Eli_6

Thank you! The main reason I am leaning towards Mont St Michel is that I am pretty sure we will go back to Paris at some point in the next 5 years, but I don't see any reason we would be going back to MSM.

No thanks. I have used 3 or 4 different pvp's over the years. All but 1 on recommendations. (Frankly, the one who was random was the best, but that isn't saying much.) They only screwed things up or made things worse. One more step of people to have to communicate with and "get it wrong." Made it even more trouble and would frequently mess things up during covid when I would have to rebook a rebook and they couldn't follow along. Pretty sure 1 lost me fcc. (Had one cruise I had to rebook 4 times to actually take it. MG ta was canceled then 2020 europe was canceled and then 2021 europe was cancelled and wasn't able to take it until 2022.) So now I have a ta. My TA didn't even want to be bothered with this. Frankly, given my experience, if I had had a PVP, I would probably have never seen the money back at all.

It looks like Carnival is transitioning to making them for pay restaurants.

Can anyone tell me the name of this place and where it is? Is it the Castle of the Moors?

I am not booking it as a placeholder. I book things that look interesting and that I want to do. But, sometimes, something I am more interested in comes up later. Or, in this instance, something came open that I could take my kids on that was "family friendly." I try to be considerate of both my children and other guests when booking these things...especially considering 90-95 percent of the people on these cruises are adults and probably 2/3 are older adults. I never enjoy myself quite as much when going without the kids because there is always that small worry of "what if" we got left and the kids were on the ship. However, the first/original excursion was basically a wine tasting so I wasn't about to take my kids on that. In the instance of the Paris excursion, I waited a long time for the Mont St. Michael excursion to come open and it never did. (Originally, I was supposed to go on this excursion in 2021.) I waited from September to March. In March, I finally booked the Paris excursion because it was close to selling out and the price had gone up significantly (and has since gone up again!). Then, just in the last couple of weeks, the Mont St. Michel excursion popped up. What am I supposed to do? Wait until a week before the cruise when anything I was interested in is booked up? Too much money and time go into these trips.

That has been my experience exactly. Yet, some of the excursions do sell out. So, I have been booking ones and then something else I like much better will come out...or that is more appropriate for our family.

Just recalled when reading this thread...the bitter(s?) n blanc is the one I really LOVE!

I am the opposite. Love the chocolate melting cake and there is another one in the MDR I love even more (can't think of name), but I feel like the cakes in the lido are pretty flavorless and often dry.

Oh no...I still have learned a valuable lesson out of this because I consider the amount of time I had to put in to "fix" this to have been an annoyance and not something I want to repeat. If I have any doubt in my mind that I might cancel an excursion and rebook another one at a later time, I am paying for it with a credit card and not a gift card. This is really only an issue for the Europe or the "unique" itineraries Carnival does where some of the excursions may not show up until close to sailing anyway and they may change from year to year. The excursions for carribean or Mexico or even Alaska stay pretty constant.

Thanks for that info! Will definitely look into it. I just took the 10X online course to learn how to basically travel on the cheap on miles/points. I had already been paying for the airline tickets with miles, but this opened up even an ENTIRELY new world to me. Between my husband's business expenses, taxes, private school tuition, insurance, etc. we rack up a lot of points. I actually just learned from that course that we can also pay mortgages through cards, too. It is like a 1.5 percent fee, but worth it for the miles/points...and you can write off the fee as a business expense. Same for taxes. We own the office building my husband's practice is in so paying the mortgage on that building every month alone is quite a bit of points. Now if I could figure out how to run payroll through a credit card...omg, that would be so many points/avios/miles.

Woot! Woot! Finally got my refund. Gift card came via email! This gives me more faith in possibly canceling the Paris excursion and rebooking to Mont St. Micheal.

That phrase pretty much describes my entire life.

I don't think it is allowed on board. I think that is probably how they are able to ban him...that and breaking the law and all. Guessing he probably had a foldable rod.

I think another issue is because the transaction was for $299.98 (one on my room and one ticket on hubs room) and apparently half was paid for (my ticket) with OBC and his half was paid for with a gift card because he didn't have OBC. I gather that somehow, some way (best I can discern) because it was on two rooms and two methods were used but it was only one transaction, it only refunded my OBC and never sent hubs his refund and now is showing in the system as the refund having been made when really only half of it was made...i.e. my half to OBC. At least this is my understanding of the situation.

