Miss Picante

I think that debarkation times in Galveston can vary depending on how many people do not have passports. When we disembarked from the Dream in Galveston yesterday, the process was “paused” for a while due to “congestion in the terminal” When we finally disembarked, there were very long lines for people using birth certificates. We had passports and were quickly processed and moved on. There was no congestion when we disembarked from a Journeys cruise In Galveston earlier this year; most people on that longer cruise seemed to have passports.

I booked them so long ago I can’t remember! But you can probably go to the excursions page for HMC to find out the current price.

Good to know that there are now specific instructions on pick up. I’d just go with that. As I recall, the pick up we used was down where the tenders come in, which made it easier to return them while the rest of our group waited in the tender line.

HMC is a tender port and the tenders take a lot of people and are crowded. Taking your own umbrella might be tricky. Don’t think I saw any private umbrellas there, but maybe if they were compact you could make it work. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

We were at HMC this week off the Dream. For 6 of us, I rented 3 umbrellas which was about right. The umbrellas are NOT set up for you. We had to ask several confused staff members and wander around some before finding the pick up place at the end of the beach, then had to haul them a long way and dig deep holes to set them up ourselves. Then we had to take them down and carry them back ourselves before leaving. It was great to have shade, but a lot of work. Fortunately we had some strong guys in our party. People who would find this physically challenging should give this careful consideration.

We saw this show on our recent Panama Canal Cruise on the Ruby Princess that left Galveston on April 14. Have to say, it was not enjoyable and we would not see it again. The big problem (besides no real story line) was that the pre-recorded accompaniment was so loud that it was impossible to hear the words of the songs. Perhaps this will be eventually fixed.

We are on the Miracle, departing February 19 to Hawaii. There are now excursions offered to Volcanoes National Park with many spots still available. I have read the descriptions of these and also checked the park’s website, but it’s not clear what we would be able to see in light of the prior eruptions or how long we would actually be at the park. Anyone been there recently on a Carnival excursion? Mahalo!

Early this morning I received an email from “funships@carnivalcruiselineemail.com”. Hmmmm…. It had the Carnival logo at the top and then it said: “Urgent Reply Requested! Please keep in mind your booking option”. Hmmm again. . . It then listed my name, the last four digits of my credit card, my booking number, the name of the ship and the February sailing date, and the date that final payment was due, which was today. It also included the amount of the final payment that was due. All of this information was true. The email then said that my credit card payment had been “declined by the issuing bank.” It instructed me to contact the issuing bank . Then there was this instruction: (exactly as written): ”If the problem has been corrected then, please contact our Reservations Department at (a phone number was given), to complete payment. If payment is not received on time, the courtesy hold will expire and the reservation will cancel.” I thought this sounded weird ( have been a Carnival Fan Girl for several decades now), and not like Carnival does things, but I called the number. Nobody said “Carnival” when it was answered. Instead, I heard “This is Jessica on a recorded line, can you hear me?” I said nothing and hung up. Tried the number again and the same thing happened. So I forwarded this suspicious email to my my Carnival personal vacation planner, who got back to me right away. She and said that she had personally just put the payment through after she received my email and that it went through fine and that we are good to go on the February cruise. She said that the code she saw on my reservation was a “security matter”, whatever that means. She had no other information. So the good news is that we’re set to go on our cruise; the bad news is that I don’t think that email was from Carnival at all and that someone has gained access to my email, booking information, and at least part of my credit card number. Not likin’ it. Has this happened to anyone else?

The various responses here show that you will be very fine either way! We have booked an ocean view on deck one for many years and have alway been very happy: *comfortable room with a couch *It’s fun to look out on the port arrivals and sunsets *less motion and rocking * easy to get back to our room after port days: one flight of stairs up and you’re there! But whatever you choose, it will be good!

We had a great cruise on the Dream in May, but our cabin was hot! In all our years of cruising with Carnival, this has never been a problem, but it was this time. We had maintenance come up to check it out; they said it was fine. The fact that they left a preprinted card with this info makes me think it has been a common complaint. Our cabin steward ( been working for Carnival for many years) told us that the ship had indeed set the allowed cooling temperature several degrees warmer than previous years. He was able to get us the last fan available from customer service, which made such a difference when it was time to sleep. I went on Amazon and bought a fan to take on our next Dream cruises; didn’t want to risk having customer service be out of fans. Perhaps this issue has been fixed since our May cruise, but in light of other Carnival cutbacks recently, I wouldn’t bet on it.

I just talked to "Catherine" at Princess (after a lengthy hold!) who told me that "OR" does indeed mean "OR" and that people only need to bring one or the other of the listed documents. I have the positive PCR test results from CVS and plan on bringing that "just in case". Catherine told me this was all I needed and that I did not have to provide a letter as well. Since this is important and testing requirements are subject to change, I would still suggest that anyone else needing to use this provision go ahead and contact Princess themselves prior to their cruise and please report back here if you are told differently.

We are finishing up our Covid quarantine (the CDC website has been very helpful) and are looking forward to cruising again in July. I have been reading that it is possible to test positive up to 90 days from the original Covid infection. We are certainly hoping that isn’t going to be the case with us, but it’s something to be thinking about as a part of cruise preparations. The Princess website Health Protocol sections mentions a Certificate of Recovery from a health care provider. Has anyone had to do this? How did it work?

Well, this is a new one! Galveston Security for our Breeze sailing last week detected my manicure set in my carry on and made me throw the little scissors away. This happened to my son as well. I do not know what happens with the checked luggage; surely they aren’t opening up all bags with scissors. Anyway, just thought I would pass this along. Needleworkers with very nice scissors will probably want to be sure they are not in carry on luggage.