MaryZ

I never got an email for our upcoming cruise.  It's just on my reservation in both the app and online.  It showed online before it showed in the app. 
Did you look at the reservation online? 

My Symphony cruise starts on May 16th  Not the 15th.
 

3 hours ago, tidecat said:

FWIW, sister line Holland America does take into account onboard spend:

 

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en/us/plan-a-cruise/get-ready-for-your-cruise/mariner-society

 

So in the case of HAL, someone who drops $15,000 in the casino would get 50 credits. There's also nothing that would prevent casino spending from being excluded if Carnival wanted to adopt something similar.

All casino charges, cash advances, Future Cruise deposits, and associated fees are excluded.
Direct from HAL's site
I'm a member of HAL also. 

I can't see onboard spending counting towards any loyalty level.
People who don't gamble can't even come close to spending what gamblers spend. 

You certainly don't want Carnival to start consider spending as part of your loyalty status.

 

Cape Liberty won't allow any kind of extension cords or plug in extensions like the one pictured.
It's their port and that's their rules. 
We don't ever check luggage but if I did and wanted extension cords, this is the port I would check luggage in.


 

19 minutes ago, KarmaCruisers said:

What exactly?

I can with certainty, tell you, (like others here have) that casino points ALONE doesn’t contribute to what offers you get from corporate.

The cruise line wants people who have ACCESS to money, on their ship. It’s just a numbers game..the more folks with ACCESS to money on the ship, the more likelihood SOME of them will SPEND it.

I have to say if you asked me, I would probably just say why, are you auditioning to be my financial advisor?  And then tell you to stfu
Did you mother not teach you it's never polite to ask people about their finances?

What the casino can see is all your lines of credit with other casinos.  There is a central database for that.  They can see how you pay back your markers.  That's often how out of the blue you'll get offers for a casino you've never been to.
When you apply for a line of credit, they check your credit.  So now they know more about you.  But only what's on Experian or whatever agency they use.
In effect, they don't know your disposable income, only how you use credit.

The Amex Centurion card is meant for the 1%'s.  Unless you spend a min of 250k a year on amex for more than a few years, if you're not a celebrity, have a salary of 1+million, and have a credit score in the high 800's  you will never get an invitation. 

I don't think the people playing minimum (your description) at Carnival's poker tables are going to be in that 1%....lol

So I find your insight....hilarious.

 

28 minutes ago, KarmaCruisers said:

I’ve met QUITE A FEW who told me they got free cruises and when I watched them play over the course of a 10-day Alaska cruise they only bet minimum on Heads-Up Hold’Em; so I personally asked them if they were using an Amex Black or Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card on file for the cruise and they said “how did you know?”

even carnival has folks who, in their personal life have access to big money..they just choose to cruise the “value” line.

Seriously?
I find this hilarious.
 

3 hours ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

OK, I have on my most protective jacket--because I expect to be flamed.  

 

We are in a spacious balcony JS on Anthem of the seas.  Our DD is sailing with us in the solo cabin.  It is part of a two room set up on a hallway. [8630 and 8632]

 

We have never been on a ship with CK when we had any type of suite. [ We would like to try it --but, would only do it is adult DD could be included]  What do you think are the chances we can get one dinner in CK to include DD?  DH's b-day is one of the days.  That would be my first choice or the first night which is always a train wreck. OK flame away!

 

 

I'm sure they will do it for you.  Especially if you eat early. 

3 hours ago, nelblu said:

However, if you price too competitive (low), there's an opposite effect.  For instance, on my March 31 Anthem sail, I received an e-mail announcing certain senior based discounts.  One was the Water Park cabanas at CC for a little over $800.  I had reserved 2-day beds at Chill Island, which were being priced at $399 each, but I paid $199 each when originally booked.  If I had paid the current going price, I would have cancelled the beds and jumped at the opportunity and booked the Cabanas.  

 

In addition, pricing for Hideway Beach were going in the low $20s.  Primary reason, IMO, is that it's an Easter sail from Bayonne NJ and there's going to be a ton of kids. Also, don't know if there's another ship visiting the island.

