ShakyBeef

Although my DDs might very well grow up to be fans for life of cruising, I am fairly certain they will not be fans for life of Carnival. So far, it's the only line they have cruised, because it's the only one we have been willing to pay for them to cruise. But they both enjoy good food and higher quality experiences and products than that which Carnival is currently offering. When Mommy and Daddy are no longer footing the bill for their cruising experience, they will spend their money on a product that will be more appealing to their tastes. It's a little ironic - one of the factors that led my girls to have somewhat "expensive tastes" as young children was their early cruising on Carnival. As toddlers and very young children, my girls first tried and found that they loved such dishes as duck, chateaubriand, baked Alaska, filet mignon (and learned to appreciate a good steak cooked MR), es cargot, penne mariscos, and lobster, among many others. They enjoyed an assortment of flavoured teas on Lido Deck. They enjoyed tea time in the MDR. They appreciated nice place settings at dinner, with tablecloth and proper silverware. They even appreciated the attentive service at dinner including the use of crumb sweepers. Chocolates on their beds at night. Twice-a-day (sometimes, it seemed more often) cabin servicing by our "Room Ninja" (their nickname for our RS). All of these things and many others are now gone or very drastically downgraded in quality and/or availability. The shrinkflation of Carnival's constant cutbacks over the years is obvious to and felt by children. They will both be Platinum soon (the 20 yo five cruise days sooner than the 16 yo because I was pregnant with the youngest on our first cruise). But who knows if the loyalty program will still exist or offer any perks worth mentioning by the time they are booking their own cruises? Also, they have already been bumped down from Gold to Red and had to wait a couple more cruises to get back to Gold back when the VIFP system was last revamped. So they won't be surprised if it goes away. I can pretty much guarantee that my daughters will have zero loyalty to Carnival.

We LOVE cruising out of Baltimore! Smoothest operation of any port we've used and < a 2.5 hour drive from our front door. I wish some other cruiselines would bring a ship back to this homeport for at least part of each year. For now, we're "stuck" with just Carnival and Royal.

Love Jack's Shack! We go straight there every time we go to Grand Turk. RIP, Topher.🥰 Gosh, he was a cool dog!

For clarification: we leave our auto-gratuities in place, and usually, I go down to Guest Services late in the cruise and increase them. The envelopes we hand out on the last night are a nod to the "old ways" of gratuities from when we started cruising (when the tip envelopes were left on our bed with the Carnival Capers on the last day of the cruise), and are in addition to our auto-grats. We leave our extra cash tip for our Room Steward in the grasp of a member of our towel animal menagerie (with a "Thank You" note) upon exiting our cabin on Embarkation Day.

All fair questions. be prepared for long answers.😉 I'm going to respond point by point so i don't miss anything. Yes, given my choice, strictly for my (and DH's) cruise enjoyment, Carnival is our last choice of all the lines we've cruised so far (CCL, NCL, X, & RCI). But my children (now 20 and 16) have only ever cruised Carnival and enjoy it. All of their happy cruise memories are on Carnival ships, going all the way back to 2005. Also, the cruises DH and I take on other lines (high-end Suites on long itineraries) are not something we're going to do with the kids. Much more expensive and too long for them to be out of school. When DH and I want a cruise, we pick what we like. When we cruise with the kids, we take our free (or heavily discounted) cruises with our FunPoints. I have booked a Carnival cruise for next March because my girls had been asking for one for a while (our last cruise was a B2B on Elation in January 2020, before the world fell down). If it weren't for my girls wanting to cruise with us so badly, a cruise would not have been in our plans for probably another couple years. And then, if it was only DH and me, it would have been on RCI's Baltimore-ported ship. Cruising out of Baltimore is by far our most important consideration in picking a cruise. But DH and I are not as excited about cruising as we used to be and were in no hurry to book. Other Carnival cruises over the last few years have been because that is the line family or friends wanted to book and they wanted us to cruise with them. I don't hate Carnival. We're shareholders (a lot more shares than necessary for the OBC). And yes, I have the Carnival MC and use it exclusively. I have had it since 2005 and cancelled all my other credit cards years ago. We use it for everything a for which a credit card can be used (including some utilities and insurance), pay the balance offf in full every month, have never paid a penny in fees or interest and rack up the FPs for cruising. Which brings me to the rewards... Yes, I get a 1.5% return rate when cashing in 100,000 for a $1500 statement refund. Yes, Carnival Corp. purchases earn me 2 FPs per dollar spent. And all other purchases only earn 1 FP per dollar spent. But all that is nothing compared to the rates I get doing most of my online shopping through Barclay's (the CC's bank) Rewards Boost shopping portal. Somewhere around 6 FPS per $ is my average. Yes, I know there are better rewards cards out there. I will never argue that this is anywhere near the best. But it works for me because with these points, I'm forced to use my free money for cruising. If I had a cash back card, I'd use the free money for boring stuff like groceries or gas, etc. And I'd never notice it. We are blessed (and have worked hard for decades to help those blessings along) to not need that cash back to make a difference in our budget. And yes, we could afford to book and pay in full for just about any cruise we wanted to take. But a free cruise every couple years makes cruising more frequent for us. And, so far, we have never gotten off a cruise and wished we hadn't taken it. Even a Carnival cruise.😁 All that said, the cutbacks are real. The cutbacks are noticed. The cutbacks affect our cruise in negative ways. So, every time I book a Carnival cruise, I come back to CC to research the latest cutbacks, so that I know how much I need to DIY to bring our cruising comfort and enjoyment level up as close as I can to what we are used to from previous Carnival cruises. Or, not being able to DIY somethings, at least I can adjust our expectations ahead of embarkation. And we always have a good time. Did I answer all your questions? I'm sorry this is so long.

