Pride dry dock wishlist

[Eli_6]

1 minute ago, n6uqqq said:

Is this thread still about the Pride drydock? Asking for a friend.

Sorry, I hijacked it to talk about my fear that they were canceling the May 28th sailing on the Pride.  

 

Everyone can go back to talking about what they hope will be changed with the dry dock...however, based on the length of time it is going to be in dry dock if it does sail on May 28th, I doubt we can expect much more than some refreshed paint.  

[cruisingguy007]

38 minutes ago, jsglow said:

So here's my take. IF Carnival needs to cancel the sailing at a late date, TONS of folks are going to have non-refundable airfare. It makes zero business sense to not cover required airline cancelation expenses simply because of the absolute horrible publicity that would follow. I think Blerk was correct when he indicated that they had previously stepped up, as necessary. 

 

 

 

 

 

That's precisely what travel insurance is for; folks are essentially holding Carnival liable for their travel insurance coverage (basically an entitlement) because they don't want to spring for travel insurance. Should the airlines cover your cruise fare if a flight gets canceled? What about your car rental? Hotel? Missed concert? Missed hair/meal/message ect appointment that required a deposit?  I assure you they won't, most will only cover their contract and not a string of them that someone puts together for a travel plan.

 

The publicity should be to buy travel insurance, if Carnival picks these up then folks will come to expect it, then demand it and finally, come to rely on it. Travel insurance removes the risk, no begging and hopium required. Between paid policies and credit card benefits, folks should do their homework before booking nonrefundable anything and then hoping for the best. Being cheap is a risk and a choice, paying more for piece of mind is personal responsibility. Choose wisely.      

Edited December 13, 2022 by cruisingguy007

[thunderingherd11]

5 hours ago, Eli_6 said:

Ok, I checked and the Pride Transatlantic over there is April 13-26.  So, basically, it appears that Pride will be in dry dock for just under a month. How much are they going to be able to do in a month?  I honestly don't know the answer to that because I don't know how quickly they can make these changes.  It certainly makes me think that they won't be remodeling all of the cabins...

There is only so much you can do to the cabins.  Fresh paint, new carpet, upkeep balconies.  

[Eli_6]

11 minutes ago, cruisingguy007 said:

 

That's precisely what travel insurance is for; folks are essentially holding Carnival liable for their travel insurance coverage (basically an entitlement) because they don't want to spring for travel insurance. Should the airlines cover your cruise fare if a flight get canceled? What about your car rental? Hotel? Missed concert? Missed hair/meal/message ect appointment that required a deposit?  I assure you they won't, most will only cover their contract and not a string of them that someone puts together for a travel plan. The publicity should be to buy travel insurance, if Carnival picks these up then folks will come to expect it, then demand it and finally, come to rely on it. Travel insurance removes the risk, no begging and hopium required. Between paid policies and credit card benefits, folks should do their homework before booking nonrefundable anything and then hoping for the best.    

First, the cruise insurance isn't going to cover airfare.  Second, even if you purchased refundable airfare or get insurance for your airfare, you still have a lot of things that insurance doesn't cover. In my example, I have the fact that my husband is a physician with his own practice. He has to arrange (and pay for) alternative coverage by another physician in his specialty (which isn't easy to find) in order for us to go to Europe for 2.5-3 weeks. Basically, he has to pay a locums doctor to come in. He has a nurse practitioner that covers him for shorter trips, but going overseas like this is an entirely different situation. So, those dates for us are set in stone.  Similarly, when I was practicing law, I had to file vacation letters with the court many months in advance to ensure my cases weren't put on the trial docket for those periods.  Those can't be changed because your trials are set by not only your list, but the list of the opposing parties. In multi-party litigation, there may be 10+ letters that are considered. 

 

And I am sure many other cruisers have similar situations that are not covered by insurance.  So, yes, I expect Carnival to as soon as they know a cruise will not be proceeding, to let us know. ESPECIALLY for a 12-day Europe cruise when they know most their cruisers are from the U.S.  This isn't a 4 day booze cruise from Galveston where 90 percent of the cruisers drive to it.   

