jeff92k7

17 minutes ago, KmomChicago said:

 

Do you hear us John? 

If you follow John’s FB page at all, you’ll know he hates Cruise Critic with a passion. I seriously doubt he is reading anything on this site, much less this thread. 

You can do online check in as soon as it is available.  However, you will not be able to print the boarding passes until payment has been made in full.  

1 minute ago, grillinchillin said:

My guess it is a change in tier plans!  Why? Why not!

 

Would not be surprised to see a new upper level Tier and some sort of timeframe to maintain a tier, not unlike <insert name here> Loyalty Program.

 

That's how Airlines, Hotels and Casinos work (for the most part - please don't throttle me with all of the exceptions). Unless you are a "Million Miler" at Delta, it's all about what have you done for me lately and your Tier for next year is based on what you did this year.

Ugh.  Not a chance.  That kind of program may work well for airlines and such whose primary customer is the business traveler who travels a lot, but that would never work for a cruise line whose primary customer is a vacation traveler.  Requiring even one cruise annually to maintain any sort of "status" would be untenable for the majority of customers, so most customers would lose their status and then any (minor) incentive to cruise Carnival the next time.  Cruise loyalty programs are about rewarding loyalty to the cruise line - i.e. the number of cruises you take.  That targets vacation customers well.  Airline programs are about how much money you've spent with the airline.  That targets business customers well.  Those per dollar rewards clubs will never work with vacation customers who pay for their cruise out of their own pockets.  A change to a per dollar club could only hurt Carnival.

My guess (serious) is that is when they will finally announce the Carnival Reflection - the new XL ship coming in 2020 - as well as the dancing of the ships for 2020.  The news that he has wanted to share for a couple of years would fit with the announcement of the new XL ship.  Carnival Corp ordered those years ago.  The first one, the Aida Nova, has already been delivered (or is finishing up now), and there is one or two more already under construction for other Carnival brands.  The new Carnival brand XL ship is supposed to be the fourth one delivered.
 
As far as the "they said yes" comment... I'm betting that is something different entirely and not directly related to any special Carnival news.

There are more sailings for summer of 2020 that became available to book overnight.  Not all ships and dates are published yet, but a large number of sailings from multiple ports were just added.

So after years of cruising, the magical upgrade fairy finally called and left a message saying to call back soon for the time limited offer.  The message referred to a specific sailing we have booked for next year (we have more than one).   The problem was that we have two bookings on that cruise - one for my wife and myself, and one for our 3 kids.  The fairy didn't bother to say which booking she was calling about.

So I called back later in the day.  I knew we weren't going to take any offer because we specifically booked this cruise for the availability of certain cabins... but I was still curious.  I assumed that the upgrade offer had to be for the booking with my wife and myself, but no luck.  They couldn't find any upgrade offer for our cabin (surprising since we figured someone wanted our cabin and that's what triggered the fairy's call).   I had them look up the kids booking and sure enough, that one had the upgrade offer.  I don't even know what the price would have been because she looked at it and said it was to a junior suite (from our kid's interior), but then she immediately noted that due to the kids' age, they couldn't be in any cabin but the one we already had booked (which we knew... again, going back to booking that cruise for specific cabins).   
 
So my wife and I were talking about it later and trying to figure out what in the world triggered the upgrade phone call.  We assumed that maybe they were running out of interiors on that deck and wanted ours free, but a mock booking online shows only one other interior even booked on that deck.  We thought that maybe they weren't selling enough of the junior suites, but again, a mock booking showed over half of them on that deck already booked.  So we were at a complete loss as to why they even called us... they didn't need the cabin we have booked, they aren't having trouble booking the suites, and they didn't even bother to look at our existing booking to know that our kids couldn't move to a different cabin away from us anyway.  The best I can figure is that the upgrade fairy is totally and completely random, computer generated, and the agents actually have no idea why upgrades are offered to those that get them.

At the time we had a 3 and 5 year old and well there just wasn't much to do on the ship. The port stop I think was Nassau. The food was just OK. We might has been the only sober folks on the boat, not crew (although I have had this experience on several ships on sea days). We have been on smaller ships and bigger ships and we are not too picky...

