Linsuesue

Thank you so much for posting this review with photos! I am booking a group to the Caribbean in 2025 and want to be able to show a tell about the ports. We will be hitting Great Stirrup Cay—Catalina Island, Dominican Republic—Willemstad, Curacao—Oranjestad, Aruba—Bridgetown, Barbados—St. John’s, Antigua—Basseterre, St. Kitts—St.Thomas, US Virgin Islands—Tortola, British Virgin Islands—& Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. Anything you post about any of those you happen to visit will be welcomed tidbits for our group!

The Roasted Wild Mushroom Bisque is my absolute favorite. I even got the recipe while I was on the ship. I have never made it though. The recipe makes 100 portions so I would have to figure out how to significantly cut it down!

There are so many large cruise ships around now that it seems like a more streamlined system should have been refined and shared by the ports and cruise lines. Pre Covid, the port of Seattle had a service called Port Valet. We set our big luggage out in the hallway with the proper tags. The service was free, and the suitcases were taken directly to the airport for the guests. I set the suitcases out in the hallway the night before disembarking and then picked it up next at the carousel at my destination. What a great way to get the luggage out of the way for the disembarkation day. I would happily pay for that service at every port, if they would only contract to do that again!

Maybe the luggage got extra attention, but it was already inspected and piled up downstairs when we got there. The customs agent spent about a minute going over our 2 passports so no extra time there. NCL could address it by letting people off in waves or staggering the throngs that hit the terminal at once. I realize the port staff were not NCL people, and port protocols are their own. NCL needs to address what they can do to streamline the process. It is another instance where people dont wait their turn to exit the ship, and NCL has no control over it. Why have a color coded system when everybody does what they feel like? Implement a system that can be enforced.

We were on this cruise too, and similarly disappointed with the entertainment. We saw Choir of Man once, enjoyed it and moved on. The mentalist, magician, and juggler were at best mildly entertaining. The Nashville Tenors were good but there was no Wow Factor show that used to set NCL apart from the other cruise lines. The day of the first port, people going on excursions were directed to go to the theater. That was a cluster of major proportions! A woman on a mike standing in front of a stage reading one or 2 numbers at a time that were for excursions lining up was ridiculous. Everyone was instructed to come in and take a seat, but the theater was full. One aisle was full of people for some excursions being released from the back of the theater. The other aisle was full of people lining up to get released from the front of the theater. Lines in the hallway to the theater were backed up the staircases and the elevator entryways. Disembarkation was the worst I have every experienced in 16 cruises. Because our NCL booked air fare had us leaving at 7:00 pm, we booked the Los Angeles 5 hour excursion. Because of the mess of debarkation, our bus left 1 1/2 hours late. The Los Angeles excursion group had to have 4 bus loads of people crammed in Los Lobos. Once they released us to go get our luggage and go to the buses, all of the hallways, elevators and staircases were loaded with people. We had to go down a floor to the Manhattan to exit-why didnt they just have us line up in the Manhattan to begin with? The luggage tags for our excursion were black. Once we got down to the terminal we discovered that black tags were used for more than one group! Black VIP and Black Tour tags. Why would one color be used for more than one group? There was such a small group of customs officials to release everyone! I think there were 6. The lines through the terminal were split in 2 so there were only 3 customs officials for each line. After us, there was somebody who passed out waiting for so long at the curb for their shuttle to the airport. Some people just gave up and called an Uber because there were not enough shuttle buses to handle that crowd. I was traveling with a group of 30 people. Thanks to NCL Air department, 8 of our people were flown to Ft. Lauderdale instead of Miami. Thanks to the flooding there, a whole new set of problems were created. None of the 30 would ever use that NCL airfare program again. I would NEVER book another cruise that begins or ends in Los Angeles either.

Here was Tracey’s menu from last August. My trip to Juneau wouldn't be complete if I didn’t stop there!

We were on the Miracle in January. The game room used to have 2 cabinets dedicated to books. Now one of the cabinets is for games and the other one is for books.

