Lee Cruiser

We were on that exact same flight as well. When we got home, we discovered that our luggage had gotten soaked in the heavy rain.

For my wife and me it was not one of our favorites either. I will probably do a review later, but there were several incidents on this cruise that just raised my stress level instead of being a relaxing vacation. You may not have experienced this, but our started with the embarkation. As we were going up from the Captains Lounge to board the ship, there was a line of people coming up the way that stretched way down the hallway. We really didn't know what was going on, so all of us just merged in and headed on the gangway. You would have thought we had just committed a robbery. We were called all sorts of names. My wife just pulled me aside and we let the ones that were the most vocal on by us. I caught a glimpse of their boarding passes and it turned out that the FTTF folks were going at the same time as many of the platinum folks, even though he had announced that it would be diamond, suites, platinum, then FTTF. So that problem was created by Carnival. We had priority letter K, so they went before a lot of the platinum folks behind us.

If this is the same one we saw, it was by ambulance. Have no idea why they brought her back to the ship. The ambulance came through while we were looking around the port. They worked with her a few minutes and as we were headed back to the ship, they were bringing her back.

My wife and I are on this cruise as well. Counting down the hours now! We had to cancel our April Mardi Gras cruise, so it has been a long time since January.

Just looked at ours again for a cruise next week. Yesterday, several Coke products (including Coke and Diet Coke) were on there along with the Pepsi products. Today it is back to just Pepsi products.

It's been on there. It is essentially the 18% that would be paid for gratuity if you purchased onboard.

I hope this just means they are going to do both and not switching back to just Coke products!

On Mardi Gras they were already out there as well and we spent most of the day out there away from the crowds on the public decks

This is the largest extended balcony on the sides, so plenty of room for loungers

I was watching a video for extended balcony cabin 10346 and it has regular chairs on it. Our extended balcony on Mardi Gras had loungers. Is it possible to request loungers? Our plan is to spend a good bit of our time there.

It happened last night as we were preparing to check in for our Celebration cruise. Tried to log in about 15 minutes before on two browsers and it wouldn't work. Finally, about 5 minutes before it started working and didn't have any issues through the check in process. Makes me think they may have been doing some maintenance before and stopped a few minutes before midnight Eastern time for those checking in.

It would probably be because it would be out of network. When I had to go to the Carnival physician years ago, it was billed to my account. They gave me the receipt and form to file with my insurance. Mine was much less at around $250 or so if I remember correctly. My insurance reimbursed me at around 70% I believe. My current insurance would be about 50% out of network.

I'm guessing the OP would understand his deductible. Having been to the medical center before, I know Carnival requires payment upon service and does not file or wait on insurance to pay. I read it as the total bill was $2,500, which they would have been required to pay in entirety before debarking. He then filed it with his insurance and the insurance ended up sending the reimbursement to Carnival instead of back to him.

The 6:30-7:30 time frame is a pretty busy time, so just be prepared to wait after you check in. Was there a particular reason you chose YTD? Since you can't check in on the app, it would be much easier to do an assigned time.

The app has made it so much easier than before. We've done it both ways and prefer the app so much more than having to go wait in line to check in.

We usually do excursions when we go there, but we are considering just doing the beach this time. Does anyone know if the chairs past the cabanas (near the scuba pier) are for staff only? We have seen a couple of videos and one has people talking about hanging out there with good shade, but another said it was a staff area. Just trying to get some clarification. Thanks

I certainly hope not. For those of us who don't drink, having drinks included would just means paying a lot more for the same. Also, not sure excursions will ever be included as these vary greatly.

Their horrible customer service is the reason I switched away from AT&T a few years ago after having them for over 20 years. Just got tired of having to spend hours on the phone and never getting my problem resolved.

Non-refundable doesn't necessarily mean you lose it all, you just can't get a cash refund. For early saver fares you can transfer them to another cruise less a $50 per person penalty. We did this last year when we received one of the 50% off anniversary deals. We decided to cancel the cruise we had booked for April 2023 under a more normal rate and re-book it under the 50th anniversary deal. Even if we would have lost all of our deposit we would have come out several hundred dollars ahead. After cancelling I called and had the remainder of the deposit after the $100 penalty to a cruise later that year (2022). Never tried to get the full deposit transferred, so not sure how much luck you will have at that.

The article compares the cost of a cruise with the cost of a Disney vacation. I certainly don't think you can compare a Carnival cruise to going to Disney. It's a much different type of experience. The article also talks about closing the gap between a land vacation and a cruise. For us, that gap has already been closed considerably. We can do a land vacation for less now. We have a cruise booked for November on Valor that we are probably going to end up cancelling. We can do a trip to the Smokies Christmas and Dollywood Christmas for about $400 less after considering all costs. That is also allowing a generous amount for meals. We typically would have at least one cruise booked for the year after next by now, usually two which would be Jan and April 2025. We don't have any booked right now and probably won't book more than one for that year.

When a cabin on a certain deck has been sold out, I have been able to find another cabin on another deck that is still in the same category. For instance, if I have a mid-ship balcony cabin booked on deck 7 making it 8C, I was able to find a balcony cabin on deck 8 forward that was the same category. Not sure if that will work for your case or not.

It's doubtful that we will see any price decrease. Everything on cruises seems to be going up steadily of late. Even if it is less expensive, Carnival isn't likely to pass that along with all the debt they are trying to pay off.

Though we would prefer HMC over Nassau, if the price difference is only $300, we would choose the Mardi Gras. It's an extra day of cruising, the food options are much better and it has better entertainment, especially much more comedy. As far at the balcony in December. We cruise just about every January and still love our balcony. The main time it is very cool is later at night. During the day it is usually good.

If you want it as OBC, then you do that onboard. If we know that we will spend a certain amount, we go ahead and purchase cruise cash ahead of time to avoid having to do it onboard. But, you only want to purchase what you will use, because it is not refundable. We also use them to pay for the cruise, internet and excursions that we book beforehand.

We always choose YTD, but I believe I've read that you actually have to wait until 7:45 to request a table because it's based on when tables become available and not actually a set reservation time. It works the same way with YTD, except YTD can request a table as soon as the window opens. With YTD, you request a table and you are notified when your table is available.