ShdwKnght

I also like Snapple. I order 2 packs of water from Carnival and have it waiting in the room when we get there. I also bring the boxes of Snapple singles to go lemon tea. There are 6 packets in each box, and each packet makes 16 ozs of tea. I order the Snapple online from Rite Aid pharmacy, and usually can get it for $0.70 per box. Doing this is so much easier than bringing on the water or sodas. Just order the water, throw a few boxes of Snapple in my luggage and I am set for drinks for the whole cruise.

I called Carnival today, just out of curiosity. I was told I could switch over to the Pack & Go. We would lose the original obc of $75, but we would end up with $120 obc because of the lower price. Carnival would be selecting our cabin, so it could be anywhere. But the cabin we have now is right under the galley, and beside the crew stairs. So I really don’t know if a different cabin would be so bad. I will talk to my wife over the weekend and give it some more thought.

Thanks everyone, my question was answered. I will just be happy with what I have. If I were to go up to a OV, it would cost a little more and I would lose the obc I have now. So we will stay in E165 and hope it is not too noisy there.

I am booked ES on the Ecstasy with a 4E interior cabin sailing on Oct. 20th, so past final payment date (all paid). Looking at the fare viewer today, I see 2 sales that are a lower price than I have now. Both are $90 less than I paid, but both are for IS cabins. Will I be able to get this price drop since the cabin category is different? Right now we have $75 OBC that we got when we booked the ES special with $25 pp OBC. We will lose that but can gain the extra $15 to have $90 OBC. If we are able to do this, will that take us out of the ES category and place us into the new special category?

Stupid question because I never asked before in my years of cruising. How do I tell if I have a rate increase or decrease?

You can do a mock booking or go to https://www.carnival.com/BookingEngine/FareViewer/# and fill it out for your ship and date and see if the fares are lower than what you booked.

Here are the details:

 

$49.95 2-3 day cruises

$49.95 4 day cruises excluding Carnival Liberty, Carnival Paradise, Carnival Triumph, and Carnival Victory

$59.95 4 day cruises for Carnival Liberty, Carnival Paradise, Carnival Triumph, and Carnival Victory

$59.95 5 day cruises excluding Carnival Sensation and Carnival Victory

$69.95 5 day cruises on Carnival Sensation and Carnival Victory

$69.95 6-7 day cruises

$79.95 8 day cruises and longer

This is what JH had posted on his page:

$49.95 USD 2 day and 3 day cruises

$49.95 USD 4 day cruises (excluding Carnival Liberty, Carnival Paradise, Carnival Triumph and Carnival Victory)

$59.95 USD 4 day cruises (Carnival Liberty, Carnival Paradise, Carnival Triumph and Carnival Victory)

$69.95 USD 5 day cruises (excluding Carnival Sensation and Carnival Victory)

$59.95 USD 5 day cruises (Carnival Sensation and Carnival Victory)

$69.95 USD 6 day and 7 day cruises

$79.95 USD 8 day and longer cruises

Our 5 day on the Ecstasy in October is now showing $69.95

Thank you so much for this great review. My wife, son and I will be sailing Ecstasy in October, and I look forward to it now more than ever.

Rick

When looking for price drops, do you look at total cruise charges (fare +taxes and port charges) or total charges (cruise charges + prepaid gratuities + misc. charges (penalties))?

I just had the same thing happen, 1 person cancelled on ES reduced deposit for OCT, 4 to a room. The only thing that was lost was his deposit of $75, and $25 of that will go toward a future cruise.

I tried and tried to log in to PayPal through ebay, and it wouldn't let me. As soon as I deleted the gift cards from my cart, and added a different item, I could sign in with no problem. But when I deleted the other item, and added the gift cards back in, I had to resign into PayPal, and it started all over again.

Perhaps she was asking which one people prefer because chain restaurants can be different from one location to the next. Maybe one is in a better neighborhood, is cleaner or has better workers than the other.

We were on the Conquest this past November, and the muster drill was the only complaint I had during the entire voyage. I don't have a problem with the drill itself, but my family and I were at our station on time, and then had to stand there and wait another 45 mins for all the stragglers to decide to show up.

Thank you all for your replys, helpful posts and well wishes.

After further review, the ruling on the field is overruled!

LEAVE APPROVED!!!!

Not to make light of a difficult job- BUT- this is a whole different story- they did NOT have any approval to begin with.

You are correct. She did not have approval for leave at the time. But when she put in for her leave, we did not know that in less than a month her company would be put in stand-by deployment. My son and I also had to put in for our vacation days. We also needed to go ahead and book the cruise since there was just under 2 months left until the dates we had planned and with the deal that was offered at the time. I guess it was a good thing we did because it seems this cruise is sold out now.

And wouldn't it have been a shame if we had all gotten the time off, but no cruise to go on?

PS. It seems this story is not quite over yet. She told me this morning to not cancel her ticket yet because her leave is back up for review.

Should not be any problem at all. Son will become the new 2nd person in the cabin, and he will get the other half of the OBC. The 3rd person rate is much less than the 1st/2nd persons, so any refund percentage would be off of the lower 3rd person rate. There will not be any extra charge in your case, so no financial reason to do a no-show. The current rate for your cruise may be higher than what you had booked, but they will not change you to the current higher rate.

