ohioNCLcruiser

12 hours ago, Elaine5715 said:

I thought Fly2Fun guaranteed that they would get you on the ship? 

One of the biggest misunderstandings about Fly2Fun. They guarantee you will get to the ship either on your embarkation day, next port or not at all...🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️

If you are on Facebook you can write a post on John Heald's wall with whatever request you have three days before the sailing. Make sure to include your booking number and he will forward your request to the ship. Remember though just three days before not anything earlier. 

On 3/2/2022 at 9:26 AM, jsglow said:

It'll get a 'sun' related name for sure.

Carnival Brilliance 

On 1/26/2022 at 6:11 AM, travelplus said:

I was wondering what is the current capacity on the Panorama? Are they distancing cabins? 

 

The reason I ask this is lets say no one is staying in the Balcony cabin next to me can they remove the partition for a larger balcony and bring me some lounge chairs and a larger table? 

They won't do that sorry to say.

My Jan 22nd sailing had 2,200. My Feb 5th sailing had 3,200 and they were expecting the Feb 26th sailing to be at almost 4,000. The empty days of the Panorama are over...

4 hours ago, travelplus said:

Glad I am going the 24th so hopefully not too many kids and it will be quiet! Wonder what the capacity will be.

They are expecting the 26th to be their busiest sailing since the restart. Expect 3,800-4,000+. Huge amount of casino offer bookings. Did you mean Feb 26th or a different month? 

This week we have just over 3,200 passengers on board. 1,000 more than just two weeks ago. They are expecting this and more through the end of spring break at least. 

New itins coming or will she be a fleet exit? Hmmm

It's interesting that the Spirit becomes unassigned about 10 days before the Pride leaves Tampa on a 14 day transatlantic to start her European season. I wouldn't be too surprised if the Spirit took over her sailings and she stayed behind here in the US.

Hi Everyone,

I have a casino offer that comes with free drinks in the casino and freeplay. I notice that if I login online it shows the same casino rates but I can't if that is the casino offer. If I book online will I get the benefits I would get if I also called? The reason I rather do it online is several of us are booking together but in all different areas currently. Would be a lot easier just doing it online. 

Thanks in advance for your help!

James

I think the OP was asking about how recently, before the covid mess over the past week, the Panorama has been swapping its itinerary order a few weeks before each sailing. 

Instead of Sea - Cabo - MZ - PV - Sea - Sea it becomes Sea- Sea - PV - MZ - Cabo - Sea.

I would assume this will continue forward until the ship eventually gets fixed in dry dock. Has there been any sailings over the past couple months that didn't have their itinerary reversed before sailing?

The Oasis class is in my opinion one of the coolest classes of ships ever built. I also thought it was the least crowded feeling ship we had been on. If its within your budget I would pick one of those. As mentioned above I would select Allure last since they don't have as many of the updates as the others. See if you can pick an itinerary that stops at CoCoCay their private island. 

5 minutes ago, tm_aw_love said:

From what I understand they did actually get all the way into port in PV... what would be the difference between this and any other 'technical stop'?

Passengers have to be allowed to actually get off. Ten years or so cruise lines going to Hawaii were doing a 2 hour stop in Ensenada in the middle of the night to comply with this law while not actually allowing passengers off. NCL went to court and had it changed.

2 hours ago, igraf said:

I am happy to hear that the food was regarded so well by experienced cruisers.

 

igraf

 

 

My next three sailings on Carnival are going to be so disappointing now in the included food department! 

I wonder if it's in Carnival's best interest to cancel the next voyage, really space out the crew and let everyone be in their own quarantine for the next week? One way to nip it or reset the numbers for now to allow the ship back in ports. 

Hi Everyone,

We were a party of 5 (in 3 cabins) that sailed on the Koningsdam on Dec 12^th and I wanted to share my views. Overall, we had a wonderful time. The cruise started with one negative. I want to share that first to get it out of the way.

My mother and her partner had a Vista Suite on deck six. Obviously, they are fine with traveling, but they still have general concerns about covid. A big part of making them “at ease” with the cruise idea was how clean the ships are these days. When they boarded the cruise the cabin was ready for occupancy. Everything looked properly cleaned until they opened the drawers and the previous cruiser’s dirty clothes were still in them. Not wanting to ruin the trip, they pointed it out to the area’s housekeeping manager who apologized and offered to have the cabin properly cleaned and sanitized. Fast forward a few hours and they had finished and the cabin looked great. Around dinner time they went to put something in the fridge to discover old, half consumed food from the previous person was still in the fridge. This made them really question the true state of cleaning the ship however they moved to a different cabin and absolutely loved their housekeeping team after that. Our two other cabins had zero issues throughout the sailing.

Embarkation:

1.       We had a 2pm boarding time but found ourselves ready to check-out of our hotel around 10:30am. We went for a walk with our luggage down to the pier to see if we could drop off our bags early at 11:15am and they let us do the entire check-in process. I would say we were 5 of 50 total people at the time. From arriving to the pier to being on the ship was 15 minutes. Very easy process but it certainly helped we were the only ship there and was sailing with just over 1,000 passengers.

