Eli_6

I am anxiously awaiting for Europe 2024 and also the Firenze schedule (to find out if they are doing a TA), too, because I have a $5k future cruise credit that expires in August 2024. In the past several years, Carnival has typically posted their Europe season about 18 months in advance. However, the fact that the Legend isn't booked anywhere tells me they are probably having one...it is just a matter of where/when they are going. If they are not having one, I would really like to know so I could make other plans for that future cruise credit. My 10 yo son and I both have to sail on my FCC booking (because we were both on the original booking the FCC is for) so I have to use it when my kids are out of school.

Be aware that the British Isles cruise for Carnival has numerous tender ports. If you are not in a Suite or Diamond/Platinum, I would stick with Carnival excursions for the tender ports as otherwise it might take you a long time to get off the boat. There are not tender companies in most ports so they use a couple of the life boats that only have a capacity of about 40 to unload all of the passengers and it can take hours.

Stayed in it several times on the Vista. It is not busy. Love the area!

I would not book a Europe cruise on Carnival if you are used to Celebrity. IMO, they send their older boats and "C" crew to Europe since most are going for the itinerary. I didn't feel like the ship or crew held up to the normal Carnival standards. I was on Pride last summer and the ONLY reason I am going back is because we had already booked and had a huge FCC of several thousand dollars that we had to use or loose. I really enjoy my U.S. Carnival cruises. Never been on a bad one. That was not my experience on my Carnival European cruise.

I have stayed in a Havana aft wrap on deck 7. I did not ever notice a crew stairwell. There is a stairway (but it is out of the way and we never noticed noise from it), but it is for the people on decks 6, 7 and 8 to get down to the Havana area and not for the crew as far as I know. It has Havana carpet on it, etc. and doesn't look like a crew stairwell.

You have to buy it ahead of time, but the Fun Times says when the time was. Maybe you can buy right before, but the line will be long. I only did it once, but there were 3 games and you got 9 squares for each game and the last one you got extra games on. It was for the "big" prize. It was $48 and it seemed like a rip to me because there was a ton of people playing when I played (like the theatre was filled) and the only gave out like $1k and a free cruise which was probably an inside room on a short cruise...so, yeah, I didn't think it was worth it.

So, I was looking at this one sailing very, very tentatively. Carnival has a rule that I can book my kids in an inside room directly across the hall from my husband and I. (Don't worry, my kids won't be running amuck as: 1) we probably won't sleep like that, and 2) they are way better behaved and more polite than I am so if you are going to worry about someone, worry about me.) They also have a rule you have to be 12 and up to be in a Havana room. If I booked this sailing I would want to be in a Havana room because it has lots of sea days. There is not a Havana balcony room directly across the hall from inside rooms...only catty-cornered (look at 8467and 8465 on Pan to see what I mean). So, I have two questions: 1) If my son turns 12 DURING the voyage, can he be booked in a Havana room? In other words, do they determine age at start of sailing or on the last day of sailing? I know for pregnancy purposes, it is last day of sailing. 2) What do they consider across the hall? I would assume 8467 and 8465 wouldn't fly, but I am not sure...

I don't think you can get on it, but I may be wrong. It is parked next to a shopping mall, I think.

This is not how it worked on the Pride last summer on my sailing. They were checking all of our room keys to make sure we were either platinum, diamond, or a suite guest for the priority debark and you had to be there in person an hour or two before they even docked to get the ticket. Platinum, diamond, suites got the early group numbered tickets and then they started the rest at whatever number. So, if you were not priority, even if you were down there at 4 am and stood in line for a ticket (which people were) you still weren't getting off until an hour or two after they started the tender process since about 1/4 of the ship was priority and then they also debarked the excursions first. They way they did it was actually really annoying because we had to get our kids up and out of bed at about 6 am or so to get our "priority" suite ticket and then go back a couple of hours later to actually catch the tender. One morning we waited towards the end of the period and the people in the lobby were already gone and we couldn't even get a "priority" ticket. They also would not give you a tender ticket to a person who came down with multiple S&S cards even if all S&S cards were eligible. You had to be physically present and have your eligible S&S card. People could not just take a large group of non-priority people off with them. Nor could someone go down there with all the priority S&S cards and get a bunch of tickets. Granted, like everything else, this probably depends on the ship, person in charge, etc. as to how they actually handle this. The way it was handled on the Pride for the British Isles and Iceland July sailings were a complete mess.

The May 28th cruise is back on the website with quite a few rooms available. They have also added a bunch more excursions. So, I feel confident that it is a "go." I have not heard what they are doing, but I am hoping for some cabin updates. They need to at least fix some of the plumbing/hot water issues. It would be cool if they added a non-smoking casino, too, like they did on the Breeze, Dream, etc.

Interesting regarding the world cruise. That would be pretty cool if they did that.

Good to know. So, basically, in European tender ports, if you want to do an excursion: Book with the cruise company or you may run the risk of missing your independently booked excursion. Probably true for any other place that doesn't have massive number of ships regularly coming through sufficient to support independent tender companies.

