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No, you will board first regardless. We have been on 7 cruises since the restart, and that is one thing that has been consistent on every ship - they have called for passengers in suites first for boarding, then started with boarding group A01, A02, on down the line. Just show them on your boarding pass that you are in a suite.

I totally agree with both comments. The turkey we had on Christmas was okay, but not great (and I typically really like their food). The desserts were not anything special either. Yes! I want to try a NYE cruise too!

I have done this in the past (but maybe it's different now?). About 10 years ago on Carnival's 7 day Mexican Riviera cruise I was able to get off at our last port stop (Puerto Vallarta) and fly back to LGB from there. I had checked with Carnival prior to my cruise and they approved it (I needed to get back a day before the ship). I was told to notify guest services when I got on board. They had a small group of us meet in the library and fill out forms/get debarkation instructions.

We are booked on Miracle over the 4th of July and San Diego is one of our port stops. But I agree - I've been waiting for Carnival to base a ship out of San Diego, and finally gave up and settled for a port stop (and even that is pretty rare).

I have had that happen in the past and it was an issue clearing filters. Have you tried switching browsers or logging completely out and back in? I can see it also.

I was just looking at the reservations calendar also - that is correct, sold out Friday, with very limited availability the rest of the weekend.

I understand! In nearly 20 Carnival cruises, we have never done a guarantee cabin before, but it was a significant price difference this time (also on Panorama, but not until fall) so we decided to try it. Please let us know when you end up finding out.

We were on Miracle the end of October and are booked again in June. We didn't notice anything necessarily wrong with the ship, but she is looking old/outdated. It seems like Oct/Nov are slow travel times and a good time for Miracle to get some upgrades and the new paint job.

We are platinum and have been on 7 cruises since July and we found it varied by ship as to whether our room was ready, but in call cases we were permitted to drop our carry-on items in the room. They just requested we put them in the closet out of they way, since the rooms usually were not ready. Our S&S card was at our door about 50% of the time.

Actually I think they did (it's been a few years, so I forgot that). They had a "Polar Express" feature in the Thrill Theater (and we did do that) and I think they probably had some Christmas movies on the big screen. The cruise certainly wasn't bad, it was probably more the travel to and from.

Sorry to hear that - I would not be happy (especially if I already had airfare booked). The airlines are not as accommodating as they were during covid in regards to changes/cancellations. So far my cruises have not been cancelled, but we were notified yesterday that our flight home from the Panorama in September was cancelled and we were rebooked onto a 7:15 am flight (obviously that won't work, the ship is scheduled to dock at 9 am).😩 Unfortunately travel in this environment takes patience (I really believe these changes/cancellations are due to staff shortages).

Totally agree - our daughter really enjoyed swimming with the dolphins at Chakanaab. This was several years ago, and not an organized excursion. We just took a taxi to Chakanaab and paid for it at the gate (which saved a fair amount of money back then, not sure about now).

We were on Horizon for Christmas prior to the pandemic, and I hate to be negative but we will not do it again. Of course it is different for each family (ages of the kids, etc) but our kids (who were roughly 13 and 21 at the time) both said they'd rather be home for Christmas. We found that the cruise industry is very cyclical, and (at least for us) we did not find they did a lot of things special for Christmas (it was kind of like any other cruise). Granted there were very nice Christmas decorations, formal night/dinner was Christmas dinner, etc. We did take our own little "pop up" type Christmas tree for the cabin and a few small gifts for the kids (but we had to fly across the country so space was limited). But that brings me to our next "never again" ... we will never fly across the county at Christmas time again. Extremely expensive airfare, crazy busy airports, overbooked airlines, weather issues, etc. Everywhere you go, everything you do (before/during/after the cruise) will be absolutely packed. Hotels are very expensive, very booked up. But I will admit, Christmas on a ship is way less work for Mom. 😄 Having said all that, I would love to go in early December when all the decorations are up, etc. but before the holiday crowds set in.

This does not surprise me - recently on Mardi Gras, our dessert artist was so busy/rushed, I felt bad for ordering it. They just don't seem to have enough staff for things like this right now.

I have been on all the ships you suggested (except Celebration of course) and if I were planning the type of trip you are, I would pick Mardi Gras or Celebration without a doubt . I like all the others, but there so many things to do (for all the ages you mentioned) on the Excel class ships. You likely won't bump into family members unexpectedly on one of these big ships like you would the smaller ones (you will have to have organized communication, planned meeting time/locations, etc.) But I kind of prefer that when I have a bunch of family members on board. 😄

We were on Mardi Gras in August and April and we could not get the FULL dining room menu (we could get limited MDR menu items both times). The only reason I know for sure is because I absolutely love the Indian Vegetarian which is available daily in the MDR but not in Cucina/ChiBang. We did opt to do the lobster in ChiBang (and it was way quicker/less crowded).

We absolutely loved our little cabana patio, and used it often. But not many of our neighbors did - it was very quiet and we rarely saw other people. I love to just relax and read while on a cruise, so I spent so much time there, and then if it got too hot in the direct sun, I'd go to a shaded area on the Havana deck. It was so nice and peaceful. But I always compare prices, and currently a havana cabana on Celebration would be an additional $1000 over the price of an extended balcony, and I couldn't justify that, so went with the extended balcony.

So sorry your wife is so miserable. No, that was not our experience on either of our Alaska voyages. We had one night of rough seas (so bad that you couldn't' walk down the corridor to your room without bumping in to the wall) but that was it.

I agree, in addition airfare is so expensive right now, so if you have to fly to the port, it averages out to an okay deal, but not great. I'm totally jealous of those of you who can drive to the port and take advantage of these great cruise offers.

We did this last month on Mardi Gras, and I agree, it's fun to do once. I don't remember a lot of wasted food, but there were 5 of us. I remember the ice cream being really good (I'd think kids would like that?). Yes, the gummy squares are kind of unique but I don't recall there being all that many of them. I actually just pulled up our pictures form the trip because I remembered it differently from the youtube video I found. In our case we had 2 white chocolate spheres which contained ice cream sundaes (with multiple ice cream flavors and toppings).

Cruising is my preferred form of travel because I like to get to my cabin, unpack once, be in safe familiar surroundings, but still be able to do excursions in the ports. So I would of course stick with your original cruise plans, but it's all personal preference.

I agree (I do something similar) - after learning the hard way, I have started saving screen shot of what is included with each offer since they can vary so much (with FunPlay, OBC, drinks in the casino, drinks everywhere, sometimes for a companion also, etc). Sorry, I know that doesn't help OP now. This is one area Carnival really needs to improve, this info should be available under "Booking and Order Details" but it's not (I've spent a lot of time looking).

I understand, actually that did happen to someone in our family also. I think we had to create another account (which probably involved creating another email address for that person, but I can't remember for sure, but we did find a way around it). I agree, it's a total pain. But at least with this method we aren't flying across the country hoping our test results come back in time.

We have been on 7 Carnival cruises since the negative test results have been required. After some difficult situations, we only use the EMed at home proctored tests (same test mentioned above, but ordered from a different site). It's way less stressful.

I recently got a Carnival gift card from my credit card company and within a few weeks took it to guest services to be applied to my account onboard. Initially I was told it had a zero balance, but when I explained that I'd just received it from the card company and didn't see how that could be possible, he was able to see it had $100 value (he may have scanned/ran it differently, I'm not sure why the value was not there at first). I'm not doing gift cards anymore, it's not worth the hassle to me.