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!

It's a shame if Carnival are only doing round trips now, when we sailed on the Carnival Legend it was Seattle to Vancouver via the usual Alaska stops, and while that isn't extra time in Alaska compared to the ones with the train trips etc, we loved Vancouver so much it didn't matter. It was one of the best cruises we've ever done, and hopefully similar itineraries will return one day for us. We're not particularly loyal to any brand, but Carnival remains our favourite that we've sailed on the most. We're in the rif-raff category too, but do like to dress up a little so the different options but fewer rules on Carnival always worked for us. I don't drink so I'm not a 'party-cruiser', and find it irritating that some people suggest people only want Carnival for a booze cruise. I don't, and I still love them. My favourites are the older ships, spirit and conquest class. Itinerary always comes first though. Opinions on others: Celebrity: Our favourite of the others we've tried. They're elegant ships, and the entertainment is some of the best we've had anywhere. (not just the shows but the games and other things in the evenings). The staff were lovely, would definitley go with them again if we got a good deal. I'd pay a bit more to sail with them than most others. Princess: The one we did was really not our cup of tea. It probably didn't help they were trying to court the asian market at the time, trying to attract more Japanese customers, but it felt like the regular entertainment was non-existant as a result of some changes. I'm sure it's not like that on other sailings so probably not the best example, but we were bored with not much to do all week. Often there was only one or two things to do on an evening, so if you didn't like that you were left to your own devices. NCL: It's been a long time so they might have changed. We were on Norgegian Gem, which is quite a feast for the eyes inside if you like colourful decor! The food choices were unusual for us as we were more used to fixed dining back then. Enjoyed it, but didn't make us want to return. I'd like to try again as it was over a decade ago. P&O UK: Eurgh. The most beige ship i've ever been on. Some facilities were nice, but the entertainment was average and the food sub-par unless in the pay-for restaurants. The newer ships should be amazing, but doesn't feel like it's quite working for the volume of customers yet, for example the pub-quizzes/trivia were in a rather small L Shaped bar, but attended by huge numbers so it was a fight for space. (we British people like a quiz!) Will not be returning to them. Maybe worth a try if you want to try something with more traditional British flavour. We've also been on Ocean Village and Thomson, but neither of those exist any more and they're not really a tier-above anyway so not really relevant!

Glad to hear you had a great time. We our on the Pride in October, and hope we love her as much as the Legend.

It's been an enigma to me for many years. I actually used to quite enjoy attending when we first started cruising circa 2002, we'd attend and watch the salespeople excitedly telling us how important lots of artists we'd never heard of are, and then shake our heads as people 'bid' in the low thousands for things. (I say 'bid', I don't recall ever seeing a picture get more than a single bid. The term 'auction' is definitely not accurate, haha) Actually, they rarely received a huge number of sales from what I could tell, I remember it was usually the same family bidding for a couple of things, but on the whole nobody bought anything. Reproduction Disney cels sometimes got a bit of interest, but they were really overpriced so surprised people went for it. It seemed like they made the bulk of their money on the art 'raffle' or quizzes, where if your ticket was picked out or you answered a question right you 'won' a print. What they didn't tell you was that it was from a small selection of awful prints, you'd have to pay about $100-200 to ship it, and pay an extortianate amount if you wanted a frame. A big con. It's part of our culture enough that it's even been on the Simpsons, I think in the cruise episode, Bart is holding a Michael Godard print at one point, those ones with olives and cocktail glasses that used to be EVERYWHERE on cruises, and always the star of the show at the auctions!

We're booked on the 8th October Itinerary, flying over to Rome from the UK. As with the OP, we booked based on the itinerary, as it's great to be able to see Ephasus, Athens, Rome, Pompeii, Olympia and others from just one cruise. From my own experience, European stops involve more walking than almost anywhere in the world because there is so much history in one place (if you're into that sort of thing). Other than sea days, when we get back to the ship you're often too tired to do very much so the ship itself is less of a concern than if we're in other locations. That being said, we had a lovely cruise on the Legend so a sister ship will bring back some fond memories. Plus it's due a dry dock (I believe?) before we go, so perhaps some of the cosmetic defects might be improved.

I think i've stayed in that King's Cross hotel! 😂

I find it funny how different cruise lines & ships appeal to me, sometimes for reasons I can't even place. My first Carnival ship was the Valor, and was booked based on the itinerary and price. We absolutely loved it, made some friends on board (we usually keep to ourselves so this was a change) and found the overall entertainment and experience to be great quality all week. Some of the other lines that people rate highly, we didn't really care for however. Princess particularly, although we were on some of the early cruises out of Japan when it was really trying to court the Japanese market, and it felt as though a lot of the usual experience had been paired back a little. It was a great holiday for the itinerary, but the on board experience was a bit dull. Celebrity we loved, it seemed very elegant, without trying to be pretentious so had a great line between seeming high-end, but including great activities and entertainment on board. Some of the staff on there were some of the most memorable we've come across, outside of Carnival. P&O (probably of more relevance to British cruisers) we found a bit bland. The ship was modern, but very beige. Other people seemed to like it but it just lacked character, and the service was not as personal as the American ships. (that's probably a taste thing) Our next one will be back on Carnival. I think it's just the line for me. I'd try others again, certainly Celebrity, but I find the prices and experience for me personally on Carnival hard to resist. I wouldn't want the short party cruise experience, but their itineraries in Europe and Alaska, plus some longer Caribbean ones definitely.

I wore a smart work dress and my Husband a black shirt and funky tie. It definitely wasn't as formal/glam as other destinations but people did dress up a bit more than other nights.

Does anyone know what the usual time is to be out of the cabin for Pride sailings other than Dover? We're going to/from Civitaveccia.

That makes sense. Obviously it's most important to check that everyone who'd gone off independently had returned, but perhaps need to also factor in that tour people might have wandered off if it's a long wait! haha. We sat downstairs near the front and it definitely seemed busier down there than when we went out. I suppose some of the ones who'd been upstairs in the morning were just tired and wanted to sleep on the way back. (plenty did!) 🙂

How interesting, were you on the 'on your own' tour or one of the others? When we got there they seemed to be checking the people who did the on your own excursion, but just assumed the ones on full tours were all present. It was quite a long time between us getting off the coach and the ferry arriving, and a lot of people had just wandered off to look at shops etc. Nobody checked my cabin number or anything. As I say, I did see a guy counting before we boarded, but everyone was in a big scrum or straggling around at that point so how he managed it accurately I'll never know (That's the bit where I'd be worried he might count a non-P&O person by accident). He obviously did it fine though as I'm not aware of anyone being left! 🙂