Is it Citi thank you points?

What credit card is this? I have all sorts of points/miles cards...although, I usually use them to fly with. I run everything I can (business expenses, my kid's private school tuition, taxes, etc.) through credit cards. I wish I could figure out how to make mortgage payments, but they don't allow that. 😕

I am not even sure how in the heck a fishing hook would hook someone on a different balcony above or below the fisher person unless the other person was hanging out over the balcony railing. You cast outwards. Even if you drew back and cast poorly and and it went flying backwards, you would hit someone behind you on the same balcony. That's how one son once hooked the other. He was standing behind him on the dock. Only way I can see someone being hooked is if someone was casting when the ship was docked and hit someone on a dock below...but then why would you even be fishing because the boat is up next to the dock? With that said, I don't disagree that it is a dumb thing to do to fish off a balcony. Very dumb, yes. Extremely dangerous? No. Dumb because almost every country/state requires licensing and so you are probably breaking a law. Dumb because you aren't going to catch anything decent like that anyway. There is a reason fishing boats are close to the water and not stories up. However, I don't think it is worthy of a lifetime ban. No one is dying because they got hooked with a small fishing hook. People do far more dangerous things all the time on carnival cruises that are against the rules--including using illegal drugs--and don't get banned for life. I suspect the only reason they were banned was because they posted about it and it went viral and Carnival had to take a stance. If someone from Carnival had simply caught them, I doubt it would be a lifetime ban.

The biggest bummer part of this is that an excursion for "Mont St. Michel" showed up recently on the Carnival website and I was wanting to cancel my "Paris on your own" excursion and book it instead...but not doing that anymore since I paid for it ($600 for four of us) with a gift card for Paris. I may try on the ship to see if they can just "transfer" my money over from one excursion to the other. Anyone ever done this before?

Only time I ever encountered this was actually in Wales and not London and people were holding the door open for the people behind them. And it was like a 50 pence coin or something. (Do not recall exact denomination.) Sort of like the buggies at Aldi that take a quarter. I have used many gas station bathrooms in the UK and never had an issue.

Oh, I am not mad. My husband rags on me all the time for my dislike of talking on the telephone anyway.

I guess so. Even if I do get the refund, this will still be a "learning experience" because I won't be using gift cards again for shore excursions. It is worth the ten percent saved on the cost of an entire cruise, but not worth it to save $15 on an excursion.

No, I am not blaming them for that. I am just explaining why I hate talking on the phone.

I live about 5 miles from IAH on the north side of Houston. It takes us about 90 minutes if traffic isn't bad to get to Galveston. If traffic is bad, can take 2.5 to 3 hours. Hobby is much closer, but generally speaking fewer airlines fly into Hobby. It is also not as busy. I would personally fly into Hobby everything else being equal for a cruise out of Galveston. Carnival usually offers transportation from the airport to the pier for a fee. I would use what they offer. If not, I would try to take an Uber or do a car service. I don't know of any companies simply to recommend simply because we always drive to Galveston.

After 40 minutes on the phone, the second lady submitted a form to their "gift card" team who is supposed to reach out to me via email in 24-48 hours..but said to allow 3 business days. They said it doesn't show a gift card was ever re-issued so the team is going to have to research the matter and get back with me. So, basically, another 45 minutes wasted and still nothing is resolved. Basically, I just spent 45 minutes on the phone so they could fill out a form to send me to yet another department to "research" the issue. Not understanding why this is so darn difficult. I have the email showing I purchased the excursion. I have the email showing I canceled it. I am glad for all of you who have "never had this problem" using gift cards and those of you who have been able to eventually after finding just the right person to help you have been able to get these issues resolved or had them resolved after HOURS on the phone, but thus far I have easily invested an hour-and-a-half into this and still no money back. So, now I am out $150 and 1.5 hours of my time. Not worth it for a ten percent discount. Never using gift cards on excursions again. Lesson learned. And I am also not booking excursions until I am certain I want to go on them.

Still on hold. 30 minutes in, she lady who was helping me trasnfered me to someone in the web services department and that the conversation was going to be about getting me the refund. Thought I was home free. Nope. Had to go through everything I had told her and all of the information again and now she is investigating the entire ordeal.. She now has me on hold and is talking to someone with the fun shops. They are wanting to know the gift card I paid for with it. No, I don't still have the gift card I paid for with it in September. It wasn't a physical card anyway.