mowogo

We all know the pandemic shuffled everything.  I think an opportunity to open up in New York was too good to refuse.  New York also gets to leverage investments in Port Canaveral and Miami making the financials even more attractive.  

On 8/4/2022 at 9:53 AM, AnA4ever said:

We are cruising on the Divina on August14th and staying in room 8147 and we are looking forward to it. We like the semi 2 room design and the longer balcony. We also like how the door opens to the Atrium glass and the glass elevators will be our primary mode of travel between the decks. If we do it again we would go with room 8144 just because the starboard side of the ship is usually facing the MSC Ocean Cay Island when it is berthed. 

I was sold after the pictures, and ended up with 8147.  Glass elevators are always my preferred method of travel no matter the cruise ship, and the convenience can’t be beat.  

13 hours ago, GA Dave said:

Thanks.  It sounds like you had an amazing adventure.  And I know exactly what you mean about the PC to OC to Nassau ad naseum.  Five of my last six cruises have been three days just like that!  Unfortunately, with my current work situation, I can only do three-day weekend cruises, which really limits your port destinations!

3 days pretty much means Nassau/Private Island or Ensenada.  And for bargain basement pricing OC easily beats Princess Cays

13 hours ago, juancarlosgarciasanchez said:

Greetings poohdreaming - There are MULTIPLE service providers that can provide shuttle service from Port Canaveral to MCO dependent upon your budget. If I may suggest. DON'T book a hotel near MCO ( Orlando) but rather a hotel in Cocoa Beach which is only 5 minutes from the Port. As phissy suggested, also try GOPORT 

Good Luck 

I would say that depends on arrival time.  If the plane is landing at 9:30pm then I wouldn't necessarily want to be waiting to get to my room at 11:30 or midnight.  

11 hours ago, TwoAdriftAtSea said:

The best time to use the internet on the Seashore is when the majority of passengers are off the ship. 

When in port and the ship is deserted = 400kb/s

When the ship is sailing = 10kb/s (tops)

 

One of the topics brought up last week during a luncheon with MSC higher ups was the internet and how bad it "sucked" so hopefully some changes are made soon.

 

I have a feeling if the Starlink testing goes well there will be a huge push to update Wi-Fi among lines.  That is really the next big jump in satellite internet for cruise ships because of the volume of new capacity.  

Cruise lines offer different fares with different inclusions.  Even with NCL's F(r)ee at Sea, there are fares without the inclusions which are lower (and less exposed to NCLs extra fees).  Now, the offers I'm getting are less than $50pp/day to upgrade to include drinks and wifi over the lowest fare (the credit is a joke for me as a solo traveler.) 

1 hour ago, dexddd said:

You mean 'Free at Sea'?  Where 'free' means fees on free packages?

I prefer to call their packages 'Fee at Sea.' Especially when booking rates good enough where that fee is more than the cruise fare

On 7/13/2022 at 5:49 PM, cruiseelady said:

You are not looking at the right place then LOL.  There are so many bargains especially on MSC.  Inane deals.  Just two days ago I booked MSC Divina for September 4, prices started from around 270 plus taxes and fees, that's a 7 days cruise.  

And even $400 plus taxes solo booking for February on a relatively new ship for 7 days.  That is the pricing I’m finding for Carnival Spirit and Glory while sailing on the Meraviglia, and I have Casino rates with Carnival.  And with certain credit cards one can jump up the MSC ladder with a status match to get an even more elevated experience to increase value one gets on the cruise. 

On 7/13/2022 at 3:54 PM, KINGBOBOFTHENORTH said:

Nearly every cruise line charges 2X for single cruisers. I know some NCL ships have some inside cabins for singles that they charge somewhere between 1X and 2X for.  Two single cruisers on our last MSC cruise said they chose MSC because they were not charged 2X. Not sure if that's true or not but if they don't charge double for singles, that would be huge.

As someone looking at booking, I’m finding the MSC supplements for singles are less than many other lines.  NCL while offering Studio cabins for singles at rates that can be lower than booking an interior solo, they are also very bad about tacking on fees to the fare because of inclusions so you really need to look at the whole cost before balancing with NCL.  

On 7/28/2022 at 10:04 AM, J0Y0US said:

Submitted last night at like 11PM in the US and got the email today about status match about 12 hours later.

