JohnS43

What would you like to learn about the search function? Maybe the CC members could help.

OK, thanks. At the risk of this question being inappropriately placed, here goes:

When I tried to search Cruise Critic for a repositioning cruise, I selected "repositioning" under the destination drop-down and left all of the others (date, cruise line, etc.) at their default (i.e. "any") positions.

The result: Only five cruises showed up, all on Royal Caribbean. I KNOW there are likely dozens of repositioning cruises in the next two years -- why don't they show up?

Thank you for your responses, but my question is NOT about the forums or their guidelines. It's about Cruise Critic itself, and the search function to find cruises. I still can't find anywhere in the forums where I can post such a question.

None of the message boards seems to have an option for general questions regarding Cruise Critic (not the forum, but the website itself.) The only one that seems like a possibility on its face is "Cruise Blogs and Websites," but when you go there, it's apparently for people to post information from their own travels.

My question is about using CC's search function. Where can I ask that question?

I don't know if they're the same or not, but I was just on the Star in an SC (2-Bedroom) suite, and the mini-fridge was like one of those small dorm refrigerators. And it's about one-half to two-thirds filled with mini-bar stuff.

A whole bunch of us used it on our march 15th miracle sailing and it worked out great! Awesome discount and all they asked when I was checking in was "leaving on carnival tomorrow?" I answered yes and that was it! They were super nice. I wouldn't worry about it. There were at least 6 separate bookings with that promo code the time we went and none of us had a problem! It was a great hotel and I wouldn't hesitate to stay there again. My only regret was we had a late flight and wanted to get on the Miracle early so I didn't get enough Maya time!!! It's beautiful and I can't wait to stay there again!!!

Thanks, but which code did you use? Carnival Crew or Carnival Cruise? (See my previous post above.)

No freeze in San Carlos, and we just shake the tree and knock the limes off when we need them.

Maybe you should start selling them! You could make enough to pay for the next cruise!

Just off the Liberty and I requested Creme Brûlée the first night and it was delivered the last night

Yes, it was an SC room. I found a video on YouTube that shows what I'm talking about. (Not my video, nor my room, but almost the same.) Note the two room numbers outside.

I understand about the "family" concept, but still don't understand why there are two room numbers, nor why there needs to be keycard access to the two separate room areas.

I dropped some friends off around 1:30PM in San Pedro yesterday to board the Crown Princess. I'd dropped them off for several other Princess cruises and had come to expect that they would be able to go directly into the check-in area, but this time I was surprised to see a VERY long line snaking along the outside of the building.

Anyway, I got an e-mail from one of them today; he said that the ship had to be disinfected due to a norovirus outbreak and that they didn't even get inside the terminal until 4PM. (And they had priority boarding privileges.) Not a good way to start things off, but I hope the rest of their trip is better!

This is definitely one case in which I would INSIST on purchasing trip cancellation insurance!

I sailed on the Norwegian Star last month in a 2BR suite (one of the ones identified with a jewel name.) We noticed that the room had an "interesting" layout and configuration in that it appeared that it could be converted to and sold as a large 1BR suite and a very small inside.

To begin with, the room had two numbers on the outside (in addition to the jewel identifier.) When you entered the door (that was shared by the two numbers) there was a hallway, with the smaller, inside bedroom and bathroom to the right. Access to this bedroom was through a door that had a keycard entry slot, but since it was configured as a suite, the door remained propped open during the entire cruise.

Farther down the hallway was the entry to the suite's living/dining area, and balcony. This entry ALSO had a door with a keycard entry, but again, was kept propped open during the entire cruise. (Not relevant to this story, but the master bedroom and bathroom were to the right of the living/dining area and entered through some sliding doors.)

Anyway, does anyone know if they ever use this in the alternate configuration? The one thing that didn't really make sense if it were to be sold as two separate rooms is that the small bedroom didn't have a safe of its own (there were two safes in the master BR.) Other than that, I think the person in the small BR had all of the other amenities of a regular inside stateroom.

I read in another thread (I believe it was someone's full cruise review) that they were never able to have room service delivered for breakfast at the time they requested because there were a bunch of rowdy kids on their ship who thought it was fun to go through the halls in the wee small hours of the morning and steal all of the door hangers that had been place outside the night before. (Apparently they were able to call and order it later, after they discovered the problem.) Has anyone ever run into that issue?

Thank you, Scotch Mist! A follow-up -- do they send you an e-mail or some other notification to let you know when it's been assigned, or do you have to just keep checking back on the website?

Not so sure how I feel about losing lunch there

I'm pretty sure I know how I'd feel about losing my lunch ANYWHERE on the ship! ;)

I booked a "guaranteed" Ocean View room which means that you do not get to choose your specific room-- it's assigned by Carnival. I don't have a problem with that, obviously, but I can't seem to find any information about WHEN they actually assign you a stateroom. I completed my online check-in and all the required information, but I figure it doesn't make any sense to print out any documents or the luggage tags until I have a room number.

So ... how many days or week before the actual departure date is a room actually assigned?

I don't want to go back through almost 150 pages to search for what might be an out-of-date answer, so I'll take the risk that I might be asking some questions that have been addressed already (and probably numerous times!)

Other than this particular thread, are there any other good places to become aware of potential savings for solo travelers? Are there travel agents or travel agencies that specialize in solos? (And not just for cruises.) Are there other threads on this forum, perhaps under individual cruise lines' headings, that have such information?

