EllieinNJ

We have to fly out of LAX on a Saturday, May 4, 2024. Would a 2:15pm time on United be good? The next time is 4:15pm but it won't get to NJ until after midnight.

Enjoying your report. Two questions. Does the seafood place in the buffet become an asian buffet at lunchtime like on some other ships? And as for golf cart rentals, I looked on line and only found a place that is about a 15 minute walk from the cruise pier. Are you saying there are rental companies at the pier or much closer?

We also rented a car from Budget but our problem is our stop is from 1 to 9pm on the MSC Miraviglia at terminal 10. We have to return the car before 6pm (closes on a Friday). I've heard that you can possibly wait over an hour for the shuttle to pick you up and return you to the port so I'm thinking of cancelling this rental because of the tight timeline. Any thoughts?

Jamie. My husband just watched a video about the ship and they said it was very loud and crowded everywhere. Are there places you remember that are less crowded and less noisy? I don't want to spend all my time on my balcony LOL.

That's just it. I read the T&C for the 20,000 points on their mastercard and found it very ambiguous. So I called Barclays and spoke with an agent who didn't speak English very well. According to her I can charge anything for any amount and get the points. I have final payment on a cruise at the end of this month. I had already purchased gift cards from AARP to pay off this cruise but still had a small balance under $100. I asked if this would be an acceptable charge and she said yes. I hope she's right. If I get the points I plan to convert them to OBC for this cruise in February.

Does the charge have to be for a Carnival purchase or can you purchase anything?

How much do you have to spend to qualify for the 20,000 points?

Me and my husband are in our mid 70's. He is very fit. Me, not so much. Last year we were on another cruise line and decided to try the UTV excursion in Aruba because we had plenty of OBC to cover it. There was no age or weight limit but they did make us sign waivers to cover their a$$'s. It was a once in a lifetime grueling excursion but I would never do it again.

We have checked in on our computer for our October 25th cruise. I didn't see anywhere to download a photo so I asked in my group and they said you can do it on the app. I did see a blank circle on the app and assumed it was for a photo but when I pressed it nothing happened. Is there a special place for a photo or should I just wait to be photoed on embarkation?

Last February we were on a 5 day NCL cruise to Bermuda. They didn't tell us u til we got to the pier that Bermuda was cancelled and that we would go to Nassau instead from 9pm to 3am. We had no option to cancel. So it turned out for us a cruise to nowhere because we weren't getting off at that time.

Thanks. I thought I remembered someone saying they booked at JiJi's but when I looked I didn't see it so thought it was all sold out.

On our Venezia cruise in February JiJi's is sold out every day for dinner. Do they do lunch?

When we were on the Anthem back in Jan. 2022 they still had the sit down dinner which we had to make a reservation for. Are reservations no longer needed if it is a buffet only?

Jamie. Can you find out if they have any mah jong sets on board. Thanks.

This will be our second time in Nassau. We did the bus tour the first time. It was meh. We decided we would walk to Junkanoo Beach because we didn't want to pay for a beach club for only a few hours. But now my knee is acting up and do not think I can walk that far. Now I read there is another free beach at Goodman's Bay where you can take a public bus to from the port. Has anyone been there? Does it compare with Junkanoo? Is it as crowded?

Can you explain how much and from whom you have to charge in order to get the 20,000 points. Is there a minimum? Does it have to be Carnival related? I looked at the T&C but wasn't clear to me.

Because I would use that cash to individually pay my steward, waiters and anyone else who helped me during the cruise, in addition to the DSC .

I always got my OBC refunded from NCL, Princess and Royal Caribbean. I was new to Carnival and now MSC so I didn't know that they don't refund it.

I learned my lesson on Carnival. I had a $600 OBC from Carnival which I used up $500 on excursions. I also had $300 from my TA. I used $50 in the casino. When they told me all OBC is not refundable I was furious. I guess I could have cashed it all out in the casino. What we did was buy gift cards at Cherry on Top, the candy store.

My TA gives me a choice of OBC on the ship or cash back which is sending me a check after the cruise.

Funny that you mentioned this. We always book through a TA or have one transferred to the TA. When they had the 50% off for their anniversary last year we booked through the website. When we spoke to our TA to have it transferred to them she said it wasn't worth doing because they couldn't offer me any OBC because the cruise was too inexpensive. Same for the Radiance which we are taking right before the Panorama.

I've been trying for months for my Panorama cruise in April. At first I got nothing. Then the last few times I got an error message. I wrote to John Heald about it and he said to call Carnival. If anyone gets more info please let us know.

mking8288 Hi Henry. I still read and enjoy all your trip reports except you lose me sometimes with your technical internet descriptions. I see you are going on the Prima in December and would have loved to go on that cruise, especially since the price came down to reasonable but we are sailing the MSC Miraviglia in October and the Carnival Venezia in February and cannot take that much time off from work. I really enjoy sailing out of the NY/NJ area without flying. I got really tired of the away class of ships and I don't see any more jewel class coming to the area. If you look at the MSC forum you can see so many converts from NCL.

Thoroughly enjoyed your review I find the prices of Greenland cruises very overpriced so if they ever come down I might try one. That said, I'm following another Greenland review on the Royal Caribbean board on the Jewel of the Sea. Hope they make it to Greenland.

Weird to find an MSC review in an NCL forum. We, too usually cruise NCL but after our Feb. 2023 cruise to Bermuda on the Getaway which turned into a cruise to nowhere we decided to look elsewhere and are booked in October on the Miraviglia. We would really like to try the Prima class. We still have one Cruise Next left plus the $200 FCC from that Feb. cruise. We are now all booked up through Feb. 2025 on several other cruise lines and hope that the 2025 prices of the Prima and/or Viva come down.