jazm2011

For $15pp, we used ridesas.com and had a great experience.

You'll find more info on the East Coast Departures board.

I'm with ya - I like all the interesting and craziness of his designs.

One of the things I like to do on each cruise, usually the last sea day and early in the morning when most folks are still sleeping - is walk around the entire ship and take pictures. Some of the ships are much more interesting to photograph than others. And I sort of love all the craziness.

Both $500 and $100 GCs are available right now (12:28 PM, Eastern time)

 

Go get them!

 

Good luck!!

This site rocks! Thank you so much for the heads-up!!

Since you're new and in case you weren't aware - your pre-paid gratuities covers tips to waitstaff and cabin stewards (among others that I don't recall at the moment). So you are not required to tip more. However, if you want to and/or feel the service was exceptional, you certainly can. (We typically do, but it's a personal choice).

We typically tip our cabin steward an extra $10-$20 depending on our experience. Seems our waitstaff has been a little "off" our past couple cruises so we have not given anything extra. But on prior cruises, we have also tipped an extra $10-$20 as well.

When you order drinks of any kind, an automatic 15% will be added to your receipt. You don't need to tip above and beyond, but can if you wish.

If you order room service, you should provide a tip when they deliver your order.

Plan to tip the porters if you drop your bags off with them.

Usually the folks guiding the excursions ask for tips. We are hit or miss on when, if and how much we give. Again, it's a personal choice.

As for formal night - you will have 2 on your cruise. I think the dates vary based on itinerary though.

Cabo is a very walk-friendly port and we often wing-it there. However, on our most recent cruise we did the whale watching photo safari (thru Carnival, which we don't often do) and I cannot say enough good things about it! It was one of my favorite excursions to date of all our cruises.

Enjoy and have a great cruise!!

Anyone have an idea how long it's good for pre-open and post open? We need to get a couple more bottes when we go so hope someone has it in stock :)

That's a great question. I assumed it had an indefinite shelf life unopened, but perhaps not. Once opened, we store it in the fridge and it usually hangs around ~6-12 months. We're not big drinkers and when we drink, we don't typically default to Sheridan's. So it takes an effort to consume it in a reasonable amount of time.

I know I've seen it sold in most ports of call. Although I was specifically looking for it on our Mexican stops this time around and never saw it. (Maybe it was just Caribbean ports that I recall seeing it).

In any case, I was just curious how long it would be around the Carnival ships, and it sounds like it's on it's way out, which is a bummer.

In 2012, we were in cabin 8162 and were able to see and hear just about everything from our balcony. We could hear the naturalist and took some amazing pictures of Glacier Bay, all from the comfort (and non-crowds) of our balcony! The ship slowly spins a 360 so everyone has a chance to see. We were pretty lucky that we were able to catch one of the few calving that happened just in the nick of time. So potentially, there could be some things you miss by not running around on deck. But there is so much to see, I doubt you'd be disappointed from your balcony.

We were the first sailing of the season that year, and it was still super cold! It was so convenient to be able to walk into the cabin to warm up, then back out again. Over and over again. :)

The other amazing thing about Alaska, in which I didn't expect - is that there is scenery practically your entire cruise and it is just right outside your door. I've never taken so many pictures in my life.

I've never uploaded anything to this site, so unsure if i'll be successful - but will try to upload one of my Glacier Bay shots...

After a long break from purchasing Sheridan's (partially due to burn out, but mostly because I didn't want to hassle with flying it home), we recently purchased it on Miracle, (in which we drive to/from the port) - I was told by the salesgirl in the onboard liquor shop that it was being discontinued. :(

I was already purchasing 2 bottles and she seemed to be trying to upsell me. I told her I was disappointed with the news, but 2 bottles would be good enough.

Wondered if anyone else has heard this, and if you know any further details? (discontinued completely, discontinued being carried by Carnival, etc.) I tried googling it but came up empty.