If there wasn't enough to do on a Fantasy class ship during your four day cruise, then I would definitely recommend the Magic. From the two you mentioned, that is the bigger one (Dream class) and it has more activities on board. It's still not going to be up to the level of Royal Carribean's Amusement park of the Seas, but you may find enough to do. It has things like a ropes course, better water slides, more restaurants, and so on. The downside is that the bigger ships are notably more crowded so you will find yourself standing in longer lines for the buffet, comedy shows, theater shows, and some other things.

OK, I'll break from the generic "you'll like those ships better" and actually ask... what was it about the first cruise that you didn't like? Getting a better idea of what caused you to not enjoy that first cruise will give us all a better idea of whether it was just an unlucky experience, an issue that you would experience on any Carnival ship, or anywhere in between. We can't really say if you would like these other ships better without knowing what you didn't like about that first one.

The Elation and Paradise just had near complete remodels indicating that Carnival plans to keep them around a while. I don't believe Jacksonville is the only port with clearance that restricts them to Fantasy class ships. So long as Carnival intends to keep using existing ports, then they will keep at least some of the Fantasy class ships around for a while.

Another reason why past ship retirement is not a good indicator of when Carnival will retire the Fantasy class is this... We were on the Behind the fun tour on the Fantasy back in January and learned something quite interesting. The Fantasy was the first commercial cruise ship to employ diesel/electric propulsion. Instead of giant diesel engines directly driving the propeller shafts, the Fantasy class (and later ships) use electric motors to drive the shafts. Those motors get electric power from a series of diesel generators. This is far more efficient and reliable than the old direct drive diesel engines. If a generator is down for maintenance, then the other generators are still more than enough to carry the load and produce the power for the entire ship. If I remember correctly, the Fantasy has something like 7 generators. The electric motors have fewer moving parts and are far more reliable than direct drive engines, so this keeps the Fantasy class in service more often, and with fewer problems than the older ships. This also likely means that the Fantasy class will outlast the previous ship classes by quite a bit.

Additionally, the Elation and Paradise were the first cruise ships fitted with the Azipod propulsion system (rotating pods instead of a long propeller shaft), so I imagine that may have something to do with those two getting all the nice new drydock upgrades indicating that Carnival will keep them around.

Now whether Carnival keeps them all, moves some of them to their other brands, or sells some, I do not know. But I think it's safe to say that Carnival will keep at least some of the Fantasy class ships around for quite a while.

I bought it this morning for a January Elation cruise out of Jacksonville. Been checking the website multiple times each day for FTTF to become available before it showed up today.

It’s not yet available on a November 2019 cruise out of San Juan though.

Took the family on the Fantasy back in January. We all loved it. For being such an old ship, it has been maintained well and appeared to be in better condition than the Ecstasy was when we were on her a few years ago.

In all honesty, I liked the Fantasy the best of all the ships we've been on so far. It's a smaller ship so it's less crowded, doesn't take as long to walk from one place to another, and just seems to have a more relaxing atmosphere as compared to the newer, bigger ships where everyone is running around trying to do everything or standing in lines to get into the shows. Our cabins were very clean and well maintained. The common areas are clean and nice, even if some of the decor is a bit dated.

Really, my only complaint is that the decor, while not bad, is not as simple and 'fresh' as the decor on the newer ships. I like the color scheme of the newer ships instead of the red cabin decor in the older ships. The newer decor is more calming and subdued. But that's all just personal preference.

The question I still have is what is the resolution of the digital pictures? If they are 2400 x 3000, that is tolerable resolution for printing. To make truly professional photo quality 8 x 10 prints, the resolution needs to be at least double that.

They use professional, high end cameras from Nikon and Canon. I don’t believe they reduce the resolution, so they should be between 18 and 24 MP depending on the camera. They may adjust to some standard resolution spec for photos in which they add the colorful borders though.

Regardless, the resolution will be plenty high enough for 8x10s. I have an 18MP Canon myself and have made prints as large as 20x30. Even on those, you can’t see any blur or pixel structure even at 2” away. Of course, that has as much to Do with how they’re printed. Printing them at Walmart or CVS (or someone’s home inkjet) is not going to give the same quality as a professional photo service.

