martini_guy

15 hours ago, scpirate said:

.i sail carnival because my wife likes it so every other cruise is carnival. from what I gather most carnival cruisers are into heavy drinking and the casino.

Almost feels like a shot at your own wife. 

In reality, most Carnival cruisers are not into heavy drinking and the casino. Besides, it's a vacation when most people that drink are going to drink more than usual.

I've been on 2 of the huge Royal Caribbean ships as well as most of Carnival's largest ones. I have zero interest in broadway style shows, ice shows, rockclimbing or water shows at all but love comedy shows, trivia, bean bag toss, etc so I actually end up using more of the Carnival ship where as there's plenty of the Royal ship that I have no interest in.  Most cruise lines and ships are good in their own ways and you can always find something of interest that you'll like on a ship. 

1st choice would be in one of the bars, I'm guessing only the casino bar would have this. 2nd choice would be if I can at least check on the games once in awhile inside my cabin. Does anyone know?

I've never had a bartender say no to me if I ordered a drink and asked for a small bowl of cut up lemons or limes "for the room" and I've asked MANY times.

Just curious do they hand out NYE stuff like hats and noisemakers or should I bring my own?

Does everyone just go to the pool deck or is there different options generally?

For things like this, just ask someone working there and provide an appropriate tip $5-$10 while I'm asking. It works almost 100% of the time.

No where do I see where 40 tables would be required $1,100 entry fee

It's capped at 400 entries and always sells out. At 10 players per table you'll need 40 poker tables.

It was in the Bliss lounge when they ran this tournament on the NCL Gem.

I'll take, "In the casino for $500 Bob".

Are you sure about that? On every other cruise when they have a special poker event it's in a separate event room. You usually can't start bringing in 40 poker tables into an already crowded casino.

Just curious as we're planning on selecting our room soon for the 2018 Nov 11-18th cruise and would like to consider the proximity to where the poker challenge is held.

On our last cruise we sat in the MDR for breakfast, with someone who clearly thought anyone who paid to dine on the ship was an idiot. She was very outspoken about it, and I'm glad we only saw her that one time :)

 

 

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Yes I definitely have overheard comments like that. Once was on the way to the steakhouse and someone in front of me that didn't notice that I was going there said to their partner "look at all the stupid people that are paying extra to go to the steakhouse". Didn't know whether to take it as rude, ignorant or funny. :)

On my cruise last week, I found that you run into some people that choose not to take advantage of the paid dining options. That's fine, the main dining room is between decent to very good on most nights.

The thing that I find interesting is that some people seem very opinionated/offended if you even suggest that a certain pay restaurant was "worth it" or a good value. Had a heated debate in the Solarium with a few other couples. A casual observer from a distance away might assume we were arguing about either religion or US politics. Just seemed amusing.

I write this as I sit from central park balcony cabin overlooking Vintages. The only people that I have seen all week there sitting are people bringing their own food/drinks from elsewhere to sit, or the bored waitresses at night sitting outside. Just seems pointless to have all this useless space.

I've sometimes found bars in the strangest places on various ships that were great to just have a few drinks and talk to random people while sitting at the bar. Any recommendations on this ship? I never got a chance to explore many of the bars on my last Allure cruise.

I'm doing an excursion but just want to go to a place for quick 1-2 drinks on the way back.

I don't want to go to a beach club like at Paradise beach, have pretty much been to all of them before.

Was on the Allure before. I'm just curious what the HOTS has to offer that might be better/different. Seems like almost a carbon copy from what I've researched so far.

Really depends on how much you like to be entertained. The Vista will have around 8 comedy shows to see throughout the cruise, the Allure will have one. Allure will have very little for trivia and other silly but fun games like the Vista will. Carnival kid clubs are WAY better than on RCI, well according to my daughter and her friends at least.

The Allure does have some high quality shows but it really will take up around 2-4 hours of your entire cruise so for most people not necessarily worth picking a cruise over. Carnival's shows are pretty decent anyways.

If you don't really like doing the entertainment part and just want to do a little of this and that then Allure might be better for you. I was on the Allure and it was a decent cruise, but I did feel more than a little underwhelmed to be honest.

I've mostly cruised on Carnival where there's both blackjack and slot tournaments in the casino on most sea days. Does this cruise line have the same type of thing? I'm going on the HOTS later this month.

Since the title of your post states that it was a Feb 12 cruise, which was a Friday, you can understand our confusion. I guess you meant the 14th.

 

Did you hear that anyone else was ill? Did the people who got sick eat the same thing or have anything in else in common (an activity, excursion, certain drink, etc?). Sailing the Breeze in a few weeks, so I hope it's not Noro!

Sorry it was a typo. Yes it was Feb 13th. Also I didn't think that the Breeze ever had Friday departures.

Within our group we couldn't pinpoint a commonality although some think it was the same MDR (the bigger of the two).

No beaches within walking distance but if you're going to travel that far, will it kill you to kick in $20 to take a cab?

Montego is pretty much a dog's breakfast if you don't have an excursion.

The Breeze cruise only has one Friday in it, which was on the 19th it was Day 6 of the cruise.

I came with a large group of 40 or so people. Around a dozen were sick starting on Friday evening. Some of those were quarantined and had to leave the ship first on Sunday at 8:15. Has anyone heard anything?

I personally prefer to get on towards the end of check-in time. Usually the lines are cleared up by then, and you'll still be in time to grab some lunch when you get on.

That's why I was asking.

You could get both (kinda of sort of) with out paying for 2 Social plans.

The hub chat feature is $5 for the duration of the cruise.

Just returned from the Dec 27th sailing on the Sunshine.

If you were to write to Carnival to ask them to improve a certain aspect of the cruise experience, what would you suggest.

 

Mine would start with the following:

 

- Ban smoking in the casinos

- better control over people that want to have long, loud conversations outside my room during nighttime or nap time (thanks to people in cabin 9169)

- ban large human beings from being able to spend over 6 hours in the serenity hot tub with non stop buckets of beer served (I think you know what I'm getting at).

- please please please STOP doing the Wobble song/dance

 

Anybody else have something?

Smoking in Casinos isn't going to go away. As an ex-smoker I'm not thrilled about being around smokers but it's part of it. Play poker if you want to be in a non-smoking area.

Loud conversations are definitely annoying outside your room. Sounds like you had a bad neighbour problem like me. Problem is when I first complained they made it worse and then threatened us physically after we called security again. Sometimes you can really end up handcuffed based on who's staying next door.

On my last cruise I tried a few different things and the USB seemed disabled. Has anyone been able to connect their phone/tablet/laptop to show something that they've downloaded?

Would be nice to have some movies on standby.