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I would just get it all done now so you don't have to worry about it. In case anyone needs the path - In your cruise manager, click Booking & Order Details, scroll all the way down to the bottom right, there is a red button for Pre-pay Gratuities, then click pay now.

This is a great point, and ultimately it comes down to what you personally are comfortable with. I hate sitting around the airport after my cruise when I just want to get home, so I always book early flights, 10:00 am being the earliest (and I don't recommend that as it's not doable at all ports). We have done a total of 26 cruises and have not missed a flight yet, but I know it could happen, and we are willing to deal with the consequences. But we do everything we can to get off the ship and to the airport quickly. We always carry our own luggage, I check both Uber and Lyft well before we get off the ship, so I can grab the earliest option as soon as we exit the terminal, we also have TSA Precheck (and don't check luggage).

Since you are platinum you will receive a letter in your cabin telling you where to meet for priority debarkation (and a specific time). I have seen people go about 30 minutes early (just in case they are ahead of schedule) and Carnival is fine with that. Some ships even put out juice and pastries. Suites/Diamonds debark first, but you will be right behind them (a matter of minutes). Sorry, I also meant to specify, in regard to the times I mentioned in my prior post, we travel with only carry-ons and carry our luggage off.

We were on Celebration in January. According to my Uber receipt, we were off the ship and in the Uber by 7:45 am (and arrived at MIA at 8:03 am). We are platinum and were instructed to meet at 7:30 am for priority debarkation. We arrived at the location at approximately 7:25 am and everybody was already gone. so they were apparently ahead of schedule on our cruise. If you have an early flight (and are not suites/platinum/diamond) you can go to guest services with your flight info and they will include you in the priority debarkation process.

Wow, sounds like you made the best of the situation. Covid is still creating havoc and not just on the ships, it's everywhere. My daughter (about the same age as your son) and I went to Disney the first week of March and my daughter had nearly the exact same experience as your son. We had to change her flight back to college because she was so sick. Based on the timing, we think she probably caught it on one of our flights, but it's so hard to know.

This does not appear to be a Journeys cruise, so you can ignore my comments 😃 Have a great trip - that ship looks beautiful!

I haven't experienced it myself yet (our Journeys cruise is coming this fall) but from what I have read here (with reference to an email from Carnival) is that the priority benefits (like boarding/tenders) are not available on Journeys cruises because of the high number of Diamond/Platinum passengers.

You have a great response already, but one thing to add (and not sure if it applies) ... if your 11 day cruise this fall is a "Journeys" cruise, the platinum/priority benefits are a little different on a those cruises.

I just ordered a 12-pack and it was 9.95 (11.75 total w/tax/delivery or whatever they add on). I thought the price was pretty reasonable (especially for the convenience). We recently went to Disneyland where bottled water everywhere (parks, hotel, etc) was over $4 a bottle.

Totally agree - we were on Miracle to San Diego last year and really enjoyed it (just love San Diego). Off the ship, it was just a few steps to the hop-on/hop-off trolley and had a great day going to Coronado Resort and a huge Farmers Market.

Thank you - I've been waiting for those to get posted! Although I'm done with the 3 or 4 day cruises, I see several 6 and 7 day itineraries that would be okay (I agree, same old ports but at least we have a new ship to check out over here on the west coast).

In our experience they were very picky - as soon as we got through security someone checked our boarding passes and directed us to the Captains Lounge area (for platinum) and at the door to the lounge, they checked our passes again. I'm not certain where they directed FTTF people as I never heard them mentioned. When it was time to board, someone came into the lounge area and I heard them call Diamond/Suites and then Platinum, but I never heard FTTF so I'm assuming they were called next (but I didn't see where they were waiting). If the sister is neither platinum nor FTTF (and not sharing in either of those cabins) I don't think they will let her board with you.

We have been in 9202 (forward facing) on Celebration and I would not recommend this cabin (but for a different reason). There is a crew smoking deck that you kind of overlook from this cabin and somehow our cabin always smelled like smoke to me (even though we hardly ever opened the balcony door). We would be gone from the room for hours but I could smell smoke as soon as we waked in. But I will admit the smell of smoke really bothers me so I might be more sensitive than most.

Totally agree - the Miracle (actually all the Spirit class ships in general) have way more quiet comfortable places to relax inside by a window or read. We loved Miracle out of San Francisco (even the shorter cruises were great). I have read that Spirit Class has best space to guest ratio in the Carnival fleet.

