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My sub-peeve on this is their cakes. When I want a slice of cake I want some cake. Our experience has been that the layers of icing are thicker than the layers of cake. At 10 years old I thought that was great. At 70 I want some cake. 😁

I don't claim to have any great insight but I have noticed a trend that I don't particularly like with the slot machines on Carnival and wonder if I'm imagining things or of anyone else has noticed and has any thoughts. It seems that with these new machines that all the machines of one kind are hot, normal or cold at the same time. For example all the "dancing drums" machines will be cold at the same time, showing a lot of numbers and letters rather than symbols, and will be normal to hot at the same time showing few, if any, letters and numbers. Of course there is some variation between each machine, but on the whole they are all hot or cold at the same time. I used dancing drums as an example, but I've been seeing it on the other types of machines - buffalo, solar disk, scarab etc. also. The effect of this is that while there might be say 300 machines in the casino there is in practical effect only something like 20 machines in the casino. If fifteen are cold then three quarters of the casino is cold. On our latest cruise ALL those similar groups were cold the entire seven days and only the few one or two of a kind machines were normal to hot. Previous cruises have had about half cold and it is always all machines of the same family. A casino with, in practice, only 20 machines is not our idea of fun. Are other cruise lines, outside the Carnival family, the same way these days?

The 9 a.m. public address announcements. If we've been up really late we can just roll over and go back to sleep, but most days it gets us up for the day. With 9 a.m. reveille we end up waking up earlier on vacation than we do at home. We don't keep nursing home hours. (But on the plus side they have brought back late night snacks for those of us who actually party and have fun on the fun ships.)

Kind of seems like your second post answered the question you posed in your first post...

No comparison; Carnival has Walmart beat when it comes to lines.

No problem; I bring my own hooters.

You may well be right, but it may be an attempt to both avoid raising prices on the longer cruises and bring the profit margin on the cheers program on short cruises up to the profit margin on longer cruises. I suspect their costs per day for cheers are higher on shorter cruises. A lot of folks can do 15 drinks a day for three to five days, but not for seven days. And when I say "can" I mean do it and not wish they hadn't. Early in our cruising days I would do 15 a day for three days, then cut way back for a couple of days, then finish with a bang. These days I rarely do 15 on any day, but I still let my body recover a bit a day or two in the middle because I'm happier that way. On a three day cruise I would probably be at 15 every day and recover when I got home.

It is covered in the port charges and taxes you pay for the cruise like Elaine5715 said.

About the time the mask mandate ended we started feeling a bit uneasy. People were being quite rude and ignoring all the rules with no reaction from Carnival. Then we saw people yelling at others and occasionally threatening others with no reaction from Carnival and we started talking about moving on. Then my wife was assaulted on the Glory this last spring and we stopped booking Carnival, except for Journeys cruises. We've never had concerns with the safety and seaworthiness of the ships.

LOL! Yep! I never understood those who take pride in how badly they can be treated before it bothers them. I like good food, good service, convenience and safety. These days that earns me the entitled label.

We've put Carnival in our rear view mirror EXCEPT for Journeys cruises. Our reason for leaving is safety, but the passengers on our Journeys cruises have always been great; no safety concerns. They are experienced cruisers.

The fact Carnival still rations bacon tells you all you need to know about their food. Too cheap to pay for good quality. The original excuse about supply chain issues no longer holds water; they just are not willing to pay for bacon every day or quality food ingredients in general. And yes, they want you to pay for specialty restaurants.

They will jump up and down for joy at 1am each day to let you know they are thinking of you...

I saw that episode of his. I have to say I don't agree with him. He puts it all on the passengers when I firmly believe it is all on Carnival management. Even drunks restrain themselves when they know there will be consequences. Those too far drunk to do so are also too far drunk to do much of anything. Midships, one person, saw all this. But you can bet Carnival didn't see anything. If they had security folks walking around each of them would have also seen things. And if they did their jobs they would do something about it. And word would get around and behavior would change. But Carnival doesn't have security walking around (other than the one week when they announced increased security) and when something is reported to them they work very hard to find a reason to do nothing (in our direct experience). So the word is anything goes on a Carnival ship and the behavior he saw, and you and my wife experienced, is a result.

Somehow none of this surprises me...

Got it last week. There is supposed to be a follow-up survey when you get back.

First attempt? Then you guys are naturals. Great pics and comments. I'm enjoying following along. Thank you!

Make riding the elevator an exercise in math and logic. In other words they make you work more so they can reduce the number of elevators to allow for more people to be squeezed onto the ship. Geeks (who love making the easy complicated) love them, normal folks with a few drinks hate them.

To quote a monologue by Australian stand-up comedian Jim Jefferies: "When you're on an airplane, there's a thing called 'plane etiquette,' and it goes like this. Window gets an armrest and a wall. Middle gets two armrests. Aisle gets an armrest and a little bit of extra leg[room]. We're not *** animals. We live in a society." 🙂

Cruise? Fort Wayne? 😁😆🤣

I just went back to that cruise and clicked on "Review Online Check-In" and the menu on the right I mentioned is still there with "Arrival Appointment" as one of the items.

Last week I did the check-in for our upcoming cruise and it was there. In fact when I clicked on check-in there was a listing of the steps on the right and I did the arrival time first and later went back and did the rest.

I suspect close to 100% of those involved in cruise ship fights feel the same way...

There are several problems. Will there be cameras? I guess it depends on the ship and their maintenance of cameras. When my wife was assaulted on Glory security said the only video was in the casino. Then there is the question of what legal doctrine the ship is following. When in international waters U.S. law doesn't automatically apply and even if it did what state's law would apply? In Georgia use of "fighting words" is justification for assault. If the group all say you called them some terribly offensive word or words then under Georgia law they may be considered justified in assaulting you even if it were all on video. Some states still have a "duty to retreat." If you are able to leave and thereby end the assault you are required to do so. If, instead, you fight back you may be found guilty of assault. English common law imposes a duty to retreat whenever it is safe. The age of the aggressor can also come into play and different places have different laws in that regard. Europeans must retreat from children with guns for example. Then, if you use language to put the fear of God into them, in some states you run the risk of civil liability for "verbal assault." So I still say "just walk away."

Unfortunately these days that could get one in a lot of trouble. When minors are involved you are greatly limited and touching a hair on their head can lead to charges of child abuse. Someone stumbling upon the scene will only see an adult doing something to a child and may well jump in to defend the child when they would not jump in to defend an adult. And when a group is involved you can count on them spewing lies; one person's word against 10. Just leaving is the safest and most cost effective move unless circumstances/self preservation make that impossible. Is it justice? No. But we don't have justice; we have a system of justice. Those are completely different things and knowing which way the system leans can save one a lot of grief.