Amyracecar

I think there will certainly be a bit of bad behaviour on a short cruise where people are just booking for a cheap weekend of alcohol and merriment, but serious incidents seem to be happening everywhere unfortunately. There was an incident on the Carnival Pride during the Oct 8th-18th Sailing in Europe, where a family member threw a glass at her cousin in the main dining room and caused fairly significant cuts and bleeding. I feel a bit sad for the majority as it was a great crowd and generally I felt people were well behaved, with no major rowdiness in public areas that I noticed myself. This one doesn't seem to have been widely reported, perhaps because it was a family argument and was dealt with by Carnival disembarking the attacker at the first opportunity. It's perhaps just a reflection on society, as more stories like these seem to be reported everywhere. We've just got to be responsible for ourselves and try to provide a better example, I guess.

Oh, might have been the same room, haha. Glad to know you enjoyed it, we were debating between that and the old French Door interior rooms, but ended up opting for a better view out. Only a few days until we fly to Rome now, can't wait. The size of Carnival rooms on these classes of ships always seem quite generous in comparison to what we've had elsewhere (balcony or otherwise)

From my experience, even when I've had the worst grade of cabin on the ship, it hasn't impacted the cruise very much. There are itineraries where i'd prefer a balcony (Alaska, Norway, or anything with scenic cruising days) but on the whole I'm like a lot of people and don't use it THAT much. Yes I'd like one if possible, but i've never massively missed it when I don't. I'm about to set off on a cruise with an OV on the lowest deck of the Pride, and can't wait. I'm not going to spend the week waiting for a lift that always turns up full by the time it gets to my floor, hooray!

Sailing out of NOLA on Glory was one of my favourite cruise holidays ever. It's such a great place to visit pre/post cruise, would love to do it again. We're in single digits now too, Sailing from Civitavecchia on the Pride on the same day. 🙂 Exciting times!

Getting to the dining room early after embarkation and getting on the list is your best option, as others have said. In my experience many people change their dining options after the first night, so tables do become available pretty quickly. Unfortunatley if it's a last minute booking then it's never 100% guaranteed as if it's booked up already they can't exactly kick people out, however I think you'll most likely get something sorted.

I don't know that I would bring back a particular ship, but i'd love to have seen a few of the older Carnival ships when they still had more of their uniquely themed bars & public areas. I loved that the first time we sailed on the Valor every area had a different theme based on Valor, but by the time I'd sailed on Legend some of her bars had been replaced with standard Carnival themes, and our upcoming Pride sailing will have lost some more. (and notoriously much of the original risque art). It's also sometimes hard to find information about what was in those areas before they were rebranded. I know these styles aren't everyone's cup of tea, and in some cases not even mine, but I just find it fascinating how unique they all were.

I think often with these things there's a gap between what the rules may or may not be, and what people experience in practice. We're not diamond or platinum, but we've bought FTTF a few times. It's not a perk at least since Covid, but years ago your room was supposed to be ready at boarding with FTTF. It never was for us the various times we sailed. Then more recently bag delivery was supposed to be expedited, but they didn't seem to arrive especially earlier than anybody else's. It didn't bother us as we paid for it more for the quicker boarding/debarkation, but it always seemed like they were struggling to keep up with what they were trying to offer back then. Hopefully actual Platinum etc had better luck. Our upcoming cruise will be the first time we've sailed Carnival without FTTF so we'll see how different the experience is. I imagine probably not that much.

You may not know the answer depending on your tastes, but have you noticed the if the full range of sodas is available out of interest? I only ask because my Husband loves Root Beer and we normally get value out of bottomless bubbles just with that, but I've rarely seen it for sale here in Europe so assuming they might not be able to restock. I probably won't bother if we're only drinking cola, as I likely won't want 4 per day.

What time does the buffet usually close after dinner? The last ship I was on (not Carnival) they closed at 9.30 which seemed quite early. There was always a big rush when the late night buffet opened at 11.00 because a lot of people had missed eating earlier and there weren't many other options. I only really go for cookies and coffee anyway at that time, but it seemed weird that you could get a meal at midnight but not 10pm. Cruising on the Pride next month so hope the cookies are as nice as I remember.

Following from this I decided to cancel my Tiqets order and book on the official website, choosing a timeslot in advance. I'm fairly sure it would have been absolutely fine, but I don't want that small risk of having to queue longer at the ticket office, or finding that the best timeslots are already booked up. It was simple just to cancel on the app, so no real drama. I just now have to make sure that we're out of bed early so don't miss our slot, haha.

Just received this email, I'm sure everyone has but just in case: We're writing to you with regards to your reservation for Acropolis of Athens: Entry Ticket on 13 Oct 2023. Due to a recent measure taken by the venue partner, the Acropolis will require a time-slot appointment to access the museum and site. For this reason, you must take your ticket to the ticket office and request a timeslot there, showing your PDF vouchers. We apologize for the inconvenience. Best wishes, Team Tiqets

Ha, we are there on the 13th. Fingers crossed the weather is good that week (and for everyone else visiting too)

I did some further checking and it seems that what I thought was the official site (as it claimed to be), wasn't. It also sent me through to the Tiqets page to purchase. If you find the actual site it does require you to choose a timeslot. Looking at the reviews of Tiqets the bookings seem to work fine thus far for other people, most of the small number of negative reviews are about people who wanted refunds before attending or other customer service issues. I can't see anything mentioning tickets that don't work, although of course these will mostly be from before they introduced timeslots. I'll just continue to monitor, if Tiqets say they'll be ok they likely will be. Maybe the aim of the timeslots is to ease footfall at the main gate, and I think these are for the side entrance. Which of us is going first? We're there in the second week of October.

I bought tickets for the Acropolis yesterday via the official site, but didn't get an option to pick a timeslot. I'm more confused than ever! (Tickets for October)

It's called "A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again" from season 23. There are a couple of pretty accurate jokes/comments about cruising in general in there, whoever wrote it has clearly been on a few!