sparks1093

People will pay a lot for convenience, so again, what the market will bear. I've heard that their PB&J is really good, but I'd rather get the pizza or one of the other hot entrées.

And a lot of it is location. I would wager that a higher percentage of folks in my village have traveled up to Canada than those at the other end of the state, which is about 190 miles from here, if only because of travel time involved. The folks we are traveling with for our next cruise obtained passports for the trip simply because it saves them so much to fly to Florida from Montreal that they save money even with the passport expense. As US citizens we can travel to a wide variety of locations, including tropical beach locations, with nothing more than a drivers license. Traveling abroad is pricey and out of the reach of many.

And as a consumer I also know what companies do- they charge what people are willing to pay for the product. Supply and demand.

My previous reply answers this. If they can get triple the price for it then good for them. (It is also very possible that sales of these packages has declined significantly because people who have Cheers don't purchase them. They still have to pay for the product, pay to have it loaded, have it take up storage room on the ship, and any other overhead cost associated with this. So the price increase could be the passing on of this overhead cost, as well. Since none of us has any data on this it's all just guess work and at the end of the day each consumer needs to determine whether or not it's worth it to them, just like any other purchase anywhere else.)

I doubt that Carnival is sourcing from the same discount store but yes, some of this can certainly be a matter of charging what the market will bear. They have undersold in this area for years and now that they have record debt to deal with they are looking at ways of maximizing profits. Smart business from where I sit. (By way of comparison only the last time I looked NCL sold their cases of water for around $50, although I'm not sure what they charge now, that price was pre-pandemic.) (Just looked and a 12 pack is $35, a 24 pack is $50.)

All port employees aren't created equal and nor, evidently, are the procedures used in port. I suspect that had the embarkation port been as thorough as outlined by @Ferry_Watcher this wouldn't have happened.

Only one of the reasons that we usually book our excursions through the cruise line.

Exactly, ever since we started buying Cheers we stopped buying the water. Just grab a water with every order through the day and have plenty to take ashore (which is what we use it for). As for prices going up, well, they are going up everywhere and if Carnival is paying more for things they will naturally pass that on to us.

As I said earlier, it's inconsistencies that people use in their language that is the issue. Since more documentation is required to obtain a REAL ID one can say that it is enhanced versus a regular license but then that doesn't mean it's an Enhanced Drivers License. The proper search term is "what is the difference between a REAL ID and an Enhanced Drivers License" which gives better results and even includes images. But as mentioned, people don't know what they don't know so this makes it difficult. (I have read of one gentleman from Texas who showed up with only his license, thinking it was all that he needed. Fortunately for him someone at home was able to fax a copy of his birth cert to the port.) And as I also pointed out the Carnival FAQ also contains this vital information, but it's paragraphs down from the section that talks about using an EDL to cruise. So in the "what travel documentation section" it has two introductory paragraphs, then a section "US domestic cruises" and under this it lists "State Enhanced Drivers License" as acceptable. Then it has 8 other sections, from "Europe and Transatlantic Cruises" to "The US Passport Card" before getting to the section "State Enhanced Drivers License (EDL)". If one takes the time to scroll down and read this critical information then boom, there's the difference between the two right there. Again, people don't know what they don't know, so they don't know that they have to scroll down to find out critical info. Perhaps if CCL added "see important information below" after saying a "State Enhanced Drivers License" can be used it would make more people look, but who really knows.

The luxury lines seem to be the ones that do this most, whilst also requiring all passengers to have a passport regardless of itinerary. (I know, I didn't need to reply, but come on, pass up the chance to use "whilst" in a sentence? 🤣.) Most carriers are not going to impose a stricter standard than that required by law, even if they do have that right.

I believe that most Carnival ships have self-service laundry.

My son mentioned that he might consider playing Hold Em when we cruise in a couple of weeks and he asked me what the minimums were. Can anyone help with that? I know a little about how it all works in a casino but certainly no expert (and would probably be booed off of the Black Jack table🤪).

Seems like that doesn't include travel to our neighboring countries, which still involve international travel. (After all, many of the 85% of Europeans are just traveling to a bordering country.)

Glad I'm not a lawyer, the whole thing makes my head hurt. In any event the average cruiser is more apt to understand the first part of the last sentence than the last.

