SERK

Alchemy Bar!  I don't waste time at any other.

Some of the Amber Cove pictures are almost identical to mine. 😀 I wonder why that third glass elevator stayed broke during most of cruise?

Nice pics!  I was on the same cruise!  I just got finished doing the survey.

3 hours ago, EngIceDave said:

Cool

 

$15 a bag or 5 for $50

 

and

Carnival Celebration, Carnival Jubilee and Mardi Gras do not have washers and dryers but have ironing rooms on several stateroom decks as well as Valet Laundry service.

Seriously?  That sucks!  I much prefer doing the self laundry because the valet service uses hot water and hot dryers.

7 minutes ago, CajunOyster said:

Starry is available in regular and zero sugar.  This zero sugar I have right here tastes an awful lot like sprite zero.  Now whether they have it on board or not, who knows?

Interesting.  I like sprite zero too.  I'll see if they have it on ship  this Saturday.

On 1/11/2023 at 8:25 PM, Saint Greg said:

I can’t say that Saints fans go around randomly saying that as obsessively as Alabama fans with their roll tide. 

That's because Bama fans are mentally challenged. 😀 J/K 

Geaux Tigers!

7 hours ago, marci4tony said:

In Belize, take a water taxi to Caye Caulker.  You will love it!  Lovely little island with restaurants, shopping, beaches and lots of local fare

I agree 100%!  Caye Caulker is very nice!  We stopped on that island while on a reef, stingray and shark snorkeling excursion.

I've always preferred Sprite over Sierra Mist but my new favorite soda Diet Dr Pepper.

I wish the Dream had a Red Frog Pub.  Would be more useful than the art gallery.  They could move that to the barely used night club like they do on the Breeze.

4 hours ago, RebekahJP said:

Thank you all. I should have been more specific, but I'm sure that info will help others as well.

I was just asking about if it was allowed in this post-Covid world. I had heard that when the cruises first started back, you HAD to take a Carnival excursion or stay on the ship. I agree with all of your cautions, we have mostly booked 3rd party excursions, even in Jamaica, but there are definitely advantages and disadvantages. One disadvantage to just getting a taxi and showing up, that happened to us before, was that they didn't have time slots available to accommodate us because the cruiseline excursions had filled everything.

The reason I was considering it this time is because my husband wants to do the ziplining that includes the 1,600ft long zip, but it looks like Carnival isn't offering an excursion there. 

Unless it's sold out, I just looked at Carnival Montego Bay excursions and there is the Jungle Zipline Adventure plus there are combo excursions that include zipline.  We did a bobsled, chairlift and zipline combo right before covid and it included that long 1000 ft plus zipline.  The once strict Covid rules are now a thing of the past in most ports including Jamaica.

Sounds good but I do like me some blue iguana cantina breakfast burritos.

I do find most of the band entertainment enjoyable and fun.  Especially on the ships where they are playing next to the Alchemy Bar. 😀 

About 6 years ago, we had 3 separate balcony rooms of people next to each other and all dividers opened so we could have one long balcony and walk to each other's rooms.  That was on the Dream so not sure if we lucked out based on where our rooms were but it was nice.

2 minutes ago, staceyglow said:

I know, right?

 

And the shows in the main theater are nowhere near as good as the ones on Broadway.  

 

And don't get me started on how the bands at the Red Frog Pub don't sound exactly like the artists they are covering.

 

To be fair, RCCL does have Cats broadway on their ships. 🙂

Mine says Platinum on boarding pass and luggage tag but I figured that was because we are going on a Journey Cruise.

It's been so unreliable for us we don't even waste the $5 anymore.  Maybe a quarter of the time it would work.  This was on Breeze, Dream and Glory.

The cruise ship piano bars have been a disappointment for us because we keep comparing them to Pat O' Brien's piano bar in New Orleans.  I know it's probably not a fair comparison but once you've been to Pat O's piano bar a few times, it just can't compete.

2 hours ago, ninjacat123 said:

I'm pretty sure we bought a hand painted bottle near the port at a shop.  They were giving out free samples.  Yum!

 

 

Definitely gonna get a bottle. Thanks!

19 hours ago, ninjacat123 said:

Unless you want to get some guavaberry liquor in Saint Maarten.  That's what I'm doing in 9 days.  Hee, hee!!

Please do tell! I'll be there in a couple weeks myself.  Never heard of that liquor but sounds good.

For $200 more you can upgrade to the 2 story Villa with private bathroom/shower and jacuzzi hot tub.  We rented one with another group of 3 initially but they backed out of cruise a few months later and we decided to just keep it instead of downgrading.  I don't regret the extra money spent.  Had a very good and relaxing day.

Chat feature sucked on the Dream and the Breeze too. Spent most of time connecting.  It only worked when everyone was together and didn’t need it. 

3 minutes ago, CajunOyster said:

 

Well he can buy his own car, right?  But if someone else owns the car (say, Avis or Hertz), they're perfectly within their rights making their rules.

 

Maybe you should right this wrong by buying up a bunch of cars and renting them to a bunch of 19-year-olds.  What could go wrong?

When you fly to a destination you can't bring your personal vehicle with you.  It's either an FBO courtesy car or a rental.

The age rules in general are stupid.  You can get drafted, fight and die or get your limbs blown off and have PTSD for rest of life at age 18 but you can't drink a beer or book a cruise.  A former coworker of mine landed a job flying a Hawker 800.  He can fly a multimillion dollar jet but is too young to rent a car.  Ridiculous.

11 hours ago, notscb said:

 

On the dream, TikTok was relatively fast with the premium plan, and YouTube as well. YMMV, as ship wifi can be really hit or miss depending on traffic, time of day, itinerary, age of network infrastructure onboard, cabin location and your physical location on deck. When I was on RCL in May, the wifi worked great everywhere except for my own stateroom. On Carnival Dream in December, it was great and fast everywhere.

We also had great internet on the Dream last November.  However, the chat text plan on the Hub App sucked big time!  It only worked about a third of the time. It kept saying it was trying to connect...

1 hour ago, spleenstomper said:

I have seen wal mart type behavior on some of my Carnival cruises. 
 

Right now, I’m on Glory and I’m kinda worried because the man in the cabin next door (age 55+)  is barking at the river from his balcony, sounds like he is rearranging furniture against the wall and is having an entire loud conversation with a lot of F bombs (hey, I love a well placed F bomb but not at his decibel level). I can’t figure out if he is already drunk (3 hours after shoving off) or if he overcompensating for a hearing issue. (I have a doctor friend who does this). 
 

We exchanged pleasantries on the balcony and he seems nice enough. I’m trying to assess the situation and I’m trying not to borrow trouble. He is also a door slammer. 
 

Anyway, Carnival is loud. We went two years without a cruise and then I went on HAL to Alaska, and that was such a pleasant quiet my kind of crowd experience, but you lose a lot of activity and dining options. 
 

Many carnival cruises smell of weed (I don’t mind it but plenty of people do) but I think they are starting to crack down on that. On embarkation, we had to all put our bags down so the dog could sniff. I doubt that was for explosives and I don’t remember a dog sniffing carry ons on previous cruises but maybe they did and I don’t remember. 
 

I just has the best Cuban sandwich I ever had at the deli. Carnival has better than average food. It’s definitely a party atmosphere, which makes things fun. 
 

Maybe a New Orleans port thing.  Our last two have been out of Galveston and didn't see any drug dogs sniffing luggage or carry on.