We were on Celebration in January also and our arrive appointment was 10:00 - 10:30 (sorry, I know you were hoping for someone more recently, but since I save all my boarding passes, I thought I'd mention it). I agree 12:30 seems kind of late.

I noticed this with our TBA Balcony too - you will be be able to edit the bed arrangement as soon as the room is assigned.

I think the arrival appointment times vary slightly by ship/port. The earliest time we have been able to select is 10:00 - 10:30 but someone here recently mentioned they had a 9:30 - 10:00 time slot. For the latest, I believe it depends on when the ship leaves port. Recently in New Orleans, Final Boarding was 2:30 pm, whereas in Long Beach last month Final Boarding was 3:30. Yes, check-in starts at midnight Eastern time. The arrival appointment windows are 30 minutes.

With the limited staff they have now, your room might not even be accessible by 1:30. We are platinum and last month on Radiance we went to our room (after the announcement at 1:30 that all cabins were ready) to find they had not even started prepping our room (beds were still stripped/door was propped open). They were clearly in a hurry - we discovered later day that they didn't leave us any hand towels or washcloths.

We prefer carnival (24 cruises total) but we have tried NCL and HAL. I think we did the exact 12 night itenerary on HAL that you are considering. In general it was a great trip but we were looking forward more to the itenerary and excursions than the ship itself. We were in a standard balcony cabin so can't speak in regard to the suites. It has been a while, but from what I recall the library bar space was much nicer on HAL. We thought the quality of the food was a bit better on HAL. The average age was much older on HAL and it was just a calmer/quieter atmosphere overall. We really enjoyed our excursions in Cartagena (currently booked to go back) and Panama (we did the train that is pretty popular). It was also our first time to Curacao and Costa Rica which was a nice change of pace. In general, we prefer the Carnival Excel class when the ship is our primary destination, but we do book other Carnival classes and even other cruise lines when we want a particular itenerary that isn't offered (for example, Glacier Bay in Alaska, or certain ports in Italy).

This is a good question and I'm not sure. We cruise from Long Beach frequently, and I was surprised when we arrived (10 - 10:30 arrival appt) and it was fairly quiet at the port (that's unusual). Carnival staff were yelling out that any appointment time could enter the terminal, no separate lines (talking with staff I got the impression they were bracing for the huge number of people expected that day and trying to be proactive). Once inside and through check-in/security they were very strict about allowing just suite passengers/diamond/platinum into the captains lounge area. Then before announcements were made they quietly gathered us up for boarding. If there were FTTF people in with us, I didn't realize it (they weren't mentioned). On such a short sailing, there were very few diamonds (I think only one couple) and not that many platinum, so it was a quick process. If I were you, and they do separate you, I would just stay with your FTTF friends/family and sit just on the other side of the wall from the Captain's lounge (which is kind of in front of the boarding area).

We were on one of the early Mardi Gras cruises before there was a lot of info out there about this, so I wasn't aware. When I plugged in my tourmaline ceramic curling iron, the light came on but it never warmed up at all, so I assumed it had been damaged on the flight to the port and I threw it away (unfortunately I saw all the discussion on this after I got back). However, I have used my Hot Tools blow dry/curling brush on both Mardi Gras (twice) and Celebration without any issues if that helps.

We have found this varies by ship (we've seen it both way). On Panorama it was like you described (they put it together for us) but on Celebration it was basically a self-serve salad bar. Celebration didn't have quite as many unique ingredients as Panorama did, but both were good (since I could drink that vinaigrette by itself).😄

Fresh Creations is my favorite - (the Pineapple-Coconut Vinaigrette is so good!) but don't delay going there as they do close if the wind gets too bad. On our Panorama cruise Fresh Creations was only open 1 day (even though we had 4 days at sea).

I think this is a smart idea. We only had a spa cabin once and wish we had tried a day pass first. We wanted to learn more about the spa so we went on one of the tours (to discover it's just one big sales pitch). On a 7 day cruise we only went to the spa once for a very short time - it was just way too crowded for us.

In our experience, we were assigned our TBA balcony approximately 75 days prior to the cruise. We were assigned a cove balcony in a pretty good location (so good experience overall) but I still prefer to choose my own cabin unless the price difference is significant. I would encourage people not to book TBA cabins expecting to possibly upgrade if they don't like the assigned location. In our case all balcony rooms were sold out over a month prior to the cruise, and the other few options left (inside and ocean view) were not good locations.