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I guess it is one of those "you can't win for losing" situations. I have seen threads in which an OP expressed surprise about some "changes" they encountered on their cruise only to be pretty much told they didn't have the intelligence of a brick because they had not been following CC. Everything they mentioned had been discussed on CC ad nauseam and they were an idiot for not having done research before their cruise. Now the OP of this thread is doing his research. Since covid, on each cruise (12 cruises for us) something has been "changed" as the OP has probably noticed (can't say cut, that is negative thinking and change is normal and constant) so OP is asking. Strangely on our recent cruise, for the first time since covid, the only change was for the better.

We cruised about three weeks ago. What we noticed: - There is one cutback reversal. The late night snacks are back; something we really missed. - The Diamond lunch was a true lunch with some of the best food we have ever had on Carnival (why can't they do that for the MDR). - The soups in the MDR were back to pre-covid quality. That is, the chicken soup had a nice amount of chicken in it (on our prior cruise my soup had not a speck of chicken meat), the meatball soup had lots of very good meatballs. All the soups were very good. Service in the MDR still sucks (they try but too few staff).

I suspect it has to do with it being the first sailing after dry dock. But I, for one, would not mind at all if I could sleep a little later the day of boarding if it is the new normal.

So did I...

We resisted, but finally caved. One of the things we enjoyed about cruising was putting our phones in the safe and being away from the rest of the world for a week with only our sign and sail cards to keep up with. Alas, another of the joys of cruising that have disappeared.

I assume you are correct. We were always in the habit of putting our phones in the safe the first day and leaving them there till the last day, so we would have just ignored the app pre covid. But right after covid, when we explained our phones would not work with the QR code, they never directed us to the Hub app. Were the menus on the app all that time? Just curious. If it was on there I had an unknown at the time peeve that they didn't tell us that.😁

Right after covid they had QR codes on the tables. I don't recall if they still do. The QR code would take you to a web page with the menu. But if you have good security on your phone it won't let you open a web browser over an unsecured wi-fi connection. We had that problem on our first cruises after covid before they came out with the Hub app. The Hub app can be used over an unsecured connection (it doesn't have a web browser's potential to hack your phone so security doesn't stop it) and the menu that shows up from there is just as readable and expandable as a web page.

They have them, but sometimes in limited quantities. At times they make you feel like you are disrupting things by asking. My old eyes don't like trying to read a tiny screen or fumbling around to have the screen on when they come to take the order so I can remember what made-up name they gave something.

Before covid we did not get Elite offers, just Ultra. Since covid we regularly get Elite offers. Our gambling hasn't changed. I generally have 10,000 to 11,000 points for the cruise. I don't get offered suites, just balconies and only get offered $300 casino cash. Also, I don't think we get first shot at picking the Elite cruise we want. I recently received my latest offer and it says "access" starts October 12 while I have seen others comment that their access starts October 10. So I guess we are "low end Elite."

I agree. The tablecloths were nice. And the servers singing and dancing we find aggravating. We would rather not sit waiting for our meal or dessert while they do their thing. But a lot of folks seem to enjoy it so I think no end is in sight.

While it is not desirable it is unavoidable on a "family" cruise line. We only cruise September through April to reduce the problem and that has worked well for us. But it is a legitimate peeve.

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.