Eli_6

@Carnival Cheerleader Relax. It was just a descriptive term. Picture the dudes from the movie "Grumpy Old Men" or "Statler and Waldorf"" from the Muppets and you have the men in my experiences. I guess I could have said: "The trouble-makers were old enough to know better." Or "They were in the AARP crowd." (I am in AARP so that isn't an insult.) My point was that they weren't a bunch of drunken college kids or former frat boys at a bachelor party.

I have never noticed the prices fluctuating before on excursions with Carnival. I also rarely see sales on them. Only sale I have ever seen was you can book three excursions for 10 percent off shortly after booking if you book all ports with them...and it is usually only available for select excursions. With that said, I am not at all surprised they raised their prices. My shock is more at how much they raised their prices on some of the excursions. Some aren't that bad - like the $150 to $170 example I gave is tolerable imho. But others have gone up 40-50 percent like the $350 to $500 example the poster above gave.

I don't know about those ports. I was on the British Isles cruise last year. We went to Edinburgh, two islands that were north of Scotland (I think they were in the Orkney Islands), Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Wales. However, there was not a problem getting to where you wanted to go once you were off the ship. The problem was getting off the ship. All the ports were tender ports except 2 and it was a huge mess. They unloaded the whole boat (2600 person guest capacity) with only 2 or 3 tenders. It took hours. They had the same problem in Iceland, too, from what I heard from other guests.

Also, when I was on a Europe cruise last year, there were MAJOR problems getting on shore in most of the ports because all but two were tender ports and they didn't have tender companies. They were only using two or three life boats that held about 40 people each to unload the Carnival Pride which has a guest capacity of 2680 people. It was taking some people 4 to 5 hours to get off the ship. They literally only had two or three life boats unloading the entire ship. And they were unloading the "Carnival excursions" first...followed by the platinums, diamonds and suites which was at least a quarter of the ship. Then you have the fact that a large number of the people cruising in Europe are older and mobility impaired and take a long time to get load/unload on the tenders. I am going to have to make sure the port isn't a tender port before I book an excursion or go out on my own. If it is a tender port, I feel like my option (after my horrible cruise last year) is to either take a Carnival excursion or just stay on the boat...which is not what I want to do considering I am flying my family of 4 across an ocean to go on a European cruise.

I actually know several people who have been enticed to take a cruise for the first time by the new Celebrity ships (Apex, Beyond, etc.) who previously would have called themselves "not cruise people." They are all 30s-40s professionals who either don't have kids yet or have kids that are older (teens/college) and they are leaving behind. My husband's aunt took her first cruise on a smaller, "luxury" line ...but she is late 60s and it was booked through one of the college alumni groups that travels together. My friends with young kids (jr high, elementary and younger) are almost universally cruising Royal, Carnival or Disney for their first cruise regardless of income.

As an aside, I likely never would have gone on a Carnival cruise on my own accord, but I went with a group of people who were like "this is the cruise our group is going on"...so I went and I had a blast. I had so much fun that I booked a Havana room on the Vista for my husband and I. It was great. The Vista was almost new then and it went right out of our home port...and from there on out, I was hooked.

My first three cruises were Royal, NCL, and Carnival in that order. So...those were my "starter" cruises. But I have no idea what makes a "starter" cruise line for the general public. It probably heavily depends on your location and age and what you are looking for. I doubt that many first time cruisers with young kids are hopping on Viking or Silver Seas. And I doubt too many 70 year old first time cruisers are getting on Disney...unless they are taking their grandkids.

The way I read what you posted, it seems to suggest that inflation is less in Europe that the US. Am I reading this wrong? Granted that is now a year old and before the Russian invasion... But if inflation is less than would not that mean that prices shouldn't be increasing as much in EU countries as what we are seeing in the US? At any rate, I am not arguing that inflation doesn't exist or isn't impacting prices. I completely agree that it is. I just suspect that some of the more dramatic increases (like the$149 to $199) is more about Carnival paying down their debt and less about what the cruise operators are charging. I doubt that the people on the ground driving the buses and conducting the tours are seeing a 33 percent increase in their wages. But I guess it is either increase the "extras" or increase the fares and they don't seem like they are increasing the fares much...

That's not a valid comparison and you are smart enough to know it isn't. Gas and groceries are always based on market price and airfare has always been variable based on demand. Airfare can even vary depending on the day you book it and certainly food prices vary based on market conditions and season. But many of these other items (CHEERS, steak house, gratuities, certain excursions that are always available on given sailings, etc.) have long had a "fixed" price on the carnival website. One of the excursions we regularly take out of Cozumel has been the same price for years...although, I am sure it has gone up now, too. And I strongly suspect that the tour companies aren't suddenly charging 30 or 40 percent more. Maybe in Alaska, but not in some of these more depressed countries. Heck, I don't even fault Carnival for raising the price, but if they were going to raise the prices so significantly and not just to account for inflation, some advanced notice would have been nice...like what they did with wifi, etc. And with respect to my specific situation (i.e. European countries), the dollar is stronger than ever in those countries so if anything the price should be going down for us. I paid less in tuition last fall than I had ever paid before because the dollar as compared to the GBP was so strong.

Try looking at Sandras cruise tours for Norway. She hasn't posted them for this year yet, but check in a couple of weeks. But, yeah, same here on the prices being ridiculous. If I booked all four of us on a Carnival excursion at every port of call we are going to for our 12 day cruise, I would be looking at an extra $4k+. The prices were already high and with these increases, I am definitely going to be looking at outside options in the ports-of-call that I don't already have booked. About half of the ports I went to last year on my Europe trip ended up having a bus or shuttle or something at the port to take you into the main town if the port wasn't located right there either for free or a very small charge...only they didn't tell us that was an option until literally right before we got off the ship.

