Usuallyrightagain

Just now, arizonaperson said:

@Usuallyrightagain great glad all will be ok.

so why not go on RC if your teens would be happier or no cruises to the ports you want to go to at that time of year? I’m just curious. 
We’ll I hope you find on your Princess roll-call other teens going ,since it’s over a year away.

We really wanted to go north (I can't deal with the heat) and at the start of summer, so our options were super limited. Still hoping to skip a couple of days of school and take a run down to Coco Cay on a bigger ship at some point too, just not in high season.

2 hours ago, arizonaperson said:

@Usuallyrightagainso this is a 10 day round-trip on the Island Princess in June 2025 from New York to Canada, correct?

Is there any possibility that the four of your teens would be fine hanging out together ? Are they all siblings? Are they cousins etc. ?

Since this is summertime, I’m sure that there will be some teens onboard? I think it’s difficult to say at this point in time and would your decision change on itinerary or cruise line if there was none onboard or very few?

It is possible to go onto your roll call or start a roll call and ask if others that are booked on your voyage if they have teens or is it even possible to call Princess before your final payment is due and see how many teens are booked? I don’t know if they give that information out or not on any cruise line?

 

Oh they will all survive just fine if it's the 4 of them, but we will get less.... feedback if there are other teens, lol. They are all grateful for the vacation, but some of them were sold the big RC all singing all dancing dream so now they feel like we got option B. They will feel less aggrieved if there are enough other kids to chat and do activities with. We went on another trip where there weren't many kids so they merged all the age levels of kids club and that apparently was insufferable. They will all have a good time regardless and are excited by the ports of call.

35 minutes ago, skynight said:

Very difficult to tell. This is the first time Princess is offering these itineraries from New York. My guess, not too many youth. There are no rock walls, surf pools, etc. 

Thanks. Yeah we're hoping some kids come along with grandparents or whole family groups. Our kids were hoping for the Caribbean and a boat with amenities so if they are the only kids it's going to be a long 10 days, lol

We've never cruised with Princess before. We have 4 teens who only want to come on vacation if there will be other teens on board. Lol. I know typically PC aren't so popular as RC or Carnival for families, but what do you think the chances are that other teens will be present on a late June sailing to Canada, please? ( Just guesses, obviously)

23 hours ago, AFS1970 said:

I love all the theories on what causes these fights. It is the NYC port, it is the 4-day cruises, it is spring break. 

 

 

Interesting as this particular cruise was 8 days, and not spring break. I guess people just behave badly all year round now, even if they saved 358 days to pay for the cruise they then get arrested on...

I think the issues with Venezia this past Weds were worse because no one was getting off because of USCBP delays processing things.  If you get the luggage tags the afternoon before and put the bags out at night you should be find to wait on a shady deck somewhere until the bulk of carry their own passengers have got off. We were supposed to be off at 8:30AM and we got into the luggage part of the terminal at 10:07AM so with your 6 hours I'd imagine you'd be fine.

(In more detail - they instructed CYO passengers to wait on decks 10, 5 and 4 from 7:30AM onward. They said we'd be called by muster station groups to actually exit from those waiting areas. But they made a big deal that we must be out of our cabins by 8:30AM. So at 8:15AM everyone was crammed with their luggage into 5 and 4, and no one was getting anywhere. By 9:15AM you couldn't move really and people were pissed. Still no one was getting off so no way to let up on the crowds. By 9:45AM people who had tagged their bags the night before were also sick of waiting and were in the crowds too. They called one muster station around 9:55AM and people just laughed - the public areas were so full it wasn't like people were going to part the red sea and let A4 go ahead. It was poorly managed and I think between 8:10 and 9:30ish there were basically no announcements made. Marq came back on at 9:55ish to tell people off for not following directions, but they basically had - he said you had to leave your cabins by 8:30AM. Basically it was stupid.)

Venezia last week the messages constantly didn't go through. You'd send them, stare at the chat on your phone for minutes, go back to the home page, go back into messages just to "check", all seemed fine. Then when you didn't get a reply 20 mins later you'd go in and it would be there grayed out as "unsent". ARGH. It was super frustrating. I once had to resend a message 7 times to get it through to my husband. My entire family have the same type of phones (android) and no one was closing the app completely (just opening other screens while it ran). Our friends with apple phones also found it less than stellar. I had a tween in Circle C though and they loved it. We just kept popping back in to check on them and chat with the coordinator, Jane, who was AWESOME. 
 

