knagl

That's a crummy situation. Assuming you don't have a PVP (which I'm guessing you don't if you were calling the regular customer service folks), I would try calling again. If the next person you talk to gives you the same story, politely tell the agent that you're not satisfied with the denial and ask to speak to Carnival's "resolutions department." 

The resolutions department folks are a higher tier of customer service who deal with more complex situations than the first-tier customer service operators. They're also empowered a little bit more to actually fix things. 

I think it's a good next step in your situation, and it's not going to cost you anything to try other than some time sitting on hold. Good luck!

1 hour ago, LaRue1975 said:

just charge it to your sail and sign card at the machine

^^^ this is the way. There's no fee if you charge money to your room with your Sail and Sign card at the slot or video poker machines. The on board credit will cover your casino charges.

You could do a couple hundred here and there over the course of the cruise and it won't be an issue at all. Just give them some play (ie. don't charge $200 and immediately cash it out at the cage without playing at all).

I'm not much of a coffee drinker, but my husband is. On our cruise on the Spirit last year, he really liked the coffee from one of the machines at the lido buffet. They seemed to have two different styles of machines on the lido deck (one had beans visible in an enclosure at the top of the machine, and the other didn't have that enclosure), and he strongly preferred the coffee from one of the machines over the others. It might be worth trying a couple of different machines to see if one brews more to your liking.

On 8/16/2023 at 9:19 PM, Dwright826 said:

Sister will be sanding with her birth certificate and driver's license.

I prefer the 80 grit stuff from 3M, but whatever works for her...

3 hours ago, ObstructedView2 said:

There exists many, many, many more threads (posts) like this on the Cruise Critic message boards (across all cruise lines). Search any board, you'll find quite a bit of medical evacuation posts.

That doesn't answer FastShip24's question.

On 7/31/2023 at 11:41 AM, Riemercruisin said:

if we hand the bottles over at embarkation, will they be discarded or will be receive them at the end of the 1st leg?

This isn't a thing. Carnival does not offer a service on embarkation day to hold on to liquor. Their liquor policy specifically states:

"Guests are prohibited from bringing alcoholic beverages on board with the following exception [allowed bottle of wine or champagne]. ...Outside this exception, all liquor, beer, other forms of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages are strictly prohibited in both carry-on and checked luggage and such items will be confiscated and discarded and no compensation will be provided."

Source: https://www.carnival.com/help?topicid=2633

Typically, if you buy something at a port stop during the cruise or in the Fun Shops, it is delivered to your cabin on the last night of the cruise, or is available for pickup on the final morning, depending on the length of the cruise. However, for back-to-back guests, your purchases are supposed to be held until the final day of the last leg of your cruise. As such, even if you can buy it in port or on board, you likely won't have access to it until your entire cruise is over. It's possible that your B2B status will be overlooked and you'll get your items on the last day of the first leg, but you can't count on that.

Your best hope for making this happen is to make friends with someone from another cabin on your first leg who isn't doing a B2B and have them purchase (or bring on board from a port stop) the RumChata. They will receive it at the end of their cruise and can hand it off to you.

14 hours ago, heymikey2016 said:

Can anyone tell me if the lamps use US outlets

This was addressed earlier in the thread:

On 7/27/2023 at 4:27 PM, CookieShip said:

The two outlets behind the bed are EU outlets.

Here's an article about it from about five days ago:

https://www.cruisehive.com/carnival-cruise-ship-air-conditioning-issues-lead-to-refunds/107749

2 hours ago, Caribensun said:

How far in advance of your cruise on Spirit can you sign up, cruise next year.

thanks,

You can sign up for classes via the HUB app once you're on board. I suggest doing so ASAP as the spots go quickly. Scroll through all of the days of your cruise in the app to see availability on future days.

1 hour ago, Old Fart Cruisers said:

Does anyone know if it's on any of the other Spirit class ships?   We'll be on the Miracle to Alaska next week and would like to give it a try. 

SoulPlay is only on the Carnival Spirit.

The tram didn't take long at all in our December, 2023 visit, and there were multiple trams running constantly. We took the tram and then rented a golf cart to explore the island. We wound up at Radio Beach for a while, and it was fine. I think the advice in the post by lazydayz above is good.

I was really not impressed with Bimini and I'd be fine never going there again, but to each their own.

On 7/4/2023 at 2:57 PM, ShamelesslyCruising said:

Could you bring 12 per person at embarkation and refuel in port with up to 12 per person each time you pass security?  Experience anyone?

Carnival's website used to explicitly permit bringing on an additional 12-pack per person at ports of call. They removed that wording at some point over the past few years, but on our December 2022 cruise on the Spirit we had no issue at all bringing additional 12-pack soft drink cans on board during port stops. Only once did security even give it a closer look, and that was just to make sure it wasn't beer.

1 hour ago, wrightkj said:

Thanks! I'm on the Magic and after reading so many rave reviews of the Thermal Suite, I have been very close to splurging on it. Knowing the thalassotherapy pool is part of it will tip the scales!

The Magic's spa facility is excellent, and yes, access to the thalassotherapy pool is included with the spa pass or for folks staying in a spa cabin.

In December of 2022 on the Carnival Spirit, Fun 21 was dealt from a shoe and had a $6 minimum.

