kteachcruiser52

On 8/15/2020 at 8:49 AM, Je Souhaite said:

I do believe if they weren’t told they couldn’t, they would.  Businesses want $$, and that safety is on the other side of a smoked 

I know someone that lives in GC. They said that a majority of their tourism dollars come from people who fly in and not cruisers. She said there has been some talk of scaling back on the number of cruise ships even when cruising eventually resumes.  I do not think many islands will be happy to see Americans until we get the rate of Covid infections to decline a substantial amount. I do not blame them. 

Confirmed by my PVP today, the Carnival Splendor will reposition to Long Beach in January 2018, trading places with the Carnival Miracle which will reposition to Tampa.

Interesting

On Sept. 10th, I asked my PVP if the Splendor would be repositioning to the west coast in January of 2018. He said they have not been given any information on that. (He has been a PVP for many years.) I did point on that the last scheduled day of cruising for both the Miracle and the Splendor was January 7, 2018 while all of the other ships had schedules through April of 2018.

Call Carnival Lost and Found and give them the information - cabin, ship, and sail date. Give them your contact information and tell them they may give it out if someone has filed a report with them.

You could also email the information to cclsupport@carnival.com to see if they can help

Again, my bad.. I am just saying what I saw on the recent cruises I have been on, even as recent as last week. Maybe each ship is different but I saw many people with small toddlers walking around with them in the splashing area.; workers were present but didn't say a word, for some reason.

There is a sign in the splash area that says they must be potty-trained - No swim diapers allowed. Some people either do't read the sign or just ignore it.

Thanks for your review. I always enjoy reading reviews of the cruises we take as they bring back great memories. The islands on this cruise were awesome. We had been to all the islands, except Bonaire, so we mostly did water activities rather than island tours as we had already done those. In Aruba and Bonaire, we ported from 8 am to 11 pm which was awesome. Bonaire was the one new port and we had time to do the Woodwind snorkel excursion and Bonaire Vista Island tour. Woodwind Snorkel was the best snorkel tour we have ever done. In Curacao, we did Irie Tours 5 hour West End Beach Hopping Tour. Three memberrs of our group chose to do the cliff jumping. Since we are in our 60's, we thought it was safer to pass that up. LOL. In St. Lucia, we did Spencer Ambrose Jealousie (Sugar) Beach excursion. We had snorkeled between the Pitons for a brief time on a previous visit to St. Lucia and wanted more snorkeling time this visit so this tour was a good choice for us. The 21 day cruise was an awesome cruise that included less frequently visited islands. San Juan and St. Marteen were the only 2 islands where we just walked around and did things close to port. The only downside to visiting so many islands was the amount of money spent on excursions. We did 2 Carnival excursions and the rest were private excursions we booked after reading reviews on the CC port of call boards.

Isn't Elation out of Jacksonville supposed to have staggered check-in?

 

I bought this cruise back in Dec/Jan. Sailing is in Nov 2016.

 

I STILL cannot choose a check-in time. I've called Carnival & they supposedly fixed it.

 

That was 3 days ago & when I log in, it still doesn't even allow me to choose anything.

 

Am I missing something?

I believe staggered has been implemented in Galveston and New Orleans. It starts in Miami in March. By the end of the year, it is suppossed to be in all ports.

They would have to do something with the check in area if Long Beach was to get a Dream Class. Getting on and off the Miracle was a huge mess. At least the days we were there anyways.

I agree! We took the Splendor on a 15 day cruise to Hawaii. When we got back disembarkation was a huge mess. There were so many suitcases in zone 3 that there were no aisles between suitcases so it was impossible to get to your luggage. People were walking on top of other people's luggage to get their luggage. I dropped my throw, but could not get back to get it without the fear of being trampled. A port employee was trying to move some luggage to get to someone's luggage saying," I am not suppossed to touch this luggage once it is in a zone." She said this was the first time they had handled such a big ship that had been on a longer voyage where people had so much luggage. A lady whose husband was blind was crying and saying, "I will never cruise again" after her husband was shoved and fell. It was an experience I would never want to repeat and we have not sailed out of their since even though we can visit my husband's brother in CA and then take a cruise.

There are 2 ways I have done it. Take your tall glass and fill not quite full of vanilla ice cream. Add hot chocolate and mix with a knife. The other way is to add the chocolate or strawberry syrup that is at the Sweet Spot each night. If you want to do that at other than dinner time, buy the very small plastic containers with kids at the $tree (6 for $1) and put some syrup. In it and put it in your refrigerator to use when needed.