46 minutes ago, jsglow said:

For us it all depends on our outbound flights. I really like it when we can be leisurely but it doesn't always work out.

Yes I should have taken this approach, but for the increasingly irate texts from the car service who were booked to pick us up. We were told we'd be off by 8:30AM but it was10:07AM when we made it to the luggage area. 

Our last RC cruise we were off the ship in record, civilized time. I guess it's often luck.

20 hours ago, kwokpot said:

That's the premium teas that are a charge and are also offered at the Java Blue Coffee shop. The buffet and MDR will ALWAYS have the Lipton's black tea, green tea (I forget the brand), and regular and decaf brewed coffee for no charge. You just have to specifically ask for the complementary hot beverage choices. The Art of Tea and espresso based coffees have always been listed as extra in the MDR (many years ago they were included) on all the ships. I know there was much controversy about this on the initial Luminosa sailings from Brisbane where many Australian cruisers didn't realize that there was complementary regular coffee and Lipton's black tea offered at dinnertime in the MDR and thought the premium selection for a fee were the only choices. 

I'm British, I don't even acknowledge Liptons. I brought my own tea along.

20 minutes ago, Lovecruises6969 said:

Please make sure you are a contact in Carnival about this issue and get it in writing. 

no offence, but I'm done with this vacation, I'm not campaigning Carnival about anything. I'm moisturizing my sunburn and cramming probiotics in my mouth while I look back at my lovely photos.

I just got off the ship yesterday. We didn't notice any fights like in the video, mostly everyone was lovely and friendly. But a member of our group saw a domestic violence assault in a public area of the ship. I guess that could happen anywhere (they hide among us being the main problem), but that coupled with the fights that we see on video and the massive delay at disembarkation means I will not cruise Carnival again.
 

We thought the layout of the marketplace was dumb, the lines were a bit long at prime times, but we just adjusted our expectations and had no issue. The line at Guys was nuts the first day but later it calmed down and I strolled right up and got my burger (meh) on day 3. Similarly for pizza we learned the best times and enjoyed it very much. There were long lines for the comedy club evening shows, but we just got there 30 mins before once we realized. 
 

Getting back on the ship they were not good at marshalling the lines and that was frustrating. After a day burning all the skin on my torso off (damn you, Neutrogena spf60) the last thing I wanted to do was find a herd of people pushing into my line because they were told it "merged".

My cons:

The food was meh and we all 8 of us had upset stomachs almost every day 

The cabin was not clean when we went in and our cabin steward was not as good as on prior cruises

Not enough seating in Gondola Lounge

The balcony doors slam so loudly you can hear for a 7 cabin radius and it's annoying 

TV volume is mute or high

TV has free movies but you can't fast forward or resume them

Announcements don't play in the cabin which is hard for those of us with hearing impairment 

Cabins had little storage compared to RC

Not many indoor activities for kids 

A lot of interior areas were super warm (elevators, corridors) 

Security staff were like a gesture rather than trained security 

Total lack of communication and crowd control when things went wrong when docking

A few times it took an hour to get food in the MDR for brunch and dinner

The pools are minuscule and people sit there on the edges with their gross feet dunked in them, or their unshowered butts on the sun deck edges 🤢 skipped the pools entirely

Pros

Lovely  staff for MDR

Lots of nice seating areas and bars

Cocktail prices good

Kids enjoyed the water slides

Jane who runs teen club was awesome

AC in cabin was fine

Nice hidden decks up front had great views and were peaceful

The pizza was very tasty

The theater shows were pretty impressive

Some entertainment like Guess The Song was super fun

3 banks of elevators and smart elevators made them way faster than other ships

45 minutes ago, Lovecruises6969 said:

I’ve been seeing a lot of comments of people saying that it is hot and humid and a lot of the public areas on the ship. Is that true?

Deck 10 is hot, the open lido area you'd expect to be hot, but the corridors and marketplace were hot and humid too. Some corridors near cabins would be weirdly warm also, we walked almost the whole ship just to be nosy and definitely I'd say midship corridors often felt really warm.

