Mud_Shark

Good Question.  I have nothing to add in providing an answer, but will read along as the experts weigh in.  

We have not yet taken our adult children and their families, but are considering this if we can ever arrive on the backside of COVID.  I would like to be able to control all the bookings.

Don

We made a reservation for this coming fall of '22.  They say they will provide a map with directions for doing both north and south loops.  Looking forward to it.  Still a long way off though.

Don

We were not cancelled as we sail late summer on the Royal, but can someone explain the options in the cancellation notice just so I understand.

Option 2 is self-explanatory - return of funds paid to the original method of payment (likely refund to credit card).

But what exactly does Option 1 mean?  Is it simply that your fare paid becomes an FCC at the same exact value (ie - no benefit at all over a cash refund - in fact, less benefit because cash is in hand, the FCC "in the bush" so to speak, should the cruise lines take a further turn for the worse.)  Or am I missing something?  Is it somehow 100% of what the fare would have been even if you have not made final payment?  Is there some benefit to option 1 that I just don't understand?

Thanks

Don

With the current promotion (and historically other similar promotions), yes, it is only for one meal per person for the duration of the cruise.

Unfortunately, at this time, you cannot reserve ahead of your cruise departure.  If you do, it will charge you the fee and assume you are reserving an additional meal at your own expense.

When you board, you can make reservations for the location and the date/time that you prefer, but you should not wait long as the desirable times do fill up fast.  We got on it to make a reservation a couple hours after we boarded on our November cruise and ended up dining a little later than we would have preferred but still enjoyed a marvelous meal.

Don

Carnival's ice cream crushes Princess.

But on Sky Princess in November, the ice cream was better than average.  Not so for most Princess cruises we have been on.  But I still eat it!

Don

The numbers of infected on cruise ships (5000 in the final 2 weeks of 2021) is still well below the rate of infection in the US (somewhere around 30% lower) and the rate of infection in Canada.  And now that we are not testing asymptomatic exposures or non-high risk exposures, our reported infection rate numbers will be even lower than actual infection rate numbers.  Yet, cruise lines continue to require frequent testing so their infection rate numbers are likely more accurate, and yet still below national averages.)

In reality, though it would make sense for the infection rate to tail off in a few weeks, if it remained at its current state, pretty much all of Canada will have had COVID at some point by this time next year.  Is it not time to somehow just live with it and soldier on?

So, while I do not consider the cruise infection rates alarming, it is still not the time for us to cruise.  Just too high a potential for missed ports and too many extra hoops to travel right now.  Too high a stress level that something could go wrong, even if it is just a mild case of COVID.  But when the world settles down a bit, and decides how best to just weather the storm, maybe then these numbers will not frighten us into bad policy moves.

Don

I assumed this section for Canadian cruisers was just initiated in the pandemic to help us communicate.  If it preceded the pandemic, I never saw it.

We feel blessed to have been able to get 3 cruises in during the month of November, but feel bad for those scheduled in the New Year.  Plenty of uncertainty and new hoops every day - but if you do go, I hope you truly enjoy your time on vacation.

Don

From my experience, it HAS been working of late (meaning when you get to the payment portion of the booking, there is a place where you can click a circle to have them use your FCD's as your deposit).  The circles for FCD use is near the top of the page.  

During all the cancellations and rebookings through the COVID shutdown, it was not working correctly and you had to place a booking and use the "hold this cruise without deposit" function and then call a princess rep and have them apply your FCDs.  But I have made 2 bookings in this past Fall (and a few mock ones) and in each case, the option to click a circle to use FCD's has worked.  Hope it does so for you as well..

Don

We also got off Sky on Nov 27th.  We also chose to walk off, so got a little ahead of the 8 am "canadian" debarkation group and were about 7th or 8th in line.  

The setup was outside of terminal 2.  It looked like 2 people were assigned to check people in on the computer, but one was fiddling with her computer for the best part of an hour and was not taking people from the growing line, so things bogged down.  

Once through the computer check in line, the test itself was fast - about 2 mins (PCR).  They have a table full of the devices to analyze your swab,  like they could be analyzing 30 samples at a time, but the backlog was at check-in so there were never anywhere close to 30 samples being analyzed.  It took about 10-12 minutes for each sample to be analyzed, but the test results were recorded on a piece of paper and then the papers were stacked up - needing the results to be manually input into the computer.  But there was no one doing this at the time.  They were trying to work on getting the check-in line manageable.  Although our results were done and on the table an hour from when we got off the ship - we could not access them until they were inputted and an email sent.  The pile of results just kept getting bigger and bigger on the table.  We were instructed to head to the airport and trust the system - they would get the results to us in time.  So we left and went to the airport and the results did come through about an hour later, but seeing the operation in progress, I was not 100% confident.

Hopefully there is some improved efficiency in the system as time wears on and lessons are learned.

Don

This situation happened to us 2 weeks ago.  We were on the Emerald for a 10 day Canal partial transit and then boarded the Sky Princess 4 days later.  We had to answer that we had been to other countries in the past 14 days.  Of course the medallion app then made us "Yellow lane".

When we arrived at Port everglades and entered the line for check-in, we headed to the yellow lane.  A lady asked us - "are you Yellow only for recent travel?"  We replied "Yes", and she said - "go to the Green lane and they will take care of it right away."