Edited December 13, 2022 by Eli_6

[cruisingguy007]

5 minutes ago, Eli_6 said:

First, the cruise insurance isn't going to cover airfare.  Second, even if you purchased refundable airfare or get insurance for your airfare, you still have a lot of things that insurance doesn't cover. In my example, I have the fact that my husband is a physician with his own practice. He has to arrange (and pay for) alternative coverage by another physician in his specialty (which isn't easy to find) in order for us to go to Europe for 2.5-3 weeks. Basically, he has to pay a locums doctor to come in. He has a nurse practitioner that covers him for shorter trips, but going overseas like this is an entirely different situation. So, those dates for us are set in stone.  Similarly, when I was practicing law, I had to file vacation letters with the court many months in advance to ensure my cases weren't put on the trial docket for those periods.  Those can't be changed because your trials are set by not only your list, but the list of the opposing parties. In multi-party litigation, there may be 10+ letters that are considered.  And I am sure many other cruisers have similar situations that are not covered by insurance.  So, yes, I expect Carnival to as soon as they know a cruise will not be proceeding, to let us know. ESPECIALLY for a 12-day Europe cruise when they know most their cruisers are from the U.S.  This isn't a 4 day booze cruise at Galveston where 90 percent of the cruisers drive to it.  

 

You can get a rider for dang near anything, though I doubt you'll want to pay what it would cost for the coverage you seek. It's unreasonable to think any business is going to pay for your personal life affairs lol. Mind you, you can get something like that but it certainly isn't customary coverage. Plus, if you already have the time off and airline tickets, you can go anyway and make the best of it. It isn't all or nothing, insurance can mitigate risk, not remove it entirely (unless you get a hefty rider).   

Edited December 13, 2022 by cruisingguy007

[jsglow]

I, too, am a proponent of travel insurance, especially for long and expensive overseas voyages such as being discussed. But to think that Carnival would make an active business decision to 'stick to the letter of their contract' and not cover folks non-refundable cancelation costs is unlikely in my view. Trip insurance covers that snowstorm or lost luggage or medical emergency type situation for the individual traveler. 

 

And if memory is a guide, I believe they have in fact reimbursed folks for 'change/cancelation' fees numerous times in the past. Just good business in the situation being outlined. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by jsglow

[cruisingguy007]

6 minutes ago, jsglow said:

I, too, am a proponent of travel insurance, especially for long and expensive overseas voyages such as being discussed. But to think that Carnival would make an active business decision to 'stick to the letter of their contract' and not cover folks non-refundable cancelation costs is unlikely in my view. Trip insurance covers that snowstorm or lost luggage or medical emergency type situation for the individual traveler. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's kind of the point, pay less for a nonrefundable and get travel insurance with the savings or pay more for a refundable. Everybody got choices. 

Edited December 13, 2022 by cruisingguy007

[ninjacat123]

16 minutes ago, Eli_6 said:

First, the cruise insurance isn't going to cover airfare.  Second, even if you purchased refundable airfare or get insurance for your airfare, you still have a lot of things that insurance doesn't cover. In my example, I have the fact that my husband is a physician with his own practice. He has to arrange (and pay for) alternative coverage by another physician in his specialty (which isn't easy to find) in order for us to go to Europe for 2.5-3 weeks. Basically, he has to pay a locums doctor to come in. He has a nurse practitioner that covers him for shorter trips, but going overseas like this is an entirely different situation. So, those dates for us are set in stone.  Similarly, when I was practicing law, I had to file vacation letters with the court many months in advance to ensure my cases weren't put on the trial docket for those periods.  Those can't be changed because your trials are set by not only your list, but the list of the opposing parties. In multi-party litigation, there may be 10+ letters that are considered. 

 

And I am sure many other cruisers have similar situations that are not covered by insurance.  So, yes, I expect Carnival to as soon as they know a cruise will not be proceeding, to let us know. ESPECIALLY for a 12-day Europe cruise when they know most their cruisers are from the U.S.  This isn't a 4 day booze cruise from Galveston where 90 percent of the cruisers drive to it.   

If your cruise gets cancelled, will your family take a land vacation?  Or another cruise?  I hope this all ends well for us all.

[n6uqqq]

1 hour ago, Eli_6 said:

Sorry, I hijacked it to talk about my fear that they were canceling the May 28th sailing on the Pride.  

 

Everyone can go back to talking about what they hope will be changed with the dry dock...however, based on the length of time it is going to be in dry dock if it does sail on May 28th, I doubt we can expect much more than some refreshed paint.  

I understand it happens and I am guilty too. Now we can go back to everyone's champagne taste hopes with Carnival's current beer budget 🤣

[TxTeach79]

6 hours ago, Eli_6 said:

Ok, I checked and the Pride Transatlantic over there is April 13-26.  So, basically, it appears that Pride will be in dry dock for just under a month. How much are they going to be able to do in a month?  I honestly don't know the answer to that because I don't know how quickly they can make these changes.  It certainly makes me think that they won't be remodeling all of the cabins...

