DallasGuy75219

The tradeoff is that vaccinated no longer need pre-cruise testing on most itineraries. Show proof of something you've already done regardless of the cruise (getting vaccinated) or get tested specifically for the cruise... your choice of "burdens". But the latter is definitely more of a "burden" than the former.

You need to be more specific about itinerary, length of cruise, and whether you're talking about vaccinated or unvaccinated passengers. There are multiple scenarios under which testing will still be required, so no absolute yes or no answer to this overly simplified question is going to be accurate in every situation.

Not always quite that simple. Some ships only offer priority tendering for the first 1-2 hours of tendering operations. After that you're stuck getting a tender pass like any non-status passenger or waiting until there's no longer any wait and general tendering is announced (i.e., the number of people waiting to tender off the ship has decreased such that you no longer need a tender pass).

It's washed in hot water with who knows how many other passengers' clothes, so make sure it's not somethiing you'd be upset with if it came back shrunken or with a tint from the other clothes it was washed with. Personally, I only send out underwear, socks, undershirts, and t-shirts, never any shirt with a collar, jeans, or dress pants.

Cruises to nowhere are no longer permitted on foreign-flagged ships, those not built in the US, and/or crewed with foreign nationals who do not have visas to work in the US. The government was letting this slide until a mom-and-pop gambling ship tried to run regularly scheduled day cruises to nowhere from Florida with foreign crew, a foreign-flagged ship, and/or no foreign port stops. Cabo is doable on a 4-day from southern California.... a sea day to get to Cabo, a port day in Cabo and a sea day to get back to California. But not on a 3-day. Different issue with regard to PVSA compliance. If they could make it to Mazatlan, they could also make it to Ensenada (at the time), Cabo, and/or Puerto Vallarta to hit at least one foreign port and maintain compliance with the PVSA. Cruises to nowhere are no longer permitted on foreign-flagged ships, those not built in the US, and/or crewed with foreign nationals who do not have visas to work in the US. The government was letting this slide until a mom-and-pop gambling ship tried to run regularly scheduled day cruises to nowhere from Florida with foreign crew, a foreign-flagged ship, and/or no foreign port stops.

According to the protocols on Carnival's website, you only need the positive test results from a certified lab.

Catalina Island doesn't really come into play here since it's in California. A foreign-flagged ship has to call at a foreign port on a round-trip sailing from a US port (and passengers have to be given the opportunity to get off the ship--Norwegian sued for enforcement of that when another cruise line tried scheduling round-trip Hawaii sailings from southern California with a technical stop in Ensenada where passengers could not disembark). Ensenada is pretty much the only option for a foreign port on the 3-day sailings from southern California. The 4-day sailings could make it to Cabo and back but that would burn a whole lot more fuel than the cruiselines want when they could go to the much closer Ensenada and Cataline Island instead.

🙄 I've never seen a cruise/travel insurance policy with "Acts of Rodents" coverage for personal possessions.

Carnival's definition of a Document of Recovery is: a paper or electronic copy of the positive viral test result from a certified laboratory (dated no more than 90 days prior to the sailing date). Depending on the whims of the check-in staff (i.e., whether they're following the letter of Carnival's policy on any particular day) your doctor's letter alone may not be sufficient.

The steakhouse sommelier? That's a crock that there's a legitimate sommelier onboard any Carnival ship, with staffing increasingly cut to the bone.

Longer cruises have an earlier final payment date than shorter cruises.

Even if something's not on the menu anymore, in my experience the bartenders will still make it on request if they know how and have the ingredients.

For some of the market that Carnival caters to (blue collar to lower white collar, lower-middle class to mid-middle class families that scrimp and save for a family vacation), the Carnival experience of 20 years ago was luxurious. Twice-daily housekeeping with mint-on-your-pillow turndown service , four-course meals, 24-hour room service, steak every night if you wanted, and lobster dinners are things my parents could have never afforded on any kind other kind of vacation, much less in our day-to-day lives. Hell, I had never even seen a crumb scraper until my first cruise. But Carnival was luxurious to us based on our own personal experience and norms. Think of Kathie Lee Gifford singing to those lower-middle class to mid-middle class people about what their lower-middle class to mid-middle class friends at home would think if they could see them living it up (based on their everyday standard of living at home) on a Carnival cruise. But to those same people, today's Carnival experience might as well be a family trip staying at Holiday Inn Express and eating at Golden Corral or living their lower-middle or mid-middle class lives at home.

I do, on ships/cruiselines where 'closets'/clothing rods have no shelf on the floor, just the same carpet as the rest of the cabin. I roll up my dirty clothes to fly home, so I wait until the last night of the cruise to do that and put the rolled clothes in plastic bags directly into my luggage. Not that putting dirty clothes on the floor justifies having rodents chew them up, if indeed that's what happened🙄

That may not be fleetwide, it could be all they can get in Europe (or could have been supply chain issues, like everything else these days).

They're all sweet IMO, at least on my Regal B2B last month where they used the Oasis margarita syrup as their mix. That stuff is concentrated and meant to be cut with ice/melted ice in a frozen drink, not used as a mixer on the rocks. I tried all the margaritas on the menu and settled on the 24K gold margarita, with tequila as well as Cointreau and Grand Marnier (one is mixed with the drink, the other a floater, but I don't remember which is which). All the varieties of margaritas were way to sweet for me, with the exception of one casino bartender who would add water to dilute the Oasis mix before mixing the drink.

That's why I started getting a cheese plate to go at dinner every night. It's my late night post-casino snack after the late night snack buffet (now being cut anyway) was closed and when I didn't want to deal with the line and/or drunks waiting for pizza when it was the only venue open and only had one person working it.

Yet another cut... the filet with the steak and eggs has been replaced with a cheaper cut (striploin? sirloin?) since cruises resumed in the COVID era.

Cruising for free because Carnival has cut back on and cheapened the experience to the point that I (and apparently others) will no longer pay for it, except by "pre-paying" for future cruises by gambling in the casino.

So I have a mildly amusing story about this... a long time ago on Royal Caribbean we had an assistant/junior waitress who was clearly struggling with her execution of English. I fully believe she was trying to be polite and trying to address pax as "My Lady," but again her execution was a bit off and she kept addressing them as "Lady," which came across as quite informal and a bit brute to anyone who didn't realize she was struggling with English.

And your pettiness for not being able to get over an overcharged orange juice will get you blocked for hijacking posts.

Yes, the people driving to New Orleans and Mobile (and to some extent Jacksonville and Charleston) to cruise are much more the Wal-Mart/Carnival crowd than the Princess crowd.

Bigger catchment area for people who drive to the port... Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio are all within roughly four hours driving distance.

You need to look up the definition of fraud, particularly in the legal context, before throwing around words and accusations that you clearly don't understand.

Yes, book your flight first to make sure you can book something that departs after 1:30. Don't book a transfer. The excursion will drop you off at the airport. The language about passengers who purchased a transfer is for people who already bought transfers and then decide to do a debarkation tour. The ShoreEx desk onboard will give them a credit for what they paid for the transfer so they're not paying twice for the transfer (once for the transfer and again in the price of the debarkation excursion).