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Ok so now that the funshops have been updated again, it is all your digital files and 50 prints on digital ships; while it is all your printed images and 50 digital files on all other ships.

I just purchased it for an upcoming cruise before they have a chance to restrict it further.

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What I don’t understand is why they don’t just sell the package as is in digital only.

That's what the mid level $200 package is on the ships with the digital gallery... all your photos, in digital format. For $250, you get all your digital photos, plus 50 prints.

The confusionis on the ships that haven't gotten the digital gallery yet (most ships). Until they are converted, they are the old style gallery where the photos are all printed, whether you buy them or not. If you don't buy them, they get trashed/recycled. Selling packages to get more money out of most customers and letting customers take all their printed photos home instead of trashing them makes Carnival more money and saves them the paper waste. This is why no one understood the sudden price increase. It was price gouging plain and simple. Carnival still prints the photos whether you buy the packages or not. Raising the price was a money grab, plain and simple. I don't believe for a second that it was an introductory price. That's just the excuse they gave to try to save face.

The issue was people taking advantage and getting extra photos taken and printed on the digital ships as well as people doing extra photos on the non-digital ships. The 50 printed limit on the digital ships will limit Carnival's loss from that. Digital photos are pretty much free, excepting the cost of the camera and salaries of the photographer, which also exist on the printed galleries anyway. On the printed ships, there will be people getting more pictures taken, which means more printed photos, which means more paper cost. However, this should easily be offset by more people buying the packages.

Until they put the adjusted packages in the funshops store and we can read the fine print, we won't know exactly what the details are for the new packages. Since John Heald removed the post with the images that were copied to this thread, I'm wondering if they are still adjusting the fine print for what we actually get with each package.

The screen shot and what he's saying doesn't seem to jive. It looks to me like in the screen shot you can get all the digital images + 50 printed but it sounds like he's saying you can get 50 printed or 50 digital.

 

 

Just looking at what's posted above.

I read it as you get all digital files and 50 printed photos on shops that have the digital galleries. On all other ships, you get 50 printed pictures and those same 50 pictures in digital files (USB drive).

I am not a computer expert but it appears on older ships not wired for wifi it will be bad. I also wonder if a magnet will stick to a door and all the walls in a cabin it might hurt wifi. Being in a metal room is not a good thing for reception.

I am a computer network engineer and there are two problems... 1. the WiFi signal itself getting through bulkheads, decks, walls, doors, people, etc., and then 2. The satellite connection between the ship and the rest of the internet.

Now 1 is likely less of an issue. Even on older ships, it's rare to find a place on board that doesn't have some WiFi signal. You don't need a super strong WiFi signal for short text messages (like the Hub chat feature).

2. is the big issue. Regardless of how good the WiFi signal strength is, all the data gets funneled into one (or possibly two) satellite connection. If the satellite connection is bad, then there is no internet access for anyone. This can happen for any number of reasons such as heavy cloud cover, precipitation, solar radiation, bird droppings on the ships satellite transceiver, etc. Further, from what I've heard, even the on board chat feature of the hub app is transmitted across the satellite link to Carnival's servers and then back to the same ship. This explains why it doesn't work all the time. If it was all self contained within each ship, then the chat feature should work fine regardless of the internet connection quality. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case.

As technology improves, the issues with 2 should diminish, but will never go away entirely. Such is the case with any wireless connection. It sounds like they may be using a more advanced satellite connection on the Horizon. Initial reports are good and they have said they will roll it out to the rest of the fleet (though no dates given). Since this is likely just a matter of swapping some centralized satellite tech on each ship and will not require completely gutting the separate WiFi infrastructure, then it is possible they could do this while each ship is in service instead of having to wait until each ship is in dry dock. Just fly the workers to the port, book them on the next sailing, make sure the equipment is at the dock waiting, and they can work while the boat is still making money.

Eventually, these issues will become less and less, but by then, technology may have advanced to the next communication method.

Anyone have any photos of the new scenic ocean view cabins on the Paradise?