Here in Long Island, we have Passover break.  I'm guessing Jersey does also.  Which means the week of April 21st is spring break.
Easter is Good Friday and Easter Monday off for our schools.
 

My guess is your family will enjoy the cruise.  After all, anything could happen in an emergency that could keep you from going, so they will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Then if you do it again, your family will enjoy that cruise.  Because we all know, once you feel like you got away with it, you'll try it again.

Global casino collects and keeps lots of information on their gamblers.  No shows with other people traveling without them is a red flag. 
So at that point, you'll lose your offers. 


 

4 minutes ago, EllieinNJ said:

According to the 1000 members each of three different FB groups this cruise is mostly made up of casino people with a great comp.  This is only my 4th Carnival cruise so just a lowly gold but got a great price last year during their birthday celebration.

Yes, I'm sure the casino will be quite busy.  We just paid port charges and taxes, plus we have onboard credit to play in the casino   All of our cruises for the next two years on Carnival are booked like that.

1 hour ago, IntrepidFromDC said:

It took a long time to achieve Diamond status, which I did last year.  I have cruised a lot since my first cruise in 2013.  I was really looking forward to all the special treatment Diamond status promised.

 

 

 

Diamond Steerage Jeff

It's always like this on Journey cruises.  We are Diamond also.  It's really not a big deal.  At least half the ship is Diamond and Platinum. 
Just look at it from a different perspective.  You are on a ship with tons of people who have cruised Carnival many times and know how to have a good time!
 

Lots of posts about this cruise.  We will be on it also.  It's a great itinerary.  Normally we take NCL for these long cruises, but Carnival has offered spectacular deals all year for the Venezia.  This will be our 5th cruise on this ship in the past 6 months. 
It's looks like fun.  The wedding vow renewal for Valentines Day, the Superbowl, Mardi Gras, our anniversary!  Fun trip!

1 hour ago, bhami said:

Just downloaded stock perk ap.  Created account and once plugged in Etrade, it wanted my Etrade sign on and password.  No way am I giving this info out.  Anyone else run across this?  

Yes.  I gave it to them.  It's I see they signed in the moment I gave it to them to see if I owned the stock.  Then the app doesn't have permission to go in again.  Unless I request further stock credits.
It's like everything else.  Use two factor security.

5 hours ago, ICF said:

Finally got my request approved and then submitted today. 
 

Will this show up someplace on carnivals website once approved?

I don't see it on my page.  But I see approved on the stockperks app for the one cruise.

10 hours ago, NYcruzzer said:

How did you like Venezia ? We sailed on her in October with a super low casino offer. We hated the ship so much that we canceled our January sailing on her and switched to Getaway 2/6. The Venezia casino is super smoky. More than any other Carnival ship. The little smoke free annex casino didn't have the machines I wanted to play. Service was very spotty. Especially casino drink service and MDR..Next Winter I'm going back on MSC Meraviglia. Nice winter itineraries January '25

It can be smokey.  It was bad in September but over New Year's Eve surprisingly, it was not smokey nor as crowded.  The following week we stayed on was for an ultra casino offer and was a little more smokey and more crowded but not as bad as the September cruise. 
We never have a problem with drink service.  My husband makes friends with the servers and tips generously.  Which of course, is the key for good service. 

As far the MDR, ehhhh...it was a toss up.  We do mytime dining but kind of stick with 2 or 3 different tables we like.  So at times the service is slow but overall not so bad.  The food is always the issue.  Most of it I'm not that fond of.  Same for Royal.  But on royal, we pay for the dining package.  We usually go to the steakhouse, Teppanyaki and Bonsai sushi on Venezia.   
We like the ship but only because it's out of NY.  We prefer the excel class (mardi gras etc) and will go out of florida next winter for our cruises. But for now, we are sailing the Venezia for this winter and then the Symphony in the spring.  
We've been on the Meraviglia, it's the most beautiful ship. 

I just looked to hop on an NCL in March from NYC and there is just the Getaway.