We use these: 3" x 3" blank envelopes on which I have stamped (with rubber stamp from Hobby Lobby) "Thanks for everything!". Slip cash in, seal, then easily and discreetly give ("palm") to particular crew on the last night of the cruise, with our spoken thank yous and farewells. For the special crew members to whom we want to write a little personal note of thanks for making our cruise special, we will use and enclose the (originally blank) note cards that came with the envelopes. Funny thing: a few years back, we were using little orange envelopes instead of the blue. Our assistant waiter on one cruise looked confused when my DH passed him the envelope on the last night. Then he laughed. He explained that the ship's pharmacy used almost identical envelopes to dispense medications to the crew. He was wondering what drugs DH might be giving him.🤪

That I don't know, I'm sorry. Never sailed Freedom. But my guess would be Deck 3, Lobby Deck. I think that is the Deck on which we embarked on her sister ship, Glory, back in 2011. But it's been a long time and I can't be sure. Someone else here will know and surely answer.🙂

My (kinda) last straw was about 7 years ago or so. The cutbacks had piled up and degraded the product too much. That's when we stopped booking Carnival cruises unless we had enough FunPoints (from Carnival Mastercard) racked up to pay for a huge chunk of it (like around 300,000 to pay for $4500) AND it was a cruise that family or friends were going on and wanted us to join them, or if it was a cruise for our kids' sake (but still only if we have at least a couple thousand FPs saved up). When DH and I vacation for our own enjoyment these days, we usually do fly-to trips to an Abaco Out Island, drive to places in the U.S. that strike our interest, or cruise on other lines that give us a higher-quality experience (with a higher price tag, of course). I've said this before, so many times, but I wish Carnival would just charge what they need to charge to provide the product that they taught us to expect. Instead of chipping it away so fast that each Cruise I go on offers less than the previous one.

I told myself I wasn't going to get involved in this discussion. I've been here before and should know better. But I'm a little bored and apparently a slow learner, 'cause here I go... For those of you that say "no big deal" / "I don't care about any of this" / "I'm glad they're making these cuts because they have no effect on my cruise experience" and the like, I have a few questions: Will longer lines, longer amounts of time on hold / waiting for the food choices you want, and larger crowds in your venues of choice (leading to longer lines, less available seating, etc.) affect your cruise experience? Have you considered that as these options (dining options in this case, but this could apply to entertainment options, as well) being eliminated or reduced will lead to more demand for and crowding in the remaining areas? As others before me have stated examples, Onboard a Carnival ship, I never use the pool, the hot tubs, the Lido Deck lounge chairs, the Spa, the kids' clubs, or the gym. I rarely play anything at all in the casino and don't mind if I never set foot in another casino in my life. I avoid the Buffet like the Plague. But I'm glad all these options and venues are onboard for the enjoyment of my fellow cruisers. If for no other reason than crowd control. All those people at any given moment in those venues which I never visit are people with whom I don't have to compete for the things that I do enjoy in a cruise. These cutbacks as well as others Carnival has made in the past and those that they will undoubtedly make in the future will affect your cruise experience whether you think so or not. If you're fine with the effects, so be it. But there will be effects.