 

One other thing to consider. You are currently 3 people in a room, so your room holds at least 3. When you go down to 2, it is possible that they might bump you to a 2-person room. It's more likely to happen if it's a high demand sailing, such as over Thanksgiving. If you really like your room and don't want to risk losing it, then you might consider the no-show, especially if the refund would be pretty small. The taxes would still get refunded on a no-show. If you decide to go this route, then have them move son up to guest #2 & wife to guest #3, just to make sure with the OBC issue. If your room location isn't an issue, then you could also pick out a good 2-person room to switch to that is within your same category. That way, you could still cancel & get some money back.

I spoke to my PVP yesterday, and he pretty much told me the same thing as far as cancelling my wife. My son will become passenger 2 and we will be cancelling passenger 3. He also told me to get him a copy of the denial letter and he will turn it in and try to get a refund or credit for passenger 3.

As far as changing rooms, he did not mention that. But since I paid extra to choose my room, they would not give me a lower room would they?

I'm thinking since she's in military-they might treat your issue different. Since it's not her fault the government wouldn't let her off your rate might still be the same. I could be wrong.

 

A job is a job and if you committed before getting final approval then you are SOL. Doesn't matter who your boss is and they should have waited BUT that is why you buy travel insurance.

 

OP: Travel Insurance????

No, no travel insurance yet. When I booked the cruise, I paid cash and at the time, didn't have enough for insurance too. That is something I plan to get before we leave. I am more concerned about something happening during the trip than before.

Again, I am not trying to get anything back from Carnival, other than tax and fees. As long as my son can just slide into that second passenger position with no problem, I will take the loss of the 3rd passenger fee and count it as lesson learned. I will call my PVP today, and see what he tells me...a "what-if" scenario.

No, only the people who check in are credited with obc's, is this a military rate that you booked? And is she the only one who qualifies? That's another problem.

I was wrong about the special. It was $20/person (max $40) OBC. The OBC would be the same for 2 people as it was for 3. It was a little more than the military rate, but with the OBC we came out better. So, no, we didn't book military rate.

She had put in for her leave when this special came up. We did book before her leave was approved, but in between then and now, her company was put on stand-by deployment. She was told since she put in her leave request before that happened, it was possible she would still be approved. Yesterday, her company commander told her if she had put in for leave to go home, he probably would have approved it, but the cruise was just too far away since they are on stand-by. We are both disappointed, but as she said, it was the job she chose.

I'm not trying to get anything over on CCL, or trying to get anything we didn't pay for. I am willing to take the loss for the 3rd person, it is only 1/3 of the first 2 passengers, and I will get back the taxes fees and port expenses. I just don't want to lose the OBC, since there are still 2 of us in the cabin.

And Budget Queen, my wife is practically your neighbor.

My wife is in the US Army. After waiting over a month, she found out today that her leave for our upcoming cruise next month is not approved. It's way too late to cancel, so my son and I are still going. We paid for 3, with my wife and I being listed as passengers 1 & 2 and my son as 3. So even if we tried to cancel her, I am sure they would try to make my son and I pay more for the double rate, so we would end up losing money. So I guess it would just be better if she is a no-show.

My question is, the special rate we got includes $40/p/d OBC for the first 2 passengers in the room. Would her not showing up affect that, or is it just for the 2 people in the room?

Cozumel is your best choice. We had rented a jeep so we had to fill the jeep back up at a gas/food mart and we were able to replenish my stock of mountain dew. Sorry can't remember the cost but it didn't matter because Carnival didn't sell Mountain Dew. I know it wasn't outrageous or I would have done without, and we used US Dollars.

 

I even think there is a gas station within walking distance of the port also.

Do you happen to know if the Mountain Dew was made with real sugar or high fructose corn syrup?

These cards seem to disappear from the aarp site as quickly as they do from the Verizon rewards program site.

This is not really AARP. They are paying for this service. Citibank(CitiEasyDeals) , and Verizon Wireless(Smart Rewards) have exactly the same program, with exactly the same screens, and exactly the same results. When they are gone from one site, they are gone from the other two also.

A lot is going to depend on your age, and your general health. When I was 42, I had quadruple bypass surgery in January. The morning after, the nurses had me out of the bed and walking from ICU to my room. For the next few days that I was in the hospital, they encouraged me to walk the halls as much as possible (which I enjoyed because it was so boring in my room). By April, I was back at work with no restrictions.

It would seem that a cruise would be a great place to recuperate. As long as you take it easy.

Thank you.

Hi, my wife, my son and I are are sailing in November. Is it possible to have a separate cruise cash account for my son's card even if we are all in the same room?

Now before anyone starts thinking I am a bad father, let me explain. My son is 30. When I booked our cruise, we were given $40/d/p up to 2 people in obc. When I priced our trip, I divided the cost by 3 to see what his share of the cost would be, and told him that was how much he needs to give me for his ticket. But his birthday is in November, and Christmas the next month, so my wife and I decided we would keep the money he gives us, and put it in an envelope, along with his boarding pass, and give it to him the day we sail. We will tell him Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas. So, will he be able to have his own obc account?

Thanks.

This past January, my wife and I used the e-cards from Verizon for our OBC. I just took the print outs to the service desk, they scanned them and we were good to go. No problem at all.