mzlinda

Last year they offered the gift card deal for Father's Day and Black Friday but this year they did not run it for Father's Day. I hope they still run it for Black Friday but I wouldn't count on it.

Also if you want to take the Behind the Fun tour, you should sign up for that as soon as you board.

I don't think anyone actually answered the OP's question, so why would she post any responses to this string herself? She described her child's condition and wanted to know if carnival would allow him to board the ship. That was her question. I didn't go back today and re-read all of the responses, but I don't recall anyone with a similar situation responding. I think she wanted someone to say "my kid was coughing his head off and had a very low grade fever and I filled out the health form in such-and-such a way, and he was pulled aside to be examined and we were (or were not) allowed to board the ship". The responses were about how we define a cold, what is a temperature and when should people quarantine themselves??? While that all made for lively debate, it did not answer the OP's question so I'm not surprised that she lost interest in this thread.

Great! Now I've got to add this to my bucket list. Sounds like a blast.

Nice!

Slamming the book on the table is definitely poor customer service. You got up, walked out and complained about her. I assume they apologized verbally then and I think for most people that would be enough. What could Carnival say to you in a letter? "We're sorry that our hostess slammed the book on the table" I mean, that just sounds silly. I'm sure they get much bigger complaints than that every day and they can't apologize in writing for all of them.

People are just human and those fun ship employees work about 12 hours a day and are expected to be upbeat and friendly every minute. Most of them haven't seen their families in months and they have pretty much no privacy at all the entire time they are onboard.

Her behavior is not acceptable but in my opinion it was not a big enough deal to expect an apology in writing.

LOL on my 1st cruise in 2004 they had a fabulous sail away party on the 1st night. Drinks were flowing, live tropical music was playing and videographers were filming us all dancing on the lido deck. They don't need to brainstorm

for ideas. They just need to put it back. They could offer a couple of tropical sail away drink specials that they could make in large quantities so bar service would be quick. Oh yes, please bring it back.

Sorry but having everyone line dance to dj music just doesn't have the same effect for me. Maybe they could do that on other days, but i would like a tropical party for the 1st sail away.

Mine would be:

1. go down the water slide (i have a paralyzing fear of heights

2. NOT play bingo. I always play and afterwards I always think that it was ridiculously expensive.

3. afternoon tea

4. Limit my casino time to 1st and last night. Those seem to be the loose nights. I usually lose all week then win it back on the last night.

5. Go to the shows and bars at night. (If i stick with #4, that will help)

For me, bad reviews lower my expectations and then I'm usually pleasantly surprised when things are better than I expected. Also, I try to figure out if the complaints are things that matter to me. For example, I've read reviews where people complain about drunk people on the elevators late at night. Well I mostly take the stairs and I'm usually on my balcony late at night so I would not be affected by this. I would say to go with an open mind. Expect to enjoy the ship and you probably will enjoy the trip. I hope you have a great cruise.

There is one machine that takes quarters. You drop them down a shoot and when enough of them build up on the shelf at the bottom, it pushes some of the quarters out to you. There are prizes sitting on the shelf too---ranging from carnival key chains to bundles of cash. There is a dollar bill changer nearby but you could bring a roll of quarters for this machine if you want to.

I haven't been on the valor but assume they have it.

One thing that puzzled me....on my last cruise, we (3 women in 1 cabin) tipped our room steward $10 each one day, and I almost thought he was insulted. The night before when we hung out on our balcony half the night instead of going to dinner, we eventually found him hanging out in the hall waiting for us to leave. When we figured that out, we just asked him to hand us some towels and we sent him on his way but he later explained that he isn't done for the night until all cabins are serviced or decline service. We wanted to give him something extra for the inconvenience. Stopping to think about it later, I wondered if he thought we were planning to remove the auto tips. I guess we should have said "here's something extra for you" instead of "thanks for taking good care of us". I'm sure it looks bad for them when people remove the auto tips and I wonder if he worried about that the rest of the week. Tipping can be a fine art.

I think you are smart to ask for opinions. Then you can figure out which compliments and criticisms are about thing that would matter to you.

Airfare reimbursement for whom? You can fly home in 4 more days from San Juan or Carnival will arrange to fly you home from St Thomas (or so it sounds). Who else needs to be reimbursed?

If these people really want to take this cruise to see these islands, they can use their 100% refund to re-book it for a later time. Then they can use the 50% discount to cover their airfare to get back to San Juan. ( I think that's the airfare issue that this poster is trying to raise.). I think the only compensation they are getting for the inconvenience/disappointment of not getting the vacation they expected is the $150 OBC. That's fine but it's not really like they hit the lottery.

