Capital Jazz Supercruise 2012

[hattack]

great suggestion

[hattack]

Soukous...when you received your booking number from Carnival.were you able too register for the artist led excursions and the CP transportation shuttle and print out the daily performance schedule? If not then you would still need the CP email

[Ms411]

Sounds like CJ is worse than I thought. All of us got emails with booking numbers thank goodness.

[Hermitage1]

Good Morning Capital Jazz Cruisers,

Glad to hear that most everyone has received their information. We actually went through a TA and I am now anxiously awaiting her call that she is coming over with our packages. Yeah!!

It is excting hearing about the Will Downing concert. I guess our foray into the hot springs will be cut a bit short if he is performing early in the day. I have never seen him perform before and he is definately on my "must see" list.

Do you have any other snip-its of information to tease me with before I get mine!!! PLEASE!!!!! :-)

[akwaaba]

Morning,

 

Here's my updated info on the quest to get a booking number.

 

(1) I emailed CJ yesterday and received the standard robo reply; waiting to hear from a live person

(2) Called CJ but voice mail was full so I couldn't leave a message, I'll try again in a few minutes

(3) Called Carnival and they don't have me or my cabin mate on their manifest let along a booking number

[Hermitage1]

Hello akwaaba,

I certainly hope that all is O.k. with your booking. Can I ask when did you originally book the cruise?

I am not going to panic yet since my TA did send us a cabin number quite a while ago.

[Hermitage1]

Just chatted with my TA and she has confirmed what I had suspected. They are having staffing issues. There was a representative at CJC that she had been dealing with regularly when it came to our arrangements and it appears that individual is no longer with them.

They had given her some feedback regarding our bookings a couple of weeks ago and she has, like you, not received anything as yet. She will be contacting them today. If there is any information that I can share to help those who have not received their confirmation information as yet. I will do so.

[akwaaba]

I was wait listed, my deposit was paid around Jun 26, final invoice w/ -0- balance was dated Aug 23.

[hattack]

Akwaaba...so sorry about your situation,,,usually most of the challenges are worked out prior to turning over the manifest to Carnival but if several guests are having the same issue you are (as evident by a full voicemail box). there must be a glitch in the system compounded by as Hertimage1 has indicated staffing issues on the CJ side, I'm sure they are working on fixing the problem today and then sending out emails to the impacted parties

As long as you have your invoice receipt (paid in full)nd a specific cabin # assignment you should be ok. Hopefully the issue will be fixed by the end of today and you can focus on having full

Hertimage1...looking at the daily schedule it looks like we are in for a great time

[akwaaba]

Well I got through to an actual person! She said the emails weren't sent until last night (I didn't mention some got theirs Friday). I had to push her before she checked for my name by telling her Carnival didn't have me on the manifest. She said both me and my cabin mate were in the CJ records and assigned to the correct cabin.

 

For some reason I still don't have the warm and fuzzies but I do feel better. I think she's sending Carnival my name/info as I type this.

 

I don't have to work today so I was hoping to use this time registering and deciding on activities; oh well.

[hattack]

Glad it all worked out...I suspect what happen to you and others was a handoff programing glitch with CJ new computer system and Carnival's system on Friday. Clues were a lot of folks didn't receive the FunPass email (as evident by the full mailbox) at the same time on Friday and Carnival could not locate you by name and cabin #. Experience IT folks will tell you that when there is a major upgrade or merger of systems is actually cut over is when the "glitches"will come out the woodwork (i.e.when airlines do mergers and try to combine their reservation systems on a cutover date). CJ probably knew there was a system problem about 1 am Saturday morning when the phone calls and emails started coming ftom guests. If 5-10 hadn't receive them, that is a customer service issue, when more then 10, that is a computer glitch.

They probably worked on it all weekend with Carnival's IT folks to fix it and probably everyone will have their FunPass information today. I bet also the CJ folks conducted a manual reconcilation of all 1296 cabins to make sure the computer cutover of the manifest to Carnival did not miss any names

If this is your first time sailing with Capital Jazz and you encountered this issue, it was understandably unnerving. If I were the Capital Jazz CEO, I would have a letter waiting for you in your cabin to apologize. I would suggest playing some Kim Waters or Boney James cd's while you are completing your FunPass to get you in the SuperCruising spirit.

It's all good and after looking at the daily schedule, you should be very excited

[Hermitage1]

Hattack, you are such a tease. You will not tell us anything about the daily schedule.:-)

 

No worries, our TA has just come back and she has completed all of our fun passes and will deliver it all to us tomorrow.

 

Let the fun times BEGIN!!!! (Maybe I should start to pack) LOL.

[Soukous]

Soukous...when you received your booking number from Carnival.were you able too register for the artist led excursions and the CP transportation shuttle and print out the daily performance schedule? If not then you would still need the CP email

I was not able to register for the artist led excursions using the booking number from Carnival or the CP transportation shuttle and I didn't have (and still don't have) the performance schedule. I was just able to register with Passport numbers etc.