We usually sail on the Spirit Class ships. They have a bookshelf in the game room/library where you can take a book and leave a book. Some of the books have a Carnival book tag in them. Those I read and leave on the ship before I go. I always travel with some paperbacks and save books I have read to leave on those shelves. As soon as I get my suitcase unpacked, I go donate those books to the library shelf. The room they leave in my suitcase gets filled with souvenirs. Every once in a while a book will have a message on the first page from the person who left it-like, “Bon Voyage” or “Happy Reading and Cruising!”

Thank you for your thoughtful response! I can tell you know your way around your cruise bookings. The lady I will be helping planned the first cruise on her own with the help of a “Travel Planner” 30 people went in 15 cabins. This was not a Carnival cruise and the bogo airfare was arranged through the cruise line. Payments went through the travel agent. Two of the adults in our group were challenged and were traveling with their caretakers. I was not one of the original sign ups in the group and didnt get in until a couple of months after the group started. Airfare for our challenged guests was not connected to their caretakers-like it should have been. According to the airlines there was nothing noted that any disabilities were noted in their files. The Travel Planner led the lady to believe that it would be so much easier if she planned all of the hotel reservations. Well, one week before we cruised we called the hotel to check on a shuttle to the port and confirm the rooms. Guess what? The challenged adults never had a room booked. The travel planner said the members in our group could still collect their hotel points. That wasnt true either because the hotel wouldnt give the individuals their hotel points. The travel planner booked them on Expedia and I gather the travel planner got the rewards from that. She told us all we weren’t elegible for price drops in the cruise fares because we were in a group-not true. She told us that once the cruise line airfare department books the airline reservations that they couldnt be changed-not true. Hours after the Fort Lauderdale airport closed due to flooding, she sent out an email about it. Meanwhile the rest of us helped the Ft. Lauderdale arrival people to switch flights and transportation. I don’t think I am silly, but I think I can help people book a hotel reservation properly. We all pay for our education, and we learned a great deal about that travel planner being our helper! The gift she gave each one of us for booking with her was…One luggage tag and a hook magnet-per person. Should she have suggested that each challenged person should probably have been booked with 1 caretaker? That way any airline hang ups would have left 1 responsible person to help the challenged adult through airports and transportation to the hotel-Definitley! We werent a demanding bunch of entitled cruisers. Everything that our travel planner failed to do-we did on our own at monthly travel club meetings. We did videos of the rooms on board, made laminated credit card size lists of all venues on the ships and where they were located, went over the tender port, how and when to make reservations for the dinners and shows onboard, listed the miscellaneous venues and games that were available, investigated excursions, I went on cruise critic and read live reviews of people on board, went over which excursions listed that might be too strenuous for some of our group, I sent everyone links to check out the menus for the restaurants onboard, and I researched the answer for many of the questions people had. I think putting together a cruise group for our retirement community is a great thing. If us co-conductors can get a room discount, or a free room-great. If we can each get a Carnival gift for being part of a group-even better. If each person in our group of people with limited incomes can get some kind of group discount, that would be a delight! I have no desire to be a paid travel agent and I am not doing anybody a favor by helping. The goal is to get a great cruise booked at a great price and to enjoy a vacation with a group of friends and neighbors!

Thank you so much for your response! What you posted is a great help to me. If there are discounts available, we would like to share that with the group. There are 2 of us willing to be co-conductors. If there is a bit of monetary value to knock off the amount we are paying for the cruise, that would be great! I am not sure we would need the big dining room group thing, but that could change and be a good option. Our goal by making it a group cruise is discount, of course, perhaps some group activities on the ship(maybe a group ship tour excursion), perhaps a group dinner in the steakhouse. If us co-conductors could be the only contacts with the Carnival group person, I think it could go smoothly with a bit of a benefit to us all.

