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These are a significant fire hazard aboard, along with hot plates and surge protected power strips. Some lines issue tested/approved ones in suites, etc. Carnival has tea kettles. Years ago you sometimes not find self-service coffee/tea 24 hours a day someplace aboard. I remember standing at 6:30 AM waiting for the door or rope to the buffet to open. This seems to be mostly fixed.

There are some pretty strong hints from the recent CCL Earnings Call. Carnival Corporation & plc (CCL) Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript | AlphaStreet So the magic number is occupancy. In 2019 the breakeven was around 70% and you had the ships at 103% or more and there were excellent profits. These days, breakeven is closer to 80%, and the lines are struggling to hit that. Every ship that is still parked, and every cruise that is 54% full counts as a loss. But they say the US voyages are over 100% full. You don't see Carnival seven day and up voyages on sale much. A guess is some of the Carnival brands are struggling. Calling HQ and asking for money in June, 2022 is bad form. And the Med is not a gold mine at the moment and the season is short. It is too bad NY and Boston are unpopular year round ports. I am personally happy to be at sea, but many wish to be in a lounger by the pool, which is not a thing in January.

Looking at the pricing (i.e. few deals) there seems to be strong domestic US demand outside of Miami for seven day and up cruises on the newer Carnival ships. The prices on the 2-5 day runs are low. I would factor in the hassle factor for pre trip screening and gasoline costs. I'm not sure they have unlimited demand in the Med and that season is short. It sounds like some product tweaks may be needed for the market.

>>The idea of a quarter inch of cheese on a pizza came from Chicago not Rome or Naples.

That is strange - they need to fix this simple error. Carnival Splendor Cruise Ship - Cruises From Sydney! What was served at the Deli? We have a thing recently - we like to spend most of our time on the pool deck or shaded outside decks vs packed indoors.

This seems promising. The other features we like on ships lately are a bar for dancing, and the availability of food outside and or on the pool decks. The Cantina was amazing, and some ships have a branch office of the buffet outside.

As an MDR breakfast fan I have a theory here. So dinner is all set up and assigned by room and practiced. There is a time tested staff hierarchy. Breakfast (and lunch) seem to be a pick up team of random, mixed wait staff + managers. So there is no built in teamwork- you get what you get. There is no easy way for guests to report poor service- they are not at their assigned /tracked table. If it is really bad talk to the Hotel or F&B Director. We were locked out of our room in a hotel recently. The door lock/card reader batteries last 3-5 years and fail when they fail. In our case the manager had a screw driver and replaced the battery. This is an excellent case of technology that needs an upgrade. Like a flashing light to warn of a low battery.

I was happy to see this band on the program. We used to dance to them - a feature that has apparently been phased out on larger HAL ships?

Enter the zip code then hit search- third time is the charm- I tried four different browsers trying get it to let me enter a state. Not a great design. It did finally work on Edge- I put in a screen shot of my Carnival Red status page- it came back in a day or two "Classic"- a good start. It did say the request was accepted - I had no booking.

I am curious where the new QV crew (hotel department) came from. So in 2020 many/most were sent home Cunard-wide. In the ship by ship return to service process, was the individual re-hiring based on the ship they were last on, seniority, or some other criteria? So were the 2020 QV assistant waiters the last to be hired back on out of the whole fleet?

Brilliant - thank you. That is such an amazing, quiet beach and you are right by the ships so no stress about late taxis, traffic jams, etc. One of the funky boutique hotel brands (Indigo?) needs to buy the property. Serenity Beach Pass at British Colonial - Nassau (resortforaday.com)

This is a good Chengkp75 question. You can certainly deep clean a balcony floor/deck any time, but is there a way to remove rust or even topcoat with deck or topside paint in a few hours on a turnaround day? That paint can be slow drying and or stinky. The guest expects access to the balcony.

Butter right out of the freezer cannot be spread. So needs to be sent back- and if repeated brought to leadership aboard. The site is called "Cruise Critic" - people having bad days or lives will take out their frustrations on staff or out here. I like to book on ships with negative reviews - and write my own -Host Hattie is right 🙂with photos correcting inaccurate postings. By the way, where did you find the $7.50 wine?

Thanks again. We need you please on the Freedom thread 🙂 On a semi related and more urgent topic.

