Ballaholic29414

Our 1.5 reception felt like 3 hours to me.

Thank You

No problem. My photographer has gotten quite a few hits since I posted this review also.

It seems you are beginning to miss the point of my argument... All I am saying is that the VALUE of a cruise is not the same as it has been in the past. And you clearly don't understand that I am not speaking about any ALL INCLUSIVE resorts either. Neither the Grand Luxxe or our timeshare in Maui are ALL INCLUSIVE. They are only a place to stay. You still have to buy your food, drinks etc...

 

All I am saying is a cruise was a great way to save money. I don't see it as that any longer. The Grand Luxxe we stayed at is a high-end LUXURY resort and yet it was much less expensive to spend a week there than on a cruise.

 

I guess if you wanted to cram 4 people into an inside cabin a cruise will then be a great value. I just have no interest in paying that kind of money for a 128 square foot closet.

 

If you take our 2016 cruise for example. The cruise cost is almost $3,000. Then you add our on-board spending for the week which typically ends up around $1,200 after on-board credits. Then add shore excursions and tips which typically tally around $200 per port. Then add spending at those ports and you are somewhere in the $5,500 range for the entire trip not including airfare.

 

That's a lot of money for a one week trip!

 

Compare that to the Grand Luxxe for example:

 

Our 3,000 sq ft luxury villa had 2 bedrooms, 2 living rooms and 3 full baths and a pool on one of it's 3 balconies! We traveled with a couple we know and split the $2,000 cost. Our meals and drinks were about $200 per day and we didn't try to keep it to a budget. Our spending for the entire trip which included Cirque Du Soliel tickets, trips to Cozumel, Tulum, X-Caret, Chichen Itza and Isla Mujeres as well as many trips to Playa Del Carmen totaled about $900. Not to mention we had a butler, two concierges and morning and evening cleaning service where they cleaned any dishes/glasses we used and even folded any clothes we left laying around.

 

That comes to $3,300 for the entire trip not including airfare.

 

So my point is the value of a cruise isn't what it used to be. And don't try to say that the cruise offers great entertainment value. The Grand Luxxe offers daily shows and activities for free. Even our timeshare in Maui offers a free Luau for the guests twice a week. Everyone offers some form of entertainment. Cruises have to offer a bit more because you are a captive audience stuck on the ship. It's not like you can drive off to go somewhere else for the day.

 

So again, my point is that I don't feel a cruise offers the same value it used to. I'm not saying they are not fun or that I am never going to go on a cruise again. The fact is some of my best vacation friends and memories have come from cruising! I'm just saying we are now going to spend more time going on more conventional vacations as they offer the better value.

WOW. $5500. Last Cruise I went on I paid about 1100-1200 total including cruise and money spent. Your list is seriously bloated. Plenty bargains are out there. Cruising is a great value, imo

Does anyone know what time does the nightclub open on the carnival fantasy or any carnival ship?

I thought drink coupons were no longer used on carnival ships but ill look into that also. Thanks

Thanks I think im going to do that.

Thanks. I also thought about maybe having a get together at the night club and opening up a bar tab but I have no idea what time does the night clubs usually open on the ships or on the carnival fantasy.

Ill be on the Carnival Fantasy March 11-16th 2015 for my dads bday. cruise. His actual Bday is March 12 during the first day at sea. I have a group booking of about 36 people and about 25 of them actually drink. I enquired about having a cocktail party for 1.5 but was told Id have to pay 27.60 per person even if they don't drink also plus 80 dollars for a dj for 1.5 hours. I want to try to do something but Id rather not have to pay 27.60 each for 11 people that don't even drink alcohol. My travel agent told me he wouldn't advise me to pay for people that don't even drink but also could help with suggestions. Right now I looking at about $1,073. I'm trying to come up with a cheaper alternative. Any Help will definitely be appreciated.

Feb 1, 2014 We used our on photographer on the carnival fantasy and we were glad we did because carnival photographers looked professional but pics looked very dark and poor quality. Our photographer pics turnt out great. The only pics we didn't get a chance to take with our photographer were the ship deck pics but we ended up buy those from the carnival photographers. Before my wedding I thought that I MUST buy the picture package in order to get pictures but they later told us that we could buy as few pictures as we liked. We between our photographer and carnivals photographer we walked away with over 300 pictures and only spent $500 total between both of them. (Only bought 10 pics from carnivals photographer)

I bought 6 of there at a whopping price of $36 total. Like I've read on here before you wont go back to your room to reload every time but it does help offset the cost. I used 2 and gave the other 4 to family members before sailing but all 6 of them make it on the ship. I bought them off of ebay seller name boarderhh.

Here a pic my Photographer posted. Currently adding pics to photobucket...

While researching before the wedding I couldn't find a lot of recent wedding reviews on the Carnival Fantasy so I'm going to help resolve that issue by making my own review.

