PrincessArlena'sDad

I am a compulsive planner. I started a “To-Do” list a month ago. I started a packing list 2 months ago. I gathered everything we were bringing 2 weeks ago, making order after order on Amazon for things we didn’t have (or couldn’t find). So what happens this week? Emergency orthodontist appointment (his braces basically fell out). Work due dates change. Massive traffic jams. Cat sitter has an emergency and can’t come some of the days. Front door lock stops working and needs to be replaced. Dryer decides it misses the repairman and asks for a visit. (Luckily it agreed to dry all the clothes we need for this trip). I scheduled packing to start 9 am July 5. Instead, first clothes go into a suitcase at 9pm on July 6. 14 hours before our flight! And then there‘s dishes. And cutting the cat’s claws so the (new) cat sitter doesn’t sue us. Did I print the boarding passes? Luggage tags? Passports? Wait, my father in law isn’t coming, we don’t need his passport! We planned on leaving for the airport at 7:15 this morning. Car was officially packed and ready to go at 7:10. Yes, I pulled an all nighter. We spent 5 minutes saying goodbye to the cat (I won’t lie, there was some crying involved. Not the cat). And…. We pulled out of the parking spot. And stopped. “Daddy, I think I dropped something on the way to the car, can you check?” 10 feet later. “Daddy, I can’t find my sunglasses.” Drive to the airport was almost the entirety of the trip, thanks to the lady who thought it would be a good idea to multi-task while driving: eating and checking her phone. For those keeping count, she did not have a third hand. And she apparently needed an alignment on her car. Badly. And lets not forget the truck driver practicing his NASCAR skills. Seriously. He’d do well. We avoid the demolition derby, and, a few miles from the airport, my wife suddenly points out the window, “There, over there!” She wasn’t talking to me at all, but showing the kids something. But, being the dutiful, obedient, husband that I am, I get off the highway where she was pointing. Or, maybe I was a brain dead zombie from sleep deprivation. I’ll let you decide. GPS rerouting kicks in, and our arrival time at the airport was only 2 minutes later, going in the back way. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than smart.That exit could have been a highway with no exits for miles! The flight to FLL couldn’t have been more uneventful and boring. Only thing of note was that I noticed that the flight to FLL that left two hours after our flight was delayed about 3 hours! We almost picked that one, but my wife said to book the earlier flight. Score one point for women’s intuition!

Hello all! This is my first attempt at a LIVE trip report. It may have something to do with the fact that this will be the first cruise where we’ve gotten a wi-if package. Hopefully it goes well, and, more importantly, you all enjoy following along with us. I am writing this from the comfort of a wonderfully comfortable bed at the Hyatt, Dania Beach, with Guy’s Diners and Dives playing on the TV. But, let’s go back in time a bit before going forward from here. In August 2019 we booked a Journeys cruise on the Radiance out of NYC. 9 nights. Over the course of the next 6 months I diligently racked up Allstate rewards points to purchase discounted gift cards to pay for it. And you all know what happened. So, I had thousands of dollars in Carnival gift cards sitting in my desk for 3 years. But, I really can’t complain too much, with the 11% ROI from the Allstate discount, those cards sitting in my desk made me more money than any other account since 2020. (Isn’t that a great silver lining?) So there are 5 of us going. My wife and I, college age daughter, and two sons (14 and 11). We debated between two cabins or the family harbor suite. We settled on the suite. It saved quite a bit of money over 2 cabins, we get the suite perks, we have the 2 bathrooms, and we really don’t spend that much time in the cabins anyway. They’re mostly for sleeping. It will be our first cove balcony, and we’re looking forward to that! I thought about leaving you in suspense, and surprising you with what port we were in. But, I figured, A, many of you already know, and B, you might be interested in a particular port or excursion we’re doing. So, here it goes: Transfer to port with Larry’s Limos. Aruba: Sea Trek helmet dive at De Palm Island Curacao: walking tour we downloaded, self guided La Romana: walk around the cruise port, but mostly a sea day at port Amber Cove: VIP dolphins at Ocean World. Last Sea day: Dr. Seuss breakfast FLL airport transfer with Everglades tour. I think that’s enough of planning. Next up: our adventure begins!