Has anyone ever dealt directly with a cruise line and asked to be contacted for when solo bargains show up? Has this worked?

Does looking for "last-minute" bargains sometimes translate into solo savings?

Is there any information about the success or failure of the studio cabins/lounge on some of NCL's ships? Is there any consideration to these, or similar features, being added to other NCL ships or other cruise lines?

I apologize for all of the questions, but I'm new to solo traveling and am interested in doing it more often.

Thank you!

15%? No way. And NOT automatically added. It's free! You tip about $1-2 per person being served in the cabin. Also consider the amount of food ordered. Generally not more than $5. And use cash, tips won't be "charged" to your room.

We bring singles & fives just for tipping room service.

OK, I thought I understood this but now I'm confused. I know that the room service is free, so therefore I assume they don't ask for your S&S card and don't give you anything to sign, so if you just order food, you'd have to tip in cash. But if you order something that does incur a charge (like soda or liquor), I assume that you DO have to sign something -- so couldn't you add the entire tip (for both the beverage and the room service food delivery) onto your account that way, and not use cash at all?

The discretionary service charge is billed and subtracted from your account on a daily basis. Had you received the notice you would (should) have known there was an issue.

Sorry, I guess I misstated my comment -- what I meant to say was, even if we knew it was being billed daily, we had no way of knowing that they wouldn't just be offset by the OBC at the end of the trip. In fact, I'm not really sure exactly how it was done-- I guess I should go find my statement. The only expenses I incurred (other than the DSC) were one dinner at a specialty restaurant, an entry in the slot tournament at the casino, and two or three soft drinks. Obviously all of these were covered by the OBC, but I don't remember if they offset them as they were billed or at the end.

On the Sun, when you get near the last couple days of your cruise they send you a notice that you have unused OBC. No surprises on the final morning.

I don't recall whether or not they did this, but even if they had done it, it still would have been a surprise when we received the bill, as we still would have assumed that we could've use the OBC on the last day when they bill the total amount of the DSC.

If it's available to you, try the Crab Cakes Benedict at Cagney's for breakfast.

 

To be honest, I was really disappointed with the French Onion soup in the main dining room. It was pretty much onion broth with a piece of bread and a tiny bit of cheese. Not much better than a can of Campbell's. I figured this was because it was too time consuming to bake lots of them in the galley. A real French Onion soup comes out with cheese baked all over the top. It crusts on to the bowl.

 

I thought it would be better at Le Bistro, figuring it was Le Bistro, and they would do it justice, but nope. Same bowl that you can get in Main Dining Room. A bit disappointing, but oh well.

TOTALLY agree with your assessment of the onion soup in the MDR -- it was really awful. I ordered it the first night but never again. I made the same comparison to Campbell's with my dinner companions. However, I found the version in Le Bistro to be far superior. Much darker and richer, and with more onions.

A friend of mine and I were recently on the Norwegian Star in a 2-Bedroom Suite. Not having cruised in many years, I didn't know too much about the rules for onboard spending and the Daily Service Charge. We each had $150 in onboard spending, and we both assumed we could use it for the DSC. Lo and behold, on the last morning, when we received our printed statement (there's no way to view your statement on the TV on the Star) we discovered what has been discussed here: you cannot apply the non-refundable onboard spending credit to the DSC. We each had a bill with an unexpected credit card charge for $84.

Of course at this point (debarkation morning) it was too late to be able to spend it on anything else: bars were closed, stores were closed, etc. So we ended up asking the butler if there was any way we could use the extra unspent money (which was quite a bit, since neither of us were drinkers nor did we purchase any shore excursions or other expensive items) as an additional tip for him, the concierge, and the cabin steward. At first they said, "no," but after a while they came back and told us to go ahead and do it. We ended up filling two of those charge slips (one for each of us) and assigning amounts of our credit to each of the three people (by name.) They all ended up with VERY hefty additional tips, as we'd also already tipped them in cash as well. (We also made it quite clear on the charge slips that NCL was NOT authorized to add these charges to our accounts and create an additional credit card charge!)

I know it's my fault for not having researched this prior to sailing, but I guess I just assumed that "onboard spending" included everything on board.

Have you looked into MegaBus or BoltBus? Both have really cheap fares from LA (Union Station) if you book in advance and will let you off at the West Oakland BART station or the CalTrain terminal in SF.

I think the reason people (including myself) are confused is because when you input that code, you get two rates:

1.

Rate Details Carnival Cruise

 

P41- CARNIVAL CRUISE RATE Jan-Mar 2013:$120 April-Sep 2013:$129 Oct-Dec 2013:$119 INCLUDES 7 DAYS OF PARKING DURING CRUISE AND FREE SHUTTLE TO LONG BEACH PIER ONLY

 

 

2.

Rate Details CARNIVAL CREW

 

HRCC DO NOT BOOK-HOTEL USE ONLY P51- CARNIVAL CREW $123.50 (STD RM) COMP PARKING COMP SHUTTLE TO CRUISE

So is #1 for passengers and #2 for crew members? And why does it say "Do not book-hotel use only" on #2. And why would crew members want parking?

Adding to the confusion: they haven't updated #1 for 2014- it still only shows 2013 info. When I checked for mid-May, it came up $139.

Has anyone ever contacted the hotel directly to try to get the right information?

Yes, thank you, CK!

I hope there will be more such deals (even if it's not a total "no supplement" discount) for solo travelers -- and I hope they get posted to this thread as I'm definitely up for doing more trips in the near future!