This is a premium itinerary. Unfortunately for Carnival, they couldn't charge premium prices for it. The way to address that was by artificially adjusting demand by decreasing supply. With considerably less cabins to sell each week, Carnival can now charge as much (if not more) than its competitors out of San Juan which include Royal, NCL, Celebrity, and Disney. This is similar to what Carnival does in Alaska where they have a lonely ship during the season which allows them to charge as much as premium cruise lines in this market.

 

Also, Carnival needs their newer ships in the US mainland in order to compete with other cruise lines in markets where the ships are the main attraction and not the itinerary (most notably in Eastern and Western Caribbean ones where the ports are secondary in importance). NCL and Royal are currently providing some stiff competition with their newbuilds.

 

We may not like to see an older Fantasy class ship out of San Juan, but it's better than the alternative which would've been to eliminate Southern itineraries from there altogether. Carnival is banking on people who are loyal to Carnival no matter what, people who always assume that Carnival has the lowest prices and will not compare prices with other cruise lines, and on a very loyal local passenger base.

Great reply!

We were on this same cruise and our room was serviced twice a day. No forms, no changes. Just the same standard twice a day service.

We also did Las Caletas in PV and enjoyed it. Not sure we'd do it again, and I wouldn't call it our favorite. But it was fun and enjoyable. They certainly work hard to cater to their clientele! And also certainly work hard to upsell everything. Thankfully, they are not pushy at all. Just a simple no thank you and they move pleasantly to the next person.

We've been to Cabo many times so decided it was time to do something besides check out the town or beach. We did the Whale watching photo safari, which was really outstanding. I'm so glad we strayed from our group to do something new. I would highly recommend it and wouldn't hesitate to do it again. (Provided we were traveling during whale season).

Comics on this cruise were not very good and the entertainment was even worse. Honestly, the worst shows I've seen on all of my 13 cruises, which was disappointing. It wasn't even so much the caliber of the singing or dancing, but the choreography and back drops of every show were just plain bad. It was almost like the performers were set up for failure. Many of the selected songs didn't match the range of the performer. Lack of audience feedback had to have been rough on them as well. Even with the larger crowds, the audience response was very lukewarm.

The other strange thing to us was how invisible the cruise director was. All 6 of us (that traveled together) commented on "who" and "where" the cruise director was hiding. It didn't affect our experience either way, we just thought it was unusual.

We completely lucked out with the weather being near perfection. I happened to notice that on the current sailing, they've had to cancel all water excursions because the winds are too high. That's a total bummer for those folks.

As always, we had a great time and can't wait to book our next one. (Sheesh its rough getting back to reality)! :)

The only thing I disagree with is the tornado. I have personally experienced huge winds by opening the door with the balcony door open. Blew all loose paper all over the cabin.

 

Congrats on having your favorite cruise ever!

Haha, ditto us. We were having quite the large family party going in our cabin when we first discovered the tornado effect. Dresses and hair were flying everywhere! We were all drinking, so it was hilarious rather than embarrassing.

You should probably contact Verizon for information specific to your situation.

For what it's worth (I'm on AT&T), I ensure my data-pushing is turned off before each cruise. (That's the part that can bite you without your knowledge!) And then while in port, will turn my phone on to text or make a phone call, if necessary. However, prior to all my cruises, I always look up the cost of calls-per-minute for each country we're visiting so I know in advance how much it will be. Typically it's around .99 - 1.49 per minute. For the rare cases I needed to make a call, it was cheaper for me to pay by the minute than purchase an international plan for the month. But that may not be the case for you.

I always told my (adult) kids who were back at home and/or watching the pets for us - text if you need to contact me and i'll follow up appropriately. Texting is way cheaper than listening to a voice message! (Texting internationally is NOT included in your normal monthly text plan).

On the one occasion our adult kids were with us... I don't recall needing to reach each other via cell. Thankfully there were no emergencies that required them to reach us outside of knocking on the cabin door, using the cabin phones or running into each other around the ship.

We arrived around 10:30, which was WAY too early. We had platinum boarding and weren't on the ship until ~12:30. We did a lot of sitting and waiting.

Where is the Breeze bar? Is that the bar in the atrium?

