purplephenom

35 minutes ago, Mr. Nazzy said:

My gosh, what have I started haha.  I appreciate everyone's passion on this forum.  I have no regrets about booking the Havana area, nor the extra price we paid for the experience.  We got what was advertised - an adults only area with a dedicated pool, hot tubs, and a bar. Carnival did a good job checking wristbands and politely asked non-Havana guests to leave on several occasions.  I guess I just expected more - better service primarily.  If you want a relaxing cruise, with no kids around, and mediocre service, then Havana is a good option if budget allows.  Regarding service, if Carnival would staff a 2nd bartender at Havana, much of the mediocreness would be resolved.  One bartender is truly overworked.

 

I barely drink on cruises, so If i can just get some peace, chairs, and pool/hot tub space, I'm even more excited about Havana than before.  So thanks for starting this thread, you've convinced me I will enjoy Havana.  

I have yet to experience Havana, but have it booked on 2 upcoming cruises. I enjoy laying in the sun with a book, but I feel like I need to stake claim to a chair and keep it for hours in order to enjoy.  This leads to me skipping other activities because I feel like I won't be able to come back to a chair.  The person I travel with hates sitting still, but does enjoy the sun from time to time.  So what we're hoping is Havana will allow us to get up, go do things, and come back to chairs, so we can have the best of both worlds.

If Carnival enforced no saving seats, Havana likely wouldn't be necessary for us, because finding seats wouldn't become a scavenger hunt I don't really want to participate in. 

Depending on which threads you read on this board, it's easy to feel like "everyone buys it" or "no one buys it."  Just figure out what you think you'll drink, add a "buffer" of a few drinks just in case you don't like something or you have an extra couple drinks here and there, and see if you're close to making it worthwhile.  Then add in coffee, bottled water, soda, and whatever else you drink and see where the money leaves you.

If you like the all inclusive feel of Cheers, but don't feel it's worth it, there are other ways to handle- set aside money to load on your account, buy gift cards, buy cruise cash.  

Everyone's going to be tired by the end of the night, but honestly, you guys probably will too.

If your BF isn't liking the idea of hanging out on a ship, this may be a great cruise for him because you can be barely on the ship.  Get off as soon as you dock, spend all day ashore, and come back as close as you can to all aboard.  At that point it's more of a floating hotel that takes you to cool places than sitting around wondering what to do next.

When we did this route, we had good luck finishing our night at the piano bar- we did some other things and ended up there, there was always a crowd til at least midnight.

I was pretty against this ship when we booked it (i know how awful does that sound, ugh i don't want to go on that cruise) but i ended up loving it. 

Grand Turk is nice for snorkeling, but probably not right off the beach.  You'd want to go out on a boat,I think. 

Great start.  I don't have an RC cruise planned, but I remembered you mentioned your next cruise was on RC on a different post, so I've been stalking this board looking for it!  Can't wait to read the rest.  

As for Sakari's art, if she has an ipad now, check out the app Procreate- it's not free, but its a great app and if you google around a bit, always highly rated and recommended.  I don't work for them or anything, just a happy app user.

To be honest, I only really opened your review to see if you mentioned "OMG the splendor is so pink," because it seems like most of the reviews do :-) 

Nice review.  It's nice to read a review where someone didn't love the cruise but manages not to tick off half the board.  

What you said about the crew is interesting- we sailed the Splendor twice, back to back years, around the same time each year.  The first year we had over the top friendly wait staff and steward, the 2nd time, we could barely get a hello and a smile out of them.  And there were a ton of little things that made the 2nd time not as fun as the first (but not a bad cruise by any means).

What you disliked about the layout was exactly what I liked about it.  I have the world's worst sense of direction, and usually end up on the opposite end of the ship as I had planned at least a couple times a cruise.  On the splendor, everything was together enough so that didn't really happen.

Glad you had a fun time in spite of it not being your favorite cruise.

ooh that drink looks pretty. Eagerly refreshing to see what the rest will look like.

Enjoying your review, thanks for doing this.  