We got married aboard the carnival fantasy in our hometown of Charleston, SC and everything went perfect. We feel like we got a lot for the amount of money spent $6k total (wedding, reception, honeymoon, and rehearsal dinner. We used my uncle's Charter bus company to carry all of sailing guest , wedding party, and some of our non sailing guest to the port, back to their cars after the wedding, and also to pick up back up when we came back to Charleston. His charge was $0 (He did it as a wedding gift) but we passed around a tip basket for the driver and came up with $335 and gave that to him as a thank you gift. When we arrived to the port the port crew unloaded our luggage. I got off the bus so that I wouldn't end up seeing the bride before the wedding and got into a 15 passenger van. That went smoothly then we went in for check in and arrived on the ship at 11:45am (I was the last person to check in) had to be ready out of my stateroom by 1245 and that was no problem for me. My groomsmen came partially dressed due to them having white jackets and bridesmaid came fully dressed and ready to go. When we came down I met back up with coordinator and she told me we had the largest wedding ever on the carnival fantasy 34 sailing guest and 102 non sailing guest. Since we had the only wedding scheduled for that day we asked if they would allow more non sailing guest and was granted. We had a lot of people for a Carnival ship wedding but it was very hard actually getting it down to that amount of people but carnival capped us at 102 non sailing and would not bulge. The wedding was in the Universe Lounge and it was a lil on the huge side for the amount of people we had (seats 800) but everyone sat where they wanted to and was comfortable. The wedding went smooth and our music was played right on time. While our guests were being escorted to the forum lounge for the reception we were taking pics with carnival photographer and our personal photographer. We are glad we hired a outside photographer because her pics looked 10 times better than Carnivals photographers pics (Aneris Photography’ out of Charleston, SC) most of Carnival pics were dark for some reason. We only actually only bought 8 of carnivals pics and it was the ones we took while on the ship deck because we didn’t have enough time to take those shots with our personal photographer because she was a non-sailing guest.

Ok I got off track. When our guest arrived at the forum lounge the were greeted with a glass of champagne then they were seated. The first dance, groom mother, and bride father dance went perfect. My only complaint about the wedding reception was the dj needed a little guidance as far as what type of music to play so I gave him about 5 songs to playing and he had it already on his playlist and played those songs and he caught on to what he wanted to hear and everyone was dancing the evening away. The food was great and plentiful a lot of our non-sailing guest ate on the lido before the wedding so they didn’t have much of an appetite for anything else So plenty food was left over. They were not being stingy with the alcohol they were passing that stuff out and taking drink orders like they wanted to give the alcohol away. I was surprised. Some of my guest said they had 8 and 12 drinks and when they said they didn’t want any more the servers were asking “are you sure you don’t want anymore” . That was good to hear. Everyone was having such a good time the coordinator gave us an extra 10minutes to party before the non-sailing guest were escorted off. Once they were off the ship I received a call saying carnival had 15 passenger vans sitting outside of the terminal to escort everyone back to the charter bus and their cars.

I did not know about this but my guest that drove were charged $12 to park after leaving. I was told by carnival parking in Charleston was free for our guest.

Final thoughts and Info

*I recommend it.

*Wedding looks like it costed more than it did our guest thinks we paid a fortune.

*Don’t forget to give the dj atleast 5 songs you would like to hear at your reception as a guideline. We told him r&b but he was playing rap and other music that we listened to but weren't appropriate for a wedding reception.

*Cake was Great

*Don’t spend a lot of time worry about things because Carnival has that covered

*BRING YOUR OWN PHOTOGRAPHER!! Carnival photographers looked like the paparazzi while taking pics but pics looked average at best. Our photographer told us that she told Carnival photographers in order for yall to take good pics with the red lighting in the Forum Lounge they would have to adjust their camera or turn the red light off. She said they just looked at her. My only guess is that carnival trains their photographers to snap shots but they have limited knowledge of how to adjust their camera for different environments.

*You don’t have to buy any of Carnival picture packages you can buy pictures individually. (I did not know this until before the wedding, but since the photographer is included in the packages why not allow them to snap pics. We opted our of their photographer but later cancelled that

*If less than 3 weddings are scheduled the same day as yours you can have more than 50 non sailing guest but they wont allow you to request it until 60 days out

*A 1.5 hour reception feels like a 3-4 hour reception.

*Your non Sailing guest will be mad they didn’t sail.

12 of our guest did not show up but we are receiving a refund for those people because during that week the weather was bad with the ice storms and snow carnival was giving out complimentary refunds for wedding guest that couldn't make it due to the weather.

My professional pics by Aneris Photography aren't done yet but I have some pics from my personal camera that I had one of my family members using. I will Post a few as soon as I figure out how to.

They are usually 3 weddings a day and each wedding has 50 non sailing but carnival would not release anymore than 100 non sailing because there arent enough seats where the reception would be held.

They dont allow extra non sailing guest until 60 days before sailing. My wedding is Feb 1st and we got approved Mid December. 132 guest total now.

We have the only wedding on the ship for that day so they gave us the other wedding spots non sailing guest.

Im just curious because it seems like there wont be any time for it. We are bringing our photographer but based off of carnivals timeline there wont be anytime to take pictures without leaving our 1hr long reception. When does the reception clock start? How much time after the reception was over did your non sailing guest have before they were told to evacuate? We have 31 sailing and 100 non sailing guest.

Yes I spoke with the wedding Department. I just told them I wanted to sign a waiver to opp out of using carnivals photographer and use my own and they said there isn't a waiver, just send us a email stating that you would like to use your own photographer. Then she started naming a list of things I couldn't bring, but the only thing that really cought my ear was NO TRIPODS

I called Carnival Thursday and they said Id just have to email the wedding department to let them know that I don't need to use Carnivals photographers. They just said that my photographer cant look like a professional or use a tripod.