You can also search for carnival elation G1 on YouTube to find a few videos. The elation had the exact same cabins added this past September.

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We had 14 friends and family booked us when our issue occurred. I called to link our bookings for dinner seating.

 

Booking numbers and linking does not guarantee cabin location. Nor does it guarantee group seating at dinner from our experience.

True. Nothing is guaranteed. But linked bookings make it less likely for changes since they know it would affect more than just one cabin. This is especially true when kids are booked in another cabin (across the hall, for example). Carnival cannot move one cabin without then violating their own policies on the location of children to their parents. Linked bookings don't guarantee anything with all adults, but it does at least encourage them to look for another cabin to move if they need a certain cabin type.

As for dining, again I agree that nothing is guaranteed. However, you have next to no chance at all of sitting together if the bookings aren't linked. Though, if they are linked, they will do their best to seat everyone together.

If this is a big concern, then call Carnival with both booking numbers and make sure the reservations are linked together. Not only will this allow you to make sure you’re seated together at dinner (if doing scheduled dining), but it would make it extremely unlikely that they would move either of you or even offer any upgrades since your linked bookings indicate you want to stay together.

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When you have at least one more future cruise booked every time you step on board.

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Yes that area is blank , I cruised last year and the old boarding pass had a time slot like 10:00am- 10:30am. But this boarding time is blank under Arrival time . If it makes a difference I booked and paid the cruise in full 11 months out. Is this something new because I paid in full early , I just don't know .

If your cruise is still 11 months out, then they haven't released arrival times yet. They do that somewhere around the 180-195 day mark.

However, If you're saying that you paid it off 11 months ago and your cruise is coming up soon, then you likely need to go back into the check-in process online and select the boarding time. I'm guessing you did all that before the boarding times were available (that 180-195 day time frame). If you're just going in to print the document but never selected your boarding time, then that's probably why it isn't showing up.

I get horribly motion sick myself - so much so that I can get sick in the car when I'm driving, depending on certain factors. On cruises, I use the patch and have never had more than a brief, mild motion sick feeling during rougher seas that passed quickly after a few moments. I also have not noticed much difference between cabins at the end of the ship versus the middle. Those patches are awesome.... until I'm back home and take them off. Then I get horribly land sick and have to take Dramamine for another day or so until the effects wear off.

However, one poster mentioned cutting the patches in half. I'm not sure why someone would do that as they explicitly state not to cut them. I imagine cutting them would lead to the medicine "leaking out" of the cut side and could cause major differences in how the skin absorbs the medicine (i.e. too much as it leaks out, then too little as it dries out too soon.) Maybe someone with more medical/pharmaceutical knowledge could explain why its okay, or not okay to do that.

According to the following article, "“The agents at the terminal will have a list of everyone who purchased [Faster To The Fun]” and “They will be manually checking all guests, and only allowing [priority boarding] to those who purchased it.”

 

I wonder how long they will be manually checking?

 

I would imagine it would be indefinitely. At best, a dishonest person might be able to use the priority check in line to get to security, but when they scan the boarding pass the system will show that they didn't actually purchase it and will still be assigned the same boarding group/zone number. The same dishonest person might also get their bags delivered to their cabin sooner if they use the luggage tag with the FTTF/priority logo on them since there's no barcode on them to scan.

Thankfully, it seems as if the issue was only for a few days so I imagine that there won't be that many people who suddenly all printed their boarding passes in that time frame just to try to take advantage of the glitch.

My opinion is balconies aren't worth it. We don't spend enough time in the cabin to justify the extra cost. On our last cruise (Breeze), we spent more time sitting on deck (serenity deck, Lanai, Lido) than we spent sitting on our balcony. I'd rather save the cost difference and put it towards a couple more nights in the Steakhouse or towards another excursion.

Hi Just went and looked at my boarding passes this morning and FTTF is not on it. It is on my luggage tags though. Does anyone else have this problem today ? Recent posts have said it looked like it has been fixed.

I just checked mine again for our soonest cruise and it prints correctly with FTTF clearly shown. Maybe check it again later today and call Carnival if it still is not correct.