If you end up doing this, maybe you should treat Miami/Ft Lauderdale as a port day, and be one of the last to board the ship for the 2nd leg, even if you end up needing to go by the port first to drop off your luggage.  Getting off 1 leg, taking a 40ish minute drive, just to hurry up and wait at the other port doesn't sound like a great day, especially if you are tired from the first leg.  

If you don't want to do it online, you can put a CC down when you get to the port.  Holds are a bigger deal if you are using a debit card, because depending on your bank they can take awhile after sailing to fall off, which ties up your cash.  

If you put a CC down you can pay your account off in cash at the end of the cruise.  

Or, if you REALLY don't want an onboard account, you can probably prepay gratuities, and just not spend a dime on board- it probably isn't very common, but it is doable. 

I'm interested in this as an adult with no kids. I would love to snuba there.  I also want to try the air jumpers- is this mainly for kids though?  I don't want to look overly ridiculous. 

I've heard of an assigned table at YTD- because it almost happened to us, accidentally.  We prefer late seating, but our table in the MDR was somehow double booked- they were looking at a couple options- one was giving us an assigned table/time at YTD.  It ended up not happening, they were able to pull another table against a wall during late seating.  But I wonder if they have that available as a way to remedy situations.  Never heard of it happening pre-cruise though

8 minutes ago, Sersee said:

 

Oh I wanted to do this one. This was the only excursion out of everyone I saw that I wanted to do. I love sea lions. But it sold out 😞 

That's what we are trying to figure out. My daughter isn't a beer drinking and only drinks cocktails. When we all went to Jamaica, we always had a frozen rum drink in our hand. So I know she will want to drink those kinds of drinks. My daughter's boyfriend is definitey a drinker as well.  We wanted to try Alchemy as well. My daughter and I are dying to get either bellini's or mimosas in the morning just to do it lol.  I think it sounds like it would work for us. We were just iffy since it is expensive. 

Oh I didn't know it was a touchy subject! Thank you though, I appreciate the insight and that I will be up to dress code! I guess I could always skip it as well although I heard dinner is good on elegant nights

If you're trying Alchemy the break even point will probably be a little less because those drinks are more expensive.  Another option, is to move people around for booking purposes (depending on your fare code, you'll have to see if you can adjust).  So one cabin gets cheers and the other one doesn't.  Once youre on board switching back is no big deal.  Some people book that way, so i really don't know if you can switch after booking but couldn't hurt to find out.  

Don't skip dinner due to dress code.  Skip if you're tired or not feeling it or want to eat elsewhere or whatever.  But the dress code really isn't enforced much, and you don't sound like you're planning to show up in whatever you wore to the beach :-) 

You said you weren't sure about St Thomas, I highly highly recommend swimming with the sea lions.  It's expensive, but you get a LOT of water time, more than any dolphin excursion I've seen.  And the picture prices weren't awful, and you get a ton of pictures, both candid and posed.  The sea lion girls (their name for themselves, not mine) seem to really love their job and love the sea lions- and when one sea lion has had enough, they will switch him out in the middle of the excursion.   We only had 5 people in our excursion group so it was really a great experience- and I didn't even want to do this excursion in the first place. 

Cheers- it sounds like you'll break even, so for you I'd suggest it.  Even on port days, you're not going to be off the ship all day long. And if you are a drink short on port days of breaking even, you can easily make up for it on sea days.  Yes you can take the water to save for later. The only thing is if one 21 in a room buys it, everyone will need to- so hopefully it is a good deal for everyone.  

Dinner- dress code is a touchy subject on this board mainly because Carnival has a dress code they sporadically (rarely?) enforce.  Take a look at the dress code, and assume whatever you wear, there will be people dressed nicer than you and people dressed more casually than you.  I think you said it's your first cruise- there are a lot of photo backdrops set up so its a nice way to get a family picture together if that appeals.  And you're not required to stay dressed up (whatever amount of dressing up you do) after dinner.  I think what you have listed meets the dress code FWIW

Yes. Everything is the same as far as those rules go. 

