slord12

Congratulations! Thank you for sharing your experience! I see you mentioned you had the videographer. I have asked the wedding department over and over again about booking this and for a while they kept saying they were no longer offering the service (this was in September 2014) but clearly if you had it in January 2015 it is being offered! I wonder if it's a ship to ship basis? I'm going to email them again to find out!

I talked to my mom this weekend and she said the same thing, they didn't pay to park.

Thanks for checking!

I got married on the Sunshine in Port Canaveral January 31st and they didn't have to pay for parking. If guests say I am here for a wedding they will direct them to the commercial parking lot, which is free for guests not sailing!

Awesome, thank you so much for answering!

We are having the time to celebrate BIG reception since we are having an embarkation day wedding. We linked all of the sailing guests reservations together so we will be at dinner each night (there's 53 of us so far) and the dining department has been great at reserving a section of the dining room for us. We just plan to extend the celebration throughout the afternoon and for the next several nights! Since it is a short reception for our non-sailing guests we decided to do a nice dinner the night before for everyone to have more time together.

I've asked on the wedding boards and no one knew the answer. I know to park at Port Canaveral it's $15 a day (so for a 3 night cruise $60 total). I am having an embarkation day wedding and while most of my guests are cruising I have several that are not.

I don't remember being asked anything special about if we were cruising or not when we pulled in to pay and park. Is there a special lot or do my guests just need to tell the person working that they will only be there for a few hours? I'm assuming then they'd just pay the $15 up front to be allowed in to park.

Great question. I made the assumption that there would be the charge of a day rate - $15. However, I do remember that the last time I went on the Sensation, we paid up front. I am not sure how the Port differentiates between day guests and those staying the whole time.

Same here! We always park there and pay the $60 up front and I don't remember him asking us any special questions about if we were even cruising or not! Maybe there's a separate parking lot. I think I'll call and see what they say!

Does anyone know if Port Canaveral has an hourly parking rate? I didn't see it on their website. I'm tempted to call and ask! I've had a non-sailing guest ask about driving down the morning of the wedding and meeting us at the port. While I'd really rather not have to deal with that, I didn't want to just lie to them and tell them they couldn't park there.

I have used these a few times and they are great. Since this is on a wedding forum, thought I would pass along the info that Carnival will not accept these gift cards, or any giftcards to pay for the wedding. Only a CC or check will work. I asked prior to making final payment. 20 days and counting..... :)

Haha yeah too bad they won't accept them to pay for wedding expenses - that 10% would be nice! Oh wow 20 days, the home stretch. Congratulations!

If you're a Verizon customer log into smart rewards and you can purchase $100 or $500 egift cards at a 10% discount. You can use them when booking, or for on board purchases. I have bought enough to pay for my cruise, have OBC, and a future cruise. It's great to get that 10% discount off the top and still be eligible to book early saver rates. Several of my wedding guests have bought them as well. Pass this along to your guests!

I was logging in to post they were back - just got 2 of the $500 egift cards!! $100 are also available.

In the throws of tax season....but still getting SO much done!

So far we have 43 sailing guests and 16 non-sailing guests.

My beautiful dress has come in! I have my shoes, earrings, and a beautiful custom hanger for the dress. Bridesmaid dresses are done (I gave them a color and fabric and let them pick their own dress). The bridal shop in my hometown has given us a great deal on the tuxes. I bought my wedding dress from them, so they are letting us have the tuxes for an entire week for a 1 night rental price. She even gave us the prom discount coupon and the free shoes.

Wedding flowers are due to ship 3/3 (mine, groom, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and picks for cake).

Cake topper is ordered (I didn't want the regular Carnival one)!

Invitation template is ordered. I chose a DIY file. It will be customized with the 5x7 invitation card, information card (for welcome dinner the night before), and this beautiful envelope liner (I attached the picture because I love it so much). I'm going to have a print shop fix these up for me since I have neither the time nor desire to try and print them myself, ha!

