crazy4themouse

I was able to get it for the first Jubilee sailing a year from today for $129.95 -- I wonder why Mardi Gras and Celebration are more?

So happy this is back!! Has always been worth every penny to us. Grabbed it for our upcoming February cruise, and surprisingly for our Jubilee cruise - 1 year from today! That's going to be a madhouse for the inaugural, so very glad I was able to get FTTF for that one.

I swear I wasn't ignoring you - work just absolutely blew up around me and I haven't been able to get back to answer this! 🥴 Anyways, it's not the cabins so much as just the area - the "experience" itself. A picture speaks a thousand words... Here's the Havana pool area on Vista class ships: And here's the Havana pool area on the Excel class ships (this is Mardi Gras):

A couple different people on the DIS boards said they had it confirmed by crew members, and one person who boarded the Fantasy yesterday said it looked like it was indeed going back to the old way. But as @cruisin from vegas said, DCL has only required one person in the party to check in, which doesn't make any sense to me... If that's the case then yeah, not everyone knows where their emergency station is, and that defeats the purpose. So hopefully, this is a choice by DCL and not something any of the other cruise lines will be required to do.

So apparently, Disney Cruise Line is going back to the old, tortuous way of doing muster drills. No reasons have been given, only speculations -- but it makes zero sense to me. A few people have said that it's the Coast Guard who actually has the say over muster drills, and the way it has been done since the restart was just a Covid concession. I have no idea on the truth to that. But my husband and I were talking about it, and we both agree that not only is the new-and-improved muster 1000X easier and faster, it's more effective. The old way, you're with a huge crowd spread out over the dining room or the club or someplace similar, while a crew member half a football field away says something about a life preserver that you can't hear because some kids near you are already bouncing off the walls. The new way, it's just a half dozen people -- or maybe just you, sometimes -- and the crew member is right in front of you. They have your undivided attention for that 2 minutes. Has anyone heard anything about Carnival or other lines going back to the dreaded pack-'em-in way, or worse -- melt in the hot sun on deck -- way of doing muster?

I was all ready to crow about the wonders of the Havana area and how it's worth every extra penny, and then I got to the Celebration part. For a Vista class ship, yes yes and always yes... But no way would I pay extra for what they call the Havana area on the Excel class ships. Night and day difference. 👎

Couldn't agree more. My husband and I have been discussing this for a couple of weeks now, since coming back from our most recent Breeze sailing. This was our 4th since the restart, and the food has just gotten progressively worse. Let me preface this by saying that we are *far* from being anything even close to foodies -- As long as someone else shops for, cooks, and cleans up after our meals, we can almost always find something to be very happy about eating. And we totally get why Carnival needs to try and save money (we're all trying to do that these days) but like you we really wonder how much "waste" is because the food is just basically inedible. Does it cost more to cook bacon past the point of translucency? Or not cook chicken past the point of it being jerky? Does hot food - or even warm - somehow cost more? And it wasn't just the buffet, we ran into the same issues at seaday brunch and other places. We certainly try to not waste food, but what are we supposed to do? Just choke something down and "just be happy that we're on a cruise"? Sorry, no.

I wonder that as well! I see all these amazing deals people are getting but when I filter down to only leaving from Galveston, *poof* there go all the awesome rates. 🤨 We only live about 30 miles away, so we're definitely not dealing with driving for hours and hours to another port, or hassling with flying anywhere. But dang...

I'm kinda baffled on the moving the lobster to the second "formal" night thing... What does that accomplish?

Looooove those cakes!! The raspberry champagne is my very favorite. The fact that it's sugar free is just a bonus -- It doesn't taste sugar free. It's probably like the "fat free" yogurt on Seinfeld, lol. I don't care -- it's delicious!

Mahogany Bay is so beautiful -- our favorite port! You can stay right there and have an incredible day. But Roatan itself is just gorgeous, and begs exploring. We tend to do something different every time, because there's just so much to see and do. The monkey and sloth hangout is absolutely one of the best port days we've had!! Are you by any chance on the 2/25 sailing?