We’ll definitely keep an eye out for celestial strings. We board tomorrow!

Carnival does not offer OBC for military like Princess does. For Princess, it's like the stockholder OBC; no matter what rate you book under, you send in the request to have OBC added. For Carnival you have to book under the military rate, which may have OBC included. But, for us, the military rate is almost always not the best rate available.

This is not completely accurate. Only certain IDs from those states are not valid in FL. Most people's IDs from those states are still valid. There are numerous news articles that has the details on this.

That booking was cancelled. They can call Carnival directly for a new booking (which is what they need at this point).

The arrival time is selected for the cabin, not for an individual person. When you open the check in window, it'll start you on step 1, which is individual passenger information. On the right hand side will be the list of the check in steps. About 3/4 down the list will be "arrival time." You can click on that right away, and do that first, if you would like. When you click on that, it'll have you select a time for the cabin.

We're flying down on Friday!!!! You're review this week has me completely psyched!

Yep. She had to be hospitalized.

Actually, McDonalds deserved to be sued. The woman got severe burns, I think 3rd degree. McDonalds actually had memos about keeping the coffee boiling hot so that it would stay fresh longer, much hotter than would normally come out of a drip carafe. They did this so they would not waste as much coffee and/or remake it as often. The memos even warned about the possibility of severe burns as a result of the extreme temperature, but they decided that the cost savings on coffee was worth the risk of the severe burns.

Some VIFP numbers get better promotional rates than others. The rates apply for everyone in their cabin. So, if a husband and wife are the two people with the promotional rates, to minimize cost, they need to be in separate cabins on the bookings.

What, you don't care about vampires and zombies? 🤪

Just for clarity, you can use the discounted gift cards to pay the gratuities on board as well, by adding the gift cards to your account while on board.

But what about service animals?

Yes, it is. It is a scientific fact that because of the unlimited bacon on those ships, if someone were to fall overboard, they will float a lot easer, resulting in different protocols.

I really liked having a printout of the booking summary with all of the pre-cruise purchases listed in one place. With that gone, has anyone figured out a good way to print a list of the purchases?

All gift cards are gone from the site.

No, you can't use OBC to prepay grats. You can only use OBC to pay grats when onboard, after they are added to your account. If you want to pay them before boarding, you need to use the same forms of payment that you could use to pay for the cruise, and it is due on the paid in full date (or immediately upon adding them, if you add them on or after that date). Hold times can vary greatly. This was before COVID also. Best time to call is first thing in the morning.

I think if you eject to prepay gratuities it gets added to your cruise invoice. You have to pay it by the paid in full date or they could cancel your cruise. If you want to use obc for grats I would call and have them removed from your invoice.

Depends on how instantaneous you require it to be. We used it for just this purpose in 2018 and it was adequate. We didn't lose or miss any messages. We just had to look to see if there was any message. Our rule with the kids was simple: text in the app whenever you go from one place to another. This way, if we needed to find them, we just had to open the app, and look at the last message, and we'd know. We didn't feel we needed our phone to notify us the instant the kids moved around. And, we'd do the same, in case the kids needed to find us. To use the social media packages to communicate, you need to get a package for each person, which adds up to a LOT of money.

Airlines have been doing this for decades. Same flight, same class of seats, all different prices.

It's possible the $500 cards are sent UPS or fed ex, and the $100 ones are sent USPS.

Carnival cards are now only 8% discounted. And shipping is $5 for $500 cards and $1.75 for $100 cards.

This wasn't on a cruise, but recently someone cheated at a trivia game to win a potted plant. We actually saw them write in the answers as they were going over the answers.

We had an excursion go down in price once. I canceled and rebooked at the lower price. It might have been a glitch though. Price went back up a few hours later. So while it is possible you could get a lower price (recently there was a15% off wifi if purchased with an excursion) it's highly probable that excursions will increase in price by next year. If there's one you are highly interested in then might as well book it. You can always cancel.