That's my point exactly! Inflation is 8 percent. Not 20 to 40 percent. The mark ups were already crazy ridiculous considering how many people they stuff on a bus. One of the excursions is to a castle. The castle admission is $8.50. Train fare to the castle is $24 round trip They are pricing the excursion at $199. I am nearly positive it was $149 a few months ago which is already too high for something that you can do on your own and at your own pace for under $35 per person.

Carnival has announced many other price increases. They announced they were going up on wifi, bottled water, gratuities, CHEERS, steakhouse, etc. And, yes, when prices for either of the two businesses I have either owned or been involved in the management of were going to go up, we notified our customers rather than trying to sneak in a price increase.

I had purchased a couple of excursions for my self and my husband for our upcoming Europe cruise and then went back to add my sons when I confirmed they wanted to go...and now the price of a child's ticket is the same or more than I previously paid for an adult. I got to looking at other excursions and compared the price I paid a couple of months ago vs the price it was now. Sure enough, they had gone up, too. For example, I had booked the excursion "Rioja Alavesa" in Bilboa, Spain. I booked it for $150. It is now $170. I guess it isn't surprising that Carnival did this given that they are increasing the price of everything else, but I sort of thought they might announce it or something.

Thanks for posting this!

Anyone know how to get there from La Rochelle cruise ship terminal? How far is it? I am trying to decide whether to book the excursion with my cruise ($500 for 2 adults and 2 kids) or try to get there on my own. It appears admission is only $8.50 so the upcharge for a bus seems quite a bit unless it is a very long drive.

My guess is that "room ready when you board" is for suite guests only. On 2 of my last 3 cruises I had a suite and my cabin was ready when I boarded both times. On my last cruise, I had FTTF (but no suite) and my cabin was not ready.

I am seeing good signs it is a go. More excursions added on the Carnival website. There are now a variety of open rooms and you can actually book the cruise again. My anxiety that it would not sail has disappeared. I still don't believe (given the VAST number of rooms that are open for booking on the website) that it was ever a sold out cruise and that was the reason they took it off the website. I think there was some other issue they were concerned about and that concern has now been alleviated.

My husband and I only ever gambled a couple hundred dollars and during the "vax only" period we got some really good casino deals. They dried up, though, and now we aren't getting them. I even tried gambling more than I usually did in the casino (talking maybe $500) and still nothing. I cannot force myself to gamble thousands like some do. Losing money gives me anxiety. One lady on my Europe carnival cruise said she had LOST 13k in the casino and that is too rich for my blood. She deserves a free cruise after losing that much. I also 100 percent agree that sometimes it comes down to other issues. My Mom gets great deals and barely ever gambled with Carnival and has been on 1 cruise. However, she did used to regularly go to Vegas and the Louisiana casinos so I suspect this is why she gets good deals.

Me, too. I always miss things on the app. I know this is a bit of a waste of paper for people who don't use them...but the ship can always recycle that paper and I actually use my Funtimes. Maybe they will go back to paper menus soon, too.

When I went, there was a brown sticker that said "Havana" on it. However, others have posted they didn't get it so IDK...maybe this is dependent on the ship.

John Heald announced on his Facebook page today that they will start providing "a printed version of the Funtimes in the cabin mail box the night before." This makes me very happy.

I suspect the cruisers who are staying on the Pride in Europe for b2b2b sailings for several months at a time are paying well in excess of 20k per cabin for the entirety of their voyages.

I would like to point out that the Greenland and Europe cruises aren't exactly cheap. Balconies on the Greenland were running 5k+ for two weeks. If someone is staying on a cruise ship for 3-5 months, they are probably paying more on a leg-to-leg basis than what the price of the world cruises are on Princess or HAL or even Cunard...unless they have casino rates. But I rarely see the casino rates for Europe cruises unless it is a particular sailing that hasn't sold well or a TA or a non-summer sailing. I have never gotten casino rates on the summer Europe cruises on Carnival that I have priced out (i.e. the cruises when my kids are out of school). I looked at the Princess world cruise that goes during the summer time and I actually thought it was surprisingly affordable if you just do a regular balcony and not a suite. With that said, I was only looking at 2 or 3 segments (basically half of the circumnavigation) and not the entire cruise. Ultimately my husband poo-pooed a world cruise because he said the internet wasn't yet good enough to allow him to be able to keep in touch with his office...but I have high hopes in the future once starlink is implemented. Additionally, after being in Europe with my kids for only 3.5 weeks last summer, I was MORE than ready to get home so while my mind WANTS to do a 45+ day cruise, I think I would probably get on it and become very cranky after awhile. Surprisingly, I think my husband and I started getting crankier than our kids.

When I recently had FTTF, I didn't get access to my cabin early. When I had a suite, I did. However, I don't know what the official "rules" are. May have been happenstance.

As an aside, on our Europe Carnival cruise, we met MANY people who were on the boat for anywhere from a month to the entire season...which was May to October. MANY. In fact, I would dare say that probably at least a third of the people we talked to were there for multiple B2B2B voyages. @MJSailorsCarnival does not just attract lower income cruisers looking to party. Anyone with young kids who is cruising with those kids is pretty much choosing between Carnival, RCCL and Disney. Many of the upper end cruise lines (like Viking) don't even allow kids--and even the ones that do allow them don't cater to them like Carnival, Royal and Disney. And Disney simply doesn't have as many boats or routes as Carnival or Royal.