dabomb6608

That is an accepted consequence of choosing Anytime/Your Time Dining. It is "first come, first serve" and as such can result in a wait time during peak times. Obviously there comes a point where it would be an "over-booked" dining choice but I don't think it has reached that point as an option. Early Dining is almost always sold out first.

Post Cruise Update: On Mardi Gras last week it seemed the MDR used the traditional dish and Cucina Del Capitano used the odd thinner oval shaped dish. We ate at Cucina 2 evenings. First evening the melting cake was a tad over cooked. Second evening it was a touch on the opposite end. Had a cake covering and didn't seem "warm". Both times I ate them in full and they were delicious regardless. MDR seemed dialed in with cooking each time. I noticed this trend with most dishes and especially drink glasses. Most restaurants/bars had their own style glassware. This is likely to keep track of where they belong in the very common occurrence of them ending up scattered about the ship.

Wife and I just returned from a 7 day Mardi Gras cruise and are currently discussing our next cruise. We are now at 17 Days on our VIFP Accounts. I mentioned doing an 8 day cruise to push us into Gold Tier. When looking for 8 day cruises the same week in January 2025 (Cruise starting weekend of Jan 4th) the options are honestly kind of disappointing. The only choices I am seeing are between Carnival Spirit out of Mobile or Carnival Horizon out of Miami. With her schedule that week of January works great for us. Opening it up to going just before Christmas only introduces Vista out of Cape as an option. Our two previous cruises have been on Fantasy Class (Elation and Fantasy). While we did enjoy those 2 cruises, mostly in part to being with a group of friends, after experiencing MG I don't think we would be happy going back to a ship that size with just us going. Looking at Spirit, it seems like a newer version of Fantasy Class. The aspects we enjoyed onboard MG just aren't the same, with many of the dining/entertainment options missing entirely. Horizon is certainly better in a lot of regards. And I would entertain trying it...if it wasn't all the way in Miami. We would have to fly to Miami as we are from the midwest. I don't mind a 9hr drive to Mobile but a two day 17+hr drive to Miami sounds like torture to my back and sanity. So that is a significant increase in cost for the vacation. Not to mention to get a balcony again would be more per day than we paid for a balcony on MG. Similar issue with Vista. We flew to Cape for last weeks trip to avoid the 14+hr drive. In the end this is just a petty rant during my post cruise blues...we will figure something out one way or the other. She has just now even suggested maybe doing a 6-7 day in January 2025 and then Summer 2025 doing a shorter trip to the new Island. 2 Cruises and hitting gold > 1 Cruise and hitting gold in my book!

If the actual credit card owner was neither the fake travel agent or the individual who took the cruise then the bank would have every right to perform a chargeback. Scammers are going to scam, so I would be shocked if the fake travel agent actually used a legit card in their name.

I can't imagine why that would need any kind of monetary persuasion. If anything that would be the easiest kind of dining arrangement to get changed into.

This is true, however in Carnivals eyes there is no proof that OP is not the person who actually did the chargeback. Now that cruiser is attempting to cruise again. Please note OP I am not trying to claim you did this. I'm just showing the other side of the coin here. Any and all correspondence and documentation will help towards clearing this up with Carnival Representatives. Hopefully you can find a resolution.

I was actually shocked it was open the day we rode. We were sailing into a fierce wind that day. Deck 17 facing the lido pool was empty from people avoiding the wind blowing everything around. Wind was howling across the ropes course structure all day.

Complimentary'ish P&A has free items. My wife ate from that list and I chose the $12 Prime Rib. Steakhouse as always is an upcharge. Currently priced at $48 per person. The Italian restaurant (Cucina Del Capitano) I thought was free the first time and $8 per person the other time...however looking at my statement I was not charged for our second time eating dinner there. I can confidently say the first time is free, but the second time I can't confidently say if they were supposed to charge or not.

I can't speak for how well it works on smaller ships but on the Mardi Gras we did "Your Time Dining" last week and were more than happy with it. The only downside is getting a different waiter/waitress each night. I was a bit nervous about not getting early dining but after this cruise we both agreed that we would do it this way for now on. We would put in for a table 15 mins before the restaurant opened (5:30p) and would be sent a notification before they even opened saying our table was ready. This did sometimes lead to a little bit of a confused group of people in line at the entrance before they opened but once they start seating people it moved quickly. Maybe that is just growing pains with the whole system and notification timing. I don't know about the Miracle, but for us on the Mardi Gras this dining was perfect. We actually only ate in the MDR 3 nights of 7. Due to the other choices available onboard. (Steakhouse, Pigs & Anchor and the Italian restaurant.)

Like mentioned above it is through the app. You pick the people in your party that are going and select a 30 min time slot to show up on. We picked the last day of the cruise last week at 11:00am-11:30am. We went over to it right at 11:00am and there was 3 groups ahead of us totalling maybe 8 people. Waited no more than 15-20 minutes overall. PS they require closed toe shoes and shorts. Had to make sure and let my wife know that morning to grab shoes to put in our beach bag before heading up to lido for the day. Same thing for the ropes course plus shirts are required here. Tank tops are okay as long as they aren't thin shoulder straps and open back/shoulder. This is because of the harness you wear.

