ctinct

Am I able to use two gift cards to pre purchase Cheers before my cruise? Or can I pay part of it with a gift card and charge the rest? Thanks!

Oh , sorry. I want to make sure I’m understanding what I read on the other gift card thread. If I add a $500 gift card to a relative’s sign and sail account, I can add more once that is spent down, correct?

It was chilly, but Uptown was open December 27 when we boarded. However, in the days leading up to then, it had been unusually warm, so maybe they make the decision to open on a case by case basis.

Alrighty, going to attempt to write down some thoughts and observations on our New Year's Eve cruise on the Breakaway. I've been on two previous NCL cruises, but those were several years ago. Most recently we did a New Year's Eve cruise on the Carnival Glory last year, so I am going to compare my thoughts on the two. There really isn't a clear winner. They both had their good points and their not so good points.

On this cruise were my 22 year old daughter, and me, mama, pushing (eek!) 60.

Embarkation: Yikes, what a mess in New York. I'm not going to blame NCL, though, because I don't know WHY it was such a nightmare. Could have been customs holding up the disembarkation of the previous cruise, the size of the terminal, etc. We saw people disembarking close to noon. Even disregarding the chaotic boarding, I am still giving this one to Carnival. NCL boarded non-sequentially. We were boarding group nine, and they boarded even groups up to 22 before we were called. If I had wanted to try to get a pass to Vibe, I might have been a little peeved. Also, on Carnival, I seem to recall that we entered into the atrium and were greeted with champagne. On NCL, no one really greeted us, there was no champagne, and we boarded onto nondescript deck seven.

Ship: NCL, although their elevators left a lot to be desired. Even though there were a lot of them, there was often a wait. We finally learned that after a show or event where a lot of people were waiting for elevators up, it was often faster for us to walk down a flight and catch an elevator up from there. Also, if we were pool people, Carnival would take that category. The pool on NCL seemed tiny, and Carnival had more pools. However, NCL wins in the lounge chair category. We never really had a problem finding chairs somewhere other than the pool deck, whereas on Carnival, it was often a struggle. But, I'm giving this category to NCL because I am extremely directionally challenged, and the layout of the Breakaway was very straightforward. On the Glory, there was a weird "you can't get there from here" thing, and I often got lost.

Cabin: Carnival. We had a midship balcony on deck 13 on this cruise. Also midship balcony on the Glory, but I forget which deck. The storage and bathroom on NCL were fine, but the balcony was tiny and the side of the room where the beds were was really, really tight. The space between the beds and closet was really cramped. You can't really comfortably stand there to access the closet. And the ends of the beds were very close to the wall. I woke my daughter up one morning because I wanted to pass by her bed to get to the balcony, but her feet were in the way. I tried to shimmy by, but she felt me move her feet. Also, I'm not taking this into account in giving the cabin nod to Carnival, but our cabin steward was not very good. We didn't meet him until Wednesday, and by that time we had gone to guest services with a few concerns. After that, we didn't bother going back to complain; we just rolled with it and made jokes about "Is he going to forget something today or leave us something extra?" Let's see, among other things, he forgot to replenish our beach towels and leave us our Daily, and he left us his swiffer and an unlit Marlboro. We left the cigarette by the ice bucket for a few days, and although he filled the ice bucket, he never took the Marlboro back. Maybe he was afraid it was ours. (We don't smoke.)

Restaurants: Slight edge to NCL. Food was similar on both lines. Often wished it would have been served a little hotter, but since they were feeding thousands of people, I can let that slide. Service was much better on NCl, though. We had one night where the service was a little slow, but on carnival, service was consistently slow, orders were frequently wrong, etc. I do wish we had gone to Moderno earlier in the cruise. While the choices were not as extensive as the main buffet, the atmosphere was much more relaxing. We didn't care for the burgers at Uptown, but loved Guy's burgers on the Glory. We ate at Teppanaki, Cagney's, and Le Bistro. If I had to pick one as a favorite, I'd say Le Bistro. The tenderloin I had there was delicious, better than my filet mignon at Cagney's.