UGH, my mistake. (I should have looked it up for verification!) I meant the Plaza Bar.

They had martini tasting just about every night when we were on in May, both at the Piano bar and Breeze bar. The Breeze bar seemed to be one of the best kept secrets. Not many people there and we received great attention from the bartender.

For what it's worth... After reading rave reviews about Spencer's, we booked this tour thru him. The tour wasn't bad. But based on our experience, I could not recommend him nor would I book that tour again.

Everything felt rushed, chaotic and unorganized. Crowded too. Not one of our stand-out excursions.

Is anyone else having issues trying to book an excursion for Mazatlan on Carnival.com? I keep getting the little towel animal saying they are working on the site. I've picked a few excursions, and all of them have the same thing.

just tried it for our cruise (2/27 sailing) and was able to add it to the cart and make it to the checkout screen (before deleting the excursion) :)

Seems there are always lots of glitches with Carnival's site, so perhaps that was the problem. Or (you didn't mention how far out your sailing is), maybe the date is far enough out that they haven't loaded the excursions yet. I've had that happen in the past.

We are typically last minute excursions bookers. We mostly book the night before each port. We've only had one experience of an excursion being sold out, and it happened to be one we really wanted. So I asked about being put on a cancellation list (not even knowing if there was such a thing nor what the odds were of it being beneficial). In the meantime, we booked our second choice excursion.

The next morning we had tickets waiting for us for our first choice! At the end of the day we just had to take our (unused) 2nd choice excursion tickets back to the desk for a refund.

Just thought it worth a mention if you find yourself in a similar situation.

And as someone else mentioned - you can book your excursions on the tv in your cabin at your convenience, instead of waiting in line at the excursion desk.

We've done the wine tasting in Ensenada a couple of times and enjoyed it both times.

In Catalina, we ended up booking a tour on the pier thru catalina adventure tours, that was SO good that I've recommended it to several friends. You can find info on their website at the above name dot com.

We did the combination tour: Glass bottom boat (which I would not do again nor recommend) and the Inside Adventure Tour, which was fabulous!

Granted, it's been 6 years since we've been on the Splendor - but even after our recent Breeze cruise, Splendor still ranks as one of my favorite ships. (Something I didn't expect to say). So as long as you have an open attitude, I wouldn't stress about hating it before experiencing it for yourself.

And although there's a lot of pink, it's definitely not bright pink.

Amtrak!

We used it but in reverse. (Flew into Seattle and took Amtrak to Vancouver).

I don't remember the cost, but it's WAY faster than a shuttle or car rental.

Thanks for the tip! Just loaded it to my rewards card for my next shopping trip.

Seems there are sales in January/February (I believe) when wave season kicks off.

As long as there are plenty of cabins available, I'd be tempted to wait just a little bit longer. And/or start tracking prices now so you'll know a good price when you see it.

We dined at the steakhouse for the first time on Breeze in 2013. I ordered the cowboy ribeye. I did not enjoy the steak at all. We also felt that the dining staff was cold and uncaring, like they didn't care if we were there or not. Service was much better in the main dining room. We decided that we would not go again on future cruise.

 

Fast forward to Legend July 2015. We sailed with two other couples who wanted to go to the steakhouse on the first night. This time I ordered the red snapper special. OMG, it was delicious!!! Service was amazing! It was a wonderful experience.

 

I recommend trying the steakhouse one more time but on a different ship.

Completely agree!

We've been to the steakhouse 5 or 6 times. We've had 1 bad experience and unfortunately it was on our honeymoon cruise (on the Spirit). It definitely took us a little while to get over it. But our follow-on experiences have been excellent again.

I can understand if your 1st experience is less than favorable it would sour your outlook. But I agree with the above post, definitely give it another try in the future.

I use Carnival because it's easier and I've not taken the time to do my homework. Eventually (but hopefully not) that may catch up with me.

For what it's worth, Carnival's price varies by cruise. Our current 7 day Mexican Riviera only costs $49 pp to add vacation protection.