Welcome to the Carnival boards, BillOh. Riviera Deck is Deck 1 on Carnival Freedom. In case you haven't checked them out already, here are the deck plans for your ship: https://www.carnival.com/cruise-ships/carnival-freedom.aspx

Although it may be true that "most people just need to drink more water", that's not what this thread is about. It's about sugar-free / non- carb / low-carb / diabetic-friendly beverage options onboard a Carnival cruise. Beverages with flavour. Not even necessarily alcoholic beverages. Everyone is aware of water being available and what it tastes like. People were asking for and sharing other options. No judgment about others' hydration (or alcohol consumption) levels necessary, thanks.

I saw that too this morning. I put my thumb to the icon on the screen and nothing happened. Then I remembered I was on my desktop.

I'm sorry, Velvetwater and everyone else, I somehow put my reply in that last post in the quote box and can't fix it. I should know better than to start typing before I've had my first full cup of tea in the morning.🤪

Yes. It's that easy. Cabs will be hanging around the Fish Fry just waiting for fares. But one word of advice, in case you have never used a Bahamian taxi before: before getting into the cab, ask the driver how much the total fare will be for the number of people in your party to your specific destination. Many who didn't know to do this have been unpleasantly surprised by the price at the end of their trip.

Although it seems (according to CDC) that it can be transmitted through fomites and respiratory droplets, it also seems that one would have to be doing a lot of rubbing of skin on those fomites or spending a lot of time up close and personal to those respiratory droplets: https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/transmission.html This really seems to be a disease of close, personal contact, i.e. sexual or intimate transmission. Not casual passing-by-an-infected-person-on-a-cruiseship transmission. I'm not worried about this one. And I am a little bit of a germaphobe, and a natural worrier. I have always brought and generously used alcohol wipes as well as Clorox wipes. I'm more concerned with my fellow passengers' disgusting bathroom and food-handling habits. E. coli and norovirus are much more likely to be picked up on a cruise than monkeypox.

I don't think it comes in cans. But it comes in powder packs:

My input is probably too late for the OP's cruise, but for what it's worth: I'm not diabetic but in the real world (the 340 or so days a year that I'm not on a vacation) I'm keto. For about a decade, now. As far as alcohol goes, I'm a Pinot Noir drinker. I just lucked out that my favourite wine varietal happens to be the lowest carb varietal.😁 But, when I'm not drinking Pinot Noir, a go-to for me that can be made at just about any bar on land or sea is: Patron Silver, a splash of club soda (or seltzer), and half a lime (or a whole one if it's one of those tiny limes). The lime should be run around the rim of the glass before being squeezed and swizzled into the drink. Zero carb. High octane. Light, refreshing flavour. I also love the flavoured sparkling waters such as Bubly, AHA, and La Croix. Another idea: there are SO MANY different flavours and varieties of herbal and black teas. Tea bags are lightweight and easy to take onboard. Hot water from the coffee/tea station at the buffet to brew your tea. Sweeten with your sweetener of choice, if desired (I like a combo of stevia and Splenda). Then, if you want, spike it with any clear (no carb) liquor - vodka or light rum would be my choice for a tea "cocktail". Drink it hot or pour it over ice. Go tea shopping pre-cruise. Think flavours such as blueberry, cranberry apple, peach passionfruit, lemon ginger, mixed berry, etc. 😋

I do the same thing, mostly because my kids (now 20 and 16) LOVE them (and still do even at their advanced, sophisticated ages😄). But in addition to setting them aside on a little-used countertop, I attach a post-it note to the first one that reads: Please don't kill me. I like it here. - The Towel Animal The towel animal menagerie accumulates after that, and they are all there together at the end of the cruise with our extra cash tip being held by one of them. (And the post-it changed out to one reading "Thank You!")

I don't know how helpful my information will be. It might be out of date. But for what it's worth, in 2017 I rented two (adjacent) cabanas at Princess Cays. One member of our party had mobility issues (she was on a motorized scooter). She was able to get shuttle transportation (like a giant golf cart) down to very close to our cabanas, then again, for return to the ship. The afternoon return shuttle was arranged for a specific time with the shuttle driver upon morning drop-off. The morning shuttle had been arranged with guest services onboard the night before our Princess Cays port day. I have know idea if it is still done this way, but it was then. Hope this helps.