ohioNCLcruiser

Keep in mind the extra weight a 12 pack or two can add to your checked luggage. I would certainly look at the map around your hotel to see if anything is within a short walk. Sometimes you can ask the hotel if its possible to have a food delivery service drop off a few cases before you check-in.

Make sure you check carnival . com/offers from time to time. Usually better deals show up there than what I get from the casino the last night of the voyage. 

2 hours ago, fyree39 said:

I sailed in August on the Panorama. During a lull, I tipped the Guest Services staff, asking if I could buy them a coffee. They about fell over.

That was a really nice gesture of you. At Guest Services a big part of our job was to reduce the amount of passengers that wanted to remove their service charge. We would get in trouble if a certain % adjusted it even though they were technically optional. The staff worked so hard to keep the adjustments down even though we were not part of that tip pool. There were days the lines would be so long that someone offering to bring me over a coffee would have made my voyage! Thanks for doing that for them!

2 minutes ago, BasicSailor said:

The son is home 🙂 and quote,

  Our son who was working on the Panorama for the last few months (his first Contract after the Covid Pause) has come home.  Thankfully, he didn’t get sick with any virus. He’s been with Carnival as a Fun Squad Member for a number of years.  Loved the job!  

I know, that's why I said "If he was still onboard I would...." 🙂 

I worked onboard NCL ships for five years at the Guest Services/Front Desk. First of all thank you to your son for helping get the industry back up and running. Sadly, after going on five cruises this year (3 on Carnival, 1 on HAL and 1 on MSC) I would have a very hard time working on the ships in these conditions.

I'm going to get really hated on for this comment but I noticed the problem is far worse on Carnival these days than the other lines. I think it's due to Carnival almost giving away cabins and having a different crowd with much fuller ships.

Sadly I don't think things will get better for him this year. After I finish my booked cruises on Carnival I'm sticking with the other lines for the time being. I wish your son all the success in whatever he ends up doing! 

(P.S. I'll be on the Panorama in Jan and Feb. If he was still onboard I would make sure I would thank him in person!)

Have a wonderful time! I got off her the 19th and had a wonderful cruise. The best included food I have had over the past 10 years on cruises. Great crew too.

I noticed on my recent Pride and Magic cruises as well. I actually caught covid on the Magic in October. I was on a Holland America cruise until the 19th and they were the polar opposite. Masks indoors were strictly enforced. 

Thank you for sharing the comments. I think it's important to inform people of the "real deal" beyond a company's PR spin to make sure people who are on the fence know what they are getting into.

Hi Everyone,

Carnival called me to get the information. Thanks for all the assistance. Feeling slightly better!

Thanks for the concerns everyone. Yes we followed the mast protocols and are big believers in them. I did notice that more and more were walking around inside without their masks on. The crew did their best to try to remind everyone when entering a dining area or venue. I noticed during my four return to service cruises that Carnival is the only one that still allows people to serve themselves in the buffet, touch tongs, condiments etc. I wonder if that is an area they can put safer policies in place? The crew on this cruise was wonderful I must say. 

9 minutes ago, ColeThornton said:

Just curious, were you and the affected people vaccinated?

 

 

Yes I was and I know one other was. Some strangers on our FB roll call page said they also got covid onboard so I'm not sure about them. 

7 minutes ago, ScottsSweetie said:

I hope that you all are feeling better by now!

I've never felt sicker but getting through it. Luckiy just intense chills, aches and lost of taste and smell but no breathing or blood oxygen level issues. Day 5 so hopefully gets better soon. Thanks!

5 minutes ago, JennyB1977 said:

Try this...For any post-cruise issues that require assistance, please send a detailed email to guestcare@carnival.com. Please allow some time for a response, as we are operating with reduced staffing. Thank you for your understanding. - https://www.carnival.com/about-carnival/contact-us.aspx

I sent them an email the day I got tested positive so hopefully someone saw it. Thanks!