Custom map watercolor painting has been commissioned! It's mostly of the SE United States and shows our house over GA, a heart at Cape Canaveral (since the wedding is actually there), an anchor at Nassau, and our ship sailing out at sea. It's something we are going to treasure forever.

I contacted the ladies at the Brevard County office and have submitted the form for the wedding license, so once we hit 60 days out they will initiate the procedure for that. I chose to save that extra $125 processing fee TWE charges.

Other than that, we just have to wait until our deadline for attendance confirmation to the wedding, pick our cake flavors, food choices, and put together our gift bags.

It has actually been fun! Nothing stressful or difficult - exactly how I like it. We are just so excited about celebrating for a long weekend with our family and friends!

Thank you for sharing the info about Brevard County. We decided to go that route and they have been nothing but helpful in making sure we get our marriage license in time for the wedding!

I decided the same! They have been great!

Congratulations! Tax season is already flying by and soon it will be June and my turn, I can't believe it's coming up so fast!

I'm so glad it went well! Please enjoy your vacation! We will here from you soon!

So happy to hear this!!

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I'm not sure about this either. Honestly - I would rather people eat our reception food! I attended a Carnival wedding and I didn't want to go to the buffet before the wedding because I wanted to eat the reception food. Me and my friend were so glad we didn't eat lunch because all of the food was so good!

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Thanks - I just loved them. I found them online - not sure if I can say the name of the website, but search Mavora and that should take you there!

Sorry to hear your brother's ex has become so difficult. However it sounds like she made her decision so that takes the weight off of you.

I am SO ready! I have everything packed except my hair straightener and brush! And of course my gown has to be put into the gown bag so I can carry it on. Trying to avoid a few extra wrinkles by waiting until the last minute. The same with my fiance's suit and tux shirt. I think he still has to pack his socks and underwear, I bought all new for the trip lol I bought the cards for the tips last night and a set of bows to decorate our cabin door with. We will be at the port in 4 days, one hour and 31 minutes! But who's counting lol

The Sensation is leaving today for the 3 night cruise and when it returns it will be your WEDDING DAY!! Woohoo!!

Single digits!!!!! 9 days!!!!!

Oh I am so excited for you!! Please come back and share your experience with us. I know it will be beautiful!

We'd been on the Sensation before and knew it would be perfect for a weekend getaway for our family and friends.

We were engaged 8/4/14 and booked the cruise within a few weeks. Of course I called the wedding department first to confirm availability and as soon as I sent them my cruise reservation we secured the package and the DJ. Save the dates went out by the first week of October with our website information and we added all guests to a group on the "book of faces".

Our wedding is on 6/11/15 and all guests (sailing or not) have a deadline to submit their reservations and info to me by April 1 - really there's a little more wiggle room there but I wanted a secure date so I could pressure the stragglers!

Our guests were asked to RSVP on the save the date since there is so much advance planning. So once April rolls around we will know who to send the formal invitations to.

I also chose to not use the "group bookings" and just have everyone book on their own and link from there. You give up potential price drops with a group booking, and sometimes Carnival is funny about giving you VIFP points for "non-revenue" nights. We have had no problems linking reservations and the group dining coordinator has even emailed me!

Hi everyone,

 

My girlfriend and I have just booked the 4 night Bahamas cruise out of Port Canaveral for May this year. It will be our first cruise and it's led me to stumble upon this great community. I have a few questions that I thought you guys might be able to answer for me.

 

1. Is there any information on the nature of the work that will be carried out to Sensation whilst she is in the dry dock during Feb?

 

2 What are the sea conditions likely to be like in mid May?

 

3 On a similar note, how "full" is the ship likely to be at that time?

I love the Sensation!

1. *If* the Sensation follows suit on what the other Fantasy class ships have gotten in dry dock it looks like routine hotel maintenance and MAYBE an addition of the Red Frog and Blue Iguana bars by the pool!

