mindymariexxo

Considering a quickie 3 day to Bimini this summer. It would be my kids (4yo and 1yo) first cruise, but hubby and I are experienced cruisers. (would have taken them sooner, but ya know... lot's going on these past couple years LOL)

Would love to hear experiences with how everyone's sailing was to Bimini. We used to live in California and were planning on a short, smooth Ensenada cruise to test how they did on the ship but we've now moved across country. Trying to figure out what an easy 3 day would be for them while still being a nice destination for us.

Thanks!

I had envelopes for everyone for the tips rest to go. I did a shoreside ceremony and Ship reception so I probably has some extra people to tip. Here's what I did for the ship tho. I tipped the photographer, coordinator, DJ, bartender, and 2 waiters.

 

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Thank you. Do you mind if I ask how much you tipped?

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Help! I'm getting married onboard the Carnival Inspiration in less than 2 weeks and for some reason I thought they were tacking gratuity on to our extra guests so I wouldn't have to worry about tipping, but they didn't (I could have sworn there was gratuity on our initial charge but apparently not).

Now we're trying to figure out who all we should be tipping and how much is appropriate...

Do we have any past brides who can share what they did? How much help they received? Or brides who have a better plan in place than my "I'm sure they'll work that in to my final payment because you always have the opportunity to prepay gratuity on a cruise" plan....

Thanks for any help or advice you can provide!

When we booked our wedding I was told it's $1 per bag and they'll take care of it for you, or you can take it around yourself.

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Their policy for the bags follows their standard policy for bringing things on board, so no more waters. Sandyzag has a good point of buying a case and putting them in once on board depending on how many bags you're making, but who wants to deal with that on vacation? I say let them buy their own wanted LOL

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Ask to be assigned to a different PVP. When you get assigned to a different one, explain what you want out of them off the bat. If they can't give it to you, ask to be reassigned again.

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The budget thing on weddingwire looks pretty good. I like that it does a lot of the calculations for you. I just have a plain old excel spreadsheet with all the costs on there and what I've already paid. No reminders that way. lol!

Thanks for the websites!

The budget on Wedding Wire far exceeds The Knot. I use the knot for my guest list and website, I actually have 2 checklists going because The Knot has great generic things that WW doesn't have, but WW allows you to add your own things so I've added specific things I want to buy and such. But the WW budget is great because you can adjust the amount of the budget you want for certain things (the knot just face you a recommendation on what to spend based on your overall budget) and when you come in under budget it lets you reallocate that money.

Oh and Zazzle also offers a satisfaction guarantee. I ordered a 4x6 sign for our guest book table and decided it was too small and the paper wasn't what I expected. I was going to write off the $5 but I decided to test their guarantee. Sure enough they gave me my money back very easily. I wasn't going to be upset if they didn't, it was only $5, but I do feel it's worth mentioning as it gives me a lot of confidence recommending them for products I haven't purchased specifically 😁

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Oh wow that's a lot. I am looking at over 50 and could never afford that price lol! But they are beautiful!!!

Check out http://www.zazzle.com they have a few ticket looking options and are pretty affordable.

Also, I paid I think like $20 or $40 to sign up for their membership for the year which gives me free shipping on all my orders (a HUGE savings for us because I have ordered so much through them and still have more to order like those flyers I was talking about) And I get emailed sales...maybe a little too much, I get probably 3-4 emails a week. BUT I have saved so much by timing my purchases to their sales.

We bought ticket themed save the Dates during a 50% off sale and they wound up being about $1 each. Ours weren't magnets but I remember them offering magnets and have seen sales for 30-50% off magnets too.

Well you can make an educated guess for mine. We're doing the hour and a half reception so we're almost positive the wedding will start at 1.

But I used the time were meeting at the port for the invitations, website, etc. I know my friends and family would see 1 and think they could show up to the port at 1 and not make it to the wedding.

I'm going to make little flyers that our nieces will pass out with the weekend itinerary when everyone gets to the port. That flyer will have the exact ceremony time and location.

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It is a little overwhelming. I posted the essential stuff when save the Dates went out and hid a lot of the details until actual invitations went out. I think I still have directions to port hidden and will unhide that when we are closer to our September wedding.

Our website is http://www.theknot.com/us/mindyandricky we opted out of a custom website at the time which I regret but oh well.

