BigEasyCC

1 hour ago, Ine said:

In case you want to swim with dolphins in the wild in Puerto Vallarta, check this website: http://www.wildlifeconnection.com/dolphins-tour/

 Thank you Ine for this information. 

4 hours ago, NCTribeFan said:

As a CCL shareholder, I hope they keep raising the price for FTTF and hope that people continue to shell out money for (what I believe are) pretty worthless perks. 😁

 

I'll be Diamond on my sailing in October.  If they change the VIFP before then, whatever.  I don't sail for the perks.  And I'm rather burned out on Carnival anyway, so might as well keep sailing other lines.  I've discovered that not having priority boarding wasn't the end of the world after all!  MSC had a nice little area where you could check your carry-on so you could go have lunch without dragging that around.  Imagine that! 

 

And HAL has cabins ready when boarding begins.  And, no, I don't pay a lot more for HAL because they don't make me pay 200% as a solo.

My first NCL cruise a few years ago had a lounge where they would check your carry on luggage and you could come back to get it when your cabin was ready. It was so nice not to have to drag my carry on around.

If I am able to get FTTF for our Panorama cruise next year, I don't think I'm going to tell DH how much it costs.

1 hour ago, Bollycats said:

Does anyone have any photos of the tour or the items they give you? 

 

Also, how much is it? I've seen a range of $55-95 per person. Is it different depending on the ship?

No cameras allowed on the BTFT. Price depends on the length of the cruise and newness of ship.

Just now, Organized Chaos said:

 

I take too many clothes as well. I am definitely not a light packer. But that's ok, I actually prefer it. I get hot & sweat easy, so I like to have some  extra T-shirts if needed. Those are what I take the most of. And I always take a few extra pairs of undies & socks, but those extras don't take up much more space, so what the heck. What else was I going to put in that little hole? I tell myself not to pack extra T-shirts and just do a load of laundry, but it's just habit. I don't wear the same shirt twice in one week at home, so I don't feel like doing it on the cruise. Most of all, I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. I take the same suitcase regardless, so since I have the space, I might as well use it.

 

 

OK, someone please sell me on packing cubes. I've seen so many people who swear by those things, but I don't see how they'd help me. Other than maybe one reason...some people have said they can take the cubes out of their suitcase and put them right in the closet, done. But how do they save space? For example, if I roll up 5 T-shirts, put them in a packing cube, and put that packing cube in the suitcase...how is that different than just rolling up those 5 shirts and putting them directly in the suitcase? I get that they can separate different items, like undies and socks, but how does that save space? I like to put all of my undies and socks in the inside lid pocket, so they're already out of the way. I feel like I'm missing something here.

Ahhh Grasshopper, you can stuff 9-10 t-shirts in that packing cube if you really try. Hahaha. and YES, I did try and did it! For me, it ended up taking less space to use the cubes. DH on the other hand, I could have put another 5- 6 items in each of his packing cubes. Guess I'll do his packing too next cruise.Anyway, this is what helped me. You do you. 

19 hours ago, jbethel11 said:

You also get a "free" appreciation drink voucher/coupon on the last night of a 5+ night sailing. Unfortunately, I do not remember receiving any such pin, however, it was probably because it was a new ship (the Horizon)!

I had to go to guest services and ask for my pin the first cruise when I turned gold. Since then we've gotten them each cruise.

Thank you for the Mardi Gras World tour. I live here and haven't been since my son was in grade school.Your review makes me want to go again!

14 minutes ago, NauticalNeophyte said:

Amen to the packing cubes! I can fit my whole cruise wardrobe in a large weekender bag with them.  

Don't you just love them! Doing a 12 day in 2021 and may have to try a few sample packings to fit everything!

Now for my 2 cents. I thought about that folding method where everything is interlaced, nah not for me. I would have to unpack everything to get to the shirt I wanted in the middle. The rolling method I have done and liked, as well as the folding each piece neatly individually and stacking in the suitcase. That was ok too. Now, when I wanted to go on that last 10 day cruise with just a carry on...THAT took some packing skills. First, I made sure my clothing tops and bottoms were compatible, several tops could be worn with several  pants or shorts. Secondly, making sure clothes could stay rolled up for a week and NOT come out like a wrinkled mess. That meant making choices of clothes that stay pretty much wrinkle free. Yep, no pressing anything. Third, I took my wise son's advice and  tried rolling clothes in packing cubes. Now I could stuff some clothes in those things!! I found I preferred the medium size to the large size cubes. Large got too big and heavy. Medium cubes could hold all my slacks in one cube and a couple of shorts, all my tops in another and unmentionables, sleepwear, swimwear went in the other. Shoes were stuffed around the sides of the suitcase - one pair casual sandals and one pair a little nicer for dinner. Wore the tennis, jeans and my jacket to board. (we cruised in January) THEN I realized that the ship we were going on didn't have drawers, just shelves. I found some folding organizers at the dollar store so I could put those on the shelves for our change, and small things that might fall off. Actually really like having those. And I took along a folding hamper for dirty clothes to put in the closet. So glad I took that. Well, that's my advice. I'm really not a hack person either. Hope some of this might help when you cruise.

