travelingtink

Enjoyed following along to see a different perspective of the same cruise. Wish I had known about the inflated wait times that were quoted. After a few 30-45 min quotes I finally decided to get a pager and go get a drink. Sure enough, by the time my drink came my pager went off. Now I know!

I’m not sure if we ever crossed paths but I closed down the Atrium bar most nights so it’s quite possible. 

Boarded yesterday 3/31 and this is what I received which I believe is the 2023 perks. No mention of things changing mid cruise so I guess I get drinks throughout the cruise. Not sure what anyone is getting today. 
 

Enjoy Universal today, it’s been a number of years since I’ve visited and now I wish I had added a day to my trip so I could go. 

I agree with a previous poster, there’s not much to see after hitting the main attractions right around Hollywood and Vine area. You also don’t want to venture too far as the neighborhoods are not the greatest,

The ramen bar (don’t remember the name) above the Dolby Theater was pretty good. And Pink’s Hotdogs is a Hollywood staple but you’ll need to Uber there. Worth it in my opinion. The dogs are good and you never know who you’ll run into. 
 

Well if this isn’t clear as mud!?

I will be taking my first ever CAS cruise (thanks to MyVegas) boarding on Mar 31. I have zero status with CAS or any other cruise line casino program. I didn’t even know about the April 1 restart rule until seeing this thread. If you board prior to April 1, do the perks that were available on your embarkation continue throughout the cruise? Or does everything reset on the 1st?

The two perks I was counting on were the separate CAS checkin and using the drink card for water and soda. Neither are a deal breaker but now wondering if I want to upgrade my FAS basic package. 
 

Following along, although I’ll be on the ship with you lol.

The Universal VIP is so worth it. You’ll have a great time. 
 

I’m just coming in the day before so no exploring for me. But I’ll be at the Crowne Plaza also. If you see a lady with purple and blue hair, say hi! 

Did anyone notice that you get a daily entry into the Target gift card sweeps? It caught my eye because that was not one I had put points into but noticed I had entries. Read the fine print and found that they give an entry for daily logins. 

Seems as if Allstate is loosing the floodgates with all these winners. And you can add me to the list. I won $25 on the spin game. Too bad it’s for Best Buy which I have refused to patronize for over 10 years now. I’ve sent the gift card to my son instead. 

The Allstate app pushed an update today and I can no longer access my rewards. Can’t log in to the site either. Weren’t we supposed to be able t9 use the points thru the end of the month? 

I’ve seen several discussions on other forums that the Carnival site has had issues all week. If you feel like calling in, they can apply partial payments. 

I’m going to hold on to my points for now, maybe there will be a “fire sale” to offload the remaining gift cards? 

Being platinum did you bypass lines? Or were there even any lines? Wondering what the regular person’s experience would be? Not platinum, not in a suite, not considering Faster to the Fun. 

We enjoyed it

You must be a member, and if you joined today, often you have to sign out, close your browser, then log back in.
 

The gift cards are under Rewards - Redeem - Members Only.

14 minutes ago, disneyfan551 said:

I renewed through an AARP this morning and it showed on my cc 2x this morning. I'm on phone now with the third person! Has this happened to anyone else?  My account is still showing expired online!

Have you tried logging in on a different device or different browser? Or clean your cookies? I always roll my eyes when support tells me to do that but it does help sometimes. When I joined AARP, I had to log out a few times before the it let me see the rewards. Not sure about the double charges though, maybe the first is just a temp hold?

1 hour ago, Iamthesea said:

Where in the Planner is an offer shown?  Will there be a notification on the 'alert' button at the top of the page, a pop-up somewhere, or any special place that I should look?  I signed up for email notifications about my cruise.  Could the offer come in an email?  When do offers typically show up...  anytime, or loser to the cruise date?  Thank you.

I opened the Hub app, clicked on Manage Booking, and it’s right up top

I’ve viewed it a few times but never accepted or declined. The room number has changed but the cost and category have remained interior. I booked a TBA interior rate just to get on the boat. I don’t really care where my cabin is. 

