Banditswife

Are you thinking of bringing one of those "pack & play" cribs? I would think you could use one of those in a reg balcony room. I have never done it, but I know people w/ scooters are able to manage the space. Curious if Carnival would even offer any type of crib.

Agree w/Elaine5715- anyone can get a robe placed in your - it can be your 1st cruise or your 100th. ..I think they stopped putting them in the cabin to save labor & for reasons already discussed here, sanitation.

Sorry that you missed your cruise. Carnival was pretty good in the early days of pandemic to refund cruises. So I am wondering if a call to guest services explaining the flight issues will get you a refund. I am sure Carnival is aware of the flight issues everyone incurred this past week. Also having the insurance would help with refunds. South West is our go to airline & we are hoping they get their problems worked out before our next cruise.

Yes I have found wadded tissue in a robe pocket-yuck. As a means of getting rid of the old/left in cabin robe, just throw on the bathroom/shower floor. They will know it is dirty, & take it & hopefully add to their dirty laundry cart. This is an area where HAL excels CCL. The clean robes are on a shelf in closet, nicely folded & in a zippered mesh bag. Very easy to see it has never been used.

We got $25 in lieu of slot tourney in September. Still wondering if there is a bar nearby casino to get drinks.

Agree with the others who said "just ask cabin steward." I am glad they no longer put them in your closet ahead of time- you never knew for certain if it was clean or left from previous cruiser. Plus I am sure it cuts down on them washing every robe after every cruise. Hubby never used the provided robe, but I did. So now we just ask for 1. Now I know it is clean & I have saved them from washing 2 robes.

Yes wondering if this is the fate of all Spirit class ships & where are we to get our comp drinks in our casino offers. I am guessing the slots bring in much more revenue than the bar.

We have been on the Dream 2x & have booked her again for Oct 2023. Have also sailed her 2 sister ships-Breeze & Magic. I love the layout, easy to navigate. She is an older ship, so probably has some wear & tear. I have also sailed Vista, would choose Dream over Vista any day. We enjoy the cove balconies of this class of ship. I have not sailed Dream recently, so cannot speak for current crew or quality of food. But love the layout of the ship.

We were on NStatendam 11/26-12/10 2022. Rotterdam should be a similar set up. Seaview bar, deck 9 aft had a nice, but smallish smoking area. Everyone there was quite friendly & open to others sitting at their table. Yes, several smokers did hang out there while not actually smoking, but always willing to make room for others.

It has been several years since we did this ship & itinerary, but we really loved the ship's size. Yes, grapes everywhere, but I actually liked the decor. IMO, all "Spirit" class ships are the easiest to navigate & feel less crowded. I don't remember about the clocks.

Cost for meals/drinks in bars/restaurants have gone up considerably, so 15-20% is higher today than it was in the past. I had a real estate agent tell me they hadn't gotten a raise in 20 years, I thought to myself that the cost of buying a home has gone up considerably in 20 yrs. So 7% commission is quite a bit more than it was 20 yrs ago.

Your quote from the announcement is interesting. Wondering how this works for those of us giving an extra to a crew member in cash. Do they have to pool that too? Some bonuses may come from positive comments crew members get on surveys & the "let us know" feature of the navigator app. This new rate may also be why they offered "included" crew appreciation on recent "deals."

On NS 11/26-12/10-on a HAL shore ex in Gr Cayman, just waited in world stage for our tour to be called. So I wonder if this was different went going ashore in Half Moon Cay where we didn't try to go ashore early.

Thank you for your review. We were on NS from 11/26-12/10. I agree with most of your review. *Cabin steward-On day 1 I told cabin steward I didn't care when our cabin was serviced, just whenever he had time & that 1x per day was fine. But his team serviced our cabin 2x every day & did an excellant job of trading out towels, turning down bed & generally keeping our room clean. *Entertainment-We were disappointed as well. Glad we didn't attempt to see the comedian if it was adult type content- I just don't care for that type of entertainment & agree it should be noted in programing. The 1 "step one" dance performance we attended was good. I just felt they didn't utilize that beautiful theatre well enough. *Casino- we were told on day 1 that we had free drinks in casino, but not 1 time in 14 days did anyone ever offer us a drink. We saw hosts standing around watching, but rarely saw a bar server roaming around. *spa- agree about the upsells. Had a bad experience there on a previous HAL cruise & decided it was not worth the $ or my time. Having a spa treatment is supposed to be a relaxing enjoyable addition to a cruise. How can we relax & enjoy the time there if they are constantly trying to upsell us. I was also overcharged. I cannot believe they told you pedicures were for women only- crazy. On other cruise lines, I have seen men getting a manicure or pedicure while in the spa. No wonder the spa always looked empty when walking by. *dining- we chose to eat most meals on lido, so many choices & much quicker. Again, thank you for your review.

We sent out laundry about 5x over the course of 14 days. It usually came back the next day, but sometimes it took 2 days. If I would see our cabin steward in the hall, I would either give it to him or tell him it was in our cabin. And yes, you can squeeze a bunch of laundry into the bag. Pricing was at the higher rate on NS according to the sheet you fill out when sending it out, but the lower price when pre paying it. Very nice option & worth the $30 per bag. Make certain you fill out the sheet detailing what you have placed in the bag. Funny tidbit: they put a tag in all the laundry they do for you- many days or even years after a cruise I will find one of those tags in my clothing. Reminds me of the cruise when it was put there.