 

I emailed CJP again today asking for the email again. Everyone on this forum has helped and I've already booked my shore excursions so I'm o.k. I still want to see the performance schedule etc.

[Soukous]

Morning,

 

Here's my updated info on the quest to get a booking number.

 

(1) I emailed CJ yesterday and received the standard robo reply; waiting to hear from a live person

(2) Called CJ but voice mail was full so I couldn't leave a message, I'll try again in a few minutes

(3) Called Carnival and they don't have me or my cabin mate on their manifest let along a booking number

Wow, unreal.

[hattack]

Hermitage1....glad you are in the zone...one of the aspects that I love about the onboard activities is that every year (this is our third straight and we are already booked for next year) it just gets better and better and they add new activities

- really looking forward to the Soul Session and Midnight Jam Session combination. I would suspect they adapted the format from the Capital Jazz Festival where folks move back and forth between the two stages

- lagniappe (my favorite new orleans word) will be 3 Mo Tenors and Step Afrika (neither of which you would expect to see on a music cruise)

- when I was a teenager, I looked forward to the Motown Revue coming to the Apollo and watching the singing "battles" between acts (i..e. Temptations vs Four Tops, Gladys Knight vs Patti LaBelle etc). I suspect "The Motown Showdown" will be a tribute to that era. Many of the UnderGround Lounge neo-soul singers are Motown "old school" soul singers at heart and last year when Eric Roberson channel Marvin Gaye at the 70's night special concert, he brought the house down, so I bet the CJ staff made a mental note. Everybody (regardless of age or era) knows the words to the great songs of Motown, so that should be a real fun evening

- if you have never seen the comedian Mutzie (who is from New Orleans) he will have you in tears laughing so hard

- never heard of or could find on YouTube the "ElectroAcoustic Band" but they would not be on the SuperCruise unless they were good, so I will be checking them out

- there are always unannounced surprises so I really look forward to see who it will be.

I always tell my friends who have been on other full charter music cruises, that on the SuperCruise, I pay my $$$$ to see my favorites but at the end of the cruise it is the artists that I have never heard of that I fall in love with. Last year it was Carol Riddick , Sy Smith, Angela Johnson and Eric Roberson among others. I'm excited about who it will be this year

[akwaaba]

I certainly don't know why anyone would put in a new computer system right before a critical timeframe; I work with computer systems and would never do that.

 

I still don't have my email and Carnival still doesn't have my name.

[hattack]

From the monthly newsletter I surmised they have had the new system program starting with this year's cruise (which allowed us to receive cabin assignments for the first time at the time of booking) for awhile..the cutover was probably where the problem came about..usually a sample % is cutover prior to the full manifest cutover...happens more then most IT folks would like

The good news is that the programmers have fix it and should not happen in the future. so they will be able to add additional enhancements (Hopefully it only impacted a small %. ) I've been following the FaceBook page and not alot of folks have complained (these days social media is the first line of feedback)

Again, I don't know if that was the specific issue, but this was not an issue on SuperCruise 4&5 under their old system

[hattack]

If you recently flew United/Continental, Delta/Northwest, US Air/ American West at the time they merged their reservation systems on their cutover date would be a good example on the maco level.

 

If Carnival does not have your name. In their system by tomorrow, you should be chatting with Capital Jazz folks

[Ms411]

I found ElectroAcoustic band on YouTube.

[hattack]

featuring Albert Beger?

[Ms411]

Yes, featuring Albert.

[hattack]

thanks...should be very interesting to see live

[akwaaba]

After sending an email, leaving a voice message, speaking with 2 different people at CJ I got angry with the 3rd person and demanded something other than I'll send you an email with the information since I've heard that before.

 

Well...

(1) I don't have have a booking number, that's why I'm nowhere on Carnival's books; the previous 2 folks I spoke to didn't have the guts to tell me, they said things like my package went to my spam folder, insteading of addressing and fixing the problem.

 

(2) It looks like the person from Carnival was correct, and someone else is in my assigned cabin. The 3rd person didn't exactly say that but when I asked if I had a cabin and gave her the number, she didn't say yes to the specific cabin but did indicate she assigns the cabins so yes I would have a cabin.

[hattack]

wow...thanks for keeping us posted on the progress in your journey...this is too close for comfort and very unfortunate..

[Ms411]

Ooohhh, I am so sorry to hear that they can't provide your documents. It all seems so shady to me, which is why I prefer to use a licensed agent so you have some recourse if they're a member of the Association.

 

Nobody sets up a database without programming an option to warn you of duplicate numbers. Well, maybe a student or an intern, but no experienced database programmer.

 

And since CJ doesn't issue a paid-in-full invoice, it's even more troubling to me.

 

What happened to those cabins that became available? I'm getting upset just thinking about your situation.