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I wouldn't send out Save the Dates without booking and confirming your wedding date. What if someone else books the date and it's not available? I can't even imagine how stressful that would be!

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I used the knot. It was fairly easy to use, although I did feel like I had to make a lot of changes to get it organized the way I wanted. And honestly I feel like very few people even looked at it. They just text us anyway

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This may be a little weird, but I was wondering if anyone has a good picture of the Carnival Inspiration and/or of something in Ensenada that would be good for making postcards?

I'm getting married later this year and would like to put pre-stamped postcards in the welcome bags. I think sending postcards is an underrated travel tradition that is going out of style because no one carries stamps anymore. [emoji1]

Unfortunately I'm having a hard time finding any specifically of the Carnival Inspiration or anything pretty of Ensenada (I know it's not the prettiest of cruise ports, but you'd think I could at least find one of Papas & Beer or something!).

I've found a website where I can upload photos to make my own postcards, but I obviously need my own photo or someone willing to give me permission to use theirs. [emoji16]

Don't get me wrong, I'd love use this as an excuse to take a cruise this summer but that's just not in my timeline or budget with wedding planning [emoji6]

Just a little FYI about the Hotel Current. I called them a while back asking about their snooze and cruise package. I explained we had four people but only one car and asked if I needed to book two snooze and cruise packages. I was told "no" and that when I checked in to tell the front desk that there were four of us that would be taking the shuttle. No problem. I booked the rooms last night and called the hotel to make sure to note that we would like rooms next to each other if at all possible. When the front desk person looked at the reservations he proceeded to tell me that we would need to book two snooze and cruise packages because the room we had booked only could accommodate 3 people (one king size bed) and therefore the other couple wouldn't be able to take the shuttle without paying a shuttle fee of $25 per person. I told him that I would change my room to two double beds which would then accommodate 5 people so that they could take the shuttle for free. He told me that they could only do that if they stayed in our room with us. I asked him "so you would rather sell me one room and we all stay in that room to get the free shuttle than to sell me two rooms one of which would include a shuttle for 5?" He replied "yes". Am I missing something here? I called this morning to talk to the manager to see if what he was saying was truly the case and he said he was the manager. Oh well, I cancelled both reservations.

Thank you for this info! I'm not sure how many people we will have staying with us, but knowing that if the bookings don't get set up right it could be $25 per person to take the shuttle negates the whole reason for getting the room! (At least for us since everyone lives 1-2 hours from Long Beach).

Most of the top Long Beach hotels will give you a park and cruise rate...but, since you want a suite and you're only cruising 3 or 4 nights, I would just call the hotels and negotiate.

 

The nicest hotels in Long Beach are 1) Hyatt Regency, 2) Hyatt Centric at the Pike, 3) Renaissance, 4) Westin...

 

All have suites, though sizes vary...I believe the Hyatt Regency has the largest suites.

All have bars, though you are within very short walking distance from any of these to a variety of bars and restaurants. The Hyatt Regency, for example, is right across the street from a strip of large restaurants.

 

You might also want to take a look at the Maya Doubletree...which is over the bridge from this area...but right next to the Carnival terminal. They also have some fairly large suites...and a bar...

 

Congrats...and good luck.

Thank you so much for your advice. This is probably the most daunting task of our wedding planning [emoji15] if we had booked through a regular travel agent that probably would have helped, but we used my PVP with Carnival since that's how I've always booked my cruises (that or direct on Carnivals website).

I think I'm going to delegate this to my fiance. I'm usually the one who plans all vacations, but he's far more comfortable calling places and asking for what he wants and negotiating. I wouldn't even think to call and ask for a place to have a rate for that [emoji23]

I'm getting married in September on the Carnival Inspiration. I was hoping to get a hotel the night before that my bridesmaids and I could stay in and have a place to get ready in the morning together. I was hoping to get some recommendations or feedback on hotels offering to let you leave your car for the duration of your cruise (3-4 days).

I'm looking for:

* A place that will let us leave our car

* Must have suites (we'll need enough room for 5 girls to get ready)

* Must be nice! Usually I'm good with something super inexpensive the night before a cruise and just look at it as a place to crash, but this is where we will get ready for my wedding

* Preferably the hotel will have a bar, or there will be a nice bar nearby, where we can do a rehearsal celebration/welcome party of sorts

Thanks for any help you can offer!