We dislike that ship, so that ends it for us.
It seems to me CAS has been really trying to get us back.  We get offers every other day to book our free cruise...lol
We've been sailing on the Venezia and Royal for the past year.  I do miss the Haven but I won't sail on the Getaway ever again.
Hated it in Miami, hated it even more from NY. 
The Prima doesn't look appealing for cold weather, so that ship is out for us too. 

Our public schools where I am in Long Island have spring break the week of April 21st.  they have off 2 days for Easter holy days at the end of March. 
Easter is much earlier than Passover this year.

Mine worked. 
The two free casino cruises were invalidated for the credit
The cruise that is still a casino cruise, but it's an Ultra so for us to have a balcony, we pay about $500 each for it to chose the balcony we wanted.  The stock credit is on that one. 
The rest of of the year our cruises are free, so I won't even bother with the stock credit. 
For 2025, we have two that the offer is a little different so we pay about $300 each for a balcony, so I'll give that a try when we get closer to the end of this year. 

We have $1500 in OBC on some of our casino offers.  You can use it for anything.  

We sail out of NYC all the time.  I was on this same cruise but it was a Ultra casino cruise.  I was surprised to see so many kids as school is in session here in NY    We were on from New Years eve so things were a little different from that cruise.  We saw much more security out and about on the January 6-14, 2024 cruise. 

I would never bring my grandchildren on a Carnival cruise.  Period.  Especially out of NY.
We always sail on Royal from Bayonne with them.   It's a totally different environment and the Oasis class ships are much more awesome for kids than carnival anyway.

Our first cruises back in the early 90's with our kids were on Carnival. 

We don't spend time up by the pool, so our experience with all that on a ship is totally different.    We had no issues with staff not being friendly. 

Try Royal.  Try NCL  much better for families out of NY. 

Make sure to put luggage tags on your bags.  You have to pack up.
When we got to our cabin, someone's luggage was in in it. 
It took them awhile to figure out what was going on.  So those people's luggage sat in the hallway for a long time because I had the steward remove it.  We had the red jacket guy come and try to figure out what was going on.  We had to stay until they brought us our cabin cards. 
But we boarded early, so whoever it was was on a back 2 back but no luggage tags and whoever takes your luggage when you change cabins, put it the cabin on the wrong deck. 
 

2 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

I'm not positive, but suspect you could change the password as soon as they accept your proof. They have no need to keep checking.

 

If I was going to give them a password, I would have changed it first, and later changed it back.

 

For others, try putting Fidelity as your brokerage. 

I have a ton of cruises booked with Carnival.  Most of them the shareholder obc will be denied because they are basically free cruises.  But a few are Ultras, which for me, I have to pay towards.  So I guess I will see how it goes with this new system.  If they deny for everything, I'll dump the stock as a loss. 
Plaid has not proven to be insecure, so I'm good with it. 

Not a huge fan of this but I paired my etrade account with it because Carnival emailed me back saying I have to use it. 
If it's hacked, I'll just change my etrade account password.  I get notifications for anything that happens with my account so I can easily just shut it down. 
It's like how just yesterday someone used one of my credit cards that is only used to pay paramount monthly, just so the card stays active.  So they shut it down and I'll have a new one in a few days.  I already have a new number. 
 

On 12/13/2023 at 12:48 AM, kona_wahine said:

We cruised end of October and had pretty much same experience. People on  this cruise were very nice OR extremely rude. That was quite a turn off for me, but I was warned on TripAdvisor before hand that NY’ers have a tend to be rude, just the way of life there. 🤷‍♀️ casino smoke was horrible and worse when they tried to clean it with an overwhelming smell of air freshener. Yuck. Embarkation was actually pretty good for us, debarking was a bit ridiculous. We had the shuttle to JFK and what a mess out there trying to find the bus! That poor bus driver, I felt so bad for him. Rude, rude, entitled people. 

Well it seems the "Rude, rude, entitled people obviously are NOT the New Yorkers....
We don't have to get on a shuttle to JFK to go home.  LOL