Entertainment: NCL by a mile! We went to Howl at the Moon, Second City, Rock of Ages, Burn the Floor, Charlie Love and the Silky Smooth Band, and a performer I think was perhaps just for this week- Carla Stickler. All were excellent. The shows on Carnival were so bad that we stopped going after the first few. Oh, and apparently I have been remiss in my daughter's musical education. Her comments after Charlie Love were, "What do you call that kind of music? Blues? How come I've never heard music like that before? I like it!"

Random stuff: We had the Thermal Suite pass. Wish there were more heated stone loungers, but we really enjoyed this. We would go very early in the morning and then sometimes around 8:00 pm. The last day was very crowded, as we expected it would be, heading back into colder weather at sea. We both enjoyed the sauna, which surprised my daughter. Her only previous experience with a sauna was when she studied abroad. Her host family had one at their country home in Sweden, and Europeans are of course much more casual about nudity. She was kind of traumatized by being naked with her host mom, haha.

Coffee was awful. I know I could have paid for better coffee, but still....

We had the beverage plan as a perk. Loved it. The only place we had a problem getting a drink was the pool bar. Sent my daughter to get drinks one day and she came back after a half hour drinkless, because people kept shoving in front of her. There really weren't any bartenders on the decks we hung out on pushing drinks. We liked that, and didn't mind walking to a bar, but others might miss the waiters. I say it's a small price to pay for virtually unlimited drinks. I had made a list of all sorts of drinks from one of the threads here on CC, and we had fun trying them out.

GSC: Glad we made it here. We had been once before, before the expansion. Tendering took a llloooonngg time though. The trip back was over an hour and twenty minutes, and they finally put an extra tender that we had seen docked at the island into service as we reached the head of the line. Also, although we did read in the Daily that lunch closed at 2:00, somehow we missed that the bars also close early. We were by the lagoon, and when I walked to the bar at 3:30 for drinks, it was closed. I thought that was kind of early since all aboard wasn't officially until 5:30, but in reality it was later than that till they were able to tender everyone back.

Disembarkation: Pretty good. We did easy walk off about 8:30, and the lines were long but moved quickly. I wish there were more staff to direct people, though, as signage wasn't good and people were getting confused, and also to keep order. We saw quite a few line jumpers. Some were unintentional, but others were quite bold and annoying.

One last thing---it didn't end up impacting us a lot, but it could have impacted others who had excursions in Nassau. The Garden buffet was supposed to serve lunch at 11:30, so we made plans to eat a quick early lunch and then walk to Junkanoo beach. They were still serving breakfast at 11:30. Had not started lunch service by noon, so we went to O'Sheehan's, which took a bit more time since it is table service. Our plans got pushed back by over an hour. Not a huge deal, but if you say lunch starts at 11:30, it should surely start by 12:00.

All in all, though, a very enjoyable cruise, with the entertainment being the highlight.

Just be aware that the bars close early. We knew that lunch ended at 2:00, although they were still serving later than that. Somehow we missed that the bars closed in the afternoon. Not quite sure of the time, but i walked up at 3:30 and the bar was closed. This was at the bar nearest the lagoon, though, so maybe the bar at the main beach was still serving.

Thanks for updating. I will be on board the following week, and had been getting the same message. My daughter and I REALLY want the spa pass, so we were kind of bummed. I'll be up till midnight next week, with fingers and toes crossed. Good to know we may still get them.

I will disagree with the majority here. My twenty year old daughter and I took the metro in the early afternoon last December for a New Year's Eve

Cruise, and we never felt unsafe. The walk inside the airport to the metro station was far longer than the walk to the hotel once we exited the metro. We were coming from the a Southwest terminal, so this may vary. There was an extremely helpful employee at the ticket machine who helped us buy our tickets.

The train itself was fairly empty as it was not prime travel time. There was another mother/ daughter combo and a single gentleman. There are plenty of cars, so you could search out one with more people if that would make you more comfortable, or even probably no people, if that's what you want.

The hotel itself was only a block of two from the station. It took us a bit longer to find the hotel, because we unknowingly walked backwards to a staircase that was further from the hotel. If we had walked forward to the other staircase, would have been a much shorter walk. I'm all about saving money whenever I can, and would have absolutely no hesitation doing this again in the future.

I ended up changeing my Carnival Breeze trip and booked the NCL Epic.

