ohioNCLcruiser

1 hour ago, jsglow said:

Oh, were you the one that started that thread that she was an old piece of junk?  Yeah, I remember that one.  Very much looking forward to our month onboard her over the next year.

Nope that wasn't me. I'm considering booking her 12 day August sailing out of Dover next month. I still had a great time onboard. Hopefully the old neglected girl gets a nice makeover next year. Love that class of ship. She has some wonderful crew that I'm sure will give you a great experience. 

2 minutes ago, jsglow said:

When were you on her Ohio?  I've seen all those reports too but we were on her 9 months ago and she mostly seemed okay to me.  Maybe I just didn't see it.  No doubt one of my very favorite ships to date.

My last time was the TA in May. I wasn't even sure I would trust the lifeboats lol! Even inside my bathroom in my cabin the frame was all rusted out. Crew was great the ship's condition was not.

Based on her current horrendous condition the more weeks in drydock the better! I love the Spirit class of ship and the crew on the Pride was wonderful but she was looking awful. Glad she is finally going to be getting some much needed TLC. 

On 7/6/2022 at 10:46 PM, Badfinger said:

 

Why in the world would he even want to take a cruise?  Constant reminder of work..at least it would be to me.  

I worked at guest services onboard cruise ships being screamed at by passengers 42 weeks a year but I still love cruising. Quite the different experience! I bet that is part of why he isn't cruising on Carnival though. That might be too much like work for a vacation. I would not sail on a ship I worked on.

On 7/6/2022 at 9:49 AM, Eli_6 said:

The problem is that some of us not on casino offers or who booked these cruises a long time ago are still paying the full fares.  I don't expect much if I get a free or almost free cruise. If the cruise is costing me 10k, I expect more.  And, yes, our cruise was nearly that much because we have a vista suite and an adjoining balcony.  Granted, to have a suite and adjoining balcony on Royal, it would be at least 12k-15k and on Disney, Celebrity, etc. it would be 20k or more. So, perhaps, maybe the sentiment still holds true...

 

With that said, I recently priced a cruise out of Barcelona for a 2 story family duplex on MSC and it was only 8k so maybe I need to look into MSC...and the room was absolutely INCREDIBLE and I think was even in the Yacht club.

Oh you are in for a treat if you book that! The Yacht Club is a wonderful experience and like others have said on here MSC keeps their ships looking stunning. Carnival suites come with almost no perks unlike the other cruise lines. Private pool area, deck area, suite guest restaurants etc. 

I mentioned in my first reply that the crew on the Pride was wonderful and the itins in Europe are great so I'm sure you will have a great time. However now that my casino offers have dried up I am not booking any new Carnival cruises for the time being. There are much better bangs for your bucks out there for your money. 

1 hour ago, Eli_6 said:

Oh no!  I have been so excited to go on my Pride sailing in less than 2 weeks for so long.  Some of these things I can understand, but (for example) the cracked glass is unacceptable and a safety hazard.  It could shatter and hurt someone!

 

FWIW, you are not the first poster who has complained about the state of Pride. 

I was most recently on the Pride during her transatlantic cruise. The crew is A+, food was average for Carnival and we overall had a great time. With that said the condition of the ship is jokingly bad. Even the comedians were calling it the "Tetanus of the Seas" due to the exposed rust. My friends and I were even joking that some of the outer decks and metal fixtures on the Titanic looked better after 100 years under the water. One person in our group had instant buyers remorse when they boarded the ship after coming off some other cruise lines recently but the service and itin is what won him over. So have a good time, enjoy the crew but yes the ship is in awful shape. It was embarrassing being docked next to other cruise line's ships.

A moment of silence for the hard working crew that is assigned to clean the public restrooms around Guy's Burger after this new burger launches.

On 6/9/2022 at 8:23 PM, kangforpres said:

Our house is going to get a major remodel that might take 6 weeks, so with any luck I can be away from all that noise.

Thats very brave of you to not be around to check the quality and progress along the way! Myself and just about everyone else I know who has done a remodel this year has dealt with horrible contractor issues. Poor quality, delays, not showing up etc.

12 hours ago, Elaine5715 said:

I thought Fly2Fun guaranteed that they would get you on the ship? 

One of the biggest misunderstandings about Fly2Fun. They guarantee you will get to the ship either on your embarkation day, next port or not at all...🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️

If you are on Facebook you can write a post on John Heald's wall with whatever request you have three days before the sailing. Make sure to include your booking number and he will forward your request to the ship. Remember though just three days before not anything earlier. 

On 3/2/2022 at 9:26 AM, jsglow said:

It'll get a 'sun' related name for sure.

Carnival Brilliance 

On 1/26/2022 at 6:11 AM, travelplus said:

I was wondering what is the current capacity on the Panorama? Are they distancing cabins? 

 

The reason I ask this is lets say no one is staying in the Balcony cabin next to me can they remove the partition for a larger balcony and bring me some lounge chairs and a larger table? 

They won't do that sorry to say.

My Jan 22nd sailing had 2,200. My Feb 5th sailing had 3,200 and they were expecting the Feb 26th sailing to be at almost 4,000. The empty days of the Panorama are over...

4 hours ago, travelplus said:

Glad I am going the 24th so hopefully not too many kids and it will be quiet! Wonder what the capacity will be.

They are expecting the 26th to be their busiest sailing since the restart. Expect 3,800-4,000+. Huge amount of casino offer bookings. Did you mean Feb 26th or a different month? 

This week we have just over 3,200 passengers on board. 1,000 more than just two weeks ago. They are expecting this and more through the end of spring break at least. 

New itins coming or will she be a fleet exit? Hmmm

It's interesting that the Spirit becomes unassigned about 10 days before the Pride leaves Tampa on a 14 day transatlantic to start her European season. I wouldn't be too surprised if the Spirit took over her sailings and she stayed behind here in the US.

