kwokpot

The ship has been rocking and rolling all last night and continues today. I was awaken last night with loud banging from the balcony and it turned out that the balcony partition had flung open from the high winds. I had to secure it and it stayed closed until this morning when it flung open again. Both pools are closed but the main hot tubs are open. Brunch was excellent. We had the parfait to start and on this ship they substituted regular yogurt for Greek yogurt and the ratio of yogurt to granola was better proportions ( that has always been a complaint of mine with this selection, too much granola and not enough yogurt!). I had an omelet and my husband had the Eggs Benedict and both entrees were hot, fresh and well prepared. The eggs on the Benedict we're perfectly poached soft. The brunch potatoes were hot and tasty. We shared a Banana Cream pie. They definitely changed the portion size for this dessert. Instead of a giant slice like you would d get at the Cheesecake Factory they went in the opposite direction and it's a small, one person sized dessert. It was tasty and there's nothing wrong with the size, but just an FYI. I'm quite happy with the food quality on the ship. The #1 complaint is the inaccuracy of the app waiting times for MDR service. It creates unnecessary anxiety for everyone.

It's 9:17am and we are awaiting for our Seadays Brunch table that's been reserved since 8:32am. They are definitely challenged with MDR reservations. Last night's Elegant Night Dinner mostly went off without issues. Initially the app predicted a 90-100 minutes wait at 6:20pm. But ultimately we sat down at 7:30, which is actually our preferred dining time. The food was mostly good, I enjoyed the lobster tail. I also had the grilled striped Bass which was good but the side dish of peas and gnocchi was dry and hard. We went to the late showing of the Playlist production of Flicks. I have always enjoyed this show and when I first saw this show the dancing fabric was mesmerizing to me! The cast on this ship is excellent and the sound system in the theater was crystal clear. We enjoyed the show immensely. We are about to sit down for brunch, just 9ver an hour from when we put in the reservation request. Photos of last night's Elegant Night Dinner.

Disembarkation is Sunday, October 15.

So it seems the TYPES of entertainment varies from cruise to cruise as opposed to other mainstream cruise lines where there will ALWAYS be at least one standup comedian and a magician/juggling act.

Helpful hint On Deck 10 before getting to the Fitness Center are Men's and Women's Locker rooms. They are large and have toilets, lockers, individual showers, and most importantly a large windowed sauna and these are available for all guests to use and have nothing to do with the Cloud 9 Spa, which have their own separate men's and women's locker rooms.

Japan is 16 hours AHEAD of Seattle. So it looks like what's being done to adjust for the time difference is to INCREASE the difference by setting the clocks back 1 hour every day for 8 days thereby making the time difference a full 24 hours and then when we pass the International date line we just jump ahead one day and BAM, we're on Japan time.

The ship is rocking and rolling at the moment. My cabin is creaking with noises which didn't happen yesterday.

The Cloud 9 Spa is huge with great facilities. While mainly on Deck 9 there's a huge relaxation lounge on Deck 10 with loungers, chairs and a great space with no heated elements, just regular loungers and chairs. The downside is the Fitness Center is small for this ship ( the Cloud 9 Spa Relaxation room mentioned above is adjacent to the fitness center) and is missing many basic exercise equipment. For example there are no elliptical cardio machines and for weight training several key machines such as a leg press and a cable machine are missing. In my opinion in the next drydock additional space should be taken from the Relaxation lounge and given to a expanded and totally remodeled fitness center. They can literally take away half of the Relaxation lounge and give it to the fitness center and you would still have a nice secondary relaxation room for the spa.

I have nothing much to add about the medical evacuation that happened this morning as I slept through it and only knew about it reading it on the Internet. When it was all completed the captain made a very short announcement that it was completed and we are back to our new scheduled itinerary. Service is friendly but I think the MDR is short-staffed. We'll see how tonight's Elegant Night (lobster tonight) goes but as usual last night's embarkation dinner reservations via the app had wait times 2x what the app had suggested. Your time dining on deck 2 was not crowded in the least when we were seated at 7:30 for an app reservation that was made 6:45 and was supposed to be only a 15-20 minutes wait. At breakfast this morning we still had to queue up on a line to be escorted to a table that was assigned by the app. On other ships there's always a cadre of staff members to show you to your reserved table.

