tkportersat

1 hour ago, gerif said:

No. Only Oasis class. 

Ah, thanks for clarifying!

Is this available on all RC ships?

17 hours ago, vacationlover_mn said:

Yay for you!  So fun!

Thanks :)  It's pretty cool!  My husband works hard and is away a lot so this is a nice reward.

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 8:31 AM, LBumb said:

Congratulations 

Thank you very much!  We are excited :)

Thank you, I will do that as I don't see it anywhere on my booking yet. 

They haven't sent any information out really; I just got lucky since I have sailed on RC previously that cabin information was loaded into my profile already and was able to do online check in :)  I'm just impatient. 

My husband won a cruise through work on the Mariner of the Seas 3/22/19; it is to include the Deluxe Drink package and a $50 OBC.  Should I be able to see that somewhere on our reservation or is it just loaded on the card? 

Whoops....wrong board. sorry

Last ship I was on...and haven't cruised since, already smelled of mold then and it's the only cruise out of 16 where we all came home sick. Not saying I won't get back to it at some point but that trip made me take pause and explore other vacation options for a bit.

I actually love both ports. For Cozumel look up Nachi Cocom if you want a nice getaway from the crowds, they only allow about 100 people each day and you get personalized service and it's all inclusive for $55pp - but try to book now if you want it, it books up fast. Or if you want more adventure there is a really fun catamaran/beach/snorkel excursion you can do. The water in Cozumel is so pretty, some places there are rocky though when you enter the water.

In Nassau we liked the British Colonial Hilton, I think you can look it up at resort for a day dot com. Beautiful beach and water and you can walk there from the cruise area.

We are doing our first trip to US and then 14 day on Seaside Caribbean cruise leaving the 21st April 18, so looking at the comments here what is the problem with Nassau and Cozumel as ports?

Thanks for writing the review! I followed your other thread, glad to hear that you had a nice experience after all.

Very glad to hear you are having a good time and have only had to deal with a few minor issues. I agree with you, they need to get their problems worked out. As much whining as I have seen on the Carnival board, some of those folks wouldn't even begin to handle the glitches MSC has. I hate to see MSC lose potential customer's over things that should be pretty easy to correct. Enjoy the rest of your vacation! Look forward to your review when you return.

I don't think you'll be disappointed. In fact, the wife and I have been so impressed with the ship/crew that we booked Seaside for June of next year.

 

But I'll write a more in-depth review when we get back. Suffice to say, much of the complaints I've read about the ship turn out to be minor (at worst). We've found this ship to be awesome and the crew to be awesomer.

Ditto, we are giving MSC a try for this reason too.

Something else to consider is taking a look at what MSC is offering next spring. They have new ships coming out and kids always sail free (if 2 adults in room). I am a big Royal Caribbean fan, but when we were pricing out options for spring break next year, the options on MSC Seaside (which will be new and looks amazing!) were significantly cheaper. On a head-to-head comparison with Harmony, the savings was about $1500.

Everything is showing sold out of course, but Carnival is back.

Ah, I'm sorry to hear that...I certainly understand where you are coming from. Hope things have gotten better for you recently!

I had a lot of time on my hands for a while. My fiance died suddenly and my mother 75 days later....mindlessly playing games was sometimes the only thing getting me through the night. :)

That was our issue last time, the people on the Dream were just as you described below. The older I get, the more it bothers me when people can't use simple manners. I also hate that they have kicked all the smokers off their balconies, I was not at all able to enjoy the casino on the Dream either - way too much smoke. I guess on a positive note I came home with money in my pocket.

Always sail on Carnival and love it, even through all the cuts. BUT last cruise on the Splendor was not the best. It was very crowded and lots of lines - but what made it so bad was that a good number of the crowd were rude and self entitled.

 

I don't think I've ever been so bumped into or pushed out of the way so much in that single week! Rude!

 

But I'm not going to let that one bad experience sway me from sailing Carnival. I'm trying again next month!!:D And again next year!! :D

 

One bad experience does not negate all of the very good ones.

I hope not with the slide/age thing....My son just turned 7 and is already 4ft 4inches. He has been able to ride the slides on Carnival since he was very young. If we show up and he can't do the slides he is not going to be a happy camper :(

We are in our early 40's with twin boys ages 8 and 7 year old boy. We have done multiple cruises. My boys love it! They really enjoy the kids club. We have never sailed MSC. I have booked the seaside for us.