Thank you Chengkp75. This answers a million questions. So the shipboard big loads (engines, AC chillers, bow thrusters) need the high voltage generators (big or small or all the same size) online. The backup diesel only has 440V AC output so can only supply a few "hotel" loads- outlets, maybe toilets, hall lights etc. The goal to me would be if a ship had an engine room fire, and the other engine room was OK you could "limp" home with lights, food/water, toilets and maybe 5 knots. And I am remembering now- a lightly loaded diesel generator can "wet stack" - which is not good for it. So the number of generators running should match the load. Brilliant. You are such an asset to us.

Thank you as always Chengkp75. I looked for and did not see the temporary container generators on the Valor and Paradise recently. This new solution of moving the power cables sounds much better, as it could provide more backup power (i.e. the cold rooms and cooking- avoiding the food airlift) and the possibly the ship could move with one engine room offline? Can the smaller installed hotel-power generators provide any propulsion power at all if the big ones are broken or under repair? I do wish they had been more forthcoming on the exact problem here. John Heald got his job (and has done it well) proving the best practice that you should disclose the truth to your social media fans and they will stick with you. Otherwise we are very good out here at making up random stuff.

Excellent review- thank you. The super loud music- not good.

I hope you feel better. The lines are in a difficult spot here. Based on my experience last week on a cruise (same family), the passengers have sounded the "all clear" to each other but the ship medical departments, public health, hospitals and port governments have not read that memo. After whatever happened on the QM2 earlier this year with the cancelled NYC port stop, Cunard is on alert for outbreaks and possible impacts to operations. I think it is best to not take out anger and frustration at them. The latest quarterly reports are out and there is extreme pressure to get to 90% load factors and above to reach cash flow positive results. I think this is the new Noro, and we all have to do our part to not pass it around if we can.

This looks like proven, promising technology for reducing the carbon footprint of cruise ships. The technology is similar to Flettner rotors. https://safety4sea.com/scandlines-achieves-up-to-20-emissions-reduction-on-ferry-using-wind-power/

I found the Value Plan to be lovely- mail, websites, news, etc. I'm not into streaming video. With all the complaints about recent cutbacks, staying in touch without counting minutes is an amazing development. I was able to upload large photos with minimal delays.

Thank You. We were on the Pride years ago and it was nice but we are dancers and found no dancing aboard. Also it has the 3/4 Promenade Deck, and we like a good stroll. It seems you found a nice band in the back of the RedFrog Pub, which can have a passable dance floor area. Latin dances often do not take up much room.

Brilliant. That was my secret plan. My DW is not fooled by this, but I am happy to be on a ship and not out $3700. The Carnival Revenue Department is groaning- oh not him again, but I do pay into the tip pool. And am nice to everyone and don't make a mess, waste food or hog chairs 🙂

According to at least one review, JB was aboard, and took a personal/hands on interest in the project. This seems promising. His expertise in island living is noteworthy - his books are funny and insightful. I would still want the Bahamas Tourism Minister involved. (The BPCL leadership was all over this). Disney has the advantage they are re-creating a fantasy world. If you go to enough island beach bars, these are real.

Thank you for the QA deck plans- we are so good at making stuff up- those seem genuine. I almost spit out my tea- a "Wellness Cafe" sigh - those are popular and hip- I'm old- so coffee, tea and scones and newspapers please. I have a "public health" hat here someplace- so many more cabins - good for revenue - not so good otherwise. The dance floor looks too small. That is actually a problem on Cunard. There are so many dancers and the floor is so packed, it is actually difficult to dance on Cunard. However, it may be possible to fix this in the shipyard. Take out the first row of seats and add more simulated wood flooring. Other lines, NCL as an example, are adding more tables to dance floors, and HAL is taking them up. The promenade deck looks serviceable. As someone who actually walks on one twice a day, unless the deck is roped off, the number of people who are really out there of 2000+ passengers supports the idea it is not worth redesigning the whole ship to make it two feet wider. (This can be a science project- grab a deck chair and a clicker and count). The aft pool - nice. I do like to take meals poolside lately - not looking good here.

I've been digging in the "sale bin" - lots of cheap short trips - 2-3-4 days are open. Would any of this apply to two $179 trips back to back? Presumably you notify Carnival and they take care of the testing, escorting off and on? This seems a way to piece together a week of sailing when cheap seven day trips are not on offer any more. And in this case only, are you better off booking direct to ensure the same cabin and the "flag" is set? I not sure the agency systems are as good at B2B.