wenocancer2

Oh okay. That is fine.

Thanks!

My daughter will be sleeping on the couch that turns into a bed on our cruise and she loves soft beds. Are there toppers (like egg crate toppers) that we can ask for on that kind of bed?

We will definitely go early.  Thanks!

Are reservations required for any shows on Carnival?  Or is it still just a first come first serve basis?

We are sailing in August and currently have this excursion in our cart through Carnival.  Then I happened across a video of this excursion in my TikTok that showed that it looked awful with hundreds of bats in the caves and smelling of sewage with no beautiful water.  I know not to believe much on TikTok, but I believe my fellow Cruise Critic peeps!  As anyone done this excursion lately and can update me on what it was really like?

Of if anyone would suggest Mystic River & Paradise Lagoon instead?

Thank you everyone for the responses and pics.  I guess we will just see how much room it takes and certainly we could make it each night if that is necessary.  

I am under the impression that Carnival is one of the cruise lines that currently offers only once a day housekeeping service.  I don't have an issue with that except that for my upcoming cruise, we have three adults in one room (sofa bed).  Does this mean the sofa bed must be in the "bed" configuration for the entire cruise?  

Awesome! Thank you

Since I have so many questions, I thought I'd ask them in one thread rather than break them all out separately, which I certainly can do if anyone thinks that is the better option. Random questions for our upcoming cruise on the Vista in August.

Is there a dim light in the bathroom, or should I bring a night light of some sort for middle of the night bathroom trips?

We will be downloading the Carnival app, if I remember correctly, for a fee you can use the app to text to those cruising with you, right? Like $5 per day per person?

We are three adults in a balcony, years ago people used to suggest showering in the spa for more room.  Is that still an option?

What time is the early show in the main theater each night?  I guess also, what time is the late? Or does this vary?

How early is the first Carnival Transportation from Hobby Airport to the Port of Galveston?

Barring any delays with the ship's arrival or disembarkation of the sailing prior to ours, what is the soonest you’ve heard of boarding to start?

Is there somewhere that I'm not seeing that tells me exactly when we can complete the registration in order to get an assigned boarding time?

Thank you in advance!

I would agree with those suggesting two rooms, whether two insides, or OV and inside or adjoining.  It is worth the price for the extra room and the extra bathroom and shower!! 

Self admittedly, I have been off this site for more than a year.  It was just too sad to be on here and know that I couldn’t cruise.  However, prior to the pandemic, we had a cruise booked and have every intention of cruising again in the not so distant future, so I’m back to help get pumped!

Of note, I obviously will be checking with Carnival on our options, but over the years I have found so many helpful cruisers on this site that I wanted to check here too because I want to be sure I ask the correct questions when I do talk with Carnival.

My family had two rooms booked on the Horizon for a January 2021 cruise (one balcony, one inside). Due to the final payment being due prior to Carnival canceling our cruise, we chose to reschedule—which we did for January of 2022, in an effort to not lose money. Several weeks later, Carnival did officially cancel our original cruise, but I digress…

As it stands today, we are again booked on Horizon for January 2022 with one balcony and one inside cabin.  This is really fine for my husband and myself, but both of our adult children have, in the meantime, graduated college and have gotten full time employment which does not allow them to take vacation at that time. 

So what are our options?  Can we reschedule again?  Can we find other cruisers and transfer the booking?  Even at a cost?  Is Carnival making different options due to Covid?  I do not expect any special treatment or services, I just want to know what options we have in this still somewhat fluid cruising industry.

jasonfromohio,

Forgive me as I'm not familiar with this area, but when you say you went to the Marriott, is that Palm Beach?  Or is it next to Palm Beach?  Did you walk through the Marriott itself?

Drifting makes me nervous.  We are not experienced snorkelers at all and don't really dive.  Will we be able to see things from the surface?  And will we have to constantly be fighting the drifting?

Will be cruising the ABC islands (Aruba , Bonaire & Curacao) next year and am in the planning stages.  We definitely want to do some snorkeling at at least one of these spots.  We are all new to snorkeling (pretty much just surface snorkel with an occasional dive under).  Which port would be the best place to do this?

DD and DS would like to each take a friend on a cruise we are looking to book for January 2021. It is just so uncertain of the if or who they will take at this time, we are looking for options.  Should we book two cabins for two and leave the second cruiser as TBD in each and as we get closer to the final payment date then name the person?  If we book early saver would we just have to cover the money down for all four cruisers until the final payment is due?

However, if at time of final payment, the kids decide they don't want to bring anybody, can we cancel on cabin and transfer the one to the other's cabin?  What would we loose then...just the down payments on two (of the original potential 4 cruisers)? And is there a transfer fee?  Or would it have to be a new booking for the two of them together...then subject to prices at that time?