On 4/29/2019 at 9:51 AM, deladane said:

 

After that, we finished out the night at the piano bar.  We spent at least a few minutes in the piano bar every night, and we were almost always able to get a seat right at the bar.  I need to make one complaint about Zack… he only played song requests when they included tip money!  I understand that in a piano bar on land, the performers work for tips, but we are on a cruise ship and we are already paying a lot of money per night to be here, so it shouldn’t be required to tip him on every single song request just to get him to play our song.  We submitted requests nearly every night and he did not even acknowledge them (except for one time when we requested a song and he just said he doesn’t know it and tossed our request paper aside.  The song was We Didn’t Start The Fire by Billy Joel which is a fairly easy song since it just keeps repeating the same melody over and over again, and we even told him not to worry about the lyrics because we know them by heart and would help him out!)  At the beginning of the week, we figured he gets tips from enough people that he doesn’t need to play requests that don’t include tips and we might have more luck at the end of the week.  Nope!  He didn’t play our requests then either.  You might be thinking, “well why not tip him if you want to hear your song that badly?” and we did consider that, but it got to a point where we were doing an experiment to see if he would ever play our song without money attached.  Sure enough, that never happened.  On our other cruises with a piano bar, our requests were always played with or without a tip attached, and on Paul Gauguin, the performer (Alex) went so far as to learn a song overnight when DH requested something he didn’t know (City of Stars from La La Land).  Now THAT was good service!

 

 

Ok, I’ll step down off my soap box now.  I just wanted to share that with you.

Yes, I do know how it feels not to get your request played. Last cruise on another line I was determined to hear that very Billy Joel song. I finally gave in and for $5 I heard "We Didn't Start The Fire" and he knew every word. My son said I was being cruel. No, just getting my money's worth.

21 minutes ago, Anyislandwilldo said:

Someone just posted a mini review with the Funtimes on them.

this thread has them - Just got off the Carnival Dream April 14-21 review

1 minute ago, PortSideCruzan said:

 

Hi BigEasyCC ☺️

 

Trash Can Nachos are pulled pork on house-made tortilla chips, bourbon brown sugar BBQ sauce, pico de gallo, jalapeno, black beans & super melty cheese.

 

Maybe someone can locate a photo. 

 

Yum! 😊

 

 

 

🌴

Yum for sure! Those will be on our list to try on the Panorama next year!

27 minutes ago, bjd2 said:

We ate dinner twice at the Pig & Anchor on the Horizon last month. It was awesome! We had Trash Can Nachos, Apricot Jalopeno glazed Salmon, Prime Rib, Mashed Potatoes, the cornbread is amazing too. We will definitely eat dinner there again on ships that offer it.

Ok, what are Trash Can Nachos? My husband is a Nacho fanatic.

Bought some Mardi Gras ducks for our cruise on the Panorama next year! From New Orleans with love!

On 4/4/2019 at 9:02 PM, Cairns Cruisers said:

Hi Walt fan,

I will be driving from NOLA to San Antonio next year. We are overnighting just north of Houston at

The Woodlands and then on to San Antonio for 4 nights. Would you be able to recommend any tourist things to do that aren't well known(Alamo,Missions etc) or any restaurants apart from the Riverwalk?

FYI we will do 2 days in Fredericksburg after San Antonio before Waco and home from Dallas.

 

Last time we went to visit San Antonio we went to the Natural Bridge Caverns. It was very cool.

Congratulations!! You're going to love the cruise director too! He's Chris Williams (aka The Flying Scotsman) and be sure to catch his performances in the Atrium. If you frequent the social media sites look for him there. He's doing videos from the ship while the construction is concluding.

Hopefully when the Panorama is actually out and sailing we can look up Panorama without having to go to our roll call. It would be nice to read just reviews and info from other cruisers.

On 4/7/2019 at 8:12 PM, Mistyness said:

That is probably what they were talking about. I'm going to look into it. Have you done the tour?

 

We usually go to the excursion desk as soon as we get on to sign up for the Behind The Fun tour. Maybe it's Customer Service now. The last one was 2 years ago.

2 hours ago, Gettys84 said:

Pizza line check. 1:25




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sort of on the Pizza topic...have you seen anyone get a pizza delivered to them? I remember reading somewhere for $5 you can get pizza delivered anywhere on the ship. It's through the HUB app I think.

Thank you for this review! Enjoying every moment. 

Thank you so much for your wonderful pictures and review. It feels like I've come along on your cruise. I've learned so much from your reviews through the years. And love watching Sakari grow up in front of our eyes! 

On 3/26/2019 at 1:15 PM, vbscoot said:

Also one I have heard, but not tried.....you can ask for a banana split in the MDR.

Yes, you can order banana splits from the children's menu. They are small. DH ordered 2 every night in the MDR after dinner. 

On 2/11/2019 at 12:53 AM, Llamabear said:

Mocha chocolate getaway is hands down my favorite!!!!! I didn't see it on there, but they had a drink that was a strawberry daiquiri and pina colada side by side in a glass...soooo good. I think it was either $8.95 or $9.95. Totally worth every cent!

It's there under Icy Intentions. YUM!

14 minutes ago, ABQrobin said:

We have been on two cruises where the first night Welcome Show ended with the CD leading everyone around the ship on a Bar Crawl.  We stopped at all bars and where live music was playing for about 15-20 min, sang with band, did a salsa dance lesson with the latin band playing at one stop,  did a game at Piano Bar, etc.  It was a blast both times.  Hope our next cruise on Vista in April does the same thing.  About 50-100 people joined in one time, but it dwindled to maybe 30 by the end.  

Sounds like FUN!!

On 3/7/2019 at 11:05 PM, Love-to-ride said:

Now we need a Cafe Du Monde.   

 Heck, I'd take a Mornin' Call! (CDM old rival) I've said for years if they ever got decent Beignets folks would line up to buy them on a cruise!