Eli_6

First, the cruise insurance isn't going to cover airfare. Second, even if you purchased refundable airfare or get insurance for your airfare, you still have a lot of things that insurance doesn't cover. In my example, I have the fact that my husband is a physician with his own practice. He has to arrange (and pay for) alternative coverage by another physician in his specialty (which isn't easy to find) in order for us to go to Europe for 2.5-3 weeks. Basically, he has to pay a locums doctor to come in. He has a nurse practitioner that covers him for shorter trips, but going overseas like this is an entirely different situation. So, those dates for us are set in stone. Similarly, when I was practicing law, I had to file vacation letters with the court many months in advance to ensure my cases weren't put on the trial docket for those periods. Those can't be changed because your trials are set by not only your list, but the list of the opposing parties. In multi-party litigation, there may be 10+ letters that are considered. And I am sure many other cruisers have similar situations that are not covered by insurance. So, yes, I expect Carnival to as soon as they know a cruise will not be proceeding, to let us know. ESPECIALLY for a 12-day Europe cruise when they know most their cruisers are from the U.S. This isn't a 4 day booze cruise from Galveston where 90 percent of the cruisers drive to it.

Cajucan. In East Texas there is a chain eatery called Tia Juanitas that is Mexican+Cajun combined and it is really good. Boudin quesadillas are quite amazing.

Sorry, I hijacked it to talk about my fear that they were canceling the May 28th sailing on the Pride. Everyone can go back to talking about what they hope will be changed with the dry dock...however, based on the length of time it is going to be in dry dock if it does sail on May 28th, I doubt we can expect much more than some refreshed paint.

No, I was looking at the wrong year. False alarm.

No, I was not looking at that website. Thanks for posting. Now this website adds even more mystery because the Pride is on that website departing on the 29th when it is supposed to depart on the 28th (right? I am now so confused I don't even know anymore), but the Venezia isn't on it at all...and the Venezia is supposed to depart on the 29th. What the heck? I give up. Edit: Oh never mind. I was looking at 2022. No one listen to anything I say. I can't tell my head from my **s today.

Completely unrelated, but this website shows where all the ships are and man there are a lot of ships in the world: https://www.shiplocation.com/marine-traffic

Aaah! So everything actually may be okay, then. It may be that because the cruise is no longer showing up on Carnival's website, the third party websites have removed it from their schedule assuming that it is cancelled...even though that may not be the case. And the "official" port websites appear to only publish their schedules about 2-3 months out.

Darn it. The "official" Port of Barcelona port schedule is still blank for May 2023.

Off to try to find the official port schedule...

Also, I think they also have to leave some cabins open for Covid quarantine rooms. Not sure if they are still doing this or not, but they were back in July last time I cruised.

On some sailings, though, those 3rd and 4th actually go for more. This is usually sailings where you have a lot of kids. I experienced this personally on a Christmas sailing in 2019. It was cheaper to book 2 rooms rather than a 3 person room. However, we had 2 adults, 1 kid. But sometimes, in the case of babies or toddlers and 1 adult, you can't put them in a room by themselves. So, if you hypothetically have a Mom cruising by herself with two very young kids, you have to have a three person room...particularly, if one next door or directly across the hall isn't available. Carnival has certain rules based on ages of kids about where/how you can book them. I don't know them all, but (for example), my kids can be booked directly across the hall in an inside room or next door in an inside room now, but not in a balcony by themselves and not anywhere else. But they are 8 and 10 now. Kids over a certain age can be booked like 5 doors away; and then over age 18 but under 21 can be booked anywhere but still have to have a "guardian" (i.e. someone over 25 who is responsible for them) on board.

I got good news on my flights! British airways said if I do have to cancel, I get all of my money and miles back minus a small fee...like $80 per person so $320 total. That's minor compared to the cost and miles we spent. They said I simply have to cancel 24 hours in advance. Obviously, I am not canceling the tix now, but relieved they are so flexible and I won't be out much money *IF* it does cancel. My husband is still off that time, though, so we will be taking some sort of vacation somewhere even if it cancels...

I hope you are correct. However, why is the Pride not showing up on the port schedules for this sailing? When the Venezia is showing in some of those same ports a day later and the Pride is showing up on port schedules for later sailings?

Also, I just learned that apparently a ship may still have rooms open but it can be at "passenger" capacity if enough people are booked in 3- and 4-person rooms. In that case, it will disappear off the website.

Great idea!

