CruiseHealing

They still have not begun boarding. This ship may not sail until after midnight.

We have been in +30’ seas, and that looks very familiar. Not good memories.

We were on the Spirit on May 2nd. The food was a strong C minus or a D plus. We ate at the Steak House (Nouveau Restaurant) and was hugely disappointing. We ordered our steaks to be medium, but both were rare almost mooing. Tried to get the waitress or staff to help fix the problem, but they were too busy flirting with a ships officer and his friends. We will never eat in that restaurant (on any Carnival ship) again.

We just got back from our Alaska cruise on the Carnival Spirit. My PVP emailed me when the 2023 cruise were released. It was March 2021. If you don’t have a PVP get I one and assign them that task to contact you when 2025 is released.

I had a similar problem. I got so frustrated I wrote everything up with supporting documents and emailed it to my PVP. I did not expect him to fix the problem, but he did forward my email to the right person to get this taken care of. One day later problem solved!

Zero read your cruise contract.

We have had Aft cabins at least 15 times. Soot on the Panorama and a couple of times on the Sunshine. Wear your flip flops and wipe down the furniture. Problem solved.

They appear to be very private, unless another ship is beside you in port, then it’s a show.

I understand what you mean. After 40 cruises we spend most of our time on our balcony than with the masses. In the last three cruises I never made it to the Serenity Deck, I stayed on our balcony reading and relaxing. We enjoy the quiet and isolation. Lately we have been booking cabins with larger balconies and some of them are suites. We sailed the Mardi Gras in 2021, and had one of the larger Extended Balcony cabins. We liked the ship, but prefer the Vista / Dream class.

Always remember you can change your cabin if you have not made final payment. My experience with suites is that the price is more than it is worth. However if the suite offers an unbelievable million dollar view then it’s money well spent.

I had a conversation on this subject with our room steward last month on the Carnival Freedom. We are Platinum and our Zone was A01. Diamonds were called first, then Suites followed by Platinums. We went to our cabin a little after 11 am after boarding. The bed and bathrooms were completed, but they still had to vacuum. The room steward happened to come by and introduced himself, stated he still had a few things to complete. We told him we were Platinum and he told me that since we are Platinum we can drop the carryon luggage off. We put our passports in the safe and the carryon stuff under the bed and we went upstairs for lunch. Therefore as of last month D & Ps are allowed to drop off carryon items in their cabin and leave. I recommend to put your stuff somewhere that does not interfere with them completing the cabin. Final note: I went back to the cabin about 45 minutes later and was stop by a security guard who told that the cabins were ready yet. I showed him boarding pass and told him I was Platinum he corrected himself “ok, just visit your cabin to get my sunglasses and leave the area”. So on the Freedom this is a double confirmation that D&Ps have early access.

Mardi Gras

We were on the Elation a few years back. We were near the water slide and this one boy would run up the stairs and slide down. He did this over and over. Then it started to rain. DW left me in the rain. There was nobody in the area except him going up and down the slides and me. About 20 minutes later it was sunny again. His parents showed up again to watch this boy go up and down. I went over to his parent to see if I could give him my Elation platinum pin. They said yes. They called the boy to come over. He thought he was in trouble. I explained to him that I have been watching him for over an hour, he said oh yeah you were over there in the rain. I told him I was impressed with how much fun he was having and gave him the pin. You would have thought that I gave him part of a treasure.

Yes you will be able to pick one of 3 giftS. 1. A beer cozy. 2. A soda cozy. 3. A snap wrist band. Thanks for being a frequent cruiser with Carnival.

We were on deck 8 on the Panorama last year. It happened on our cruise. Carnival sent a letter apologizing. No problems on the Havana. Not a big deal.

You cannot print your boarding pass if you have not completed the check-in process. However you can print out your documents and your luggage tags at any time. your boarding pass will include your check-in time but you cannot do that until 14 days before the cruise unless you are diamond or platinum then it’s 16 days before the cruise.

Agree with all of the responses. A day before you cruise you should go back to the CCL website and log in and go to Manage My Bookings to see if they added a health survey. This happened a lot early post Covid.

The seas can get very rough. We did a four day cruise in mid January. The first 3 days were really nice. However, sailing back to Tampa from Cozumel a cold front came through Florida and we were rocked by 30’ seas. It was unbelievable! At one point in the afternoon our ship had to stop because we came upon a capsize pleasure boat. The cruise ship sent out a rescue boat, not a life boat, to look for survivors or bodies. None were found. The rescue crew did something to the boat to sink it, not sure what the did. The captain on the PA system came on to inform us that they sunk the boat so no ship would hit the capsize boat at night. He said this is a normal practice given the sea conditions.

Remember is December 2022 the CEO said Carnival cruises “are too much of a value”. Meaning prices across the board will be going up. So he decided to wait until January to start his price increase plans. He would not do it in December because it could effect Christmas Present cruise bookings. This is his first step, expect to see more increases going forward. Like Eli-6 stated, Cheers will be next.

As we are land based today, DW and I were talking about our two NYE cruises. The first one was on the Destiny (now Sunshine) out of Miami. The second NYE cruise was out of Galveston on the Ecstasy. What do we remember of the two NYE cruises.: 1. On both cruises the champagne was flowing the minute we boarded the ships. It only happened on embarkation day and NYE evening. 2. Both cruises were packed with guests, with everyone enjoying the party atmosphere. 3. The MDR was really good every night. Since there was no YTD the dining room was packed. 4. There seemed to be some type of dancing on the ship the every day. 5. On the Ecstasy cruise the talk on the ship was that it will rain on NYE night. But in fact the rained held off until after we sang “Auld Lang Syne” them the skies opened up. Everybody ran for cover. The Captain knew what he was doing! 6. We were in Nassau on New Year’s Day on the Ecstasy cruise and every store was closed. But they had a parade down Bay Street. A lot of fun and great Bahamas tradition photos. 7. Down Side was driving back to Austin with a hangover. I had to go back work the next day. What were your NYE memories?

The fact that the ship is this full due to the Christmas Break is supported by the lack of loyalty guests. Total Guests: 3905 Gold Card: 232 Platinum Card: 44 Diamond Card: 8 I am glad I’m not sailing on this cruise.

With 38 cruises with 5 different cruise lines, our cruise experience has changed with us now being retired. Before we like to be in the middle of the fun. We are also big into dancing. Carnival works for us because we book cabins with large balconies. We leave our cabin (balcony) to eat, shop and go dancing. We stay away from the crowds. To us a large view of the ocean from our wraparound balcony and a good book to read is now our style of cruising If we cruise on another cruise line we would be doing the same thing, so why spend the extra money. On the food issue we think Carnival has done a great job adding free venues like Guys and Blue Iguana which are good. We almost never eat at the buffet. We frequent most of their Speciality (pay) restaurants. We have 4 Carnival cruise coming up around the world. All cabins have Great balcony views!

If it does not work out for you. When you board go to the dining around 2 pm and ask to be YTD. That works sometimes.

Reviewing different bookings in late 2023 the short cruise pricing appears to be just slightly higher than this year. For the 6 night or higher cruises the prices are higher about 15%. The one thing I did notice were the frequency of +7 day cruises not going to far East Caribbean ports. (St Thomas, St Kitts etc) and are at least 25% higher. Also Amber Cove, Grand Turk privates island are being heavily used. This is probably the result of fuel cost. Stay close to save fuel dollars.