Hi all,

Several people, including myself, were hit hard with covid symptoms the night we disembarked the Magic after an 8 day sailing. Tested positive on PCR tests the next morning. I feel like I need to report it but I'm having a hard time doing it. The post cruise desk telephone is closed, that department didn't answer my email, the regular phone agent wasn't sure. How should I go about reporting it? Thank you

Almost 90% on the Magic last week.

As long as the Jacksonville and Mobile crowd doesn't stop cruising because their ship is a Fantasy class of ship I think at least two are safe for that. From what I understand no other ship's can fit under the bridges. 

I think the Spirit class is very much safe. It's one of the top scoring guest satisfaction ships (my personal favorite class also) and works well for ports that can't fit the bigger ships. 

Just off the Oct 2nd sailing of the Meraviglia. Three years ago I took a Yacht Club cruise on the Seaside and it was literally the worst cruise ever. The food was awful, service was a miss. My Butler, who I didn’t see the entire trip, literally told me as he was walking me off the ship, “I’m sorry I didn't have time for you this week. You should come back when we are not so busy so you can get to experience it.” My entire party vowed to never cruise MSC again. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, my friend and I needed to book a last minute cruise and figured why not, let’s see what changed with MSC especially since we liked the idea of going to their private island for two days. We are sure glad we tried them again. Overall, we had a wonderful time.

Communication: Let me start with the bad. MSC is absolutely awful with communication. After boarding the ship myself and several others were surprised to see that MSC re-arranged our entire itinerary without informing anyone. This led to many who booked independent tours have to re-arrange or provide notice. At our first port, people were surprised to see that all aboard changed from 10:30pm to 4:30pm. If it wasn’t for them noticing the little sign posted they could have easily missed the ship. Other people had shore ex tours cancelled or re-scheduled without notice. MSC really needs to improve on this. It is so easy with the app these days to send a push notification so hopefully they do better.

Mergavalia: This ship was very clean and extremely well maintained. While the inside of the ship is the very internal facing, shopping mall style ship, the upper decks were wide open which was great. So many cruise lines have gone to cluttered, divided pool decks and this was the opposite of this. 

Music: MSC really shines with their live music all around the ship. Excellent quality from the lobby bar to the pool deck until well past midnight. This was a highlight of the trip.

Food: Everything we ate was enjoyable and fresh. Compared to our previous cruise on the Seaside, the buffet had a much larger variety of items, which was great. MSC still has the best pizza at sea. We went to the specialty dining sushi and steakhouse. The service and food in these were wonderful and we really enjoyed sitting “outside” on the promenade balcony. This provided great people watching and a good viewing spot for the ceiling shows.

Yacht Club:

-Cabin: We had an inside cabin in the Yacht Club so I’m not sure if this is just for YC or across the ship but we appreciated that they were still doing twice a day cabin cleaning. The housekeepers took care of any small request, kept the mini-bar restocked and provided chocolates each night. No towel animals were made for those who care about that. The Mergavailia still provides the mini boozies and hasn’t switched over to selecting a large bottle of liquor. This was my first time in an inside cabin in a long time and I won’t do it again. I enjoy the slightly bigger bathroom but it was a great value for YC.

-Topsail lounge & restaurant: In the restaurant and top sail lounge the service was always attentive and high quality. The butlers here were the highlight of our trip. If you’re sailing recently def say hello from James and David to Gracy Fernandes. She was absolutely wonderful and was working the evening shift. All the meals we had in the YC restaurant were great. The staff also had no issues with people requesting special items or dishes prepared a certain way. We did like the layout of the lounge and restaurant on the Seaside class a lot better.

I’ll add more details for now but I have to catch my flight home. Feel free to ask any questions and I’ll be happy to answer them! Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by how far MSC has come since our last time onboard. They went from a “heck to the no never again” to being back in our list of very good options. You can’t beat two days at the private island where you don’t need to tender!

Thanks!

James

I don't think they are doing any capacity caps currently. With that said, it seems that Carnival's occupancy % is ranging from 40-90% based on the sailing. My Carnival Pride in September was 65% while the Horizon in Aug was around 85%.

1 hour ago, sanmarcosman said:

I couldn't agree more. The Spirit Class is often referred to as the Goldilocks of the different ship classes. It's just right.