2. My fiance gets extremely sea sick and he said "I didn't even know we were on a ship". I felt no motion on either cruise in May or June! We had great weather, so maybe if you're sailing through a storm things may get a little rocky.

3. I have been on this ship in May and June - they were not at capacity, but sure there was a good crowd on both. Nothing unbearable, I always had a lounge chair, I always found a good seat at the shows, etc...

Happy new year 2015 brides, it's our year!!

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Hmm, thank you for breaking it down like that! We are from NJ and the current venues we are looking at with everything seem to be falling between $12k and $15k. Before the honeymoon. I am trying to get a sense of the cost of an embarkation wedding to see if it would end up being cheaper but it's very hard to compare.

Yeah I understand! I'm from a small town, but people here still spend SO much on weddings! Our wedding is on a 3 day cruise (so basically a long weekend). We were originally thinking of a 7 day but decided more people could/would come for a shorter cruise. We are fortunate that our honeymoon is being paid for as well. The welcome dinner and honeymoon were 2 huge costs that didn't fall on us! Are you wanting to invite a lot of people? That's probably the biggest decision to make to get the ball rolling!

Well it depends!

The time to celebrate big package only includes 20 people - every additional person adds $30. We are assuming around 100 attending so that extra 80 people will be an additional $2,400.

You have to go on the cruise so your room cost is an added expense(we booked a grand suite since this is our wedding) plus your excursions, on-board spending, tips...everything can add up quick!

We are going down the night before and having a welcome dinner at the resort so room costs (grooms dad is paying for the dinner - woohoo!). We are also doing welcome gift bags for every guest.

We sent save the dates, and are sending formal invitations. We have budgeted for the most expensive picture package they offer....just in case!

Is all of that necessary? Not really! It just all depends on what you and your fiance want to do!

I am an accountant, and I have tracked every penny I've spent - from postage stamps to the wedding package! Right now we have spent around $7k. That number includes our cruise, our pre-cruise hotel stay, my cousin/hair/makeup stylists cruise room and hotel stay, the wedding package base price, save the dates (including envelopes/printing/postage), our wedding party cards asking them to be in the wedding, and my wedding dress.

We still have to:

- pay the balance on our wedding depending on the number of people (we are at least expecting this to be $2,400)

- pay for the flowers (we ordered real-touch bouquets/bouts/wristlets)

- tip the waiters/hostesses at the wedding (we pre-paid our cruise tips plus always bring extra for exceptional service)

- order the items for our welcome bags (not sure about this cost yet)

- pay for the pictures

- grooms suit (the place I bought my wedding gown is letting us rent suits for the entire week for the price of a typical 1 day rental - hallelujah!)

- gifts for bridal party (thinking of OBC)

- pay our license fees

- pay for our formal invites/postage

We actually booked our cruise using gift cards I got through verizon smart rewards (automatic 10% discount) and we have enough of those to cover our on board purchases!

Total price is so subjective, there are so many options to consider. Just sit down and talk about what is important to you and establish a budget! We are on track to come in just right with what we budgeted in the beginning. Have fun planning!

Is fruit a standard item or does it count towards 1 of the 5 cold items we get? I have copies of all of the menus and it's not listed anywhere so I was just curious. Right now here are our choices (assuming fruit is 1 of the 5 choices):

Cold:

Fruit??

Assorted Veggie sticks with dips (on the vegan menu)

Assorted sushi with condiments

Chicken apple salad on crackers

Shrimp salad on crackers

Hot:

Chicken Nuggets

Spring Rolls

Stuffed Mushrooms

Batter-fried Shrimp

Beef Franks in a blanket

Chicken Brochette OR Spicy chicken drummettes?

I have been to a wedding on a Carnival ship (she just used the standard menu) and loved most all of the hot options I tried, it was the cold ones that were lacking! Any thoughts on the cold ones I have listed above?