CharlesKru

I'd love to know the secret to this one! Do you tip good?

 

I've heard about when you hit like 1500 points in the casino you can get free drinks there. I honesty could easily see one of hitting that before the cruise is up but I've also heard it's not always the easiest thing to get someone to bring you those free drinks.

If you have CHEERS they will not give you the "Drinks on Us" Card in the casino. They used to be two different programs, where you could net out 30 drinks a day, but they "combined" them now.

I am a heavy casino user, and that is a common complaint of several people playing around me that they do not give the card if you have CHEERS...

If you do get the "Drinks on Us" card from the casino, I suggest you find a favorite bar server... last cruise we tipped him $2 dollars for each drink the first day and asked him to check on us every pass through the casino. After the first day I tipped $1 every drink and he was never far away. It was nice having good service in the casino bar area for a change...

Note with "Drinks on Us" you can not go to the bar for a drink, you have to be playing. So either at a machine or a table game. So even with tipping it is much slower than CHEERS when you can just go get a drink at any bar when you want.

Fantasy class ships will start at their muster location then move to the life boats.

So as someone said before, it depends on where your station is located, but you will end up going outside.

We have been in the show lounge ( upstairs and down as they are different locations) and out on lido ( horribly hot that day, baking in the sun so be prepared with a hat if this is you).

When you board the ship, your Sail and Sign card will have the Station on it. Look at the back of your stateroom door, and it will show where that is.

Thanks for the info... Good to hear that my cabin has been updated already!!!

We are sailing in early June so that is a plus.

Question for you, did they have a steel drum player? My wife loves the steel drums and was bummed when they took them off all the ships, but the last two cruises we have taken there has been one.

I would recommend the Ecstasy out of Charleston.

My reasons are that the Ecstasy has the 2.0 upgrades that a Fantasy class ship can get. It will be missing a few things from the Liberty but nothing major that I would miss. It also is an easier drive for you, as you mentioned and it is a 4 day cruise. 3 day cruises feel like I have just gotten there and then have left.

Port of Charleston is a bit of a pain to deal with, but it is really not to bad if you go in with a sense of adventure. Port Can. is a really good port, but there is nothing really around it to see.

If you go to Charleston, I recommend going a day early, and heading downtown to experience the city. There are some really good places to eat, and some interesting places to see at night. We had dinner at Fleet Landing Restaurant & Bar the last time we cruised from there and it was a really nice dinner with a great atmosphere. Great way to get excited for the cruise the next day.

It is up to the staff for the ship, but a typical rule of thumb is that it will be the second sea day then day 5 of the 7 day cruise.. The second day may shift if the port you are in is a late departure, or if there is a good reason for the staff to have it on a different day.

We have had it be the first sea day ( day after you get on board ) but that has not happened in a few years. I think people complained about having to get stuff pressed and prepped so fast..

You might post your ship and dates and see if anyone has done the same route in the past few months, and happens to have a copy of the fun times from the same route.

Carnival does not have this option. ( at least at present )

You will be able to buy sovereign cups ( disco ball, blow fish, ship funnel, coconut head) but no actual pineapple to drink out of.

For some people, they have never been to a place like Senior Frogs or Carlos and Charlies... While I could never imagine losing control of my drinking to the point of being barely able to function, sitting in a Senior frogs once I saw behavior by the staff that was really pushing people past their comfortable drinking zone..

If on vacation, and get pushed past what you should have by pushy bar staff, I can see how we end up with some of the drunk pier runners...

For the ones that are just late because they are off shopping or site seeing, I think that is just another example of the me culture that the US has developed in the last 20 years or so...

both are still available as of 6:57 EST..

Good luck to anyone who needs them.

When did it become retroactive. I thought it was 6 a.m. -6 a.m timeframe. Never heard of your scenario before.

 

Granted I have sailed Carnival since 2009, but that seems very strange.

I am going to just say that the two different bar staff asked and it seemed that way. Since we did not do it, I cant say if it actually would have worked.

I would go with it does not work, since others have reported that they actually tried.

Have you actually done it where you by cheers on day 2 and your drinks from day 1 get rolled into cheers price? I have seen many, many conflicting responses on this exact question.

We did not try it. But we had to separate bar tenders on the second day tell us the exact same thing in February that it would work that way. So again I would ask on the ship if you're not going to pre-purchase it

We did purchase it midway through the first day, and they applied all the drinks we had previous in the day. That was a few years ago though when cheers first came out.

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I didn't know this. I thought the drinks from the prior days didn't count? If they do count then this is what we may very well do. Our cruise is 4rth of July and our 10 year anniversary (both of those days at sea) so I think it's really going to all depend on if my husband wants to be social or not ;)

You might want to double check on the ship. One more thing to think about though, right now if you pre-purchase ( no refund) you get the price at $49.95 per person. On the ship it costs $5 more per person per day, $54.95. so in your case another $50.

On my Feb cruise on the Ecstacy, the second day purchase was explain to us by two different bar servers as covering day ones drinks, when they were surprised that we did not have Cheers.

We tend to front load... day 1 is over the min to break even, day 5 not even close, So it is really not worth it to us.

Are you all able to get on the rewards site? All day it has been giving me an error..