 

Hilton Diamond -> MSC Diamond

Exact same thing today, with the same statuses

19 minutes ago, notscb said:

I think the time matters for sure. I was on Freedom (RCL) and the meetup was every night at 10pm at the wine bar. Also at 10pm was the second seating of the nightly entertainment and right after that would be the nightly party (silent disco, etc.). I never got a chance to attend the meetup because there were always other things going on that I wanted to do, and they didn't have any alternate meetup times or locations.

Only day the Carnival Spirit didn’t have an 8pm meet up was the day when the port visit was from 8p-12a

3 hours ago, AtlantaCruiser72 said:

However, going back at least 20-25 years, Princess has not has a ship based in either port that I can remember. All the Princess ships have been homeported in Ft. Lauderdale which to my knowledge will not have LNG capability.  If Sphere were to be homeported in Ft Lauderdale she would be entirely reliant on visiting a Caribbean port each week that offers LNG bunkering with that capability (are there any?).  Which is also unlikely unless she is restricted to a single itinerary pattern as Princess likes to offer alternating Eastern/Western itineraries to sell as b2b.  

Remember, trucks are an option and it wouldn't be too hard to truck between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. And while Princess has not served Miami as a primary cruise port, being forced to contribute significantly to support LNG bunkering at Ft. Lauderdale might change the economics enough to push the Sphere class to Miami.  Though I wouldn't be surprised to see a push to make all the large ship Itineraries in Alaska to LNG which would really throw things off.  

9 hours ago, bubbaed said:

Cruise lines reassign home ports for ships all the time. As older ships retire or are moved to other regions or sister companies, the lines typically shuffle ships around with the newest vessels deployed from the busiest/most popular ports. In 2023, the new Sphere-class ships are scheduled to debut, and since they are LNG powered, they will need to home port somewhere with (or near) LNG bunkering capabilities. Does this mean LA will get new Sphere-class ship once Discovery is redeployed since LA already has easy access to LNG bunkering (via Ensenada)? Time will tell...

Carnival Mardi Gras is in Port Canaveral where they have a ship from GA delivering it, and Carnival Celebration is going to be based in Miami. Corporate may push for it to be east coast to be able to leverage the investments for the Carnival ships.  

2 minutes ago, ghgeckos said:

I have experienced both as a solo traveler and really enjoyed the mini suite but for my Alaska trip I booked an obstructed view balcony cabin. The only obstruction was the lifeboat below my line of sight. Alaska is an expensive itinerary so I saved my money on the cabin to indulge in extra experiences on board and in port.

That was how I ended up on Carnival to Alaska, they gave me an offer for a balcony I couldn't refuse with the only downside being if I looked straight down I saw lifeboat.  I enjoy them, but not really my preferred experience but Alaska is a destination where I truly believe beyond a balcony/Oceanview, just getting to Alaska is the important part

2 hours ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

I used to work for a restaurant company when Y2K was coming up.  The IT Director insisted that the entire IT department be on hand until well past midnight that evening to handle whatever crisis unfolded.  Of course, NOTHING happened and every one of us missed the New Years' event of our lifetime because we were sitting at our desks waiting for a panic phone call that never came!

I had a ham radio license and was working the county 911 dispatch center as backup communications.  

It is Alaska, and you are more likely going to be spending your room time on the balcony than in the room.  

31 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

While I do not disagree with all of the posts above that say "Pick Glacier Bay!" our first Alaska cruise was on the Celebrity Solstice and it did the Endicott Arm route.  Since we had nothing to compare to we were sufficiently in awe of the surroundings.  Our second cruise we did Glacier Bay.  In some ways I really liked the Endicott Arm experience better in that you traverse a very narrow passage and can really get close to the shore and any wildlife that may happen along.  I'm certainly NOT saying that you should NOT do Glacier Bay...just that you may be very pleasantly surprised if you do the other itinerary.  That way you can justify your NEXT Alaska cruise by saying "But we *have* to do Glacier Bay now"!  Or vice versa.

This is my philosophy.  I did a route that did not visit Glacier Bay, and I was still satisfied with Tracy Arm.  Alaska is beautiful and you can’t go wrong just getting to Alaska.  