Great way of putting it!

Hey everyone!

Just got off the Carnival Pride's first sailing back and wanted to post a few summaries and answer any questions people might have.

Service: The service overall was wonderful. People were happy to be back and full of smiles. I noticed a lot of name usage this time around which was also similar on the Horizon a few weeks ago. Must be a big push from corporate. I do wish more people were aware that this was the Pride's first sailing back since I think a lot of people didn't realize this was somewhat a shakedown cruise. The staff was doing their best to get back into the swing of things and just needed a few extra moments at times. No biggie at all but was pretty embarrassing how some other passengers were verbally treating the staff about this. 

Housekeeping: Cabin service is once a day and you can choose mornings or evenings. I only ran into my housekeeper once but he did a great job. Towel animals were made daily and extra requests were quickly handled. No complaints on my end. There were numerous staff constantly cleaning the public areas. The ship overall felt very clean and safe! 

Food: Carnival's food has really gone downhill. I noticed this on the Horizon a few weeks ago and especially on this sailing. Seems to be lower quality ingredients and lower choice options. Part of this is probably the Chef's figuring everything out but it is also corporate cuts. Sadly a lot of other people onboard were noticing this also. The steakhouse was delicious both nights I went though but service was taking about 2.5 hours. We didn't care but people who were not warned got upset. Both times we were seated about 30 minutes after our reservation time and placed our orders about 50 minutes after our reservation time. Bring patience because that meal is worth it. I really suspect Carnival is trying to push people to specialty dining, however for the ships that don't have a lot of those upcharge options, it's pretty blah. 

Ship: I absolutely love this class of ship. Tacky, old-school Carnival décor is my favorite! She is showing her age but didn't matter. I wish there were more Spirit class ships.

Feel free to ask any questions! Overall I would say it was a 6.5 out of 10. Ship was 8 out of 10, service was 9 out of 10, food was 4 out of 10.

10 hours ago, travelingfools said:

Our very first cruise was on the NCL Wind back in 2006.  They had 10 or 11 day cruises sailing from Honolulu.  5 days in Hawaiian ports (2 Maui, Kona, Hilo & Kauai) 2 sea days to Fanning Island (1 day) and 2 days back to Honolulu.  We loved that trip, and have been waiting for them to return to Fanning.  There were a lot of people who complained about the 2 days there and 2 days back.  It was as if they hadn't read their itinerary and knew nothing about it.  Made us kind of laugh about it.  I love my sea days, and would love to repeat that itinerary!

 

My 11 day cruise on the Wind to Fanning Island was one of my favorites ever. I really loved how open the top decks of the Wind were. The worst seas I have ever encountered were returning from Fanning however. When I was working on the Pride of America it was a nice bonus that every other cruise the Wind would sail next to us all night on our way from Honolulu to Hilo. 

Thanks for the feedback all! The location would be Mexican riv and pacific coastal. Luckily this would only be one or two calls a week. Will think about it more. Thanks again!

27 minutes ago, seagarsmoker said:

I never had any luck with enough bandwidth for video to work. I use MS Teams and usually it would "stall". Not to be a "downer", I couldn't even get the audio to work successfully. 

Not a downer at all, this is exactly the type of feedback I need. Thank you! I know NCL has pretty advanced internet (Netflix can even work) but wasn't sure about the other lines. Thanks again! 

Hey Everyone!
I'm lucky to be able to work from anywhere and was thinking of booking a few HAL cruises to work from. From time to time I would have to join a zoom type call and was curious if this is possible on HAL? Basically in your experience, was the internet pretty reliable? Worst case I can join by audio only but would prefer video. Thanks in advance! (This would be on the Kon or Zuiderdam)

Doing a nice tip the first day to one or two servers saying "thanks in advance, please keep an eye out for me and I'll have more of this the final night" always works well. In my experience they can be slammed with people in a different part of the casino but if they see you they come right over to make sure you don't need anything. 

From what I've been told by someone who I really trust, the itin won't be cancelled but the ship is changing to a different ship in the same class. That was as of last week though so maybe it will change next week lol