My thoughts exactly! Us meticulous wives should start a travel planning group called, “Surprise Your Husband Cruises!”😀

You and I could be twins separated at birth!🤪 We just finished a cruise from Miami-Panama Canal-Los Angeles. I am anal about planning. My husband even asked me which excursion we were doing in Seattle! He will never hear the end of that 😀

There are an amazing amount of details to just booking 1 cabin for 2! My husband has never planned a vacation and just gets surprised with whatever I plan 😀

Great advice and I wont pay for any rooms other than my own!

That sounds like a nightmare. I would hope once you stepped off the ship the group cruise was done. Some of our group has cruised quite a bit before, so I am thinking we would encounter less surprises from them.

I hear you! Bear in mind it will be a group of retirees so I am sure there will be a zillion questions. You are spot on about the insurance! The last 3 cruises I was on had big medical emergencies. We took a 14 day cruise to Hawaii in January. 5 days there-4 days in Hawaii-5 days back. 20 hours after we left port we had to turn back to get close enough to California to have a Coast Guard Helicopter reach the ship in the middle of the night. We lost one day in Hawaii for backtracking. Thankfully, the gentleman with the heart problem got the surgery he needed and was OK. I can only imagine what the bill for that would be. From now on, Mykolaiv 15 day itineraries will be more port intensive.

This is the kind of information I am looking for! I am hoping to learn about some of the pitfalls to help ease the process. I am willing to try it once, but like you, might end up running far away from doing it again.😀

I dont expect anybody to name a Carnival employee or any travel planner! The group has no intention of using another travel planner either. I know from my individual bookings that there can be conflicting information depending on whoever answers the customer service/booking number. I know many employees in reservations work remotely. I was hoping to get more tips about the benefits of booking a group, because the hope is everyone who books will get a discount, onboard credit, or incentive to get a group together. I personally dont know anyone who has ever booked a group for a cruise, but I am thinking a couple of us can handle the details through the group booking number. We already have a list of questions to ask.

I have been asked by a group of retirees to help them book a group cruise. They previously used an online vacation planner to book one cruise and it was a dismal failure. I have sailed on Carnival quite a few times, but never as a group. Does anybody have any tips or tricks to get a group planner? All suggestions welcome! I think we could end up booking 15+ rooms. The goal is to get the group members to share any discounts or benefits instead of having the travel planner end up with the benefits.

Her and her roommate had quite the experience! Their first flight took them to Chicago- where there was a problem with the door on the plane. After waiting awhile for it to be fixed, all passengers had to get off the plane. After a couple hours of delay they got back on the plane and went to Nashville. Of course, they missed the connecting flight and had to go to Southwest customer service to book a flight to Fort Lauderdale. During the day, they each got a $200 voucher for future travel and $14 for dinner. Once arrangements were made, they flew to Ft. Lauderdale and got in about 3:00am and Ubered to Miami. The good news is, they didn’t miss the cruise! Ft. Lauderdale

Well it looks like FLL is going to open back up so Southwest jumped the gun by telling our traveler that they werent going to make it on Saturday. Now she will be on Southwest Airlines landing around 6:45 and needing to get to the American Airlines concourse to leave to Miami at about 8;30. It sounds doable except for the fact that the 2 tickets were never purchased together and they are on different airlines. In that case, she might have to get off the plane, collect her luggage, and go back inside the airport to check in again for 2nd flight. She is calling both airlines this morning to see if Southwest can just tag her luggage to get it put on the next flighty automatically. My hat is off to any of us who have had to do the Last Minute Panic Shuffle to get somewhere! 🎩

We are flying from PHX__Miami on Saturday for the Encore leaving on Sunday. Also a retirement cruise and both of us have our ducks packed. 😊 Hoping there are no changes with our flights. Good Luck to you! 🍀 🛳️

Someone just sent a news headline to our traveler that the airport will be open at 5:00 and they are going to add more flights. 🤦‍♀️

Ft Meyers would cut the drive in half, at least. Thanks a bunch for coming up with a great suggestion! Southwest is telling our traveler that they wont have any planes going into Ft. Lauderdale until Sunday.

I would be scrambling to change my own flight instead of waiting for leftovers.