2 hours ago, Lovecruises6969 said:

Where is the video for the beach chair or the bingo I didn’t see it /can’t find it ? 

I only found ones from last year, half moon cay and the fight that was on the news.

Afternoon tea choices were $2.50 a teabag! I didn't even look at them 

1 hour ago, DominicanLee said:

I was on the same Cruise and the lack of information was ridiculous.  MarQ didn't dare show his face when they failed to follow their own procedures for disembarkation.  The rest of the crew just said f it. "Do what you want!". There are videos on tiktok of the brawl in the nightclub, and the fight at the beach over a beach chair.

Yes, his announcements telling everyone to leave their cabins by 8:30, but then chastising people for leaving their cabins were amusing. I don't know what he thought would happen in the 75 minutes when he didn't make any announcements. 

I think it could have been handled better in many ways. The staff did seem to be somewhat checked out in many respects - After the assault we witnessed we actually had to ask the security crew to have someone clean up the blood and debris left on the stairs - they just were not on their game.

I looked on TikTok but didn't see any fights from this sailing - just the famous one last year and some from other ships. I guess we might never know for sure what caused these delays today.
 

We just got back from the 6/27-7/5 sailing and it took over 2 hours for us to disembark from the ship due to enormous delays with USCBP and Carnival's dire lack of crowd control/situation management. People were lined up in corridors and every public area, dragging luggage down stairs one step at a time in queues and just general disarray for hours this morning. The rumors on board ranged from a couple of people were arrested for marijuana possession and had to be handed over, to full-on a brawl went down last night and every holding cell on board was occupied (one person even said someone died, but that seemed a bit much). Does anyone on the sailing actually know what happened? We didn't see any fights but a member of our party witnessed an assault. Not quite what we'd hoped for vacation.

I'd imagine you can't get off the ship in Mexico.
 

I'm not sure how old you are, but does it not stress you out to not have a passport to hand in case you need to go back to the UK urgently? I'm a dual citizen with two dual citizen children, so my life is what feels like a constant renewal of passports, but if one of them expires I feel really unsettled until the new one is back in my hand again.

This is awesome, thank you so much for sharing. Love your diligent reporting. We are booked in a balcony room so seeing it in real life has been helpful. I already told the other members of my family that we will have to SEVERELY pare back our packing... I looked at my old photos from RCL cruise in 2019 and we had oodles of space for storage - at least 6 drawers, full over the bed cabinets, two separate wardrobes... And there was a wardrobe separating the main bed from the sofa bed, this time it seems like I'm going to be able to reach out and touch my tween/teen - UGH! LOL. Oh well. We will pack like minimalists and try and deal. 

@Saint Greg (this isn't due to Saints Football team, is it?) - is there space underneath the bed to stow our duffles?

Thanks again!

Thank you for the video! Found another of a standard balcony cabin too, both look nice. I'm a little worried as they seem to have less storage than the RC ship we sailed on previously. For 4 of us in a cabin I'm thinking it's going to be a giant squeeze...

On 3/19/2023 at 10:34 AM, Bound4Bermuda said:

I posted a tour video the other day, link below. However, it’s based entirely on photos, drawings, and the floor plan PDF.

 

I’m sailing my first-ever Carnival cruise on Venezia in July, so I’ll take any tips I can get—even if it may differ on Venezia. (I realize this ship has some intentional differences, but surely there are a lot of standard features across the fleet.) I tried starting a FAQs, tips and tricks thread like there is on the Royal Caribbean board, but I didn’t really get much feedback. I feel a little lost since I went into the Royal Caribbean cruises telling my family all the things we shouldn’t miss, etc. And for this cruise, I got nothing other than hyping up that my daughter can have Guy Fiere burgers, as it’s been a silly joke that she’s a big fan and I don’t exactly see the charm. So I’d take ANY tips, please!

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2899543-carnival-venezia-new-food-bar-and-other-exciting-featuresconcepts-debuting/?do=findComment&comment=65007197

This is the same for us. We are sailing in late June. For the RC cruise I researched so much, knew about drinks cards, boarding, dining, etc.. For this one I'm clueless. I feel really unprepared to make the most of it. We had an amazing MDR setup with RC and I have no idea how dining works on Carnival. Plus we're bringing some first time cruisers so I feel I'm responsible for their experience. I might start biting my nails 😆

Hello! 8 of us (4 adults, 4 teens) are on this too. Very much looking forward to seeing some real photos of the cabins next week...