As for warm temperatures, it was in the 70s in Tracy Arm, Juneau and Ketchikan when I was up there last week of June.  Only Victoria Day was foggy, and only fog on shore burned off quickly in Ketchikan 

3 hours ago, toad455 said:

With the acquisition of the three Costa ships, unfortunately there's no hope for Carnival to keep the Ecstasy. 

 

Meanwhile, the Margaritaville at Sea is barely sailing at 50% capacity. There's no need for a second ship currently.

Lots of new Margaritaville brand extensions that are at low capacity.  Though side benefit is that the Nassau resort (walking distance from the port) is empty enough to be a good day pass

6 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

I find it very amusing that the system of devices in use and the "bumping" of others actually works as described.  I suspect this is because IT WASN'T WRITTEN BY THE MEDALLION APP people! 

Because that has been longstanding code.  The problems are the new and flashy things that are included with the app (Which really go with the current tech philosophy of testing in production).

I had no problems using Verifly for my two cruises on Carnival this year.  It is not intuitive, however I was able to get it to work.  For reference I have a digital record from my state and so was able to load the QR code into my app for vaccination validation and then the test results were approved a few minutes after I loaded them.  

14 minutes ago, MamaFej said:

They might sell more Premiere packages if the specialty dining were two per 7 day segment. My next Princess cruise is 28 days. I've taken a couple as short as 3 days. I might be willing to do it on a 3 day cruise, but i certainly would not on a long one. 

 

Our most recent cruises were on Azamara. Our benefits such as laundry and specialty dining renewed after 7 days, which made a lot of sense to us. 

I have a feeling there are a lot of tweaks that are going to happen as they have data on how people who upgrade move throughout the ship and be able to survey this exact reason when they see longer cruises with lower uptake.  

I don’t drink much, but plus becomes worth consideration since it is just $15 more than I would be spending on the soda package, gratuities, and 1 device Wi-Fi.  At that price $15 to upgrade to having a couple of drinks is less than if i had a glass of wine with dinner and another drink at any time during the day.  Premier to me really just seems like a $25 per person per day bet in the casino with Princess Prizes and the house wine has to work hard to be worse than the swill I’ve “enjoyed” in airline lounges.  If the house wines moved toward Undrinkable levels then Premier might become a requirement, but for now I see it as a bit much

2 hours ago, nini said:

I really appreciate the comments regarding this cruise line. The sharing of the photos is also helpful. Call me "old fashioned", but modern, sleek and "op art" styles really turn us off. I suppose that this is why there are many options of cruise lines.

 

I think we will find it challenging to find a "replacement" cruise line if we do not return to Princess after checking out the Grand this September.

HAL- a bit boring for us

Celebrity- snooty and poor quality in dining (yes, true experiences)

We do not care to have or care for water parks and slides in our backyard. HOWEVER, our neighbors (in their late 70's) recently went on the Carnival Panorama and had a great time with their kids. Food was good, etc.

 

I suppose Viking Ocean an Oceana are possibilities, albeit coming with a higher price tag. I also have noted that Viking Ocean likes to stay in one port overnight.

Carnival is great when you can calibrate your expectations with a good deal.  $412 on the Spirit for an extended balcony to Alaska is hard to refuse and makes the deficiencies of Carnival much easier to bear.  Just note if you are Princess Plus people, Carnival does not have that offering and is instead a $60 for the full beverage package, and gratuities are a separate line item.  That pricing with getting views like this made Carnival worth it, even if it is not really the right cruise line for my preferences.

1 hour ago, vwrestler171 said:

It doesn't go by %.  It is a fixed number prior to the sales of the cards.  I THINK that Carnival makes a killing off of bingo when you compare the money spent on cards vs the payout of the prizes.

Yes, considering the jackpot bingo almost never achieves the Bingo in the required number of balls (blackout in under 50 balls), so that big game is only $1000 and they easily have that made.

28 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Doesn't matter unless you drink 15 drinks a day, which we don't.

 

Cost-wise, Virgin is more, but we caught a good sale to help lessen the price spread. We don't mind spending more if it's warranted.

 

As for itinerary, the ship is our destination. That and their private resort which from the looks of it, makes Princess Cays look old & tired.

https://youtu.be/F0Tjxk8vdpU

 

Princess Cays is old and tired even on the Carnival scale.