I grew up in an era where lobbying had very negative connotations but I can see your point.

If their lawyers are interpreting the law differently than other cruise line lawyers is it really an intent to deceive? Put three lawyers in a room together and you'll get four different interpretations of the law.

Cruise remained DL/BC because the traveler could be vetted (and is vetted) during the cruise. And yes, all of those factors were considered because federal law requires them to be considered but the main driver was the risk to the national security. Border communities suffered until options to the passport were put in place, and that was known when the regulations were written. If you mean "lobby" by providing input, sure, I can agree with that because everyone has the right to "lobby" proposed federal regulations, but if you mean "lobby" as it taking people out to dinner, buying them gifts, etc. the way that lobbyists do, well we can agree to disagree.

Exactly and this is why referring folks to the website is just as pointless since they would only read what they want to, anyway. At least asking here folks can add those extra details.

I don't think so. There are two types of taxes at work here. The sales tax on individual purchases. We've been charged that many times when using Cheers. There is also a liquor tax that is paid when the bottles are purchased and Carnival does not pay that tax unless it purchases the liquor that jurisdiction. As I understand it in those locations Carnival does buy a limited quantity to sell while in that state's waters and that is what they sell to customers. Once at sea they can start selling the liquor that they didn't pay tax on and that's when they turn Cheers on. (That is only as I understand it from reading many posts on CC, I haven't dived into the local laws at all on this one.)

The problem is people read until they think they have the answer. Learned this myself the hard way. When we first cruised I wondered about tipping, so I read the cruise line's FAQ. In response to that question it said "tipping is not required". So we went on the cruise and lo and behold a daily service charge was added and fortunately it was only a two night cruise since I hadn't budgeted for that. Went back to the FAQ and the next question was about service charges and the fact that they were added daily. The quote that I posted above from the FAQ is several paragraphs down from where it talks about EDLs being sufficient, so if someone reads that and believes that their REAL ID is an EDL they would stop reading, because they have the answer to their question.

Sorry, I read the proposed regulations and it does say specifically that US citizens on a closed loop cruise present a low risk to the national security. Just who did the cruise industry lobby? The regulations were written by DHS and State Department employees, not Congress. (And you are incorrect in saying nothing was required- a passport was always required, by law, but Customs officers had the ability to waive that requirement as long as they were satisfied with what the traveler had. And they still have that discretion.)

The only places that don't accept them (AFAIK) are those that require a full passport and those are Cuba and Martinique.

There are so many things to consider it would be impossible to list them all for the check in page. They do include this in the FAQ though: A driver's license with a gold circle with star cutout in the right upper corner is a Real ID driver's license; it is not an Enhanced Driver's license and cannot be used as proof of citizenship but can be used as picture identification. A Mobile/Digital version of an EDL is not an acceptable form of travel documentation.

Unfortunately it does happen every cruise. The terminal staff does a great job trying to help get the documentation if they can (such as getting a birth certificate faxed to the port) but at the end of the day it is still the traveler's responsibility to have the necessary documentation.

What is confusing is things like this- people using inexact language for things that have a specific definition. A lot of folks refer to REAL ID as "enhanced" because of the extra steps involved, including providing a birth certificate. They think "well, I had to provide my birth certificate so I'm good to go", not realizing that an actual EDL comes with a background check and the license has a machine readable chip just like a passport card. There are so many different options simply because everyone's travel needs indeed are different. Yes, our government could have taken the draconian step of requiring a passport book for the simplest of foreign travel (land border crossing), but they realized the severe economic impact that would have on communities, the travel industry, and individuals. So they actually analyzed each travel situation, including the actual risk to the national security (the paramount reason for the regulations to begin with) and provided alternatives where they could. They determined that a US citizen traveling on a closed loop cruise (as defined) presents a low risk to the national security and made an exception to the passport requirement accordingly. While the cruise is ongoing every passenger onboard is vetted through a multitude of government databases so processing time on returning to port. For border crossings checks need to take place in that moment so having such travelers already vetted by them having a passport, passport card, EDL or other approved ID speeds the process of clearing them (although school aged kids on a school field trip are allowed to cross with birth certificate. Again, because they are low risk travelers.) I know all of this simply because when we started cruising I read as much as I could from as many sources as possible but my main research was the published regulations themselves (including the proposed regulations).