Another thing I thought about: I was looking at the Jubilee TA about a month or two ago. The Jubilee sailing was off the website. I called and they said it was sold out. No way was that ship (with a 5,000+ capacity) on an 18-day TA to Galveston with a dozen sea days sold out a year in advance. I don't buy it. Celebration TA wasn't even sold out at the time and they were offering almost free cruises. Sure enough, they canceled the Jubilee TA.

You can get off the ship faster...sometimes, that is a big benefit.

TA got off the phone with Carnival and they are swearing the cruise is still going forward. They are saying the ship is at "number of people" capacity so they can offer room upgrades even if all the rooms are not filled. That explains that, but that still doesn't explain why the cruise isn't showing up on any of the ports of call schedules. And it isn't like it is just ONE port it isn't appearing on...

Ugh. This sucks. They have a couple of adjoining or side-by-side inside rooms, too...but then not only would we not get the Terraza area, but we would be stuck in an inside room for NINE sea days. I swore after taking a 6 day cruise in an OV with my stinky boys I would never again book a room without a way of opening the door to air it out. It looks like all of the suites are booked up and I am not seeing much else in the way of adjoining rooms other than inside rooms. I even contemplated booking my kids in a room with my Mom under her booking number and having her no show. Not sure what Carnival would do about that... Once, they moved my children (who were in their own room) completely across the ship (like from forward to aft and port to starboard) from our room when we had a ship change. We had to call and get them to change it. So, I am not sure how much they truly care about the "directly across the hall" rule beyond booking. This past summer, they also asked us when we checked our kids into Camp Ocean on our Europe cruise if we wanted to allow the kids to be able to check themselves out...even though we were going to be off the boat for the day. "Umm, no. I do not want my elementary aged kids wandering around the ship on unsupervised while I am on land." I then went and looked at the rule and apparently kids over 8 can check themselves out of Camp Ocean if the parent allows it. What??? That's a terrible rule! No wonder they have to now have an employee constantly monitoring the ice cream machine...

Do you mean BS reasons or were people literally invoking it because Carnival didn't have bacon at breakfast. Because if it is the second, that is one of the funniest things I have heard in a long time! "Yes, I am canceling my cruise because the Bacon is taking a Ba-cation from the Buffet."

I am seriously contemplating going ahead and depositing the Venezia because I want a terrace Carnivale corner balcony directly across from an inside room and there is only ONE set of those left. Bummer part is I think the deposit is $800 for all of us. And I have like $1600 FCC plus deposits plus some amount in deposits (either $400 or $800) plus like $1200 in FCC on the Pride May 28th sailing. So, if the Pride goes forward, I would lose that $800 deposit on the Venezia. I have to have the inside room directly across from the balcony because Carnival has a rule that kids can only be booked in an INSIDE room directly next to or directly across the hall from parents. And I can't book them in my balcony room because it is the Terrazzo Carnviale whatever rooms are 12 and up and neither of them are 12. In actuality, the 9 year old will sleep with us in our room and the 11 year old will stay by himself in the inside room...that is exactly what happened on our Alaskan cruise and on our European cruise. My other option is to just wait and see what happens but then the rooms will probably book up.

For example, the Pride...what would be a normal amount of time needed for her to be in dry dock for the updates she needs? Anyone have any inside information on how long this sort of thing usually takes?

Been texting with my TA. My TA is calling Carnival to TRY to get a straight answer from them on if the May 28th Pride cruise is going forward. Apparently they are still being evasive in giving a definite answer, but she seems to think that the writing is on the wall the 28th is not going forward. She seems to think it has to do with the dry dock scheduling. I wish I knew more about how long a ship was typically in dry dock. 3 or 4 weeks doesn't seem like it would be long enough for the Pride to get the overhaul she needs...but, then again, I don't know a thing about dry docking.

Well, I completely admit that I am gun shy as well because I have literally had Carnival do this to me before back in 2021. The ONLY good thing about that situation is because it was still at the height of Covid and many (like kids) weren't even elligible for vaccines yet, hotels and British Airways was allowing people to book tickets with free cancellation so I got my $$$ easily on the airfare. But it is a different situation now.

The trip insurance doesn't help my situation. Even if I got an insurance policy that covered airfare, it will not cover the fact that my husband has to find and pay another physician to cover his practice and 5,000 patients for the 2.5 weeks we will be gone. Due to his specialty, he usually has to arrange this a year in advance. Being gone for 4 days is one thing. Being halfway around the world for 2.5 to 3 weeks where cell service is questionable is another.