1 minute ago, GTO-Girl said:

 

If you have money in both Cruise Cash and Bar Cash how do you designate the account you prefer to use first?

 

 

 

I was told they take bar first since it’s more Limiting. 

I think I had him on the splendor. he seemed like a genuinely nice person. He wasn’t as peppy as some other CDs I’ve had, but honestly I was ok with that. 

4 hours ago, ray98 said:

 

 

Where did you find gift cards at a 20+% discount?

I forgot to add- the reason I go thru such trouble is I would rather not drink than buy the drinks at full price because I just get annoyed at how expensive it is and keep thinking I could use that money on the islands. This way it’s prepaid and at a discount so I relax a bit about it and enjoy. But that’s just me, I know it’s my own hang up, So my problem to solve 

4 hours ago, ray98 said:

 

 

Where did you find gift cards at a 20+% discount?

A couple times I used eBay sales (from bigger sellers not random people) and paired a discount with an eBay coupon. I watch slickdeals for when they post other more popular gift cards and check for Carnival. For small amounts I used gift card granny which lists card resellers and just made sure to use those cards immediately. 

The other her thing I forgot to mention is I casually do swagbucks- I don’t do it hardcore anymore but just a couple things when I have time to kill and I’ll eventually cash it in for PayPal and put towards my purchases. It’s only $20ish at a time but every little bit helps, and you can definitely do more. When I was really into it I was getting $50 a month. 

I think a lot of people on this site use AARP rewards which sounds similar to swagbucks but I haven’t investigated that for myself, one rewards site is enough for me. 

it may be easier for you to meet people pre-cruise.  There are places around the internet where people can find people on their cruises before sailing. If you join, maybe there aren't other 17-20 year olds there, but maybe there would be parents sailing with kids that age.  Things on the ship would be more fun with a cruise buddy- it's just harder to find buddies on the ship when you're out of the teen club. 

Thank your for the menu.  Just to clarify, is food served until 10:30 and the area open later with music?  We have a late excursion in Curacao, so I thought that would be a nice night to try this when we sail.. 

Just now, RandomUser123 said:

Maybe I am missing something and do not understand but what is the point of buying cruise cash bar if whatever I buy without having cruise cash bar will just get charged to my room anyways. If I get cruise cash bar does that give me a discount on drinks?

I was one of the people who bought cruise cash (not the bar the general one but it doesn't matter).  I used Carnival gift cards to buy them that I bought at a discount (roughly 20% some a little more).  So the discount was on funding the cruise cash, not the individual drinks.  

Of course I told my parents about my "trick" before they went on a different cruise, and they looked at me like I was nuts, so it is clearly not for everyone.  

1 minute ago, bnbeyer said:

👍  Yeah, I think I'll buy a couple of those.  He's outgrown the ones he had before, but he did wear them to church.

 

If it makes him feel better, he can change right after dinner- I did when i cruised with my parents and I still do.  I HATE dressing up (and to me on a cruise anything more than shorts, tshirt and flip flops is dressy).  There's no requirement to stay dressed up for the whole evening...although some people do, and they look great.

If he likes the nike/under armour shits, have you considered their polo/golf shirts?  They're pretty comfortable looking, but a little pricey.  It's similar material to what he's already wearing.  And if he is close to graduating high school, wouldn't hurt to have a couple on hand for those dress up events that could possibly come up and you may not find out til the last minute.

You really may want to consider wheel chair assistance. Otherwise, I could see a situation where you’re stressed being off by 8:30 and that stress rubs off on them, and before you know it everyone’s stressed and moving slower. 

If that’s not an option, could you consider taking a cab (or 2) to the airport? It may be more expensive, but at least then you could frame it as “we just need to get off as quickly as possible,” versus “we have to be off by 8:30 for the shuttle.”

Apologies if that’s not the type of help you’re looking for, I’m just drawing on my personal experiences with trying to coordinate getting places with my mom, who isn’t a fast walker.