You are a rock star!!! Thank you for posting this!!

This news makes my day -- We leave on Breeze tomorrow, and I was *so* hoping Carnival would drop the mask requirement for crew before our cruise. I miss seeing their smiling faces!! ☺️

For our Breeze cruise coming up this weekend, I received an upsell offer back in May to go from an interior to an oceanview for $120, or a balcony for $180. We opted for the balcony. I received the offer via my to-do list, then also received an email about it. We weren't really looking forward to our first interior, so were pretty happy we got the offer. 🙂 This was my first upsell offer in 17 cruises on 4 different lines.

I've been kind of surprised at the level of nonchalance in this thread. I know a lot of people like to complain about a lot of really petty stuff, but I don't count hot water - or running water at all - to be among the petty stuff.

A lot of people were posting yesterday that some parts of the ship had no hot water, and a good chunk of the ship had no water at all. They were saying they had just gotten back onboard in the afternoon after being in port all day, and couldn't take showers to get the sand and grime off before dinner. They were not happy... I sure wouldn't be!! I love Vista, it's my favorite ship, but they seriously need to show her some love.. there is just too many things that keep going wrong with her. =/

My absolute fave is a Twilight Zone from the Tides Bar, but with Malibu coconut rum instead of Bacardi. If you love coconut as much as I do, this is just 😍. 12 more days until I have one in my happy hands again!

After that thread here a while back about the person who wasn't allowed to board because they decided to not bring their CPAP after alerting Carnival that they would need distilled water and I think an extension cord, I never tell them I'm bringing mine! I have my own extension cords, and the ship water is basically distilled water anyway so I just use that. My doc approves and that's good enough for me.

Coves are amazing!! You feel like you're the only one on the ship. We love to get one far forward -- the sound of the water against the bow of the ship makes my soul happy. 😊 If we're on a ship with no Havana area, it's cove all the way!

They changed that (thank goodness) a number of years ago. Havana pool area including pool-side bar is only for Havana guests.

The Serenity area on Breeze does not have a pool.

I'm guessing that the people who most need to read that aren't the ones reading those emails in the first place.

One of the very bestest best things about DCL is that they have those adult-only spaces, and that they actually enforce the "adults-only" part!!! What I find ridiculous is the other lines allowing kids in bars, in the fancy, extra-charge restaurants, etc. When my son was young and we sailed DCL a lot, it was wonderful that there was so much for us to do together, and then so much for me to go do as a grownup while he had the absolute time of his life in the Oceaneer Club/Lab. As a single parent, I had precious little of the grown-up time. I miss DCL like crazy, but unfortunately they priced themselves smooth out of my budget... We can take 3 or even 4 cruises on other lines for what one Disney cruise would cost us. But kudos to DCL for recognizing that even if you're a parent, you still deserve and can appreciate some time away from them!!

They definitely go all out all month for Halloween. We sailed on Breeze last year in the middle of the month and it was very cool! The atrium was all decorated, bars had special Halloween-themed drinks, there were different activities going on. The big Halloween deck party replaced the 80's party on our cruise, but that was a 5-nighter instead of the Vista's 7 -- Also, I think the parties are up to the CD, so ymmv. But there was a costume contest with tons of people dressed up, and it was neat to see. We'll be back on Breeze at the same time this year, and looking forward to it!

To me that would be the very smartest thing to do. The whole point of the vaccine and boosters are to keep people from dying, keep them from getting seriously ill, and as far as the cruise industry is concerned to keep people (passengers and crew alike) from overwhelming both ship and port community health facilities and services -- which the vaccines have proven to be spectacularly good at doing. The number of cases don't really "matter" in the sense that the systems on both the ships and the islands are easily manageable. The best way to keep it that way is to update the vaccine requirements to include every eligible booster and close to zero exemptions, and then drop the inconvenient and expensive testing requirements completely. The ships are sailing full -- they're not hurting for any of that unvaxxed business.