Some thoughts about the ship: The Luminosa is for all intents and purposes a Spirit Class ship. If you've sailed on one of them you'll feel instantly comfortable with the layout. There are 3 major differences with the Luminosa. *On the Lido Deck there's only one main pool with a rooftop that can open. *Decks 9 and 10 forward are much wider than on legacy Spirit class ships which allows for expanded Cloud 9 Spa facilities. *There's no separate show lounge on Deck 1; the main theater spans 3 decks from 1-3, whereas Spirit Class ships the main theater is on decks 2-4 and a separate show lounge on Deck 1. The decor is by Joe Farcus of Carnival fame but it's more subduded albeit still outdated. It's bright and cheerful and in general in good repair. The food has been surprisingly very good. The MDR food has been very good (for Carnival) for embarkation dinner and sitdown breakfast this morning. The buffet food was equally good. Although not branded Guy's Burgers the Off the Grill burger place (located exactly where Guy's would be on Spirit Class ships) had hamburgers that are also hand formed and not premade patties and tasted as good if not better than Guy's. I was on the Pride last May/June in Europe for 3 B2Bs totalling 31 days and I can honestly say that it was the worst food in the MDR and buffet (the deli and pizza were exceptions) that I have ever experienced on any cruiseline having sailed on over 100 cruises.

You have never sailed on Carnival then.

Gotcha. What was special/different about that cruise?

That is what I was trying to say. If you haven't sailed on Virgin you wouldn't know that. That's quite important for some cruisers. I would say that's the #1 thing that set a Carnival cruise apart from all others. All their ships have a dedicated Comedy Club and on every Carnival cruise it's the most attended and most sort after activity/entertainment out of anything Carnival offers.

I assume the $1,000 was from your original booking for some reason?

I'll assume you were being facetious. But if you've sailed on Virgin you'll know there aren't comedians and comedy shows in the traditional sense like what you'll find on a Carnival cruise. Instead, it's imbedded into other forms of entertainment, such as the drag queen show, and other shows in the club.

If you're trying to get reimbursed for your flight JetBlue has no penalties you get flight credit so you really shouldn't be getting reimbursed from Virgin for that flight.

This won't be a day by day trip report but instead some postings about this long journey. It has already started out with major changes. The itinerary was supposed to have 2 stops in Alaska and a day cruising the glacier, but due to Inclement weather all Alaska stops have been CANCELLED and we head straight to Japan, which also has changes. Due to skipping Alaska we'll be in Japan earlier so two new stops in Japan were added BUT one was eliminated, so net net one extra port in Japan and one less port stop overall for this itinerary. I'll detail more in later posts but $200/cabin OBC will be given for the itinerary changes. I think we won't see land until the September 25th. Stay tuned!

I'm actually on the Carnival Luminosa (an older Costa ship they took over) right now. Seattle to Brisbane, Australia, 30 days!!!

The Carnival phone app is great! They even have your casino Play and casino points on the app.

My take on flight and hotel reimbursements are they are refunding cancellation fees, not fare and hotel differential fees. In other words if there $150 cancel fee they will absorb that, but if there an extra $300 fare difference they will not be paying for that. Same thing for hotel reservations. If you reserved a non-refundable hotel and need to cancel it, and it was $300,that will be refunded. But if it now costs $450 for a pre-cruise hotel they WILL NOT absorb that. In other words cancel fees yes, fare and hotel pricing differentials, no.

Yes, but remember it will be in an L shape configuration, like a sectional sofa, and not two beds parallel to each other.

People seem to focus on age but age isn't the issue. It's all dependent on the types of activities and entertainment choices and environment you're interested in spending your vacation. If you're looking for ballroom dancing, big band music, show tunes, '50s sock hop night, comedian shows you're not going to find that on a Virgin cruise.

I agree, NCL has the best thermal suites. Having said that I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed using the thermal suite on the VL. I thought I wouldn't like the unisex changing and showering facilities but I thought they were just fine.

Yes that sailing is an Atlantis Gay charter cruise.