KatPem

Yesterday we upgraded to a specific cabin for a B2B cabin so we would be able to stay in the same cabin... The Carnival representative told us we were Early Saver on both legs so we would be able to get price drops up until 2 days prior to sailing. Ok great:)! So I repeated it back to her to be sure we were Early Saver on both legs and would be able to get the price drops... Yes...

 

 

 

Then had another question later in the evening and called back. That representative told me we were not Early Saver... What??? I was just told that an hour ago... by*******. I suggested they go back and listen to the recording because it will all be on the recording. So, they said they will pull the recording and get back to me in 48 hours.

 

 

 

We are before final payment. So this morning I checked

 

http://www.carnival.com/bookingengine/fareviewer and put in my details to check.

 

 

 

Now they are showing a "No Snow" rate where you have free upgrades and can select your cabin cheaper than what we are paying. So I called and tried to get it applied. I was now told the "no snow" rate only applies to a 1A type.

 

 

 

So, I read her what the "no Snow" rate said... Free upgrades and select your own cabin. So that is incorrect??:/

Be sure you continue thru on the fare viewer until you see it broken down by category types 1a,4a, etc

Just got a $240 price drop last night on our upcoming cruise. I normally use the fare viewer on carnivals site but for some reason decided to do a mock booking. Well, I had a casino offer that won't show thru fare viewer. I submitted the form and it got declined. Decided to call and get clarification. The lady told me that when you submit the form, they only see what you see through the fare viewer. If it isn't on there you need to call. Got my price adjusted to the casino rate with no issues.

I got some mail for more premiere cruises and one is actually over spring break so we could go but nothing is showing up online. Very odd. Maybe because we booked a pack and play so they yanked this other offer even though they already sent off the mailing.

Keep checking, my husband has gotten a couple of casino offers lately and we were looking at going over spring break...some ships sold out and a few days later a couple of other options were added. Not necessarily the premier cruises but I would keep checking to see if there has been any added cruises. We ended up getting a better option for us than the ones that sold out!

When you really get into balconies try for one of these on spirit class ships!

What kind of balcony is that? Amazing!

We just had an aft on the liberty. Depending on the time of day and direction of travel, you sometimes had shade. We loved the aft, our first. It was so nice having a lounger and I found at times I could get a bit of shade from the dividers.

Our kids, ages 9-11-12-15 first cruise and 2 years later were given a $50 limit with the intention of adding another $25 the last 3 days of a 7 day cruise. None spent over $25 the whole week...one got food from the dessert place, the rest was spent in the arcade. I think it was less than $50 total for all of them. When we first got on, we went to guest services and had these limits set and discussed it prior with the kids. They are all mature for their ages but since it was new and kids can do dumb stuff, the was the way we chose to handle it and will do so again next time. We did purchase them the bottomless bubbles..

I am glad I read your comment because that was my initial thought when I read the post.

That was my original thought as well. I feel like the crew are as trained and ready as they can be until the actually need the training to be used, then no one knows how they will react, including crew. I think the other guests would hinder any emergency drill way more than the crew.

On all of my cruises, all Carnival, the Muester drill seemed to be taken very serious by the crew, including guests that were speaking or trying to use their phones. There were guests that were rude but all workers were totally professional on all my cruises. I feel like I am safe as I could be. If I felt strongly unsafe, I wouldn't cruise

Is it the norm for people to book airfare this far out? Although flights are on sale , they usually don't have sale fares until closer to the actual date (30-90days prior). We try to fly SW. Out of 5 cruises to both San Juan and Miami, I started watching prices as soon as they went on sale but I didn't book until I found something I felt was a good price. By being flexible (going a day early or waiting til Monday to fly home) I have gotten decent flights. We are a family of 6 that fly out of Indianapolis. I have researched thru SWs site and its matrix and have looked at airports within a few hours drive. By being flexible and waiting, we have always gotten decent prices. Most of the 'wanna get away' fares don't show til closer. I use e low fare calendar to know what a good rate is.

I have never been to Grenada or St Croix...I think St Kitts and Antigua are about the same but I love Barbados and St Maarten, as well as having a balcony so I would choose Carnival for the itinerary...the balcony is a bonus.

