Sabalon

The sound is good enough to hear no matter where you sit by the screen.

I guess when you're in the middle of the ocean, you don't have to worry too much about noise ordinances :)

Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity (or in this case error).

Could have been either...though I'd think it's not something they would risk their job for, so could have just been a miskey.

How do they do the sound for these? Speaker array by the screen or speakers around the deck? Just wondering if you had to pick some good seating or if the audio was good enough to not worry about it.

Looking forward to this - first time I've been on a ship with the movies.

Dear Carnival -

Hey, I just booked, and this is crazy, but you have my number , so call me maybe?

Sounds like 24 hour food heaven guys ! ;)

 

Thanks for the advice and tips :)

Pretty much. Just me mindful of the hours. My first cruise I was wanting to get a burger at around 4, but that line closed at 2 or something.

I think from about 6:30/7am til 2pm, you have tons of food options all over Lido. There is a (food) lull between that and dinner, where most of the places close up. Lido and the main dining room open for dinner and until about 9pm you can again graze.

In those lull periods and after dinner, you have the 24 hour pizza and ice cream on Lido. There are some paid options then as well, such as desserts from the coffee shop. And if you really need something else, there is room service - some free, some not - also be prepared to tip. (Our first cruise our girls thought it was amazing to be able to order grilled cheese sandwiches and watch TV while we were in the MDR).

The sheer amount of food is amazing. You think about how much you see in one day on the ship, and they do that day after day, on a number of ships, and I assume similar on the other lines. It's almost obscene.

As we're departing out of Miami, I have already scouted out (online) a couple of Cuban places for breakfast, and then we'll do lunch on board. Which reminds me I need to get some more shorts with flexible waist bands!!! :) :D

They make multi-port USB chargers (like a USB hub, but more geared towards the higher amp draw that charging uses). One power plug, 4 devices charging at once.

For someone who has never sailed on a Carnival ship can you tell me specifically what are the reasons that you stick with Carnival? If you have traveled on other lines, how does Carnival compare? Can I ask what your age is?

I'm 45. And the reason is pretty much price. For a family of 4 it is a huge difference. And even though I don't want to be on a ship with 5400 people, I would love to go on one of the Oasis class RCI ships. NCL looks to be a little more affordable.

So perhaps some of it is we've only been on Carnival, so don't know what we're missing!

We booked our cruise a couple weeks ago and were offered the same thing - posted about it to find out just what it was. Since one of the excursions was a 7 hour one on Belize that we were going to do via Carnival for safety (ie. the boat waiting on us), we took advantage of it.

One of the other excursions on Roatan has to be booked via the cruise lines, can't go on your own for it, and the other one on Grand Cayman, once you factored bus fare for 4 in, worked out to be the same price if we did it ourselves.

Saved $170 total.

Thanks for the info - I think with my picky daughter we may end up not doing the buffet. Glad to know how the food there works. We may end up going to hell for the novelty of it. I think my teenage girls would get a big kick out of it, though from what I understand it's mostly a tourist trap. I see it's not far from the farm. Are there buses going by a lot? Would hate to get stuck in Hell. Will have to do some familiarization.

What you did sounds just like what we were thinking. thanks again!

That link I put in there has some stuff about the Chef's table as well - menu and pictures.

I also forgot, the mdr usually has a "Have you ever?" item on the menu - things that you may not have tried - rabbit, lamb, escargot, alligator, etc. Some good finds on there.

To add a couple small details - I've only been on Fantasy Class ships so far, so I assume it scales up but works the same.

At the lido breakfasts, as others have said, the omelette bar, eggs, pig in various glorious forms, usually pastries and fruit.

At the lido lunches, you have the grill part of the buffet line - hamburgers, hotdogs, chicken fingers, fries. You also have what I'd call a hot-line buffet - so it's whatever the meal(s) of the day are and the fixins...could be fried chicken, or fish, or ???. Things like Mashed potatoes, Plantains, etc as a side.

There is also a desert bar as well.

Dinner on Lido - not sure, as we eat in the Main Dining Room. I know they have pizza all the time, and soft serve ice cream...great at 2am.

Tea, water and lemonade are always available at Lido - not sure about the coffee and hot chocolate - but I think it's usually there.

The Main Dining Room is open for dinner every night, they have a smaller lunch menu from what I remember (only did lunch there once, not impressed), and a brunch maybe. But each night there is a choice of appetizers, of entrees, and desserts. As others have said, you don't have to just pick one.