We bought a Sharp alarm clock at WalMart for less than $20. We plug it into the one 110 outlet. The clock has 2 plugs and a USB port. That gives us extra outlets.

Not going to flame you. I think it's rotten, too. Are your reservations linked together? This is unfortunate but if the reservations weren't linked there's no way for them to know you're all traveling together. I hope you requested to eat together. And I hope this doesn't ruin your cruise experience on Carnival.

They no longer let you do priority boarding just because your cabins are linked with someone who has Priority Boarding.Someone in the actual cabin must have Priority status in order for people in that cabin to do Priority boarding. The only exception is if all the occupants in the linked cabin are minors. Too many people were using this strategy, so they stopped it.

Like the above poster said you will get the money you paid from your checking account back, but any money that was paid using gift cards will be refunded by putting the money on another gift card. That is only fair. If you are not going to use the gift card, perhaps you can sell it to a website that buys gift cards at a discounted rate and resells them. While it would not get you all your money back, you could recover a portion of the gift card amount that way.

I've read Carnival has implemented staggered check ins at various ports. Does Port Canaveral have this yet? I have already completed my check in online and didn't see anything about it. Just making sure I didn't miss something....I cruise in April.

I believe Galveston and New Orleans have the Staggered check-in. it is scheduled to begin in Miami in March.

The inside and the balcony do not seem to be the same size. On one B2B cruise we did one week we were in a balcony and the second week we were right across the hall in an interior. The balcony has a couch and the inside has a chair that barely fits beside the area with the vanity stool. The space beside the king bed and the storage cabinets appears to be about the same in both cabins. The balcony rooms feel more spacious. Our 4J room seemed a little more spacious than the regular interior, but still not as much room as the balcony.

Anyone else doing the Pride B2B on Jan 17?

My husband and I will be on that 21 day cruise. It is our first time on a Spirit class ship, first time sailing out of Baltimore, and our first time in an extended balcony.

A lot of firsts! We are ready to cruise. See you there.

For my cruise coming up both of ours have an N next to our numbers. Noticed my luggage tags also don't indicate PRIORITY or Faster to the Fun like in the past and it should reflect with platinum.

Our boarding passes for our 2 cruises say Priority with a dash and an N. Our luggage tags for our 2 cruises that said Priority a week ago no longer say Priority. We are Platinum.

When they first started the no bottled water and then sold it for $2.99, the water was Spring Water. They got so many complaints about the taste, they switched to purified water from the same company? People were saying the spring water tastes different depending on where it came from and they liked only their brand of spring water. I guess some are going to be unhappy with purified water and some are unhappy with spring water.

Awesome pictures. That itinerary was one of our favorites.

Elaine please read my messages, I am fine with an OV room, since it's my bday I am hoping...thought perhaps my PVP might have a "notes" field they could mention my bday. I know he can't assign my cabin, that's above his pay grade.

I don't think anyone looks at the notes until shortly before you are on the ship. Then ship personnel may look at the notes. If you have a birthday or anniversary, you usually have to tell your wait staff about it. It seems like an awful lot of people are celebrating something so I doubt an upgrade would be based on that, but you can always hope. Good luck.

We also survived just fine long before cruise ships were invented. We survived just fine before the wheel was invented for that matter. Things change. And to be honest, anything to reduce the crowds is a good attempt.

 

Wouldn't you rather wait at a restaurant or coffee shop for a few hours, then have a pleasant check in, rather than just jam into a line while listening to other people complain about how terrible the process is?

 

Get a grip people. Seriously. Every time Carnival makes any changes this place goes to arms. Try it out, see how it works, then comment based on experience. Haven't seen nearly the complaints out of Galveston since they made the changes, so it's obviously fixing some problems.

I don't have to worry because I can go anytime, but I see why some people are upset. It is great if it is a port where you can drop off your luggage and then go to a coffee shop or shopping, but some ports in FL do not have anything close enough for many people to walk to. Unless hotel shuttles in FL change their schedules, many have the last free shuttle to the port at 11:30. I can't see them changing that because they want the people out of their hotel so they can get ready for the next guests. They obviously don't want their lobbies clogged with cruisers and all their luggage. In some of the hotels we have stayed in, the cruisers and their luggage for one shuttle fill up the lobby. I hope it works, but I believe there will be problems with many, many people waiting outside in terminals where there is no alternative things to do that are within walking distance to the terminal.

