren't so enthusiastic about Vegas anymore. Between the $20 for a basic meal, high table minimums, slow drink service, $15-$20 bar drinks etc, it's lost its luster. You can get a great room rate and flights are still cheap (sometimes) but that's about it. They've priced a lot of folks out and many that go now play, eat and buy off the strip with many long time gamblers avoiding the strip altogether. Even CES was a bust in 2022, it will be interesting to see if 2023 is bust also, I predict it will be with all this flu/covid/sickness going around.

$5

I totally get this and don't understand the folks that say "oh well, pay to eat somewhere else" as that is ridiculous IMO. The food is a main part of a cruise fare, having terrible MDR food is unacceptable. I'm not sure what folks can do besides choose another line or remove gratuities and use those to offset up-charge dining (which sucks for the crew folks). It just sucks all around. I can also appreciate liking the short cruises, if you're a party person, a few days of going hard is usually enough and a 4-day fits the bill perfect but I tend to prefer the crowds on the 7-day cruises over the 3-day weekend booze cruises. The vista class ships can feel overcrowded in public areas at certain times and it can be frustrating, especially lido on a sea day with all the towel hogs. Sorry you got the covid but I'm not sure it has anything to do with vaccinated or not, I'm on day 4 of isolation myself thanks to dressing up as Santa for our school holiday event and I've been jabbed, boosted and rejabbed and am up to date. Still kicked my butt on day one and was worse than a cold or flu, luckily I scored some Paxlovid quickly but that first day and a half was rough and no joke. Hope you recover quickly and get back after it.

Called the 1-800 number and the agent put me on hold to contact the Fun Shops and figure out what was going on. Waited for conformation, I doubled checked and confirmed the amount and she said all way good and they should be shipping. Still waiting.

Drizly always has a $5 off coupon and is cheaper than the food delivery services, most of which will do booze deliveries as well (mostly from grocery stores). Drizly is the way to go and order from a big box like Bevmo or Total Wine (you can select in upper right hand corner) would be the most affordable option.

Hey, thanks! The Paxlovid helped and I'm already feeling much better. The upside is that I have a cruise towards the end of January and will be fully recovered and should have some antibodies built up so I'll be a bit more relaxed and will probably hit up the shows and comedy club now and not avoid them like I usually do. There is always a silver lining. Hope your cruise goes well also.

To people who never heard of cruises and are used to Yosemite, visiting lakes, camping, Disnyland, skiing and beach towns for vacations, it is. Lots of folks like that in California.

While that is a great story, I'm a native and been here in California all my life and cruising just isn't a thing here in California like it is in other places like Florida, especially in Norcal. I've never known anyone who cruised as a vacation, it's the usual Tahoe, Reno, Vegas, Beach towns, Mexico etc. Cruising is still up and coming IMO, plenty of younger folks to market too.

That won't be until January if it comes at all. The numbers always spike during the holidays and into the new year and then begin steep declines around Jan 15 or so. It's the same every year. This year we also have flu and RSV going around. All this crap pretty much ruined my Christmas (first Christmas not seeing family) this year as I'm stuck at home with covid and lots of other family is sick with flu or regular colds as well. One thing I can say is covid isn't a cold, it kicked my butt the first day. I don't think LA will reinstate but be careful out there anyway.

I've been waiting for a few weeks for gift cards as well so it's not just credit card funds. I even called in after a week and they said the cards have been issued and would be sent in short order. Still waiting.

Mexico in the winter is awesome and California is a up and coming market. There are a crap-ton of folks who have no idea about cruising besides it's something old people do in Florida. Heck, I didn't take my first cruise until my late 30's because I just hadn't considered it. I've seen cruise ships on other vacations (like AI in Mex) and thought it looked like fun and looked cool but still just didn't know how everything worked and what it would be like. Many of the lines booking engines suck as well so that is a huge turn off to tech-savvy folks who view travel agents as an ancient artifact and want to book their own vacations. There is still so much untapped potential out west that the only place to go is up. Step up the advertising, show that it's not just a bunch of old people, show the fun and ease and excitement of what is essentially a floating all-inclusive and they will come.