We have done my time and reserved time. The my time is convenient, and we never waited that long - but when they open it's a zoo. I prefer the reserved time seating - you have the same table every night and get to know the staff. (You can ask for the same table at the my time I've read)

If you search on the forums, you can usually find some recent menus posted to give you an idea of what to expect. Of you could look here http://zydecocruiser.net/menus/CarnivalCruiseLineMenus.htm

I'm sure the Dream has some of the other "restaurants" such as Guys Burger Joint and Blue Iguana Grill. Those have certain hours, but are included in the price. My next cruise will be the first one with one of those so Hello New Waist Size!

No idea on the Chef's table - other than I hear it's amazing. To quote "Keeping Up Appearances" - "Blimey...you have to eat with the crew"

How was the band on board? And the comedians? Don't know if they'll be the same in July, but loved watching the band on my last cruise.

The ship missed the port due to mechanical issues and not weather but in any case Carnival does not own these folks anything. I do not believe for one minute these folks are Platinum cruisers.

The article said that even if the bow thrusters were at full power, they still would not have been able to leave Progresso due to the weather.

If they let me on deck and gave me some extra Chocolate Melting Cake, would have been fun! :)

Glad I saw this - I came to ask the same question - huge port, was worried about parking filling up. But it also hit me, all the people getting off the ship I'm getting on are leaving! :)

I wonder if 10:30 was the earliest time available for check-in period and that is when the port "opened". My checkin time for Miami is 10:30 and I don't recall if there was a 10am one or not.

We booked our own excursion in Freeport a few years back. Given we didn't have a whole other ship arriving an hour before, but we were off the ship in no time at all, found the excursion, checked in with them and then waited for a while.

While I'm sure the people on the earlier boat will want to get going, by waiting for you, they give the first boat people who are running late time to get there, etc. I'm guessing that by off the ship fast as possible, they mean if the ship docks at 8am, they don't want you just starting breakfast then, etc.

Island time.

The one thing that cracked me up on HMC was as we were sitting at the picnic table eating the (excellent) chicken, there were wild chickens milling around in the bushes right by the tables. I just figured the food was real fresh!

On HMC, we did the morning snorkeling excursion, and got back and walked right to lunch with no issues.

Enterprise Cvn 6 or 65.

Am gonna go out on a limb and guess NCC-1701

While sadly we got started on cruising later than we would have wished due to my fear of getting sea-sick, this is the first time we bought FTTF based on past experiences. Our reasons were:

• Being able to drop off carry-ons. For a family of four, these do add up, and my CPAP is annoying to carry
  
• Being able to have lunch without said carryons
  
• Being able to change into bathing suits and get in the pool before the crowds
  
• Being able to get off the ship and start the 12 hour drive home earlier!
  

We've never had trouble getting on the ship quickly so that's not a concern, but being able to ditch all the baggage will be nice. Yes, we could carry on suits and change, but that's more we need to carry and if we want to change back, ewww. Plus I'd be paranoid about my bag just laying in a chair.

The tender may not be an issue. Two ports are tender ports - Belize we have an excursion which will get us on the first tender anyway. Grand Cayman, we'll still be eating breakfast when they start leaving.

Hopefully we won't need guest services. We'll see if we find it worth it, but as I'm usually the one asked to hold/carry everyone elses bags, I'm thinking I'll find value!!!

No wine either??

Wine is still allowed - https://help.carnival.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2633

My guess is that soda cans are easy to verify they haven't been opened, however, people are getting too good at smuggling and it slows screening down.

Nothing to base that on but seems logical.

Could always visit the USS Yorktown!

just know that you can't take bottled water or bottled soda on this time

The FAQ is confusing - it says you can't bring water or soda on in bottles, but then says you can bring a small quantity if it's in cans or cartons. I guess my pedantic nature wants to say that bottle=glass.

Thanks for the heads up - I don't care too much, but my wife may want bottled water - $3.99 for a 12 pack on board is probably one of the cheapest things on board! Much better than the triple priced Guinness Draft 4 pack!

I am going to use some Rum Runners to smuggle a tablecloth into the MDR.

And I resent the 300lb comment - that's not until day 3 of the cruise! :p

Okay...just signed up for it! The embarkation day is one of your cruise days, so I figure I may as well enjoy it to the fullest. Our first cruise, we overpacked and had so much carry-on stuff: case of water, six pack soda, wine (never opened), CPAP machine, notebook, phone chargers, DSLR camera, and more. I felt like a pack-mule for 4 hours.

Faster to the Fun - FTTF

Details are here https://help.carnival.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1374/~/faster-to-the-fun-(fttf)

But basically it is approx $50 per CABIN (not per person) and you get to get on faster, get your luggage to your room faster, get access to your room faster, priority on tenders, etc. I'm debating it for our coming cruise - never did it before, but I hate carrying around my backback (think carryon luggage) until the room is ready. Plus it'll be in Miami in July - getting to change into a suit and jump in the pool sounds good!