Also as a reference point since it was brought up in the thread, roulette was double zero, with a $5 minimum on one of the tables.

We did two weeks on the Spirit this past December, and ate dinner in the MDR every night. Most of the items ranged from good to very good. There were a couple of misses, but overall I thought the food quality was decent.

As far as the rest of the options, the buffet was hit-or-miss (but it usually is) -- a few really good items, and a few that didn't look that appetizing. The omelette station for breakfast was always great. The deli had plenty of solid choices and the workers allowed some flexibility with minor modifications to the posted menu items (i.e. substituting the cheese used in a sandwich or adding bacon).

To help muddy the waters here, we had a back-to-back on the Spirit this past December in two different port-side balcony rooms. Our first room got nice and cold, to the point that I nearly turned the thermostat a little bit warmer.

Our second room was unpleasantly hot. After a visit to Guest Services (our steward was newer and didn't really seem to understand what to do about it), an HVAC technician came to our room. It was reading 76 degrees with his fancy thermometer if I remember correctly. He disassembled part of the ceiling of the cabin and opened some dampers to get some better chilled airflow. It still never got anywhere close to as cold as our first cabin, but it was a little more tolerable for the rest of the cruise.

On 5/10/2023 at 10:54 AM, uapyro said:

I can not find a definitive answer if the divider on the aft balcony on deck 4 can be opened.

Definitively, the divider between the two rooms you mentioned can NOT be opened per Carnival's website for travel agents:

If you have a PVP who booked this, I would talk to them and have them go to bat for you. Based on the wording of your question, however, I'm guessing that this was not booked with a PVP.

The next step would be to ask to speak with their Resolutions Department when you call. The low-level customer service agent you get when you first call in isn't going to be empowered to do what you need. The Resolutions Department folks have more ability to fix issues like this.

If that doesn't work, your last chance would likely be to send a brief, polite e-mail explaining the situation to one of the executive contacts listed on the following page:

https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/carnival-cruise-lines/

Best of luck.

Mine has sometimes been a struggle to get him to respond, although if it's a new booking and you message him with "urgent" in the subject line he says he'll get back to you that day.

He's good, but he's in high demand and sometimes my non-urgent requests have required multiple contact attempts before he's gotten back to me.

On 4/12/2023 at 11:13 AM, MidnightSwinga said:

Just got off the spirit this weekend. There was on craps table on the ship and it had $10 minimums. Was often very dead but would every night had a steady game going at some point. They typically opened later and closed earlier than the other games.

In December of 2022 on the Spirit, the craps table was a $5 minimum which was awesome. $1 minimum on the bonus (All Tall Small) bets. 3-4-5x odds.

As a data point, I observed the following table minimums on the Carnival Spirit in December of 2022:

$5: 3 Card Poker, 3 Card Prime, WPT Heads-Up Hold'em, Let It Ride, Craps, Roulette (double zero)

$6: Blackjack (6:5 payout), Ultimate Fun 21

$25: Blackjack (3:2 payout)

On 3/18/2023 at 1:10 PM, huntnewt said:

Does anyone have any experience with Carnival ships? I only have experience with Carnival Splendor that has a shared pool and steam rooms and a small sauna in the men’s locker room.

Is there a particular Carnival ship you're looking at? I've been on the Conquest, Magic, and Spirit.

Spirit and Conquest had single-sex steam rooms and saunas. Magic had a small single-sex sauna in the locker room, and an additional-charge larger co-ed spa facility with steam rooms, heated loungers, etc.

Are you familiar with the spreadsheet posted in the other thread in this section? It has a nice listing of many cruise ships and the steam room and sauna setups on them: Sauna/Steam Room Spreadsheet

17 hours ago, Port of Tampa said:

Any feedback on the casino layout? 

14 hours ago, Host CMLA said:

I'm interested in this as well.  😉  

If we're talking about the Spirit, it's a decent casino for the size of the ship. All of the table games are in the smoking section, although some of the tables had "no smoking" signs on them.

The non-smoking (or really, less smoke) section of the casino is separated by the main walkway that goes through the casino. The section to the right of the green line in the attached image is the non-smoking section. There's plenty of up-to-date slot machines, and a small bank of video poker/keno machines in both sections.

Drink service was generally good during my December cruise. However, the video poker machines in non-smoking next to Bonsai Sushi were farthest away from the service bar so it sometimes took a little while when I was playing there.

I have always applied any gift card balance I have to my Sail and Sign account via the onboard kiosk (you can't do it before you're on board the ship), and I've charged casino machine play to my room. Never any issue.

You probably can't do thousands of dollars that way, but a few hundred won't be a problem at all.

We were on the Spirit for two weeks this past December and it was great. The serenity deck was the best of any ship we've been on. The MDR generally ranged from good to great, with only one or two dishes we didn't care for. We would sail on the Spirit again in a heartbeat.

13 hours ago, choffman said:

Do you recall if there were guys looking to make new friends?

Save for the few who are there on a back-to-back cruise, it's an entirely different and new group of people on board the ship every week. As such, it's going to vary significantly depending on the people on board your specific cruise.

As the previous poster said, it's not a bathhouse. If you find someone you'd like to get to know more, it would be better to make plans to hang out at a bar or in one of your staterooms later in the day.