That happened to me about 10 years ago. There was no reasoning with the new boss so I scheduled a meeting to discuss it with his boss who I was on good terms with. However she secretly invited him to the meeting where they basically told me that if I took that vacation, I could kiss my future goodbye because there would be no career advancement for me ever. I took the vacation and found another job in the company as soon as I could.

My mother often says "the boss may not always be right but he is always the boss."

Good luck OP. This is definitely going to leave a sour taste in your mouth.

Imagine what a cruise would be like if all the people who think smugglers should be thrown off the ship also thought chair savers should be thrown off too. I might actually be able to get a lounger by the pool.

Passports come from various locations around the country. Where did you mail your application to? I don't think other people's experiences will be a good predictor of what you can expect unless they are coming from the same place.

I think it was about $60 on the Fantasy last year. It's cheaper because it's a shorter tour. We didn't see the brig or the morgue. Although we did not see a ton of crew area, the person who gave us the tour was from Human Resources so he was pretty interesting.

I thought the tour was super interesting.

Also to the poster who said he wants to take his grandsons, first, I'm so sorry for your loss. I just want to mention that I thought there was a minimum age for taking that tour. I only mention it because if the boys are young, I wouldn't want them to have all this excitement, then get there and be disappointed. I could be completely wrong. You might want to investigate a little more to be sure they will be allowed on the tour.

Looks like a few of us on that November 1st sailing. I can't wait. [emoji3]

Make sure luggage tags are on the suitcase before you get there. You basically just stop briefly in the car line to hand off your luggage. Our tags weren't on yet so we had to go to a separate area where we could attach the tags without slowing down everyone else.

I sailed on the Breeze and Fantasy last year. After being on a huge new ship, I was afraid I would hate the small old ship but that was not the case. There is something to be said for a small ship where you can find your way around right from the first day.

I would say to set your sights a bit low when it comes to the cabin. I felt fantasy really shows her age here. Nothing was in disrepair but this is where I could tell that it was an older ship.

I couldn't adjust the temperature in my cabin and it was freezing. I stood on the chair to close the ceiling vent which helped a little. If your daughter has a favorite blanket, you might want to bring it.

I found slots to be loose on the first and last nights. They were terrible in between. Won enough on the last night to pay off my S&S bill. I might be crazy, but on 3 cruises in the past 2 years, I've noticed that same pattern.

No refrigerator in the ocean view room. You might want to ask the room steward for an ice bucket and a beer bucket. I asked for an ice bucket and got this tiny little thing. It was so small that he kept removing my bottle of water from it when he refilled the ice. If you want to be able to chill your booze bottle, you need the beer bucket. Then you could save the ice in the ice bucket to actually put in your drinks.

Those are my random thoughts. I'll be back in the fantasy on Nov 1st. Gotta love having a port within driving distance.

Have a great cruise.

Thanks for answering my grand turk questions. I think I'll sign up for that excursion.

Personally it's worth it to me to have access to my room early and to get my luggage early. It's definitely not necessary. I consider it a luxury.

I saw your original post earlier today, then couldn't find it anywhere when I logged back in this evening. [emoji3]Sounds like you ruffled some feathers.

I really appreciate people sharing what they felt was good and bad about their cruise. Even if I don't agree with someone's criticism, at least hearing about it helps me set realistic expectations. So thank you!!

I do have a question about the Grand Turk ATV excursion. How long was the excursion and how much of that was beach time? I'm confused because you said you had about 20 minutes at the beach AND you spent an hour at the beach near the pier. So is that where they dropped you off at the end of the excursion and then you walked back to the ship? And did you wear bathing suits under your clothes or bring a small backpack and change into bathing suits? I'm going to Grand Turk in November and I'm trying to pick an excursion. Generally, I don't like to pay excursion prices to be at a beach unless it was just a minor part of the excursion. Thanks in advance for any additional details you can provide about this excursion.

We had one lounger and 2 chairs on the Breeze last year for 3 people in our cabin.

This is what they sent to me yesterday....not very promising ...

Thank you for your Faster to the Fun query about your sold out sailing. Due to the overwhelming number of requests being sent to this address, the best we can promise right now is yes, your request has been received, and we will do our very best to add additional space for your sailing. As required by its nature, FttF is very limited, and may already be at its absolute final capacity for this voyage. Please know final numbers ultimately depend on the volume of Diamond and Platinum guests also sailing.

We will likely have a better idea if any additional spaces will be added, closer to the sailing date.

Wishing you a wonderful cruise,

It was fun on the Breeze last year, but a lot of waiting. I signed up, then hung around until it was my turn to play. I was in the 2nd group to play so I watched the first group play. I placed 2nd so I had to come back later to play in the next round, then wait around again to play in that round. On my last cruise, I didn't participate because I didn't want to spend my daytime hours in the casino.