We were on Silver Moon back in 2004 and they were a class act! We opted to try Calabaza this last time and they were amazing as well! Both limit to 12 and cater to you all day. One of the best excursions we have done and a huge value for your money!

If I were you I would call back and explain to an agent that a refund in 4-6 weeks is not going to work for you as you may never cruise again, or it could be a long while. I would request that they issue it for you as OBC on this cruise. Explain it isn't right that you are penalized since they canceled it and not you.

 

If they can't help ask them to speak to a supervisor, I bet if you are persistent enough you are likely to get someone that will help you.

 

I find that the squeeky wheel often gets the grease... especially when you are the one in the right and it is due to a change on their part that you find yourself in this situation.

I am not one to ever complain about things but this is exactly what I would do. No way should you have to wait for a refund like that. There shouldn't be any trouble the giving you on-board credit for it, you just need to talk to the right person!

Anyone on board recently notice the price of non-alcoholic drinks like Pina colada, strawberry daquiris, etc...? And you would have the auto 15% tip added on top, correct? Thanks!

The non-alcoholic frozen drinks are all $4.95 plus the 15% added grat. It was $3 more with alcohol on those ones. This was less than a month ago.

We just got off the Liberty a couple of weeks ago, you are going to love St Lucia, that is exactly what we did and cannot wait to go there again!

As for your question, before we left I ordered a Drypak brand 5" by 8" case that came on a lanyard. I got a larger one as I wanted to make sure my phone was secure (we used it to connect to wifi to talk to our kids in port) as well as our money and passports. It worked great although I only ended up using it on St Thomas where we went to a beach that didn't have much foot traffic. When on excursions, I just left it in my bag, which is what I did on St Lucia. We had a backpack we took with us for misc things like towels and such and there was always people around from the tour we were on so I felt safe. Anyway, it was under $20 and worth it for the piece of mind, even if we didn't use it on as many islands as we thought we would.

Have a blast on your trip!

Nice score on all the sea glass. :) I collect it too. What do you do with your collection? I was wandering through Michaels one day and found these. They have three different sizes. So now my glass is displayed nicely by a window. :)

Right now we have a shelf in our dining room (sea kiss is the wall color lol). We collect glass and sand when we can and have our collection displayed in various glass jars labeled with where we got it. I'm crafty so I plan on crafting with some of it but haven't decided what I want to do....maybe a few pieces of jewelry, maybe some sort of large sun catcher.

I go island by island and research what we want to do and what it will cost. I add a little extra and put each day in a separate envelope. I don't want to charge anything on the islands...exchange rates and all if they charge their currency. Last trip we took about $1000 for 7 days but we had 5 ports. We paid cash for everything off the ship except for our pre-cruise hotel.

Be aware, the drinking age in Barbados is 16. If you have teens, know that you don't have to be there for them to get a drink....including when they do free pouring of alcohol. Wasn't a big deal for my teens but just wanted to make sure other parents are aware

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The drinking age here in Barbados is actually 18 not 16. Alcohol or cigarettes are not to be sold to any persons under the age of 18.

I just know what we were told in April. We were told 16 and I bought my daughter, 17, a strawberry daiquiri, her first taste, since it was legal there. I figured I would rather it be with me since she was heading to college in a few months. She didn't like it, but now she knows.

Swimming with the sea turtles in Barbados was amazing. We did Calabaza a couple weeks ago and silver moon in 2004. Snorkeling at the beach between the pitons on st Lucia was amazing.

Wonderful review... And excellent info!! Thanks!

 

As such, I have more questions...

 

 

• How long was the taxi ride from the Cruise Ship Port to the Pinel Island Ferry?
  
• The ferry runs every 30 minutes (instead of every 10, as originally thought). Did you feel confident that you'd get back to the ship in plenty of time?
  

Maybe 20-25 minutes. My husband had asked in the tourist info desk in the port shop area and they told him it ran every 10 minutes. When we got to the ferry, there isn't a ticket booth that was open but a guy said we would be leaving shortly, which ended up about 20 minutes or so later. It was $12 pp round trip, you paid it on the way to pinel.

