Lee Cruiser

That certainly appears to be the case.

Not really detailed, but changes are coming to room service beginning October 1. Dear Carnival Guest, We have been carefully watching guest patterns since our restart in July 2021, including food and dining preferences. As a result, we are updating our room service menu to add more options on an à la carte basis, while maintaining a complimentary breakfast offering each morning. These changes are consistent with trends across the industry, and also provide us opportunities to continue to work toward meeting our various sustainability goals, including food, water and energy reduction, while still giving our guests the option of 24/7 room service if they so choose. Effective with all cruises departing on or after October 1, 2022, we will be rolling out the expanded room service menu across our fleet. In addition to the complimentary breakfast selections, we will be adding choices which reflect what we believe will meet more guest preferences. Guests will continue to enjoy the convenience of all day in-room dining as shown below: Breakfast from 6:00 AM to 10:00 AM – complimentary continental choices with à la carte selections Rest of day/evening from 10:00 AM to 6:00 AM – à la carte selections Room service is a phone call away; simply access the menu via the QR code in your stateroom. Additionally, we are happy to share that beginning October 1, we are resuming our popular Dr. Seuss Green Eggs & Ham Breakfast, a family favorite event where you can enjoy a fantastical feast with The Cat in the Hat and Friends™. We are looking forward to welcoming you aboard and sharing with you our new offerings. See you soon! Sincerely, Neil Palomba Chief Operations Officer https://view.carnivalcruiselineemail.com/?qs=ed949f44311b0bd0d95b78e637f2d025905248c24ff164dce86a9fd9b8195b296abccd2d5ab2a2ac218224fd1b333d41218b560f9f151ba4b8555f85be05ec280bc4e2f7008de7a9b217f2c7a41cc194

Here is Greg’s response to an 11:30 airport question from earlier:

You don't have to sign up. If you choose self debarkation, you simply do not put your bags out the night before. They call self debarkation by muster stations, although many apparently ignore them and go whenever they please (mainly earlier than their time). If you choose self debarkation, just be prepared to have to take the stairs with your luggage. It is a madhouse from 8-9 and nearly impossible to get an elevator.

I've always preferred Pepsi. I can't stand the tasted of canned Coke. My son-in-law works for Pepsi, so now I have an even better reason to support them.

Does anyone know how to find out what the paid Imax movies on Vista are? We are going on it later this month.

Agreed. Although I wouldn't know if they are out at 1 am or not, unless they come yelling down the hall by my room 😀

We haven't been to a single movie since restart (three cruises) because there wasn't anything really worth watching. This is sad because that's one of the things we've always enjoyed doing.

If you are going by levels of cost, then suites should be the most, but balconies should be more than inside cabins since they cost twice as much.

Just for information: I did not post this topic in West Coast Departures. Not sure why it was moved here.

They are already offering priority to suite guests and those are the only ones right now that are guaranteed to have rooms available upon boarding. I wonder if they will place more priority benefits on what type of rooms you are booking, or what you are spending.

That's the thing, priority boarding isn't the same as it was before covid when your room was ready when you boarded. That was the thing we looked most forward to before turning platinum. But I'm guessing that's probably not coming back, at least in the same way for all platinum and diamonds. Like you, most of the other things don't really mean that much to us.

I'm guessing we could do that and get Uber as well.

That's interesting. I would think there would be quite a few wanting to take Lyft back to the airports that day. Did you schedule that morning or did you do so beforehand? I'm more familiar with Uber and have used it several times. This will be first time using Lyft.

We are looking at using Lyft following our Vista cruise next month to get back to Hobby Airport. Does anyone have any experience with this? Is Lyft readily available at the Galveston port?

Would take a lot more effort to keep up with, but I could certainly see that happening. The last change went from counting cruises to counting cruise days to keep people from just booking 4-5 day cruises and getting to platinum with 45-50 days. Could a next step be counting room types to give people who book balconies and suites more bang for the buck than those always booking interior?

Maybe or maybe not. Also, they may grandfather people in to certain levels, but the benefits of that level may change. I'm just not sure they can continue giving all platinum and diamonds priority. Another thing they did before was allowing those who would have reached platinum soon under the old program (10 cruises) a certain period of time (can't remember for sure, but seems like it was over a year) to reach that level under the old program. I have relatives who actually reached it that way and only had around 55 cruise days.

Agreed. It has been talked about for years. Covid changed all the conversation to mere survival for the industry. Changes are going to have to come sooner or later. There are simply too many platinum cruisers now and many on the way to getting there to give priority. I was guessing before that they would raise the number of days required to get to platinum (or at least the priority boarding and room availability part of it.) Along with that creating new levels throughout. As many have stated, the program is not really that good. For us, the priority embarkation (with room being ready) and debarkation are/were the main benefits. The other things have never really meant that much to us. We don't drink, so the party doesn't appeal to us and we rarely use the laundry as we don't like washing everything in hot water mixed with everyone else's items. We had always looked forward to seeing what the gifts were, but that certainly isn't the case anymore. The Tervis cups have been the nicest things we've gotten in years and that was a few years ago. Those are the only gifts that we still use on a regular basis. If priority embarkation with room being ready and priority debarkation are taken away, we would certainly look at trying other lines. That's the main things that kept us from doing so pre-covid. Looks like if they are hiring someone to oversee it changes aren't coming right away. I'm guessing that person will have time to work through it. With that being said, I would think it would be more of a massive overhaul of the program than the last one that included changing platinum from 10 cruises to 75 cruise days.

Thanks for the information

I have only seen clam shells there. We don't like clam shells. Didn't realize they even had umbrellas, but would stay at the beach there if that is the case.

I saw somewhere else that there are umbrella rentals at Mahogany Bay for $26 if I remember correctly. Does anyone know how this works? Do you just rent them once you get there? Are they billed to your S&S account or do you need cash? Where are the umbrellas located on the beach? Are there plenty of them? Thanks for any help you can give!

I received the same letter, but it says test results via Verifly or as a part of the embarkation process. To me, that means exactly how we were doing it before.

We didn't use Verifly on any of three cruise since the restart and we certainly wouldn't now. We've just took our paperwork and never had any issues. It took less than a minute each time for them to look at and send us on our way.

My wife had a similar situation with her card showing her shortened name and the passport showing another. Though in her case, her driver's license and passport both showed her longer name. Since, at that time (last September) you couldn't cruise without the vaccine proof and they said it must match the name on your id, we didn't want to take a chance. She went back to Wal-Mart where she got the shots and she was able to get a new card that matched her passport and boarding pass. Not sure what the case would be now, though it appears they are being much more relaxed. Either way, you might check where you go the shots to see if it is possible to get another card just to be on the safe side.

We are renting a car from Enterprise before our September cruise. Does anyone know if they have a shuttle to the port?