Never thought I would say this.....

[TravelBluebird]

3 hours ago, Illbcruzn4life said:

That's going to be my embarkation lunch when we go on the Celebration at the end of the month.

 

 

I’m not a big “fast” food eater, but on Mardi Gras last month, I was passing Big Chicken to find some friends and HAD to have it. OMG it was so good. 

[BlerkOne]

16 hours ago, bdever said:

 Oh, Princess also had bacon every day.

Pretty sure they have two kinds of bacon.

 

Surprised you didn't mention the Princess loyalty program counts either sea days OR cruises and gives solo cruisers double credit. 8 solo cruises of any length on Princess can get you to their highest status.

[TravelBluebird]

2 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

8 solo cruises of any length on Princess can get you to their highest status.

 

That’s great for solo cruisers! And fair, since you are paying 16 fares for those 8 cruise.

[BlerkOne]

5 minutes ago, TravelBluebird said:

 

That’s great for solo cruisers! And fair, since you are paying 16 fares for those 8 cruise.

If you book full suites you get an extra credit, so less than 8 cruises.

 

Princess does some short cruises - 2, 3, 4 days so way less than 50 sea days, if you plan right.

[bdever]

34 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

Pretty sure they have two kinds of bacon.

 

Surprised you didn't mention the Princess loyalty program counts either sea days OR cruises and gives solo cruisers double credit. 8 solo cruises of any length on Princess can get you to their highest status.

Thanks Blerk,

I’m a Princess new by so I had no idea about 2 kinds of bacon or the rewards. 
 

I love it! Thanks for sharing the knowledge 😊

[hard_eight]

12 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Pretty sure they have two kinds of bacon.

 

Surprised you didn't mention the Princess loyalty program counts either sea days OR cruises and gives solo cruisers double credit. 8 solo cruises of any length on Princess can get you to their highest status.

I thought that was bribery?!

[Vagabond Knight]

On 11/9/2022 at 3:56 PM, Raysgirl said:

I never thought I would say this, but after 15 Carnival cruises I am trying another cruise line.    We have been on 3 Carnival cruises since the restart and even though we enjoyed ourselves (a cruise is what you make of it) we are very disappointed with all the cut backs and poor service. 

 

Keep in mind though, that I have seen this complaint on just about every cruise line's forum. It seems that all the lines are trying to cut back to make up for their massive financial losses during Covid.  Some of it is OK since there was probably a lot of food waste that has hopefully been reduced, but I'm seeing "reduction in quality" posts just about everywhere.

[BlerkOne]

3 hours ago, hard_eight said:

I thought that was bribery?!

The Princess loyalty model is one I think the rest of Carnival Corp should follow. The program maxes out at 150 sea days or 15 cruises (on the 16th cruise you are elite) and has limited published benefits.

 

They don't give away much, but do offer some discounts, which of course, results in increases onboard spend.

 

What they do have, and what is sustainable, are certain additional benefits granted to those with the most sail days on each cruise. That number and cost is the same no matter how many elites are on the cruise. If you don't have well over 1000 sea days, you will have to try harder.

 

This is not bribery, but well played marketing.

 

 

 

[Raysgirl]

9 hours ago, Vagabond Knight said:

 

Keep in mind though, that I have seen this complaint on just about every cruise line's forum. It seems that all the lines are trying to cut back to make up for their massive financial losses during Covid.  Some of it is OK since there was probably a lot of food waste that has hopefully been reduced, but I'm seeing "reduction in quality" posts just about everywhere.

Vagabond Knight, I agree I have seen lots of posts, but since my original post we had sailed on the NCL Encore.  It was a full ship and did not experience any of the issues we had on our last 3 Carnival cruises.  No long lines for drinks.  Plenty of staff providing great service.   Food was 100% better in quality.  NCL may have made some cut backs, but we didn't notice them being our first cruise with them.  But even with their cutbacks they surpassed Carnival when it comes to service, food and entertainment. 

[Raysgirl]

2 minutes ago, TreyB said:

You sure as hell paid for it too.  Posts like this remind me of Yelp reviews that diss Olive Garden because the food isn’t authentic Italian. Carnival gets you in on a lower rate, that’s expected. It’s also expected that you can upgrade your dining choices to specialty restaurants and get better quality food, or get the steaks in the dining room for an upcharge.  Service being bad?  Give an example that isn’t an outlier. I’ve never had anything but excellent and friendly service on Carnival. Entertainment?  The comedians on Carnival are the best at sea. Those production shows in the main theater are a dime a dozen on every cruise line. Show me a better bar on any ship than the Alchemy Bar. Guy’s Burger and Pig & Anchor. Sorry you find fault, I’m sure NCL is happy to take a lot of your money. Nothing wrong with that, enjoy your cruising. 

Trey  I didn't pay anymore for the cruise on NCL that I would have on Carnival with the drink package.  I priced out both. You may have been getting some good deals from Carnival, but it seems that the longer you had been cruising with them the less deals they were offering.   There were plenty of new cruisers on our last Carnival cruise that paid $100 pp for their cabin, but yet I paid in the thousands.  I was a faithful Carnival cruiser.  As I stated in my first post I had been on 15 of them prior to "jumping ship".  The crew on Carnival was always friendly and did their best, but there is no reason to wait almost 30 minutes at a bar to get a drink on sea days.  You can not have only 2 bar tenders serving with the amount of people at the pools.   This is not the employees fault, it is managements.   On NCL there was always at least 5 bar tenders at the bars around the pool areas and 2 or 3 at the other bars, only had to wait a few minutes for service.  As far as food, the quality in the main dining rooms on NCL is 100% better than on Carnival currently.   A steak for example, on Carnival it is now what I call a dollar store steak.  You are lucky if it is a quarter of inch thick.  The steak on the regular menu in the dining room on NCL is at least an inch thick NY strip steak that was cook to perfection and served hot.  As far as the entertainment I have been seeing the same shows on Carnival for the last 6 years (prior covid and post covid), at least on NCL each ship has it own shows so there is a variety.  All and all when you compare apples to apples, the pricing is about the same on both cruise lines.  We just found that since the restart since covid, the cruising experience on Carnival is not as enjoyable for the money you spend.