We actually spent a week in St marten in 98 for our one year anniversary and traffic can be horrible so we allowed extra time. The ferry isn't exact so the 2:00 ferry got there about 10 after. Like I said, we asked the ferry driver about a taxi and he called and made sure one was waiting. We got back to Phillipsburg a little before 3. 4 hours was plenty for us on Pinel and that gave us a pretty good cushion in case of any issues. Instead of dropping us at the boat, we had him drop us on front street downtown so we could use wifi there and it was about 3 when we got sat down for that. We had to be back on by 4:30 so we headed that way about 3:45, it is about a 20 minute walk.

Honestly, traffic can be so bad in St Maarten, I would head back to the ship at 2 no matter where I was on the island. there are plenty of shops and such around the port so you don't have to go back to the ship that early but that way you are in the vicinity.

Great reviews! Thanks!!

 

Question: How much was the taxi to Carambola?

 

We will be a party of 3. I know it was just you and your DH, but trying to get an idea of costs.

 

Thanks!:)

Carambola is $8 pp each way for 2 people. If you get 4, you can go for $4 pp each way. We opted to wait for some others that were going there as well. Once you come off the pier, on the right there are covered benches, you can tell the guys there where you want to go and whether you want to wait for others. Cost was the same on the way back. We set it up for our driver that drove us there to come back and pick us up.

Loved your review! Thanks for posting. Question: do you remember if the spa ran any specials on port days? Thanks

I know that they did but I don't remember what they were and I didn't bring those papers home.

What type of underwater camera did you use?

We have a Fuji XP80 but if I buy another one, I will go with an Olympus Tough Series. Calabaza used one for their pics and the quality of theirs was amazing....they are almost double the price of the Fuji though.

Enjoying the review. We have the Spencer tour booked too. What bar was you at when you returned?

Im not sure the name of it, their internet was listed under Viking but I know that wasn't the name. If you come from Spencer's boat and walk thru the shops right there, you should see it. There was a sign out front, it was on the left just before you got back into the main port building to get back on the ship if you walk through the shops starting closest to the water. The beer special was advertised on a sign out front, you can get the wifi password from the bartender. I didn't see it advertised but we knew from our prior visit.

I just sat down and read your whole review and I really enjoyed it and the pictures you added were beautiful. We took a cruise on this itinerary in May 2013 on Valor and are doing it again, next week, on Liberty. I have spent most of last week tuned into the thread about Liberty being evacuated until the issue was resolved and Liberty once again resumed her schedule for the current cruise. What a shocker!!! We had really been looking forward to our turn and our hearts just sunk with the possibility we may not be cruising. We put a back up plan into place for a week in San Juan/touring PR, but still had hopes that we'd get to cruise. Now that the repairs have been made and Liberty is on her current sailing, it appears we will be cruising. Thank you for taking the time to do a review of both of your trips and so happy you were on one of the sailings that got to go to Dominica. We were there on our honeymoon and really enjoyed it. Now I need to get off this computer and get back to packing.

We were worried about TS Erika before our cruise and got off it on Sunday and the fire was the next day. We were very blessed to be able to go without any issues....I wish the same for you! Have fun next week! The weather was beautiful! I miss it already!

This is my second time on Carnival and i plan on tipping extra for the wonderful service that is given. As i am not a very experienced traveler and usually just go camping, im not so sure how much and to whom.

So for a 6 night on the Breeze what and who would you tip extra.

trying to plan how much small bill to take with us.

Thanks

If we receive exceptional service, which we normally do, we do tip a bit extra. I feel like the room steward has he biggest part of my being on vacation all week. Last cruise, we gave our room steward $30 and her assistant $20. We gave each of our waitstaff (3) an extra $10. This was on a 7 day cruise.

Great Review! May I ask how much the tour with Spencer Ambrose cost per person. Please and thank you :)

It was $100 per person, I paid $10 pp online to reserve and rest in cash when we got there. It was well worth it. We were the first group to the mud baths as well as the waterfall and had them both pretty much just to our group. When we got to Jalousie Beach, the only tours that were there were the full beach day tours of just a handful of people, we were the only ones there for about an hour and we stayed at least 20 minutes past the other tours. I thought it was a great balance.