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I'll join the chant WILLDRA WILLDRA WILLDRA WILLDRA @willdra! I can't believe this thread got posted. I was just thinking the same thing!

I haven't read through the thread yet- but based on the length of your letter I'm not surprised you didn't get a response. Try re-sending a brief letter with bullet points and a potential resolution you'd have in mind. If you already had a meeting with them to discuss your concerns, they might just file the letter away anyway. Best of luck.

It can, however, be very cold on sea days 🙂

Can you expand on this? From what I've read around these boards, people seem to enjoy the shows on the excel ships- especially given that they involve aerial stunts. My impression was that people didn't like the venue (Grand Central). RCL is definitely doing better with their productions- they still have live accompaniment.

The itinerary you posted is the preferred route as you get a full day in Cabo versus the other way around where you'd only get half of a day in Cabo. Overall, the Panorama gets pretty favorable reviews around these boards and others have posted their reviews for you to see. @deladane has a review on the main page that you might want to check out as well! We just went to PV for a week (after our Panorama cruise got cancelled) and loved every minute of it. We will definitely be back and there's plenty to see and do.

Disagree. It's just a different product. I appreciate you sharing your speculations, but 75% of Royal's brand is marketing, 25% is onboard experience as evidenced by all of those "loyal to royal" folks who would never check out the Celebration, Jubilee or Mardi Gras which are all getting rave reviews. Marketing might be Royal's strong suit, but discounting Carnival's product when their new ships are getting the reviews that they are is missing something.

Sounds like you were the victim of a scam here, sadly. I doubt Carnival is going to change their mind until you pay whatever they feel is due. You could try a brief email to their customer service explaining the issue and asking for help, but every company handles folks who are involved in chargebacks this way (as others have commented). I'd suggest following this guide and see where it gets you.

[Translated Article 1] [Translated Article 2] In case anyone was looking for it.

Excuse me, but what? $200/p.p. is absolutely wild. I get it's an Oasis class ship so it's bigger- the tour takes longer, etc. But that's just wild pricing.

I enjoyed the Key (solo cruiser at the time I used it) but wouldn't pay more than $5/day than the wifi price would be. When I got it, it was under $5/more/day than the premium wifi was and I found it to be well worth it.

Loving your review- thanks for sharing your experience with us! Our cruise on the Panorama got cancelled for 12/9, so it's been nice to live vicariously through your photos and storytelling. I hope night 1 was the only dinner drama you had to witness. Although entertaining, I'd rather eat in peace.

It is. It's only about a two hour drive by car, so there's no rush for the ship to get up and go for that short of a journey overnight. When I did Los Angeles to Ensenada on Carnival, we did like 6-8 knots the whole way.

Weird that a thread from so long ago got bumped up, but if OP is still around and is still looking for help, Elliott Advocacy has a great resource to help consumers self-advocate. (if others see this post, hopefully it can help someone!). Honestly, you need to pair that letter down into action steps the cruise line can do to make it right. It likely wasn't read by anyone at the cruise line at that length and level of detail.

I don't. But thanks!

IMO- they should have done this in the first place while also offering a full cruise option for those who wanted it.

I agree with other commenters- would 8k have been reasonable for a JS in the first place?

If this were happening on nearly every voyage, you'd know about it. It's not. Plain and simple. You're wrong.

I'm curious about what you feel you'd be missing besides the shows? Most shorter cruises still do the crowd-favorites in terms of entertainment as others have mentioned and confirmed.

Makes me wonder if RCL thinks that those doing the world cruise will likely be "last time" cruisers with RCL. I wonder if their marketing team studied this at all before moving forward with the world cruise idea. You spend nearly a year onboard and you've kind of been there done that- moving on to something else for your next trip. For me, if I were on the world cruise, I don't know that I'd want to go back onboard again.

Again, asserting that it's happening "all the time" is the problem. It's not happening all the time. I'm on tiktok and just searched for "carnival fight"- guess how many results (that weren't the same incident)- less than a handful. Put Carnival down where we need to, but implying that the fighting is a chronic, every single week regular occurrence onboard just isn't factually based.

I think the answer to this question, specifically, has to be yes otherwise they would have offloaded their smaller fleet to the scrapyard during Covid like other lines did. Plus, Royal brought them back into service post-covid. I think the next question you posed is interesting- the margins and returns on the larger ships must be better for Royal overall or they wouldn't keep building bigger. Granted, they keep sending these mega ships to Perfect Day which just adds so much to their bottom line, too. I'm also thinking about how the A380 didn't take off - while not a perfect comparison, the bigger the plane the bigger the expenses. I wonder if Royal has hit their limit when it comes to returns with the new Icon class (i.e. pax/expense ratio). I'm thinking the returns on the smaller ships must be less but maybe more consistent if they are easier to fill to capacity.

I think we all hold cruise lines to high expectations and standards, however categorizing fighting as "week in and week out" is hyperbole at best. This cruise specifically was likely max-capacity due to the holiday, plus only a 5 night (and we all know what 5 night or less cruises really are for). Things happen, but definitely not every week. It's cruise critic, but we can be fair in our assessments.

I'm curious what you mean by this. Several commenters mention "clientele has gone down" but that's such a vague statement it's practically meaningless, especially when many of us on this very board are "clientele" of carnival.

Did you miss the fight onboard a royal ship last week? For how many cruises sail without problem, there are bound to be cruises with issues- especially during peek travel times. I've sailed Carnival plenty of times with exactly zero incident onboard. It's luck of the draw for any ship where you pack in 2,000 of your newest closest friends.

If they do, they really need to bring in Bravo to do a Below Deck style show where we get to watch all of the guest drama unfold in real time. World cruise '23 TikTok has been really entertaining so far.