 

There's definitely going to be SOMETHING considerable going down. Her sister ship Miracle just went in for two weeks (it ran over by like three days) and got the new livery paint job and the casino bar ripped out (and I'm sure some general maintenance). This drydock is scheduled for twice as long, so who knows? Could be that Pride just needs more TLC, could be something we aren't anticipating 

[Eli_6]

28 minutes ago, cruisingguy007 said:

 

You can get a rider for dang near anything, though I doubt you'll want to pay what it would cost for the coverage you seek. It's unreasonable to think any business is going to pay for your personal life affairs lol. Mind you, you can get something like that but it certainly isn't customary coverage. Plus, if you already have the time off and airline tickets, you can go anyway and make the best of it. It isn't all or nothing, insurance can mitigate risk, not remove it entirely (unless you get a hefty rider).   

Well, my husband is the sole owner so the business will pay for him to have coverage to go on a once-a-year vacation because otherwise he will have unhappy children, an unhappy wife, and an unhappy life.   And then the "business" will make less money because he will not be seeing patients because he will be spending that time taking care of his children, his house, and all of his business/legal affairs when his wife goes on vacation alone! 

 

I don't think you and I will ever see eye-to-eye on insurance.  For over a decade before I had two kids in two years, I both sued and represented insurance companies. In my experience, the money spent on a policy like what you are talking about combined with the trouble of getting the insurance to actually pay in the event of something going wrong is NOT worth it.  Insurance companies are in the business of not paying. That's how they make money. The policies are structured to benefit them and not the insured. I carry insurance on things that would cause me financial ruin should a covered event occur (like loss of my home, health insurance, medical malpractice, etc.) and it be worth it to fight them to get them to pay. (Had it happen with Hurricane Harvey and had to fight them for 9 months for a completely legitimate claim.) 

 

In my case, I apparently booked refundable airline tickets.  I don't recall doing this, but I called British Airways and they said I will be refunded minus a small fee if I cancel...I probably did that because Carnival already has done this to me multiple times before including the canceled Mardi Gras TA, canceled Vista in summer 2019 (with only 2 weeks notice), and multiple canceled Europe cruises in 2020 and 2021.

 

However, I completely "get" people not booking refundable airline tickets when you are talking about tickets as expensive as they are to Europe.  It doesn't mean they are cheap. The difference between a refundable vs non-refundable ticket is sometimes double the cost.  For some people, that may be the difference between them being able to afford a once-in-a-lifetime Europe vacation and not affording one at all. 

  

Also, might I add, that Carnival does provide for some coverage for cancelled flights when they cancel a cruise. I think everyone on this thread understands that things happen...like Covid or when a ship breaks down.  All I want or expect is for Carnival to tell us when they plan on canceling a cruise as soon as they know so I can make alternative arrangements.  I don't expect them to pay for anything.  Just to tell me when they know.  In the past, they haven't done that.  In the past they have in fact actively said "Oh no, the cruise is going forward" even when they pretty much undoubtedly knew that it wasn't in order to get those 90 day final payments...i.e. when Carnival didn't cancel Europe 2021 even after RCCL, NCL and other cruise lines had canceled and the writing was on the wall.

 

Hopefully, that isn't what they are doing with May 28th. I have more faith it is not what they are doing after what BlerkOne pointed out.  

[Eli_6]

1 hour ago, ninjacat123 said:

If your cruise gets cancelled, will your family take a land vacation?  Or another cruise?  I hope this all ends well for us all.

I am inclined to still go to Europe because we already made plans for my husband to get off.  I like the Venezia TA sailing so I will probably do that (if we can get good rooms still) or an MSC sailing out of Barcelona if this cruise cancels. 

 

I feel more confident in it NOT canceling after learning that those third party port websites just go off the Carnival website and that we ARE on the Gibraltar port website.  

[shiner6]

On 12/12/2022 at 1:04 PM, Eli_6 said:

Paint!  Bigger TV's, please!  And update the cabins!  Paint the balconies or do something so they don't look so dirty and in disrepair. 

 

The common areas didn't bother me, but some of the cabins are in rough shape. The shower in our Vista suite didn't work the entire time even after three visits by maintenance. We gave up after that. And my son's cabin next to our suite was in terrible shape.  