I did receive an email from HAL confirming our deposit, $100 OBC for booking while on board & pre paid crew appreciation. After applying for hubby's military appreciation, he got an email saying "congratulations! We have verified your eligibility on this special offer you requested. Book as early as tomorrow & receive your onboard credit offer." does this mean it was approved? Over the phone, a HAL rep gave me a number to apply for shareholder credit. I will do this after making final payment next week. We had a casino come back offer. HAL rep said she applied it to our booking, but to take printed offer with us. I am hoping that will be good enough. As far as bed configuration, we'd much rather have that done prior to boarding. In the past, sometimes cabin stewards give us a bit of grief when we request it after boarding. They have so much to do on embarkation day, it's just easier to have it done while they are cleaning cabin from previous cruise. We did not use a TA to book, just booked with the rep on board. He stated that there was no one assigned to the booking we were on, so no one assigned to the new one. Carnival's page makes it much easier to see OBC & make changes when needed.

We've sailed HAL 4x now & I still have trouble finding what I am looking for. Carnival's booking page is much easier to figure out, IMO. 1) where do we put our preferences for bed configuration? 2) where do we find our assigned dining time? 3) Where do I find veteran appreciation OBC applied? I think we got it approved, but their return email was confusing. Does our booking show this somewhere or in documents someplace? 4) We also own 100 CCL shares, I have not applied for this credit yet, but will do so after final payment. Will we be able to see this OBC credit applied? 5) we have $100 OBC for booking while on board, I think this shows in our original contract, but would like to see it on our booking. 6) "crew appreciation" was included in our booking, does this show up as pre paid? 7) Looking at HIA pkg, it shows $490 for all guests instead of the standard $700, is this an error or are we being offered a discount? I don't want to buy it at $490, then have them turn around & charge us the difference. On our previous cruise they mistakenly gave us too much shore ex credit, then deducted the overage once onboard.

Lol, you better head to Tamarind for dinner. We had booked Tamarind for our 1st segment, but they put us in Pinnacle at 5 PM on embarkation day. It seems no one could help us with anything having to do with our 2nd segment. Had to wait until Dec 3, to correct their mistake for Pinnacle. We enjoyed Tamarind more than Pinnacle, but tried both using our HIA dining credits.

Yes, as rodndonna said the going rate is $50 per person per day. We bought it for our B2B last month. We are not big drinkers, so didn't feel it was really worth the $1400 we paid. The included wifi was not very good. Having $400 worth of shorex was nice, we were able to book those ahead of time & got what we wanted. The specialty dining credit was ok, but they messed up our pre booked reservations, which was a bit of a hassle to get corrected. HIA does allow you to pre book everything, which made it convenient. No way would I pay more than $50 per day.

This is what we did. We pre purchased the unlimited laundry for $49- 7 days. Our laundry came back on hangers w/o wrinkles. Undies were folded & placed in a basket, wrapped in tissue. This is a nice service. I think they use a steamer to remove wrinkles. I also use Downy wrinkle release. Just hang on bathroom hook & allow steam from shower release the wrinkles from packing.

My husband tried to apply for the military OBC for our April 2023 cruise. He sent a copy of his DD214, was emailed back that this wasn't the correct documentation, he then sent copy of his VA card & we think they accepted it. How/where do you see the OBC? We also want to apply for the 100 share stockholder credit, haven't tried that yet. We have the $100 for booking while on board too. I am going to work on this next week. I think they give you any excuse possible to not honor their offers. Carnival's pg allows you to see everything easily, or maybe I just haven't learned my way around HAL's site yet. I also cannot find where to input our bed configuration preference & dining preference. Where do I find that on their pg?

I cannot speak on your itinerary, would love to do that one day. But we just got off the N Statendam, loved the ship & crew. It is a beautiful ship. Entertainment was a bit lacking, but we found plenty to keep us busy. Grand Dutch Cafe on deck 3 mid ship was our favorite space on the ship. The "world theatre" deck 2,3 forward is a beautiful showroom, but not used nearly enough. There wasn't anywhere to place our drinks while watching a show, so this was a bit inconvenient, otherwise a beautiful theatre. Not sure you will have the same crew, but we had great service most everywhere on the ship.

We had a stop in Freeport on Dec 2. 2022. There was a HAL ship being worked on that day, I couldn't read the ship name, but was told it was the Zuiderdam by crew members from our ship- NS. Hopefully she got the work done that needed to be done. Our crew also said she was gentting ready for a 100 day voyage.

Just off a HAL cruise embarking in Port Everglades. The agents for almost all the cruise lines are in baggage claim area. Pretty easy to find. FLL has undergone a renovation recently & if I remember correctly there are 2 terminals- a bit confusing for non ship shuttles. We did an over night stay at a nearby hotel & our driver had trouble finding his passengers or maybe his passengers had trouble finding him.

Wonder if he was still in same position or got a lesser one. Like land based businesses HAL probably has trouble finding employees.