Anybody have any suggestions?  Both kids are in their early twenties and in college and getting commitments so far in advance from friends is a bit challenging due to poor-college-student syndrome.

LEE CRUISER: Our room number was 8362.  I should also mention that I have a keen sense of smell so maybe it wouldn't bother some, but I could smell it.  We also had a table on that smoking deck and I think people stopped at that table to smoke or use the ashtray.

kcdancerkc: We flew into Fort Lauderdale and actually through Atlanta to/from Milwaukee.  When we got home we saw the news reporting on the terrible lines in airports and my husband and I just looked at each other like "how the heck did we not see any of this?"  We had no problems AT ALL!!! 

We did see 2 or 3 of the comedians and they were all funny.  I just wish I could stay awake longer to enjoy the late shows every night!

Five.: Definitely check out the Infinity Resort and their spa (Tranquility Spa).  The prices were great and the resort beautiful.  They were standing at the Pier with a sign with our name on it.  Couldn't have worked out better at all.  Esmeralda was the name of the person who we were e-mailing.  She made it easy!

I have a friend who will be sailing on Norwegian Cruise Lines in June with her family.  6 people total.  She is looking for tips and advice for her upcoming trip from me because I've cruised.  However, I've only ever cruised with Carnival.  I will definitely be sharing Cruise Critic with her to encourage her to explore as I learned so much from these boards.  I am just hoping that maybe there is someone in this group who has cruised both cruise lines and might be able to identify things that maybe I should share with her.  I saw a post recently on the Norwegian board that had a great list of things to bring and many are things that would apply on Carnival, so that has helped me. 

Specific questions I have are:

Are there night lights in the interior cabins on Norwegian?

Is there more than one outlet in each room on Norwegian?

Does Norwegian have an app similar to Carnival Hub where you can find daily activities, places to eat etc?

Is there something similar to the FunTimes supplied in each cabin each day?

Are beach towels supplied everyday in your cabin on Norwegian?

Does Norwegian have kids program?  Her youngest is 12 years old.

I'm happy with any suggestions anyone has for me.  Especially from people who have sailed both lines.  I will also post this in the Norwegian Forum, so if you are part of both, you may see this again.

Thank you!

I have a friend who will be sailing on Norwegian Cruise Lines in June with her family.  6 people total.  She is looking for tips and advice for her upcoming trip from me because I've cruised.  However, I've only ever cruised with Carnival.  I will definitely be sharing Cruise Critic with her to encourage her to explore as I learned so much from these boards.  I am just hoping that maybe there is someone in this group who has cruised both cruise lines and might be able to identify things that maybe I should share with her.  I saw a post recently that had a great list of things to bring and many are things that would apply on Carnival as well (for instance clothes pins to hang your wet swimsuits on the clothes line in the shower). 

Specific questions I have are:

Are there night lights in the interior cabins on Norwegian?

Is there more than one outlet in each room on Norwegian?

Does Norwegian have an app similar to Carnival Hub where you can find daily activities, places to eat etc?

Is there something similar to the FunTimes supplied in each cabin each day?

Are beach towels supplied everyday in your cabin on Norwegian?

Does Norwegian have kids program?  Her youngest is 12 years old.

I'm happy with any suggestions anyone has for me.  Especially from people who have sailed both lines.  I will also post this in the Carnival Forum, so if you are part of both, you may see this again.

Thank you!

nevada19, yes, they do indeed serve lobster in the main dining room on the first elegant night.

Enjoy the Magic!  Have a wonderful time.  We miss her already.

Hello All,

I want to start out by saying this review is my opinion.  Someone may have been right next to me on the same cruise and have had a totally different experience based on their likes/dislikes.  This is my perspective and I’m just stating my opinion in hopes it will help fellow cruisers with ideas or answers to questions or concerns they may have.  On this sailing, it was my husband and me, my daughter (21), my son (18) and my sister and brother-in-law. 

Embarkation:  We received notice the day prior that they would be fixing one of the gangways so all assigned arrival times would be delayed by one hour.  We had 12:30, so now we had 1:30.  My husband and I are Platinum so no worries.  We didn’t have a choice of arrival times with our shuttle from our hotelm so we ended up getting to the port at 12:30 any way and walked right on.  We were able to take our kids into the priority line even though they had their own cabin and are adults.  My sister and her husband went in the regular line and actually got on the ship before us.  Oh well.

Ship:  I loved it!  Thought the décor was awesome.  Full of Caribbean blues and greens--just what I like.  It made all the areas bright and tropical to me.  Loved it all.  Now, what I didn’t like was that we had a balcony on Deck 8 and the smoking deck was below us.  Many, many times when we were on our balcony, we could smell smoke.  Also did not like that on this type of ship, you are looking down at a deck, not the water from the balcony.  This also means that people on that deck (which includes hottubs) can look up at you on your deck.  Gone are the days of going out on you balcony in your underwear or less!  My love of the décor outweighed the negatives though, so no problem. 

