lmaccaro

Actually, you should really think about a passport, regardless if the small official BC is acceptable. If anything happens to you on a cruise, where you needed to get home from another island, you would not be able to without a passport. Believe me, you don't think it can happen, but it did happen to me. We had to leave the ship off the coast of St Kitts, get tendered in, as it was not a port stop, fly from there to Antigua, and took an Air Canada flight from there. (There was a family emergency back home) Just save yourself needless worry, and get a passport.

If you are a US citizen, you can ALWAYS fly from abroad back to the US without a passport. In fact, that is the only place you CAN fly to (generally). Expect about an additional hour of screen and verification when you go through customs.

I also would never plan a wedding at a port, on board the ship, but not at a port.

:rolleyes:

Considering cancelling. Does anyone know (actually *know*, not just a guess) what Carnival's policy has been for hurricane related changes? Refund? Credit? Nothing?

They will likely switch our cruise from the eastern Caribbean to the western Caribbean and cut a port from the itinerary, which will cause our wedding party to miss the wedding we have planned on St. Kitts.

17 days is a very long time in hurricane terms, Maria is forecast to turn north by a large number of models, and might have little to no impact on Grand Turk or other islands.

 

Weather is always an issue on cruises, and especially in the fall. That's why your cruise contract says they can change the itinerary at any time without compensation.

RCCL is handling this correctly. Carnival is not.

No word of any changes yet. Probably waiting to see what Maria is going to do.

Carnival is super frustrating..

Do they think Maria is going to IMPROVE the conditions in the eastern Caribbean? Our cruise is 17 days away and so far no updates.. despite the fact that 1 port basically no longer exists and 2 more have no power or communications. The 1 port that is still untouched, we have a wedding there. If they end up having to move the cruise to the western Caribbean as RCCL has done, we will be in trouble.

Frontier to Miami is risky. Will probably be fine. But if I were you, I would know the other direct flight options there are for that day on other airlines, when and where they leave from, and be prepared to pay day-of prices to get to your cruise. If that one Frontier flight flops, you are going to be in bad shape. Frontier will not have a hot spare jet sitting around, they will not have a big warehouse full of extra jet parts sitting around if yours has an issue. You will sit there and wait for an unknown amount of time. Oh, and if you do end up having to skip the broken down frontier flight down to Miami and fly someone else, if you booked it as a round trip they will cancel the return leg on you. So you'll get to re-buy that too. (Always book 2 one ways!)

But probably it will be fine.

On your way home - I would try to be awake by 6, and try to be getting off at 6:45am. Tell the cruise line your plans mid-cruise so they can try to accommodate you.

I see your next cruise is on Imagination from LA. Assuming that is what you are looking at for the second week of October (since Carnival has limited west coast offerings), I see a premier cruise offer on Imagination on October 8th. Do you qualify for casino offers? Premier cruises come with free "drinks on us" while playing in the casino. If you are a casino player, you might inquire whether you qualify. I just got my mailing from Carnival on this new round of premier cruises yesterday in snail mail.

Thanks, how do I look for a premier cruise?

The one I am looking at is the Vista out of Miami on 10/7.

I was already looking at cruises that week ("fall break" for school) but then a buddy invited us to his wedding on the Vista and now we're pretty set on going on Vista.

I remember Carnival was running chain-wide drinks packages a couple of months ago when I was looking last. But I also know cruise lines tend to rinse-and-repeat their promos every once in a while. Just thought I'd get the board's take.

Looking at cruise the second week of Oct. 2017, currently priced at $699pp. But Carnival doesn't have any decent promotions going - while Norwegian is giving away the whole nine yards.

I'd like to get the free beverage package, ideally, but a better price on the cruise or more onboard credit.. it's just that right now they are basically higher priced than competitors any offering nothing.

When does Carnival change their promotions? Is it typically at the first of the month (so in 5 days) or is it just at random times?

We were on the same cruise. 2 hour wait to embark, 2 hour wait to debark. Ship isn't really being taken care of. Started trying to book specialty restaurants as soon as we got on board, and had to continually fight for trying to get the times and restaurants we wanted. Never did get into Teppanyaki. Cagneys was great, but couldn't get in there a second time. Despite the specialty restaurants being constantly "full", when we dined there or just cruised by, they were dead empty. Super frustrating.

Several staff members were rude to us, or just ignored us. For example, one of our cabins wasn't prepped for us before we arrived (water bottle open, no towels), the cabin steward accused us of losing or stealing our towels the first day (?). LOL. Thank goodness for the free drinks package so we could drown our disappointment. There were also some fantastic staff, NCL just doesn't seem to do anything about the poor ones.

Belize was a mess, almost missed our tour, had to really work to get off the ship in time.

If you are in NOLA, use Uber. Less than half the price of a cab to/from the airport (and the cabbies complain that set prices are already too low).

Done Carnival, Celebrity, and NCL. NCL had the worst customer service, worst food, worst experience overall, but they give the best value for the money spent.

On our Celebrity European itinerary last summer we bought wine and liquor in multiple port as gifts to bring home. Openly carried through port security and the cruise entry line. Ended up drinking some in the room. No one confiscated it or even gave it a second glance. From what I've heard, this is a pretty common practice for cruise ships over there.

I assume wine is a little more integral to the European way of life, and trying to confiscate your bottles would raise a big stink over there.

That is to say, on US-based sailings they bend us over because we take it.

I think your problem is being budget-conscious, but electing to demand a balcony.

To digress, current macroeconomic trends are creating a wealth gap; there are relatively more very wealthy people than before, at the expense of shrinking the middle class and growing the lower class. How does that play out for cruise ships? Anything luxurious is going to be peddled at high rates to the growing ranks of the rich that can afford them.

Perhaps more people are also taking fewer vacations but splurging on the time they do take away from work.

Inside gets you 98% of the benefits of a balcony cruise; cruising is so so much more about the ports and the ship than it is about sitting in your room. Spend your money as you see fit.

Generally speaking, if you miss your flight but arrive at the gate within 2 hours after departure, they just stick you on the next flight out for free.

That can be bad if the next flight isn't until the next day, so look that up just in case.