Not on entering the building. There is a separate line for the final check in where you go up to the desk with the carnival employees at the very end once you get through security, but security was so back logged there was hardly anyone in any of the lines. I was annoyed that I paid extra for FTTF because it basically didn't get me to the fun any faster.

The lesson I have learned is that if they have one of those little count down things, stock up on gift cards. Anyone know how long they "stayed off" last time they disappeared?

Same thing for me as others experienced. I tried to log on today to buy Carnival gift cards to pay for an excursion and they are gone. I literally bought some to pay off the cruise earlier in the week.

Don't feel bad. I absolutely left my Kid's in Camp Ocean while we were on our Europe cruise and so di MANY other parents. That's a big part of the reason why I cruise Carnival because they have the option of safe, fun child care. I was able to ask my kids which excursions they wanted to go on and which ones they didn't. No point in dragging my kids on a multi-hour bus ride to see some historical site they don't care anything about and making them miserable and having to subject the other passengers to their complaining. Yet, at the same time, I am not leaving them at home while we are in Europe for 3 weeks when there are still many sites that they can see and experience. My kids actually do really well at most of them...castles, henges, anything surrounding medieval times, etc. A vineyard where we are doing wine tasting or a gondola ride through a Galician mussels farm? Not so much.

Which would you recommend for a tour through the cruise line or going out on my own from the cruise port of Zeebrugge? I am really into medieval history and so that is why I want to do go to Ghent rather than Brugges.

I think one was Stornoway and the other was Kirkwall, but now I am not sure... The reason I am not completely sure is they changed the itinerary shortly before the cruise. One of these ports was a dock and one was a tender. In the one that was a dock, there was a bus that went into town where there was lots to do. In the other (that was a tender), the tender boat dropped you off in a little town where there were things to do and see. Some of the excursions didn't show up last year until only a month before the cruise so they may still show up. Like I said, in all situations you could go out on your own with no problem...once you got off the boat.

This is entirely dependent on who reviews your OBC request. Some people get it, others don't.

@EngIceDave I admit that the reason I was hanging out on my balcony was that I was hoping to see someone make a mad dash to the ship...

Never mind about my entire post. I just realized people are saying the bookings being linked lets you check in everyone together. I guess the one time I could not do that, my bookings probably weren't linked.

One time (and one time only) I was able to somehow check in both of our rooms literally at once on the Carnival website. The two rooms were booked with a travel agent and were adjoining rooms. However, we have cruised other times and had to log in separately even when I *thought* the bookings were linked. (Although, the cruise I couldn't do it was also one where they had changed boats and rooms and put my young children on the opposite side of the boat from us so maybe the bookings where we couldn't do it weren't linked.) So, there is a way to do it...but I don't know how. If you have a travel agent, I would ask them as ours worked some magic. The only other thing I can think of is the "other room" involved my listed travel companions (husband and son) so maybe that is why it allowed me to do it. On the Carnival website, there is a way to actually add travel companions to your profile. It also saves their information in your profile with your own so you don't have to reenter all of their information every time you book a room. I do know they will let a family with young kids board together regardless of time, but that just makes sense because they aren't going to send my 8 and 10 year old to the back of the line by themself.

When we were on our last Carnival cruise a couple of weeks ago, the ship waited an hour past debark time for two people. I know because I was sitting on my balcony during the time. I was actually surprised the ship was waiting because I always hear about pier runners and have heard stories about people being left. We were in Cozumel in this instance. It seems like if the two people were on a Carnival excursion, there would have been more than two late people... It made me wonder if some of these stories were cruise line folklore. Admittedly, I have never actually known anyone who was left. Then, I saw on another cruise line's board that a ship had waited 2.5 hours past sail time for a passenger. The suggestion was made when someone asked the question of "Why didn't the ship just leave?" that the ship could not leave because the port the country was in (in that case, St. Maarten) had a law that a ship could not leave a passenger in that country unless the person's passport was left with port officials. Thus, the ship waited until they found the person. Anyone know?

Yeah, a 14 percent increase is more in line with inflation. But the prices jumping up by a third or more is what is crazy to me. But I guess everyone else is right. Cars, property, eggs, gas...the world we live in now. Sigh. Frankly, I am starting to feel like sometimes (not always, but sometimes) this is just businesses taking advantage and increasing profit margins. My husband and I own a small business and our expenses have gone up, too...but not to the tune of 33-50 percent. In Carnival's instance, I suspect that they feel like they cannot raise their cruise prices because they need to try to get people (in particular, new cruisers) on the boat, so they are trying to pay off debt by raising the prices of other things. For example, I was double-checking the price of the cruise we are going on since we have price protection and the current price of the cruise I am going on is within $100-200 of the price I paid when I booked it about 15 months ago. Considering this is a 12 day European cruise to about 9 or so ports that doesn't even have very much availability left, I was surprised the price wasn't higher.

Sorry. I made a typo. It was an increase of $350 to $500. It was 37.5 percent. The price went up by more than a third. The $400 should have been $500. And the other example I gave was an increase of $149 to $199 which is also a 33 percent increase in a short period of time.