Sure there is wear and tear in areas around the ship, but nothing bad at all and staff was very good at cleaning up.

Staff: Loved MarQ, the cruise director.  Upbeat and full of joy and seemed to really care.  On the last night in the lobby after the lip sync battle, he was performing and found a lost little girl.  He didn’t miss a beat in his ability to look after this girl while looking for her parents and entertain the rest of us.  Seems like a real good guy.  Lots of energy.

We had Your Time Dining and the wait staff was very attentive as well.  Some delays, but they are busy, so I don’t complain.  I’m there to relax so resting between courses is sometimes a welcomed opportunity.  I will say we were (like many people are) disappointed with the attire allowed in the dining rooms.  Especially baseball caps.  Really?  My son even suggested that one level of the dining room be for those not dressed appropriately, and the other level for those who are.  I just really don’t need to see your long underarm hair in your tank top while I’m eating my filet mignon. 

Food:  Not disappointed at all.  But again, it is such a welcome to not have to cook or cleanup for meals that honestly, it doesn’t take much to impress me.  It was a joy to watch my kids try different things and discover new tastes.  We ate lunch at the Italian restaurant, which was good.  Simple, but good.  We also had dinner at the steakhouse one night.  Fantastic!

Entertainment:  This is really all dependent on your taste and style.  I didn’t see all performers, but the violin trio was great.  The piano bar (Greg the Piano Guy, I think) was good, but kind of a one-trick-pony.  All the songs kind of started to sound the same.  The dancers and singers were definitely not what they used to be.  First thing to do to improve it would be to increase the number of dancers.  You should not be able to watch a show and think to yourself “Hey, where is that other male dancer?” because you know there are 8 and that’s all you got.  Singers were fine.  Nothing to write home about, but they did their best. We had seen the shows before, so after the second time watching the same 8 people on the stage, we stopped going.

Ports of Call:

Belize-In our opinion, if you don’t have an excursion planned, it doesn’t really pay to go ashore.  They don’t want you venturing out beyond the shopping area at the pier so it was like walking in a small area of shops that was way too crowded.  We have been to Belize before and did an excursion and that was fine. Wouldn’t get off the ship without one planned on any future cruises.

Cozumel-Been there several times.  We were at a different pier this time.  It was fine, spent the day shopping right at the pier and at Senior Froggs.  Had to do some walking to get there, but that was not a problem for us.

Grand Cayman-We did the Escape Room on our own and had a blast.  We love those!  It is totally within walking distance and they were all ready for us and even let us start early because we got there early.  I would recommend Locked Inn Escape Room to anyone who wants to try it.  We just e-mailed them and set everything up.  After that we went to Royal Palms.  Crowded but nice.  Much smaller than I expected, but was a beautiful afternoon, none-the-less.

Roatan-Fabulous!  Couldn’t have loved this more!  We spent the day at Infinity Resort, which we booked ourselves as well.  Kenny our driver took us all around the island which was like driving through a rainforest.  Just gorgeous.  The resort was beautiful.  Exactly like the website looks.  We all had massages at the Tranquility Spa right within the resort.  Glorious!  Best massage I ever had.  My kids went out snorkeling on the reef.  That was their favorite part of the cruise.  Of all their cruises actually.  My daughter said she would even consider visiting this resort directly. 

I think that summarizes most of what I wanted to capture.  If you have any questions about what I wrote or anything on Magic, don’t hesitate to ask!

Can always count on fellow Cruise Critic Members to come through!

These are great ideas! 

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

My family is going to the Steakhouse on the first night of sailing.  However, through Cruise Critic I have come to realize that at the first night in the MDR, the Strawberry Bisque soup is served.  That is my son's favorite thing to eat of all time!  He will be so mad he missed it.  So here is my seemly odd question...

We have Anytime Dining, could he and one of us go the MDR earlier than our Steakhouse reservation for him to enjoy just the soup?  I realize that he will be getting plenty of food at the Steakhouse, but I would just hate for him to miss this because it is his favorite.  He is 18 years old and can eat plenty, so I'm not worried that this will spoil his appetite and end up wasting food later.

If we could just get a bowl to go, we'd do that, but as far as I know, that is not an option.

LOVE IT, BoDidly and Thank You Cruizin4livin!

Tried the search and I'll I'm getting is the wine list and dessert menu.  Does anyone have the full Steakhouse menu they could post.  I'm looking for the Magic, but I'm thinking they are probably similar on each ship.

Thank you!

The search option on this forum is going to be the death of me!

I can not find anybody's posts of a spa menu with prices listed.  I know I've seen them before on here before.

Specifically, I am looking for Magic, but any will do as I'm sure it pretty similar fleet wide.

Thanks!