I'm super disappointed. My wedding planner said we could only do 1 drink (I would like to do 2, a brides pick and a groom's pick) and that they HAVE to be from the list.

The Blushing Bride is the only one that sounds good to me, but I would want there to be something separate as a "Grooms Pick" because I definitely don't want to feel like I'm the center of attention with a specialty drink all about me.

And if we can only do 1 I was hoping to do one more cruising related like The Fun Ship or The Cruiser 😣

I know we need to do one since we'll have 75-100 guests and I don't want everyone lining up and waiting on 2 bartenders, so having a specialty drink out will be key, but I have no idea what to do...

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You might consider posting this where more people talking about Jamaica can see it.

Having said that, I'd rule out Dunns River Falls unless you're popping the question and picking out a ring later. My fiance proposed in the water at one of our favorite spots on the lake and "my first thought once I realized what he had in his hand was that I would have to say no because I was afraid he would drop the ring in the water and it would be lost" is forever a part of the story of our engagement.

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This is great. I wish someone would do this for Royal Caribbean. So many success stories from Carnival, I'm wondering if I made the wrong Cruise Line Choice

These are 3 years old though. And since Carnival's wedding packages changed at the the end of last year, I would bet these did too

I'm getting married on the Carnival Inspiration in September and have been told that the stewards will put them in their cabins for a small fee. I would like everyone to be surprised with them when they go to their room. Plus we have non-sailing guests and I would feel weird giving them out at the wedding and having our non-sailing guests not see them.

I've also been told we can bring them around to the rooms. Which if all else fails we will do, since so far everyone is booked in the same area except for 2 cabins.

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We don't normally purchase FTTF because it's not usually something we care about the perks for, but I just got off the Miracle today and we had FTTF. I knew the ship would be FULL from spring break and with 2 days in Cabo tendering I thought priority for that would be worth it. Yes it was nice to be able to board right away, but usually we don't rush to get on the ship so it wouldn't have been a big deal. Same thing with the cabin being ready. Normally we board around when the cabins are ready for everyone and head straight for a drink, so the cabin being ready and luggage being dropped off quickly was nice but not a make-or-break thing for us. I actually did go to Guest Services for the first time in all of my cruises, but it was late and there was no one in line.

I was a little disappointed in the priority tender. I didn't realize that you have to use the tender at a certain time otherwise you wait like everyone who doesn't have priority tender service. It saved us a lot of time our first day in Cabo I think as they were using some zone system, but we probably could have gotten our zone and then gone back to the room to get ready and been just fine. The second day in Cabo we got up too late but there wasn't a line anyway.

So realistically the only thing I thought was really nice about having it was 1 day of priority tender service. I definitely wouldn't purchase it again personally, but a big part of that is that I am not the type that's anxious to be first on the ship or have my luggage right away. If you are then it's definitely worth it.

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Following! We're booked for our wedding cruise in September and I'd love to hear what everyone has to say!

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Thanks for the info. I look forward to hearing about your cruise. What are you doing at the ports?

Were doing the Extreme Canopy shore excursion in Puerto Vallarta. This cruise is the week before my 30th birthday so I wanted to do something adventurous one of the days but it took some convincing to get my fiance on-board for something quite so adventurous! In Cabo we will be drinking and partying [emoji482] [emoji484] [emoji6]

I've been wondering about the Port of Long Beach and our upcoming Miracle cruise.

Though we are Platinum, we still had to choose a check-in time. The first available was 12:30, to which we don't have to adhere as it sounds like the port building actually opens earlier.

My questions are: what time did the port building allow people to enter and how is the VIP check-in handled?

Thanks.

The last time I was in LB (October) the VIP check-in was still outside, so you're actually able to check in before the building opens for regular passengers. I know Carnival has acquired the lease to the entire building, so I'm not sure when they will start utilizing the new space.

The building opened for standard check-in after wedding guests, diamond, platinum, and FTTF were called in after the ship clears customs. If you get there beforehand there is shaded area to wait outside. As one of the VIP groups you check in outside and then when the building opens you just walk through to the picture taking and get on the ship.

I'll post when I get back if the VIP check-in has moved indoors.