staceyglow

We are a party of 5. We want to visit the wineries in Valle de Guadelupe, rather than join a tour, we would prefer to hire a taxi for the day to drive us around the area. We have already been there once, so we don't think we need the services of a tour guide. Has anyone done this before, or hired a taxi for a day for some other reason? I am interested in finding out procedures, general pricing, etc.

Hi! Just a heads up (and it may be faster than waiting for responses). 🙂 Most if these questions come up quite often on this board . You can use the search function to find your answers. And you will probably get more complete information that way.

I can promise you that there are few to no "unwritten rules" at Carnival. They may be in the fine print, or you may interpret them differently than they intended, but the rules are almost certain to exist. Like every other company its size, Carnival has an entire battalion of attorneys whose job it is to write and review these "rules".

Why would you say that a PVP is more difficult? We use a PVP, and she is able to adjust our fare to the lower amount while we are still on the phone with her. It literally couldn't be easier.

Makes sense to me that they would staff it with Carnival people. It's not like the old crew from Costa is hanging around in the dry dock area waiting for them to finish the conversion so they can get back on. I know that the cruise director is a Carnival person.

I hate to break it to you....but don't worry; I'll catch you.

It's not really a reservation, it's a check-in to be assigned a table. In theory you could just show up, but the hostess will have to check you in and you will be at the end of the "line". At peak times that can be a long wait. Plus it can get crowded in the lobby with everyone else who didn't check in and are waiting for their table to be assigned.

Yes, you make breakfast reservations on the app. When you get to the dining room, there are usually a couple of hostesses in front of the hostess stand that are directing folks with reservations to waiters that will escort you to your table. Just pay attention and don't accidentally cut in front of the informal lines that form in front of these hostesses.

Good point about the wines not available by the glass, but again, I doubt that they give you a Cheers discount on them. Bottles of wine are sharable, and you aren't supposed to share your Cheers package. They don't let you buy buckets of beer with Cheers, either.

I don't think so. But why would you need to buy bottles of wine if you can get individual glasses of wine as part of Cheers?

The comedians on the cruise ships are constantly changing. The comedy shows on the current cruise may be completely different from the ones on the following cruise.

Electric Slide Cha Cha Slide Cupid Shuffle

Let's hope they were waiting nicely. It would be a bit unreasonable to expect lunch to be ready at 10:15.

System seems to be working again (at least for my particular cruise) Just booked Il Viaggio, but slots are already filling up.

If people have broken the system trying to make a reservation, then I guess that many, many people are fine with the price. And if they sell out quickly, they will probably be raising it.

Just go on the smaller ships like I do and then crowding won't be a problem!

I hate ironing, so I put clothes in the dryer with a damp washcloth for a few minutes and that will take the wrinkles out.

They just opened up this cruise. They want to maximize the amount of revenue they get from each cabin, so they are going to wait awhile and see if they can book 3 or 4 people into cabins that can hold 3 or 4 people. My guess is if they don't sell, they will eventually open these up to parties of 1 or 2.

Never had a problem with this on any of the Pride cruises I have taken, including last fall.

Plus, if you have regular ID tags on your luggage (which one should always have no matter the mode of travel), a steward could match it to the scheduled guests for that cabin. Of all the lost/delayed/misrouted luggage stories I have heard or read about, absolutely zero have involved early drop-off luggage. The stewards are crazy busy that day. My guess is that they are not going to waste precious turnover time identifying luggage. They are probably going to assume that it belongs to the embarking cruisers.

I have used this website to sleep-shift for my last two trips to Europe and it worked incredibly well: https://sleepopolis.com/calculators/jet-lag/ You start going to bed earlier and getting up earlier several days before your trip starts - I started well over a week ahead of time. I didn't sleep a wink on my flight over, despite my best efforts, but I was fine until I was able to go to sleep around 10 p.m. at my destination. I got a full night's sleep and felt completely fine the next day.

January is still a long long way away. I wouldn't worry about booking your flights this early unless they are refundable. We fly Southwest almost exclusively for domestic travel. Not only are they usually the least expensive (or at least in the ballpark), we can always cancel a flight and receive credit towards future travel. DH has cancelled and rebooked flights multiple times for the same trip when the price dropped.

How long is the layover? What time of day do you land in Laguardia? In January(with an increased chance of weather-related delays), you are better off with a longish layover. Also, the earlier in the day you arrive in New York, the more chances you will have to catch another flight to Miami if you miss your connection.

My advice is to consider being a little more flexible with being on a particular deck. Will your trip really be that much less fun if you don't get a cabin on Lido? We are usually on deck 1 or 2, and we still manage to have a great time.

While I may disagree with you on a few of these, let's be grateful for the folks that don't mind paying for them. They are subsidizing our cruises. 🙂