 

When picking a ship make sure your kids can participate in all the onboard activities. Some of the water slides have height restrictions. No point in sailing a boat with bells and whistles if your kids can't enjoy it (unless you are interested). MSC has a waterside height restriction of 48 inches. Now i'm getting conflicting answers from agents that say they must be 9 years old AND 48 inches. I can't imagine them policing the age..that makes no sense to me. My kids have loved celebrity, royal carribean, carnival, ncl kids clubs equally. They are all fun and i hope msc will offer that for us.

 

We now sail for the boat and not so much the ports. You have to decide whats important to you. I would look at the ports on the forums to see what might interest you or your kids at the different ports. you might be able to find everything you are looking for...ports and boat.

Thanks for posting, I too like how it lists out the whole week so you can see what is coming up.

Yes thank you, I did the status match but it still doesn't line up with priority boarding. I appreciate the information, I will aim for the noon hour when we go.

We were just classic on MSC due to a status match. Make sure you do your status match. But we arrived right at noon were on the ship within 45 minutes last month Very smooth process. Have a great cruise!

Is this true for folks doing normal boarding (not Yacht club)? I'm only asking because I don't want to get there at noon and just sit around. With Carnival I am platinum so I am one of the first to board, so this is new territory for me.

Around noon.

We have always walked right up, we usually eat between 6-6:30...family of 3. This has been on our last three cruises.

For those who have had Your Time Dining, what was your average wait time for a table? And what time did you go?

You can use them on board as well, that is what we did. So try to snatch some up....you have until 10/31 I believe.

Figures I didn't even know about the gift cards through Verizon until after I'd paid for the cruise. I have 357,180 smart rewards hahaha. Oh well.

Just an fyi that the smart rewards program is ending soon, have to use your points by 10/31/17 - they won't carry over to Verizon's new reward program.

It really is subjective....we sailed on the Magic twice and had a blast, sailed on Dream last year and didn't enjoy ourselves as much. It depends on when you cruise and who is cruising with you. Both times on Magic it was out of Galveston, Dream out of New Orleans. The people and their manners were very much lacking on the Dream and that does affect your experience. We always make the best of it but because of our Dream experience (not) we took a cruise break. I tentatively have MSC booked for June 2018, felt like trying something new. But if I find a great deal on an all inclusive I would rather do that instead. I do miss the old ships, these new ones just pack on the rooms and don't expand on the public areas and it is obvious.

Although many of you are Carnival loyalist on here and that is great for you but this is our experience so please don't inflame as this board is for all opinions. We had large group of family and sail every other couple years together have been on Royal, Carnival and Disney. Our last Carnival cruise though was 2010 on the Dream which we enjoyed. However this time Carnival Magic lacked so much which makes cruising fun!

Embarkation was fine until we got on the boat at about 12:15 & it was a complete zoo never have i seen a lido buffet area with lines that wrapped around the entire inside, huge lines for burgers and burritos, no where to go and down right stifling hot it was so frustrating off to bad start however next time i will make sure we arrive after 1:30 when cabins are open and maybe less people everywhere!! However this foreshadow what was to come, Lines, Lines, and more lines, and people everywhere on this ship!!

The ships public areas are just too small especially the pools and lido buffet etc for the amount of passengers!

Definitely carnival cutbacks, sorry but the food on this ship was below average & not what we have experienced on past cruises. Buffet was awful & dining room dinner choices were few and overall food came out cold and flavorless, the servers are so overworked that when we asked for other things they were never brought and refills were non existant on drinks and drinks took forever, many drinks we ordered but never received.

Entertainment was sparse and consisted mostly of line dancing to same songs, sea days had few activities by the pool only hair chest contest & loud music. The shows were few and not very good and there just weren't a lot of night time activities, the deck party was no food, no midnight buffet or snacks just once again passengers dancing. Only late night food was pizza and the line was so long and slow! Room service twice ran out of food we ordered on menu!

Our cabin was great if it wasn't so hot and never cooled down and basically carnival did nothing to help us offered a fan but never received it! However the cabins are spacious and tons of storage and the closets were big with lots of hangers the bathroom had lots of shelves.

On a good note, the ship was very clean and always being cleaned especially the bathrooms, all the workers we encountered were very friendly and helpful, and working hard! The ports were great, nassau, amber cove (although wished they made a beach area not just a pool) and Grand turk was the nicest! Embarkation was rather painless! The weather was great all week so that was nice, best part the drinks were strong so we drank more then we ate!

We've always liked carnival in past but after not sailing on them in 7 years, things have changed for the worse and too many other choices out there when your spending way over $1000 pp and additional $380 for drink package! If you have any questions i will try to help, every cruise is what you make it of course and we made it fun cause we had large group but the Carnival Magic disappointed all of us:(

Thanks to all for your response!