Ship:

1.       The ship is in great condition. This was my 5^th sailing since the restart (3 on Carnival, 1 MSC and this one) and you can tell HAL did a great job maintaining the ship during the downtime.

2.       I really enjoyed the beautiful décor of this ship. We all really enjoyed it more than the Westerdam. It felt modern and fun. The Koningsdam has such a great variety of artwork onboard. My favorite was the forward stairwell. Make sure you take some time to walk down each deck to check them out.

3.       My only negative is the ship has many areas where you can’t pass through without going up, over and down. Also the upper deck not as open as I like. Not a lot of lounging areas or places you can walk the full distance of the ship.

4.       Public areas looked like they were constantly being cleaned throughout the cruise. The crew did a great job with this.

Entertainment:

1.       The shows in the main lounge were great. It appeared (and I might be wrong) that they didn’t have a full production cast but they provided a wonderful experience regardless. The sounds and visual screens add so much.

2.       Some of the music venues were too loud for the small space. The performers themselves were great just not the best venue for them.

3.       Our group loves trivia on cruises. The 4pm trivia sessions were not fun like other cruises we had been on. It almost seemed like taking a test in school. At one point people asked the person reading the questions to slow down and repeat and she said, “I don’t have time to repeat everything or wait long between questions.” It just wasn’t like how it usually was.

4.       The casino had a nice amount of activity for its smaller size. The bar staff and waitresses were always around and it was never difficult to get service. They were wonderful!

Service:

1.       The service, besides the housekeeping incident I mentioned before, was wonderful throughout the cruise. Everyone was on their A-game.

Food:

1.       The included food was the best food I have had on a cruise in a very long time. The main dining and buffet offerings were always fresh and delicious. Honestly, everyone in the party was very impressed and we are all seasoned cruisers.

2.       We dined in the steakhouse and it was a special meal. The service, the quality of the food, the ambiance etc. I highly suggest it.

Those are my quick notes for now. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll be happy to answer them!

James

19 minutes ago, smellywax said:

So the Viking ship docked next to us were allowed to go ashore. They arrived before us and have passengers going back and forth. There is a Princess Ship (Carnival Corp) that was coming into port but stopped and anchored and this isn’t a tender port so they may not be getting off either 🤷‍♀️

That might be the case but P.V. is also a tender port. They have a tender platform just in front of the main dock for when they have multiple ships that can't be docked together. 

Keep in mind the extra weight a 12 pack or two can add to your checked luggage. I would certainly look at the map around your hotel to see if anything is within a short walk. Sometimes you can ask the hotel if its possible to have a food delivery service drop off a few cases before you check-in.

Make sure you check carnival . com/offers from time to time. Usually better deals show up there than what I get from the casino the last night of the voyage. 

2 hours ago, fyree39 said:

I sailed in August on the Panorama. During a lull, I tipped the Guest Services staff, asking if I could buy them a coffee. They about fell over.

That was a really nice gesture of you. At Guest Services a big part of our job was to reduce the amount of passengers that wanted to remove their service charge. We would get in trouble if a certain % adjusted it even though they were technically optional. The staff worked so hard to keep the adjustments down even though we were not part of that tip pool. There were days the lines would be so long that someone offering to bring me over a coffee would have made my voyage! Thanks for doing that for them!

2 minutes ago, BasicSailor said:

The son is home 🙂 and quote,

  Our son who was working on the Panorama for the last few months (his first Contract after the Covid Pause) has come home.  Thankfully, he didn’t get sick with any virus. He’s been with Carnival as a Fun Squad Member for a number of years.  Loved the job!  

I know, that's why I said "If he was still onboard I would...." 🙂 

I worked onboard NCL ships for five years at the Guest Services/Front Desk. First of all thank you to your son for helping get the industry back up and running. Sadly, after going on five cruises this year (3 on Carnival, 1 on HAL and 1 on MSC) I would have a very hard time working on the ships in these conditions.

I'm going to get really hated on for this comment but I noticed the problem is far worse on Carnival these days than the other lines. I think it's due to Carnival almost giving away cabins and having a different crowd with much fuller ships.

Sadly I don't think things will get better for him this year. After I finish my booked cruises on Carnival I'm sticking with the other lines for the time being. I wish your son all the success in whatever he ends up doing! 

(P.S. I'll be on the Panorama in Jan and Feb. If he was still onboard I would make sure I would thank him in person!)

Have a wonderful time! I got off her the 19th and had a wonderful cruise. The best included food I have had over the past 10 years on cruises. Great crew too.

I noticed on my recent Pride and Magic cruises as well. I actually caught covid on the Magic in October. I was on a Holland America cruise until the 19th and they were the polar opposite. Masks indoors were strictly enforced. 

Thank you for sharing the comments. I think it's important to inform people of the "real deal" beyond a company's PR spin to make sure people who are on the fence know what they are getting into.

Hi Everyone,

Carnival called me to get the information. Thanks for all the assistance. Feeling slightly better!