I am curious as to which Vista Suite you were in. I booked one for next June and hope it is not yours! 

[Eli_6]

55 minutes ago, TxTeach79 said:

 

There's definitely going to be SOMETHING considerable going down. Her sister ship Miracle just went in for two weeks (it ran over by like three days) and got the new livery paint job and the casino bar ripped out (and I'm sure some general maintenance). This drydock is scheduled for twice as long, so who knows? Could be that Pride just needs more TLC, could be something we aren't anticipating 

I was on Pride in July and it (especially some of the cabins) need TLC.  Our suite looked like it had been more recently updated, but my son's balcony room looked its age. 

[Eli_6]

8 minutes ago, shiner6 said:

I am curious as to which Vista Suite you were in. I booked one for next June and hope it is not yours! 

I was in the Starboard Vista Suite on Deck 4 with the adjoining aft balcony room.  I would hope they would have fixed the shower by now since that was months ago...

 

I actually loved the location of that room and the layout other than the shower.  Especially with the adjoining room.  When you combined the Vista suite with the adjoining room, you basically had a little apartment with the living room in the middle with two bedrooms on either side.    The balcony is huge and is fully covered. I think most of the other Vista balconies are not fully covered (maybe the one under the lido deck is, not sure), but this one is and it is closest to the water.  When the ship was in her prime, it was probably the best room on the boat!  

 

The shower wasn't that big of a deal because we just used our son's shower.  I got tired of calling the repair people because they never showed up when you called. It might be 20 minutes later, or it might be 5 hours later when you are needing to be in the bathroom to get ready for dinner, or it might be the next day when you are taking a nap and don't want to be disturbed. So, I eventually just stopped calling them even though it still was broke and let the shower be broken and used the shower in the adjoining room.  I told guest services about it before I left, though, so the next person would (hopefully) have a shower.   

[cruisingguy007]

1 hour ago, Eli_6 said:

All I want or expect is for Carnival to tell us when they plan on canceling a cruise as soon as they know so I can make alternative arrangements.

 

Can't speak to the insurance part as I see it's a personal thing/hangup but this is a totally reasonable expectation. I'd want to know ASAP also.  

[luv2trvlnow]

All I know is something weird is going on with the port schedules for the Pride.  I have used cruisetimetables before and it is usually pretty accurate.  I am booked on the Pride for September 29 and October 8.  When I first booked our cruises were shown on cruisetimetables.  Now they are gone.  They show September 10 and nothing until October 28.  On the Carnival website those cruises shown on cruisetimetable are supposedly sold out.  So they aren't removed if a cruise sells out.  So where are my cruises. 

 

It appears all the Pride cruises round trip from Rome (Civitavecchia) have been removed.  It arrives on September 10 and then does a transatlantic from there on October 28. What about the cruises in between.  Very strange they have been removed.

[Eli_6]

Anyone else who wrote to carnival to ask about the May 28th sailing (or other sailings no longer on the website) hear anything back?

 

I have NOT.  I emailed guest services and asked on John's page. No response.

[CarnivalShips480]

What is going on?

 

I'm going to get to the bottom of this

[n6uqqq]

4 minutes ago, CarnivalShips480 said:

What is going on?

 

I'm going to get to the bottom of this

Better gather up Shaggy and Scooby because you have a mystery on your hand and Carnival is not forthcoming!

[Old Fart Cruisers]

16 minutes ago, CarnivalShips480 said:

What is going on?

 

I'm going to get to the bottom of this

 

[staceyglow]

2 hours ago, n6uqqq said:

Better gather up Shaggy and Scooby because you have a mystery on your hand and Carnival is not forthcoming!

50 bucks says it's the fault of the owner of the haunted amusement park.

[angela12345]

On 12/13/2022 at 10:21 AM, EllieinNJ said:

I have also contacted John Heald and he also assured me that this cruise is still on.  

How do you contact him ?

[Eli_6]

13 minutes ago, angela12345 said:

How do you contact him ?

On his Facebook page. You just post a question and (usually) he or one of his helpers will answer it.

[angela12345]

5 minutes ago, Eli_6 said:

On his Facebook page. You just post a question and (usually) he or one of his helpers will answer it.

Thanks Eli !  I used to know how to do that, but this is our first cruise since Covid and I couldn't figure it out anymore.  I thought there used to be a Community tab or either a way to Message him, but now it will appear as a Post right on his main page ?  Is that correct ?