Vegetarian - There are different vegetarian meals in the MDR. Sometimes they will make you one not on the menu if you request the night before. Lido also has vegetarian options.

Bottles - This summer they stopped any bottled drinks -glass or plastic- from being brought onboard. Twelve cans, 12 ounce each, of beverage per person may be brought onboard during embarkation. They must be carried-on. They may not be in your checked luggage. You can also get more cans in ports.

January - the weather is unpredictable. We have sailed a total of 6 weeks in January and the 4 weeks on the Caribbean have been calm. The two weeks sailing to Hawaii had some days where the waves were pretty big and the ship rocked enough that it was a little hard to keep your balance without touching a wall or handrail. There is no way to predict this. I never get seasick. I do take SeaBands and Bonnie with me, but have never used them.

You have a great itinerary. We have not been to Amber Cove yet.

Well, I will answer my own question for you! Just returned from our cruise & our excursion on St. Kitts. It was a nice day. Spent most of it going to Batik store/Romney Manor and the fort which took up a good 3 hrs or more. Then we went to Shipwreck beach for a little over an hour. It was not a nice beach. Very little beach area and sand is very dark, almost black. Water is clean, but lots of shell & difficult to walk out into. Some people did snorkel for short period of time & said they saw fish.

There really wasn't any sense in renting chairs for the short time there & like I said the beach leaves a lot to be desired. The beach bar is very rustic, but we like that. Had a good strong drink called Sand Dollar for $6 and my husband & I shared some chicken nachos for $8 or $10. I'm not sure of exact price. We just sat up at the bar area most of the time since the water was cool & I didn't like the sand or the beach area. Was pretty to look out over the water though.

All in all the excursion was well worth the price!

Hope this helps you!

Thenford Grey's literature said we go to Cockelshell Beach. You mentioned Shipwreck. Is it the same beach? Just wondering beause I had read that Cockelshel was one of the nicer beaches. thanks

With the nec CEO and her philosophy that cheap cruising is ending and profits must increase substantially, I don't think we will see the good deals or sales like we have in the past. I know we sailed for 14 days this January for a cabin rate of $31 per person, double occupancy. Iwe were interior Main deck and interior deck 10. I haven't seen anything close to that since we booked those 2 during promotions:a 12 hour sale and a 32 hour sale. Now,those kinds of sales are not really "sales" at all. Now I will compare prices and deals on other lines instead of just automatically booking Carnival.

When they first made the change to no bottles on embarkation, they said they were going to enforce a rule that no cans or bottled beverages could be brought back on the ship at any port. There was a lot of negative reactions as people had been used to bringing non- alcoholic drinks back to their room from ports. They changed that in just a few weeks back to a small quantity of canned non-alcoholic beverages may be brought on at ports to enjoy in your cabin.

Just bought 2! Found out about it on a deals website. Paid through Paypal so I will leverage someone's buyer protection and get restitution if these cards contain less than the advertised value. In other words, the $200 I paid for, plus the $40 in bonus (however that will be paid out: $40 in additional promotional cards, GCs worth $120 each, or similar).

 

Good catch about the wording ("bonus $20" rather than "get a $120 GC for $100"). I think Carnival GC can be loaded for any denomination between $25 and $500, so a $120 GC *could* happen.

On the other social media site where this was posted, someone posted that the PayPal/EBay fraud guarantee did not cover gift cards. I would be very careful. I buy a lot on EBay, but would never buy a gift card.

There was a visually impaired lady on one of our cruises. You would never know she had a service dog (Lab) in the MDR unless you looked under the table. On the deck, he laid under her lounger. People asked if they could pet him. She indicated it was ok as long as she was just laying/sitting on the lounger. If she got up and the dog was then "working", people were not supposed to approach him.

Carnival is allowed to ask what service the animal provides. Emotional support dogs are not allowed. A dog that detect seizures that are coming would be considered a service dog and I certainly would not feel you needed to stay in your cabin all the time. Do check the rules/laws of the ports you will be visiting if you are planning on getting off of the ship. I am prettying sure the animal can not be left on the ship if you get off at port.

You did not say what your service animal is for. If t is an emotional support dog, thiose are not allowed.

Unfortunately, since people can buy papers on the Internet, some people have become skeptical when people say they have a service dog. A true dog that has trained to be a service dog, blends in so well often you do not know he/she is there. You should not have to limit your cruise experience because a true service dog is traveling with you. Have fun.