CruisingWalter

You should have an amazing time on VV. So much better than we ever expected!

I have not found out who runs the spas on VV yet, but most of the major cruise lines have one of two companies that run all of the spas. Hard upsell is a major part of both of those companies, even in the barber shop. The cruise lines minimize their liability factor with the spas by contracting out all the services.

Yep, I brought home about 5 bottles from our Scarlet Lady Cheeky Corner Suite. Tequila, Scotch, Vodka, Gin and the small bottles of wine. The ability to bring home all unused liquor is certainly something worthwhile about the VV Suites. 🙂

I really like that concept and it's one of the reasons we're enjoy VV. If you think about being out in a place like Las Vegas, not every single bar is going to have all of the exact same drinks. So you have to explore, find out what each has and go to the one that makes the drinks you want. VV is treating the ship like that, no bland 'we make everything at every bar' set up.

They actually don't 'get you free gratuities or better OBC.' Most of the time they take it out of their commission and roll it back to you. Another advantage to allowing one TA to handle all of your travel needs. The more you book with them, the more they will offer you savings by doing things like that for their clients.

What I just learned during a recent chat with a TA is they were able to save me money by ignoring the cruise line's 'public promo of 75% off the second person' or whatever it was, by combining my residency and another ongoing promo that I didn't know existed. Apparently there are promos that TAs have access to in the booking systems so they can mix and match various promos instead of me just blindly assuming the deal from the cruise line is the best. For me it just makes sense to the use the same TA for everything vs. separating out various types of travel across various types of bookings. But if it works for you, then keep doing what works! 😀

If you have YTD dining you will be able to request a table starting about 5:30pm via the Hub App. It's a same day thing. If you have reserved seating in the MDR (early or late seating) you will have to wait till about 7:30pm before the ChiBang and La Cucina del Capitano will open for you. You may have a very long wait if you have to login at that time depending on how popular they are that night. For our Mardi Gras journey back in March, I actually enjoyed the Cucina lunch more than the dinner. It was a bit more fun and laid back so if you have a sea day or two, take advantage of that. ChiBang Mexican side of the menu was not very good. The Asian side was much better. I covered all the restaurants in "We Eat (almost) Everything On The Mardi Gras" episode on my YouTube channel. CC doesn't like us to post links to our own channel, but if you look up Where's Walter Travel on YouTube, you'll find the Carnival Mardi Gras playlist that includes a cabin tour, Bolt and overall review. 🙂

A Travel Agent is free to you. No cost involved, or at least there shouldn't be if you're working with reputable agent. When you need to make changes or changes are made by the cruise line (such as the pandemic) the travel agent has to handle all the calls and the changes for you. A travel agent can advocate on your behalf to get additional perks, preferred seating time, etc.. for those in higher loyalty status. A travel agent has a specific business manager to call at the cruise line vs. the call center for the general public. We've been cruising for almost 20 years and always use a travel agent. Never more thankful for that than during the pandemic when we had three cruises that were constantly shifting around. Unfortunately we can't recommend any on here because CC is owned by a major travel company. But you should be able to find a good one through word of mouth.

Nope nope nope. I didn't pay the $15 on Mardi Gras. My sister in law did and she it was fun to do once, but never again, not worth it. I'd much rather put my money into the go karts on NCL than pay for two quick laps around Bolt. 🙂

Sea days on the Mardi Gras and it was a fun, make your own Pasta Bowl sort of thing. You check off what you want and then they cook it up. In the case of Mardi Gras they're actually making it in the dining room near the kitchen. I walked over and talked to the chefs while they were working.

Oh and one more tip, if you go to Juneau on your trip, look up Harv and Marv for the whale watching expeditions. Very small boats and excellent captains. In Skagway, Temsco Helicopter tours for the real dogsled expedition up in the mountains. BUT that tour can be cancelled often due to low hanging clouds. If it is they'll give you the option of a refund or a helicopter tour to a glacier, which is what we did. There are 'dogsled adventures' near the port of Skagway, but there's no snow and while the dogs are cute, it's not nearly the same as taking the helicopter up to where there is still snow and you can sled with the dogs.

Princess and Holland America are the best for Alaska, especially if you do a CruiseTour. We did a 14 days land/sea tour with Princess and will definitely do it again when we head back up to Alaska. The land portion was Fairbanks, Denali National Park and Copper River, then we met the ship in Whittier for 7 nights to Vancouver. That being said, if you want to go to Alaska on RC I would stick to the smaller ships. I believe Radiance and Enchantment are the two smaller ships slated for Alaska 2023. I see Radiance is doing the one way trips between Seward, Alaska and Vancouver. That is a great Itinerary and similar to the one we did on the Sapphire Princess. I have no idea how good the land tour portions are for Royal Caribbean. Princess owns their own hotels so the land portion is almost identical to the ship experience with the transfer of luggage and people from location to location. Alaska is less about what's on the ship and much more about the land itself. It's a breathtaking cruise.

Basically you always want cabins above and below you to shield from noise. We never ever book under the pool deck because what the original poster says is quite common. 2 and 4am is weird but if they are doing overnight work on the pool deck, then that would be normal to hear noise coming from the pool deck. 5am on is normal for the crew to start setting up the chairs up top and you will hear that noise coming through your ceiling into the cabin.