56 minutes ago, d-lite-n-cruisin said:

Once you join AARP, where do you go to purchase gift cards?

Under Rewards, then Redeem, then Members Only 

Wish I had taken a screen shot. I won 1500 points in the scratch game and it had a link that said something along the lines of use your points to score a gift card. Clicked the link and was taken to the gift card page where it lists the categories but as soon as I clicked anything I got an error page telling me nothing was available.

I’ve still been getting my daily points but I don’t even know why I bother since I have my AARP membership now. 

On some ships there’s is a specific Inside category that only has an upper and lower bed (bunk beds). As long as you didn’t book TBD in that category, you will have the option of split twins. 

I could care less what cabin I get. I book the guarantee cabins often. It’s no big deal, as others have said the porters can add your cabin number. Heck a lot of times I don’t even print those darn tags and just get them from the porters. 
 

Many offers, not just those from a PVP, are guaranteed within the category you book. Has nothing at all to do with the PVP. 

2 hours ago, tw67 said:

Has anyone tried to play today?  No Scratch off or spin game shows up.  Want to make sure it isn't just me!  

No spin or scratch for me either, but I won 200 points for playing and losing Pac-Man. Never got points from it before, and actually don’t usually play it because I can get the hang of it on my phone. Played today since there were no other options. Was allowed to play 3 times and won 200 each time, no matter how quickly I lost lives, 

I can’t make this stuff up. My missing UPS shipment with the now cancelled All State cards was delivered today. Three weeks after it’s scheduled due date and 10 days after All State refunded my money, with no explanation from UPS. It was not tampered with so maybe it just slid under someone’s seat or something? 

My ongoing saga with gift cards continues. After switching from All State to  AARP, I successfully purchased and applied 2 gift cards to my reservation. Got my refund from my missing All State cards so I went to purchase more from AARP, but kept getting an error. I had just received my new credit card since my previous one expired so I thought maybe I needed to wait a day or so after activating it. Couldn’t figure out any other reason why the transaction wouldn’t go thru.

Tried again 2 days later and still getting an error. Called my bank, they see the request coming across as a CVV error, so I try again, carefully entering every number correction, but no go. Called AARP, they don’t see any issues. I tried 3 different browsers, 2 different devices, 2 different cards, but got the same error every time.  AARP said they would open a case because they couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t letting me purchase. I had only bought 2 cards so I hadn’t reached the monthly limit.

After hanging up I decided to try again but this time with PayPal and it went through. It was so soon after opening my case I know they didn’t have time to work on it. Still waiting on AARP tech support to figure out why I couldn’t but with credit cards but at least I finally got enough cards to pay off my balance which is due 6/17.

What a pain! But ultimately I guess I saved money, but the time, effort and frustration I put in to it is making me question using gift cards again. 

5 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

 

That's odd, the only emails I got were from AARP itself, but we're able to go into our account settings and choose to eliminate those. I use an alternate email account that I use for things I sign up for, that way if I get spam, it's not going to my primary email. You could create one and change it over in your AARP account settings.

 

 

AARP's normal fee is $16/yr. Even at that price, getting the discount on 2 Carnival cards pays for the membership, and then some. We also use our AARP to rent cars & hotels. The discounts on those two things cover more than the membership fee, so it really is a pretty good deal.

 

 

So far so good on no SPAM, maybe it was just a coincidence last time. 
 

I know the AARP fee is nominal, it’s just the principle if why pay when you can get the discount for free from Allstate. But then the new shipping fees makes it ridiculous. Lesson learned, if it’s too good to be true …..

Allstate has issued a refund on the missing cards, so as soon as it posts I’ll go buy from AARP. 

21 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

Given the magic isn't a new ship the railing whether lower than others, is to CODE. There's something called personal responsibility. Someone can take a steak knife and hurt themselves and others. Everything one comes in contact with can be harmful or deadly if not used properly for it's intended purpose. 

Of course it’s to code, not faulting Carnival at all. Just seeing the visual made me understand why the family thought the railings were lower. It probably just appears/feels lower because of the slanted design.