Biggest reason is they are offering there Ultimate beverage package for free for every one in my cabin. No 15 limit. This would have cost me over $800 on the Breeze. I wonder if Carnival is going to step up there game to compete. My crusie was $400 cheaper on top of the free package. If you pay for a suite you get free specialty dinners all trip.

I'm pretty that after the first two people, the drink package is only for soda, so if your third passenger is over 21, you might want to check on that.

It is a great offer, though. I'm booked for a holiday cruise, myself.

Former sweepstaker here. Usually, it takes several weeks to determine the winner of a sweepstakes. Normally a certified letter is sent for big prizes like this, and the potential winner has to get some paperwork notarized and sent back within a certain timeframe. Of course, it happens that sometimes because of taxes, time constraints, ineligibilty, etc. a winner turns the prize down. I had to do that once because I won a trip that could only be taken a certain week, and I was pretty pregnant.

In any case, if the winner turns the prize down, the whole process starts over. Most companies that run sweepstakes do not announce the winners of their sweepstakes. Usually, in the official rules, there is a provision for finding out the name of the winner. Most often, you need to send a sase to a specific address by a certain time. Rest assured, though, that sweepstakes are highly regulated, and a big company like carnival will absolutely follow all the laws and regulations. It's the small mom and pop local companies that sometimes engage in shady business with sweepstakes.

I myself won a cruise on the Westerdam many years ago. Wish I had the time to get back into sweepstaking.

Exciting! Do we know when the wines will be available on board? Are they already?

 

 

Cruise lover since 1995!

My daughter and I saw them on the wine list on the glory 12/27 cruise. We just kind of looked at each other- we had no idea there were Kathie Lee Gifford wines.

Yes, I was in the Monday group, and they also told us they were doing one the next night. It was a bit odd that we weren't given a date in our confirmation email, as I booked before sailing, but they delivered the paperwork with the date to our cabin the day before, I think. They also called the cabin beforehand to confirm and check on any food allergies.

Op here. Well, I've been semi-successful. I wasn't able to use the form on my profile page for several reasons. I wasn't certain of the dates;, the ship, the Tropicale, is no longer listed, and I've had a name change. This particular cruise was a long time ago, 25 years or so.

I called past guest services, and the woman I spoke to was extremely helpful. I gave her the voyage number and the cabin number from my card, and she searched several data bases, under both my old name and my ex 's. Although we were married, I still used my maiden name at the time. Finally, the rep asked if she could put me on hold while she checked the voyage number. When she came back on, she said she had a past guest number for me. I was thrilled and said, "wow, you were able to find it? ", and she sounded like she was going to say no, but instead just repeated that she was able to give me a past guest number. My hunch is that she just asked a supervisor to okay it while I was on hold. Yay! I'm going to dash off a thank you note to carnival mentioning her helpfulness.

But---- the reason I was eager to get credit for my cruise was that I'm booked early saver for my upcoming cruise, and there is a past guest rate that is lower. I submitted the form, and in less than an hour, got a rejection. I made sure to note my past guest number in the comments. The thing is, when carnival sends the generic reply that one or more requirements were not met, it's not really very helpful to us to understand why we were rejected. If they said the actual reason such as the sale is not for your date, or you're not a past guest, it would prevent a lot of follow up phone calls. I'm pretty sure everyone who submits the form is under the impression they qualify, or they wouldn't be submitting it. I have a sneaking feeling they didn't see the past guest number in my case, so I'm off to make another phone call now.

I'm booked on a cruise in December. Although I had one prior cruise with Carnival, it was a long time ago, possibly 1988 or 1989. I dont remember the date, but I do know it was the Tropicale out of San Juan. When I booked my upcoming cruise, I didn't even bother with the past guest rate, because I had no proof of sailing.

However, oddly enough, this evening I noticed a past guest rate on my December cruise that would save me a few hundred dollars if I could qualify as I am booked Early Saver, AND, miracle of miracles, I actually came across my old sail and sign card from the Tropicale. I called customer service, but she was unable to help me and told me to call the past guest department tomorrow. My card has the voyage number and my cabin number, and it's under my old name. Has anyone had any success attaining past guest status with just a voyage number? Sure would be nice to save another couple of hundred dollars.

Here's a thought. You're traveling with some others in your cabin, correct? Are you sure they paid their portion of the fare?