As unfortunate as this is you have to look at it from their POV. What if a individual "paid" $2600 for product/services you as a business provided to them. This individuals payment method resulted in a chargeback that took the money away from you the business while they kept the product/service you provided. I can't imagine as a general policy you would want to let this individual conduct further business with you, regardless of their claim of innocence. Now if the consumer has documentation that can prove payment to a third party who "paid" the business on their behalf then maybe it might persuade you in to reconsidering your policy for them...but it would have to be GOOD documentation with clear cut evidence to innocence on the consumers part. So it is up to you in this situation as the consumer to provide them with actual documentation proving what you say happened actually happened. Otherwise it is just your word vs their bank account showing -$2600. Obviously at the end of the day it is a huge corporation and that is a drop in the bucket to their bank account. But still, you simply can't run a business and constantly allow yourself to get scammed (or potentially scammed again in this situation). The zelle payment should have been a huge red flag with fog horns blaring in the background. At a minimum this should've been done through Paypal as a Goods & Services payment. Zelle has little to no protections for payments sent. Zelle, Venmo and Paypal Friends & Family are online scam havens. Fortunately this scammer didn't scam you directly out of the $2600. Unfortunately you still feel the consequences of his actions.

The credit would have been put towards the purchase of cheers well before we boarded if we went the cheers route. The apples to apples comparison is to apply the credit to the purchase of cheers/alcohol alone. So I guess technically I should have deducted that credit from the purchase of cheers value of $990 down to $846.07. Making the savings of not buying cheers $569.40. ($846.07 cheers cost - $276.67 alcohol cost)

Wanted to update this thread once I returned from our 7 day trip on Mardi Gras. Ended up bringing only one bottle of wine onboard. Of which I didn't finish...Wife had no more than one drink a day as I expected. I ranged anywhere from 4-6 drinks a day. We don't do the whole specialty coffee thing. I do regret never getting a milkshake but every time we passed by I was full and not feeling one at that time. We ate at the steakhouse one night ($115 after tip). We did Cucina Del Capitano two nights but looking at my statement I don't think they charged me the $8 each for the second time. I tried the Prime Rib one night in Pig & Anchor ($17 after tip). We purchased $14 worth of candy at Cherry On Top. And finally we both rode Bolt once ($30). So final statement total of $596.50. Removing the above non-cheers related items brings it to $420.50. We had a stateroom credit of $143.83. This brings final cost of anything that would have been "Cheers related" to $276.67. $276.67 is well under the $990 it would have cost me to purchase the Cheers package for our trip. And I was able to try all the different types of drinks I wanted without being limited to whatever I smuggled onboard. I'm perfectly happy with not purchasing Cheers. Somewhat related...I am very surprised at the cost of drinks while at port. It has been almost 4 years for us but I was always under the impression drinking cost much less while off the ship. This was 100% not the case. I was most disappointed at the Mahogany Bay beach. $17 for a 20ish ounce barely frozen drink that tasted like a non-alcoholic drink. Bar service was beyond slow and I specifically asked for a "double" and watched them pour the mix out of a premade gallon jug then add ice and blend it. In the end I don't think I was charged extra on that drink but still...

TLDR: Moral of the story, call or research your phone plans before you get on the ship. There is a good chance they might have a built in Mexico/international plan of some sort that could be free as well. Just like everything else in life...it is all about personal responsibility to figure things out beforehand. If you don't mind a little disconnect during days at sea this might be a great alternative to spending on the wifi packages. Just returned home from a week on Mardi Gras. Phones kept on airplane mode while away from land. We have Verizon and in Costa Maya and Cozumel we each had 2gb of free data per day and unlimited talk/text which was explained in a text received as soon as phones connected to service. When we arrived to Roatan I tested with my phone turning cellular on. Once connected to service I received a text explaining I had 12 available "travelpass" days banked and would begin using one immediately. It allowed the same 2gb of free data and unlimited talk/text that we had while in the Mexico ports. Wife had the same. This was plenty for our needs. We like being "disconnected" during these vacations and avoided cellphone usage even while in these ports when we could have been using them. Phones stayed on airplane mode while in port except during times of actual usage. Signal sucked if we in the interior of the ship...obviously its a huge steel signal block. Speeds were tolerable for the most part. My wife made phone calls each stop to her mother to check in. That worked perfectly each time.

I was able to book through Enterprise. They have a location about 1mile west of the Carnival Mardi Gras terminal. I went through my credit card reward center and got a pretty good rate compared to the rate straight through Enterprise website.

Can it be done? Sure. Can I not hit a single red light on my way home? Sure. Doesn't sound worth the risk/stress/headache to me...

No better time to jump back on that horse than now!

Bit of a fan… Sorry back to your thread that seafood looks fantastic! Serving sizes look much better compared to last night too lol

Oh they definitely make it still. I dipped my own bottle of it in the wax at the distillery back in September.

Woodford Double Oak is some good stuff! My last cruise in March 2020 on the Fantasy I believe they had Makers Mark 46 at one of the bars. Was a pleasant surprise for me. This looks like a really cool area. Celebration exclusive I assume?

Good to know, I will be onboard Mardi Gras right after you!

Like mentioned above, between the thousands of different cell phone plans not to mention the many different manufactures/operating systems on each cell phone, Carnival is simply picking the guaranteed no exceptions way of making sure you don't get charges. There is absolutely no reason for the Cruise Director to spoon feed product/plan specific directions for half a day to make sure everyone on board knows the "proper" way to have their individual phones set. Airplane mode gets the job done across the board. If an individual wants to mess with settings beyond doing that, that is 100% their prerogative as well as their own risk.

Bad day for the site to be on the frits!

That kind of experience would certainly ruin it for me. I've mentioned to my wife I wouldn't mind trying out other cruise lines. It has been 3 years since our last cruise and we have only cruised with Carnival. I'm hoping our cruise in 8 days isn't anything like your experience. One thing we will definitely be avoiding is 5 or less day cruises. Those shorter/cheap cruises seem to more often be the troublesome cruises.

Safe travels! 7 days from now we will be on a plane heading to Orlando to catch the Mardi Gras! Really enjoyed your previous LIVEs. Look forward to keeping up with you on this one as well!