adira

The Carnival chocolates are pretty bad by themselves. They taste like the cheap Dollar store candy, but if you unwrap one piece and put it in a hot cup of coffee and then top it with some soft-serve vanilla ice-cream, it's not so bad. :D For and extra special treat, add a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream or Kahula. It makes a decent night-cap for the balcony.

 

 

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I think I'm going to try this on the Magic! 43 days! Woot!

On the Magic, they will let you purchase additional drinks at full price after the first 15. You can ask for an update on your count from the bartender.

Woo-hoo!! I'm hoping that's the case when we go. I loved the idea that I read here about recording the person who tells you. We are pretty big drinkers at home, and I actually plan to abstain for the two weeks beforehand, partly to lower my tolerance a bit and partly to de-puff my belly!

I'm curious about recent experience with the Cheers package on the Magic....any new info? I'm especially curious about the 15 drink limit....do they cut you off or can you keep buying drinks?

Hey, we were supposed to be on the Triumph on the 8th....got booted, so I hope you don't. However, our upgrade to the Magic is kind of magical! Two more days, a nicer room for $33 more!

That's a bummer....why would people mess with is? I loved seeing other people's decorations!

We'll be off for two weeks before we go, so I might just raid my kid's craft supplies and see what I can do with construction paper and glitter. We might even have some googly eyes!

I think I would like to make a door decoration for this cruise....we're drunks and might get lost! :D

Anything weird I should know about? It seems like hiding the tape is a good idea?

My dh and I drink a lot (I'll defend us by saying that we are teachers!), and I honestly have no idea how much we drank on our last cruise, just that I am happy that it looks like we will be going into this one with some OBC to buffer the pain of the final bill. I suggest being drunk the final night to ease the sting.

On our first cruise dh and I were definitely of a scarcity mindset and we both ate WAY too much and gained weight. On this cruise, I might gain weight, but I have a different mindset. In my everyday life, I try to eat healthy and exercise daily. On the cruise, I plan to do what I want, but what I actually WANT, and not what I feel like I should have.

For example, you always hear people on CC saying that they wouldn't eat a burger on a cruise because they could get that at home. Well, I'm thinking about the grill station and how I could get a burger, fries and put molten cheese food on those fries! I NEVER eat that at home, so that is decadent to me. I was fantasizing (during my run!!) of having soft serve with my coffee.

However, I found that I tried to have salad on my last cruise because it is "healthy," and at home, it IS, as my salads are chock full of veggies and low in extras. But on the cruise, I piled on the olives and sunflower seeds, etc.....all the fatty stuff. And I ate food that wasn't that good because I felt like I should.

On this cruise, I would prefer to eat pizza at every meal if that is what I truly want rather than eat a mediocre steak because I'm on a cruise in the MDR and that's what I SHOULD do.

That said, I'm a drunk and dh is a gambler, so we might hit the free drink magic number in casino early, which will definitely up the calorie count!

Oh, well....there's always boot camp when I get home!

http://www.carnival.com/BonVoyage/AddToCart.aspx?cat=giftcertificates&pid=FSD

 

 

you can either buy certificates in increments of 25.00 or have the amount set onto your onboard account..

Cool! Thank you!

I calculated buying the drink coupons saves about $1.30 per drink. This is because you can currently buy them for less than the redeemed value, plus it includes tip on the amount of the coupon.

 

I used them on the Imagination and Miracle in Nov and was always charged the difference.

 

Still saves a few bucks. The more you drink the more "worth" it they are.

Someone posted a picture of their coupons that they got just a month or two ago - they now have a face value of $5.75 but the price is still $21.45, so actually you now save, I don't have time to do the math again, but if I recall correctly, it is about $1.36 savings per drink or thereabouts by using a coupon.

Both of these imply that you don't pay the difference (we drink hard liquor, like LI Iced Teas, gin and tonic, jack and coke, etc so there would be a balance), which seems counter to the other replies. Or am I missing something?

I started a thread on one of these topics not too long ago.

 

With the bar coupons, if you purchase a drink over the coupon amount, the difference is supposed to be charged to your sign & sail account. Some have reported back that they were not charged the difference, usually due to a nice cash tip to the server.

 

With the coupons, the server gets a smaller tip because the 15% gratuity is calculated on the amount after the coupon is applied, not the full drink price. I went in depth with the calculations in my thread, which I linked below. I am not sure if my thread was one of the ones you mentioned reading in your post.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1337296&highlight=

Yours was one of the posts I referenced. ;) I figured as long as I up my tip, then it doesn't really matter too much. Correct? I have no problem paying for the service, but also thought I could get a drink at a more reasonable price. However, based on other posts, it sounds like with a nice tip you get nice drinks that are sometimes on the house anyway, so I suppose it all balances out.

Instead of buying drink coupons, you could just "buy" some OBC, which is credited to your S&S account & applied to anything you purchase on board, including drinks. Makes it easier than messing with coupons to me.

Is this through Bon Voyage, too?

I'm getting very excited about my first cruise and have started looking at cute cover-ups, etc. :)

Both dh and I are drinkers and I am seeing that it's possible to have quite the scary surprise at the end of the cruise when we see the S&S statement. Dh doesn't really like the idea of smuggling on booze, and I know I would be irritated if it were to be confiscated, so we are thinking about getting drink coupons through Bon Voyage as well as ordering a bottle of booze. That way we can enjoy a drink in our room or go to a bar and hopefully keep our S&S bill a little smaller.

However, I'm confused on how the drink coupons work. I see that it's $21 something for 4 drinks, which is way less expensive than the bar prices. I've seen conflicting statements on CC. One is that you don't pay extra for the drinks but the servers get stiffed, which I figure I can take care of by tipping extra. The other is that you get charged the difference. This doesn't make sense to me, if the idea is that my friends and family can get us gifts before we go and this is their way of buying me a drink on vacation. So, Carnival is going to charge me the difference? I don't think my friends and family would be happy about that, I know that if I bought these for a friend I wouldn't be happy if I found out they had to pay the difference.

If anyone has clarification I would appreciate it!