Really want to get my logon points for the day...

We have eaten everywhere on the ship...

The Steakhouse is very good, and has outdoor seating. They only seat outside if they are docked though, as the wind is an issue.

Sushi was my favorite at night, they have a different menu then the rest of the ships with sushi, much more options... Ask to sit at the sushi bar if you want to talk to the chefs and watch them work their magic.. ( open till midnight, so a great snack after the casino took all my money).

Red Frog pub grub is good, this time I only had the wings which were great, but we have had most everything on the menu with no complaints.

Ji-Ji is awesome! I hate the fact that it is rarely full, food is so fresh and flavorful that I always push for 2 nights here, I usually lose as my wife likes the Italian better.

Cucina is really good too.. I am sort of burnt out on this one.. the food, presentation and atmosphere is a must do at least once though. ( go hungry, I mean really hungry)

We did not have the Seafood shack this time, but on the Trans-Atlantic we had the lobster rolls ( ok, nothing to write home about) and I had market shrimp, which the chef grilled and tossed in a great seasoning... was outstanding, actually went back and had it again it was so good.

I think that covers it all... I could be missing something though as there really is so many choices, and all that are so good.

$500 and $100 ones are available for 10% off if you have the points

No wonder the rewards site kept crashing this morning!

Just got my last $500... guess I can let others have this batch.

I agree with the previous poster... $5.50 for the documentaries and $12.95 for the first runs...

We went and saw a First run on the Trans-Atlantic, it was interesting feeling the ship move while in the movies... My wife took her parents to a documentary on our April cruise and they enjoyed it.

The theater has a schedule printed for the whole week, that you can go grab on the first day. That helped my wife decide when they would go see their movie.

For the 8 days, ours was April 8th cruise, the first formal night was day 2 at sea, and the second was on day 6 I am pretty sure... which was a port day. The second one is alot less formal than the first one ( which is not all that formal either). We went to the dinning room both days, and both times I just wore black slacks with a nice polo shirt.

Have a great cruise!

Something to look at, you dont have to buy CHEERS the first day. Assuming you are not sailing from NY or Texas, you can get it the second day.

So, you can drink like you want on the first day... look back on it the morning of the second day ( get a print out of your bill from guest services or the kiosk that are on the ship) and decide if it would have been worth it. Then decide if you think you will continue to drink that much or not...

If you buy it the second day, all the drinks up to 15 from day one will be changed to CHEERS drinks. and you wont be charged for them.

Based on your suggested drinking pattern at home, I would guess CHEERS will either not be worth it, or it will be really close.

It sounds like it will be your first cruise from Charleston SC. It is a beautiful town, with several nice things to do before and after. Very near the port is the Aquarium ( assuming it is back open from Hurricane Mathew, pretty sure it is). Something fun to do before that short drive back home.

I also suggest having a sense of adventure and patients with the parking process at the port... We view it like being in a maze... they feed you from point to point for paying, check in, luggage drop off, and parking... it is probably the worst port I have been in with regards to the flow, but the people are always nice.

Have a great cruise! I wish they had the dates I wanted this June for more than a 4 day.. We will be going the 6 hr drive to Jacksonville...

Guess the date of 4/26 was incorrect. I have been looking every few hours and still nothing. Want to get on the Royal or Caribbean as soon as they post, really disappointed.....Hope this will be soon....

Well it is still 4/25 in West Coast time zone.

I would check back tomorrow.

So if I get cheers I cannot get a frozen drink and then and extra shot 5 minutes later??

You can get the shot later. You kust have to wait. Two separate transaction and it counts as 2 drinks

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As others have said, you should not lose that OBC for any reason.

I have lost it twice, called my PVP and he reminded me to always call him for price drops. The department that does them is not very good at keeping things straight. He fixed it for me as well.. Now I just call him with any price drops.. ( few and far between these days, guess booking a year plus out has its benefits)

They have also removed my stock holder OBC once... which has nothing to do with the fare at all.

Does anyone know how much an extra floater is when you purchase a frozen drink?

A floater is $2 and a double is $3 ( non frozen drink).

That was the prices on the Vista in early April.

Note if you do Cheers you can not get either.

Interesting, it looks like either the price changes based on the cruise or the pre-pay price has gone up.

Mine shows $199 prep pay, and $250 if I choose to do it on the ship. We are on the last Alaska sailing for the Emerald later this year...

Nassau will be your best bet. They have some nice rums. I have not really looked to hard lately in Nassau, since I mostly drink bourbon, and they never have anything good.

Go to the ships store the first night and see if there is anything that he is interested in. They do sell out, they are really not making that up.. Also most of the time they tend to do a 15% off the first day in the shop on the ship.

Good luck finding something unique he will be happy with!

Do you think they replace all the carpeting in all the rooms and stuff? Or just the main areas?

From past experiences with this type of dry dock, the main walkways, public areas will get new carpet. The staterooms and halls will only get new carpet is it is in really bad shape. ( holes, major stains, or threadbare)

Booked a back to back from NYC, then cancelled them both for the Breeze Journey cruise....

We will hopefully catch this ship in the future... just could not pass up the Breeze Journey cruise from PC