Oh man I am SO JEALOUS that you cruised Flora. It looks like an AMAZING experience on that ship. Bucket list goal is to explore Galapagos on that ship one day. 🙂

This is one reason to use a travel agent or travel advisor. They can help you make an informed decision on when a sale is really a good deal. They can also get the cruise line to drop your fare if the price does go lower in the future up until final payment. Once you make final payment, your cabin is locked in and it's extremely rare for any further price adjustments to be made. And before you ask, we cannot recommend TAs on Cruise Critic. They are owned by a major travel company and we are not allowed to recommend outside TAs via these forums. 🙂

Or perhaps try another cruise line. There are over 320 cruise ships out there and dozens of cruise lines. We've sailed on 8 different lines so far, looking to add MSC and P&O in 2023. Might I suggest you look at Celebrity, Virgin Voyages, Norwegian and possibly Royal Caribbean as other cruise lines to try? Celebrity is more of an 'adult-resort' feel with great dining, amazing pools and outstanding bars. Virgin is adult-only with outstanding food (all meals included) and includes WiFi, soft drinks, gratuities and more in your cruise fare. NCL Breakaway Class and Prima class have outstanding entertainment, amazing specialty dining and lots of fun things to do on the ships, or just chill at the waterfront. Royal Caribbean is the most similar to Carnival, though their food is in general a step above Carnival and I prefer the entertainment on Royal vs. Carnival. Before giving up on cruising altogether, perhaps you just haven't found the right cruise line for your vacation style. If you really want to step up, then you start looking at Azamara, Seabourn, Oceania and other more luxury lines.

The wide mouth water containers are definitely easier to refill on a cruise ship than the one with the narrow necks. 🙂

Bimini was an excellent beach resort probably my favorite 'private beach resort' for a cruise line, even though it's really a Resorts World resort. Super soft sand and a really shallow walk out into the water. I was a good 100 yards or so from the beach and was still able to touch the bottom. The food was so-so at the resort compared to the ship itself but I did enjoy the resort. We spent about 4 hours there and then returned to the ship.

We will be on Symphony of the Seas Dec 17-24. Our first time sailing over the December holidays. We've cruised Thanksgiving 5 times and love it. Have an amazing cruise! We've yet to try the Millennium class but hear so many amazing things about them.

Some cruise lines have been rolling them out. Virgin Voyages had really nice ones both on the Scarlet Lady at at the Bimini Beach Resort.

As of this morning, you cannot book the Millennium at all past February 2024. My guess is there are itinerary changes coming and possibly a reposition of the ship. We've now crossed into November so my guess is that by December March 2024 will be reposted. If you do have changes Celebrity will definitely notify you.

Yep, use a fresh cup, dump the water into your bottle. As long as you don't drink from the cup you can repeat the process until you are done.

It's honestly hard to compare what we pay in the grocery store to what the largest cruise company in the world, Carnival Corp pays for their items. The buying power of having the world's largest cruise company means when we see a $5 increase in grocery items at the story, they might see a 25 to 50 cent increase per flat of water. Now 50 cents multiplied over millions of cases of water would be significant, but that 50 cents converts to a $5 price increase for you. I will agree with the others who say bring on your refillable water containers. There's honestly no need for plastic water bottles on a ship when there is water available most anywhere. As someone else mentioned, the water in your bathroom sink is perfectly fine to drink or you can simply go to the buffet or other water stations to refill. We started doing that much moreso since the restart to cruising. I would encourage all of you to do the same, it saves you money and eliminates some plastic wste.

That's true, but each new ship in the class is usually the 'premium price' because it's the newest one. Oasis OTS is priced lower than Wonder OTS for example. The standard premium is on the 'new shiny toy,' not last year's gift. 🙂 A quick glance at Oasis vs. Wonder show the same cabin on nearly the same itinerary priced anywhere from $350 to $100 less on Oasis than Wonder. That's consistent for most of the cruises. Of course the Oasis class is a bit of an outlier because it has been the most ridiculously successful and profitable class of ship for pretty much any cruise line. Because of that, the Oasis class ships don't generally have as much of a falloff between the new ship and older ships in the class. Especially as Royal has gone in and 'amplified' most of the ships over the past 5 years or so. Icon is definitely in a class by itself with that incredible water park on the top decks. She really doesn't even need to go to Coco Cay, she essentially has it on the top deck. So she will draw a premium price for a while. Celebration really should command a higher price than Mardi Gras or at the very least be equal in all the classes. If she's cheaper than Mardi Gras for the same itineraries, then something is off. Instead it looks like Carnival keeps raising individual fees for food and services vs. making modest adjustments to their cabin prices.

There will be some specials for sure, but overall their prices will remain a premium until the second Icon ship is released. I priced out that Ultimate Family Townhouse yesterday for giggles. $64,000 for one week for a family of 4. Not as much as Celebrity's Iconic Suite for a week, and actually a better deal than Iconic because that's for 4 people while Iconic can be as high as $80,000 for one week for 2. 🙂