scuabacruiser

Yeah that's a huge Gold perk in my eyes *dripping with sarcasm!*

 

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A win is a win. Besides it's a bottle of water, VIFP party with free drinks and appetizers and a gold pin. We enjoyed ours when we were gold.

I was wondering what other's experiences have been as far as table selection when traveling with "older" children. Is there any way we can request a larger table beforehand? (fyi- we are assigned late seating, not a problem with my kids who are used to eating at 8pm. )

Thanks for your help!

Not a problem. They tend to match up like groups. If you do get a table or group you don't gel with, the maitre d can move you with no problem.

Thanks for replies. Think will go ahead online 😀

If it's something you really want to do, that's a good plan. I think you can get credit if you change your mind. Just one less thing you have to do, or worry about, once you board.

Sort of true. Our last cruise, when we paid our final balance, I was given the opportunity to book a couple of selected excursions at a reduced price. However, it was nothing we were interested in. We normally book outside of the ship anyway.

I haven't either, but, I'm sure you're the same, we rarely ever need guest services.

So will we get 4 waters, one for each person?

Just for the returning red level cruisers. The notification should have the name of the cruiser on it that it is for. If you have any questions, just ask your room steward. Also, if your worried about using the pay for items accidentally in your cabin, you can ask your steward to remove them.

Early, late, anytime, Lido, pool cafe, specialties. 1st I think it's great to have so many choices. We have done all and found good and bad with all. The prior posts just prove why each time works for different reason. With kids, early or Lido seem to work best. So our next cruise we will be back to early seating. The kids like sitting at the same table with a waiter who already knows what they like. Then they hit the pool again while we watch a movie or go to the shows or get some room time ;).

Also, after 15+ Carnival cruises we have never gone to one of the specialty restaurants (love the main dining room & getting to know our dining room team). I've looked at the menus, but for the surcharge at each restaurant what exactly do you get? Is it one item from each section of the menu? One app, one entree, one desert?? What happens if you want to try different items?

 

Thanks!

We were exactly where you are now. Why spend more for food if you like the MDR and your waiter? Then on a cruise we were approached about the chefs table. On a whim, we tried it. Granted it's more than the other choice your talking about, but it was an awesome experience. Since then, we have tried one of the specialty restaurants on each cruise and have not been disappointed. We consider it like a shore excursion and love doing it. All the replies are valid, but bottom line, you just have to try it to see which one you like.

Some people are a bit more "active" on vacation, so I understand it. Room stewards will normally accommodate any reasonable requests tho. Just pony up some extra cash when you ask so they make you a priority .

LOL, nothing like catching up on a cruise, especially with a balcony cabin. But that's another thread.

Agree with the other posters. Honestly, we don't do that a home so I wouldn't expect them to do it on a cruise. I'm sure the steward would change them as often as you want if you ask though.

The waiting in line part is what stopped us from doing it. It was a 2 hour wait when we tried. The other times we were busy having fun.

WOO HOO, just got a nice OBC for our Dream cruise in May!

do you happen to have the belize / honduras / cozumel funtimes?

If you can wait, we have one booked in May and will be happy to get you one.

Does anyone know if Bitter and Blanc is served as a dessert on the Dream? Some ships seem to have it, some don't! Hoping it does!

 

Does anyone have a link to the current dinner menu's?

As of last week, yes.

We had these but on our last Carnival cruise one of the porters wrote FTTF across them using black permanent ink. I haven't been able to use them since so naturally they were tossed.

Must of ran out of the orange FTTF stickers they put on ours.

Like others here we use packing tape to laminate. Then I punch a hole in both ends and attach with zip ties. Never had one come off yet.

Yup, same here, but I just use the same tape to attach them to the bag handles. Never lost one. I still print an extra one to place on the inside of each bag as well. On our last 7 day, the ship passed out a memo on day 3 to each cabin looking for a bag missing from one of the passenger since the start of the cruise. Wow.

I would be travelling with my 5 year old nephew, and wondered if any one has successfully "fudged" their child to be slightly older? Looking to cruise mid-April, he'd be 6 the beginning of June. I just worry that he'd be bored in with the babies. He has an older brother (11, so not looking to have them together), and he is used to "older kid" activities. He's done preK, and is in K now. Everything I have read sounds like they can be pretty strict about keeping kids in the right age groups, but what if I just told them he was 6?

Last year we took 4 kids with us, ages 9 to 13. When we went to camp, the 9 wanted to be with the others and they didn't have a problem with it. Just go, look, check out the activities for the week and ask if you don't think he will like the younger group. We have found them to be flexible. Most of all enjoy your cruise.

as the only real plus is the priority embarkation/debarkation.

 

 

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With self debark, that too has become over rated.

A lot of times when they offer deals they raise the price of the cruise. Also booking so far in advance there won't be a lot of deals. You get the obc from price drops

 

 

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Not always true. My upcoming cruise was booked 15 months out, the furthest out to date for us, with $50 deposits, free upgrades and picked exact cabin we wanted for a price that I haven't been able to beat since. So no OBC for us this time.

I have to admit. That is one of the perks I do look forward to as a Platinum, dropping off my luggage and start enjoying the ship w/o dragging it around.

We have been Platinum for several years now; but, I always enjoyed the energy we got from the other passengers getting on board. Everyone is excited and ready for fun. Several times we would run into those same line buddies on the cruise and have a pleasant "how is it going" type conversation or "what have yall done?" I just don't see that in the VIP sections. We have had several cruises with friends who had to go through the other lines while we had to go through the VIP. I would have preferred to go with them through the normal line, many times with them getting finished faster than us. I think the VIP lines are overrated and yes I have seen a higher level of "entitlement" attitude in that section.

Anthony Keys does Princess scuba excursions and I imagine that includes all the other fleets Carnival owns. Not sure if other cruise lines would be included or not. I hope not. This will be our first time with them and hopefully it won't turn into a cattle car dive.

Even though we only had 10 divers, the boats are cattle boat size but we didn't have a problem with them. You are only on the boat for about 5 mins. The dives were great! We did our SI back at the dock since it was so close to the dive sites.

All the dive masters and instructors in our dive club recommended Anthony Keys. Tried to make a reservation for the day our Princess ship stops BUT they said we need to book thru the cruise ship.

 

Have others run into this? I sent an email off this morning and no reply yet (other island excursions sent a note within a hour). Our friends have always stayed at the hotel and no one did a cruise.

 

I really don't want to do one with the ship other than Belize.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

thanks

That was our first dive op that we used at Roatan and they were great and yes we use the ship to book this. They did a weight check at the dock which I though was odd until we realize the dive sites are less that 1 mile from the dock. The SI was also at the dock. How convent since they have a fully stocked shop on site, lol. Got to have a t-shirt, right? We have used other dive ops since then mainly on the West end, La Rocas, Subway and all were great. Just price out the cost and transportation. Roatan is one of our fav dive sites. It's always a must when we dock at this port.

Ok, it's not Mr Sanchos but we have been to a couple of beach for the day outfits. If there is not a shop on site, someone there will get you in touch with a dive op either next door or a short boat ride to the shop. Most of the time it would be just the 2 of us on the dive with the DM of course. Sorry I can't give you any more details than that.

We did off site last year... it was a pain after because we did self checkout and waited over an hour for the shuttle. Thanks for the info! i forgot about them!

We usually use off site of motel/hotel to free park. In Miami motel/hotel free parking just doesn't exist close to port, just off site reduced rate. You are right. We have also had a long wait for off site p/u. So the question, is it worth it to pay a low fee and wait or to pay the port fee?