Hi Everyone,

I have a casino offer that comes with free drinks in the casino and freeplay. I notice that if I login online it shows the same casino rates but I can't if that is the casino offer. If I book online will I get the benefits I would get if I also called? The reason I rather do it online is several of us are booking together but in all different areas currently. Would be a lot easier just doing it online. 

Thanks in advance for your help!

James

I think the OP was asking about how recently, before the covid mess over the past week, the Panorama has been swapping its itinerary order a few weeks before each sailing. 

Instead of Sea - Cabo - MZ - PV - Sea - Sea it becomes Sea- Sea - PV - MZ - Cabo - Sea.

I would assume this will continue forward until the ship eventually gets fixed in dry dock. Has there been any sailings over the past couple months that didn't have their itinerary reversed before sailing?

The Oasis class is in my opinion one of the coolest classes of ships ever built. I also thought it was the least crowded feeling ship we had been on. If its within your budget I would pick one of those. As mentioned above I would select Allure last since they don't have as many of the updates as the others. See if you can pick an itinerary that stops at CoCoCay their private island. 

5 minutes ago, tm_aw_love said:

From what I understand they did actually get all the way into port in PV... what would be the difference between this and any other 'technical stop'?

Passengers have to be allowed to actually get off. Ten years or so cruise lines going to Hawaii were doing a 2 hour stop in Ensenada in the middle of the night to comply with this law while not actually allowing passengers off. NCL went to court and had it changed.

2 hours ago, igraf said:

I am happy to hear that the food was regarded so well by experienced cruisers.

 

igraf

 

 

My next three sailings on Carnival are going to be so disappointing now in the included food department! 

I wonder if it's in Carnival's best interest to cancel the next voyage, really space out the crew and let everyone be in their own quarantine for the next week? One way to nip it or reset the numbers for now to allow the ship back in ports. 

Hi Everyone,

We were a party of 5 (in 3 cabins) that sailed on the Koningsdam on Dec 12^th and I wanted to share my views. Overall, we had a wonderful time. The cruise started with one negative. I want to share that first to get it out of the way.

My mother and her partner had a Vista Suite on deck six. Obviously, they are fine with traveling, but they still have general concerns about covid. A big part of making them “at ease” with the cruise idea was how clean the ships are these days. When they boarded the cruise the cabin was ready for occupancy. Everything looked properly cleaned until they opened the drawers and the previous cruiser’s dirty clothes were still in them. Not wanting to ruin the trip, they pointed it out to the area’s housekeeping manager who apologized and offered to have the cabin properly cleaned and sanitized. Fast forward a few hours and they had finished and the cabin looked great. Around dinner time they went to put something in the fridge to discover old, half consumed food from the previous person was still in the fridge. This made them really question the true state of cleaning the ship however they moved to a different cabin and absolutely loved their housekeeping team after that. Our two other cabins had zero issues throughout the sailing.

Embarkation:

1.       We had a 2pm boarding time but found ourselves ready to check-out of our hotel around 10:30am. We went for a walk with our luggage down to the pier to see if we could drop off our bags early at 11:15am and they let us do the entire check-in process. I would say we were 5 of 50 total people at the time. From arriving to the pier to being on the ship was 15 minutes. Very easy process but it certainly helped we were the only ship there and was sailing with just over 1,000 passengers.

Ship:

1.       The ship is in great condition. This was my 5^th sailing since the restart (3 on Carnival, 1 MSC and this one) and you can tell HAL did a great job maintaining the ship during the downtime.

2.       I really enjoyed the beautiful décor of this ship. We all really enjoyed it more than the Westerdam. It felt modern and fun. The Koningsdam has such a great variety of artwork onboard. My favorite was the forward stairwell. Make sure you take some time to walk down each deck to check them out.

3.       My only negative is the ship has many areas where you can’t pass through without going up, over and down. Also the upper deck not as open as I like. Not a lot of lounging areas or places you can walk the full distance of the ship.

4.       Public areas looked like they were constantly being cleaned throughout the cruise. The crew did a great job with this.

Entertainment:

1.       The shows in the main lounge were great. It appeared (and I might be wrong) that they didn’t have a full production cast but they provided a wonderful experience regardless. The sounds and visual screens add so much.

2.       Some of the music venues were too loud for the small space. The performers themselves were great just not the best venue for them.

3.       Our group loves trivia on cruises. The 4pm trivia sessions were not fun like other cruises we had been on. It almost seemed like taking a test in school. At one point people asked the person reading the questions to slow down and repeat and she said, “I don’t have time to repeat everything or wait long between questions.” It just wasn’t like how it usually was.

4.       The casino had a nice amount of activity for its smaller size. The bar staff and waitresses were always around and it was never difficult to get service. They were wonderful!

Service:

1.       The service, besides the housekeeping incident I mentioned before, was wonderful throughout the cruise. Everyone was on their A-game.

Food:

1.       The included food was the best food I have had on a cruise in a very long time. The main dining and buffet offerings were always fresh and delicious. Honestly, everyone in the party was very impressed and we are all seasoned cruisers.

2.       We dined in the steakhouse and it was a special meal. The service, the quality of the food, the ambiance etc. I highly suggest it.

Those are my quick notes for now. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll be happy to answer them!

James

19 minutes ago, smellywax said:

So the Viking ship docked next to us were allowed to go ashore. They arrived before us and have passengers going back and forth. There is a Princess Ship (Carnival Corp) that was coming into port but stopped and anchored and this isn’t a tender port so they may not be getting off either 🤷‍♀️

That might be the case but P.V. is also a tender port. They have a tender platform just in front of the main dock for when they have multiple ships that can't be docked together.