Does anyone have any insight into the boarding process (if you don't pay for fancy priority)? We have to book a car service and I'm getting antsy worrying about the timing - if I tell them I need to be there at 1PM and then our slot is 2:30PM I don't know what we will do with bags and testy people for 1.5 hours... Conversely I don't want to have to move the booking earlier at the last minute. I really trust my car service, but I know they need to take other bookings so I don't want to take over their day.

Our last cruise we drove to it, and it was from Bayonne, so I feel unprepared for NYC boarding. 

We've eaten at Jamie's Italian in the UK and just ate at the one on Anthem and they were similar.  We got 40% off on Anthem due to that extra night on board, so it was a pretty good price, and no pesky flying to Heathrow involved.  I hope for all the staff that something is worked out.

1 hour ago, not-enough-cruising said:

You can have a 12 or 24 pack of 1 liter Evian bottles waiting in your cabin. The cost escapes me currently. 

Yes. Not very "save the waves" to create 24 pieces of plastic bottle trash though, is it?

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I used the Freestyle and regular water dispensers. I still think they are missing a trick pretending that it would be unclean to put a water bottle In the machine. They could sell wide neck bottles in the store and in boarding area that would work better than something like a Swell bottle would.

Those who said I clearly don’t understand the concept, thanks, but I think I do. And I think discussing it and mentioning on here might help others. I actually saw a load of people who didn’t know how to work the freestyle machines, and the people in front of us at boarding had their pack of water bottles confiscated.  It would be handy if RC could get on board (boom, boom!) with a way to get plain old tap water to passengers who want it, without them needing to dirty the dining cups tipping water into reuseable bottles.

thanks again for the replies.

We just got home today from our 9 night (actually 10 night, given the evacuation of a passenger) eastern Caribbean cruise.  This was our family's first ever cruise vacation.  Having got up before 6AM I now sit at my computer feeling thoroughly tired and slightly seasick, with a strange swaying going on inside my head!

One of the things that most irritated me on this cruise, and that I just mentioned in my RC survey is the water situation.  And I thought maybe people here can shed some light on it, or me giving my thoughts might help someone else considering their first cruise.

We don't drink soda much if at all.  And we're not fancy coffee people.  So we decided to eschew the beverage package.  Given the plastic situation being terrible for the environment and oceans we also decided that purchasing a pack of water bottles was not a great idea either.  So we brought our refillable water bottles with us on board and hoped for the best.

Now, it turns out there are plenty of places to get water.  However, most of them have the attached sign on them ("Important Health Advisory - Don't refill bottles here").  Assume this means that if you put something that you've been drinking out of previously underneath the machine, loads of germs might reverse-rapel (reverse-abseil) out of the bottle and into the machine, spreading 'flu to all and sundry.  However.... if you purchase the beverage package the entire way it works seems to involve you putting the massive cup you've been drinking out of previously underneath the machine and filling it.  And that's totally allowed.  So what's the difference?

I genuinely can't see why they have these signs.  It irked me so much.  They actually added the signs to a couple of machines that didn't have them when we first boarded (seaplex hot dog stand, sorrento's soda machine) so this is something they are currently doing.  How can people refilling bottles be any less healthy than people refilling the RC cups?  

Struggling to see the connection between the "Save the Waves" pledge and refusing to let people refill bottles....  Why can't they have a Brita refill station like our elementary school does?  Or one spigot for refilling bottles?  All my questions just come back to answer: to sell bottled water.

For what it's worth we just got cups, filled them with water multiple times and tipped them into our bottles.  We all have Contigo bottles with large openings and the spouts completely unscrew, so nothing that touched our mouths was remotely near anything on a machine or cup.

We had such a good time in Puerto Rico that we plan to go there for our next vacation, but might cruise again with RC after that, but only if they can call a truce on the water war...

Woke up on Anthem at 5:50am, stepped off around 6:35am, back at our house in NJ at 8am. Very organized,  very calm.