We went to the green lane, and the guy said "Yes - there is a quick "fix" for dealing with recent travel, but he couldn't figure out how to get the online check-in to allow us to complete check-in.  He worked on it for 20-25 mins, called over his supervisor - who said "There is a quick fix for this", and also began trying to click various things on the computer to no avail.  She called her supervisor over, who said "Oh, there is a quick fix for this", but she couldn't figure it out.  Finally she phoned the original lady who had directed us to go to the green lane.  She came over.  The supervisor said "We can't figure out the quick fix you were talking about - how do we get them to complete check-in?  The medallion wont let them check in."  The original lady said, "Oh, it's simple, just change their answer from a "yes" where it says "have you travelled internationally in the past 14 days" and make it a "No."  So the other lady did that and onboard we went.

Foolish to have a question on the Medallion that will stop the process cold and no one knows how to proceed without changing the answer to fool the program.  Why have the question in the first place?

Don

You can walk from pier #2 (primary Princess location) to Walgreens in less than 10 mins.  Publix is a little further.

If you sail from pier #22 (can't recall number exactly but it is the secondary Princess location), there is often a complimentary shuttle from that pier to the parking garage at pier #2, and you can walk from there (unless you prefer the Cab idea).  We just try to save a few bucks and do the walk.

We have dropped off our bags and walked from pier #2.   

Don

Hmm - drat. OK, maybe we just got lucky on these two cruises.  I thought maybe princess was giving a little incentive to wash your face masks more often.

Don

Amid various cutbacks and COVID restrictions on mask use and testing etc, we noticed one small blessing on our recent Princess Cruises.  On both Emerald Princess and Sky princess, the self-service laundromat was free!  It used to cost like $3 per wash load and $3 per dryer load.  Went to buy the tokens as usual, and was told they were complimentary.

I don't know if this is a temporary thing or has anything to do with COVID and the need maybe to do more laundry and clean your masks, but we enjoyed this and it saved us about $25 in OBC to use elsewhere.

Don

We have been on 3 cruises this month - 1 on carnival and 2 with princess (emerald and now on sky).  All 3 informed us on day 1 that room would only be serviced once per day unless we requested twice per day service.  We said we were fine with once per day and really didn't care at all.  But funny thing is, on each cruise they cleaned and serviced late morning but Also all snuck back in during dinner for what apppears to be a quick tidy up and change of towels.  Just no pillow chocolates but we are not noticing any reduction in room servicing.

Don

We got off the emerald on sat.  Tiles I recall:

Gifted

The greatest showman

Big

Tenant

Call of the wild

Dumplin

And Sunday night football, Monday night football, and Thursday night football.

Don

Hmm - Link says "Sold out - Join the waitlist".  We depart in 5 days so was thinking maybe expedite an order for this, but not going to happen.  We are back to our previous laboursome and more costly testing plans for in Florida.

Don

Be prepared for the possibility of a rejection of your request.

We got our rejection letter today from Carnival.  Apparently they are now not granting the shareholder benefit if you purchased your cruise under a sale fare.  Hmmm...  Your experience may vary  - hope it does.

Don

So we got our rejection email today, 6 days before sailing.  Apparently our "special rate" does not qualify.  We did not get a free nor almost free cruise, though I do think the rate we paid was lower than it would have been in a non-COVID environment.

We have Zero OBC as our cancelled COVID cruises were with HAL and Princess.  Oh well, it was just going to be discretionary money to waste in some fashion onboard anyway.  But not sure what this bodes for the future, as there is very little chance of a dividend or huge uptick in the stock value. Many of us hold these shares simply for this OBC benefit.  If it is being reserved only for full price fares, is it worth it to retain the stock?

Don

enjoying this.  Keep it rolling!

Don

We have ours scheduled for this coming Saturday at the airport with CVM medical.  Not cheap.  It is $129 pp, but they are geared for travelers where some of the others I tried to book with said they were not testing for travel.

Don

26 minutes ago, ninjacat123 said:

You need to have your Cruise Planner open, then copy and paste this link in your browser. Replace ABC123 with your booking number.  Press Enter:

https://www.carnival.com/booked/document?BookingNumber=ABC123&IsPrintLuggageTagsSelected=true&IsPrintPassFlightSelected=false&IsPrintCruiseInfoSelected=true

Your Booking Summary should appear.  Cursor down to Itemized Charges and any OBC should show below the sentence "All prices quoted in USD"

Hope that helps!

Thank youninja cat, that does help, but unfortunately, no OBC listed, just my pre-cruise purchases.  It's been over a month, so I will email in the request this time and see if we get any action.

Don

Pre-covid, 1130 am out of FLL was about the target time.  It was pretty solid.  

Now - with Covid test results required to be in-hand (or on phone), I simply wouldn't risk it.  We are building in more time before flights just for peace of mind and to allow for setbacks.

Don

We disembark and embark on Saturday, so sounds like testing at the port is not viable for us.

Thanks for all the info.  

Don

Thanks for the email.  If we don't see anything after online Check in on Monday, I will email in the request using the address you provided.

Don

Thanks to those who replied with info on how to see the OBC.  Monday will be 2 weeks out so we will do our check-in and then see if it shows up.

What is the email (for future use) for sending in the request?  I know and have used the Princess email for the shareholder, but the form I keep on file just has the postal addresses of the various CCL brands.

Thanks again,

Don