Carnival Wedding Registry

[CharlesKru]

Hello all,

 

Has anyone used the Carnival wedding registry? If so how does it work?

Were you glad you used it? Any suggestions on things to avoid?

 

Thank you for your help!

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

We do not have a traditional registry set up, as we have been together 10 years and are all set for crock pots and Pyrex.

But my boss is throwing us a cruise themed engagement party and pressed us to come up with something beyond just asking for funship dollars and drink coupons.

 

So I designed one but haven't sent out the link yet. I have questions about how it all works too, especially the "design your own" elements- I wrote up the chefs table as one. I put down a couple of shore excursions that I am fairly certain we are going to take but have not officially booked yet- so is Carnival going to put me on that excursion without my say so? Seems more likely that they will just apply that as on board credit ... But like the OP i am curious to know what has been the experience of other users?

 

Spa credits, drink credits- I'm totally fine if they say that's what our gift givers selected and that's how me must use them.

We will be less than 60 days from sailing by the time this party goes down and I know there is something in the fine print about that- it may all be applied as OBCA/ fun ship dollars like it or not.

[Carnival_Brides]

We looked into using it, but decided it wasn't for us in the end.

 

You register for certain excursions, experiences and treats while on the ship. Carnival calculates these things at a certain price (excursion to swim with the dolphins, wine package, photo package, etc) and assign them a value. Your guests then go online and purchase them thinking they are giving you specific things. However, in actuality they are giving you very expensive OBC for which they will be charged a 10% service fee based on what they gift, so if they gift a $100 wine package it will actually cost them $110 when they check out. The gifts will be given to you in the form of OBC for you to chose how you spend it and you then have to take the initiative to follow through on booking the excursions, upgrading the cabin and ordering the champagne and strawberries (examples!). If you don't use all of the OBC, you will be given the balance in a check at the end of the week.

 

If you have family who are OK doing it, you might just request FunShip Dollars instead. It has the same effect, and they don't get charged a ridiculous service fee.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Yeah. I did not see the service fee in the fine print when setting it up and I am disappointed by that. Their justifications for the fees are lame.

 

You can select the increments you want- eg if you want $200 for a particular excursion, you could request 8 gifts of $25, I like that because no one has to spend a ton, but if one generous person wants to, they can purchase that whole item.

[Carnival_Brides]

That is the one nice feature of the whole thing and I should have mentioned that.

 

And yes, there justification is lame. The "big box" stores that couples traditionally register at don't charge you or your gifters a fee for using their service, so I don't completely understand it.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

That is the one nice feature of the whole thing and I should have mentioned that.

 

And yes, there justification is lame. The "big box" stores that couples traditionally register at don't charge you or your gifters a fee for using their service, so I don't completely understand it.

 

--- because Carnival has contracted with a 3rd party to maintain the service and they want the customer to pay for it. The big boxes are smart enough to know that is bad customer service.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

I went back to the FAQ to see how I could have missed the business about the service charge. I think it is worded somewhat vaguely and I must have thought I would be charged- that is to say the giver would gift $25 and the service would shave their part and give me the net 22.50. I still would have scoffed at that, but is much less distasteful than doing that to my guests.

[Carnival_Brides]

I would prefer it the latter way as well. When we were contemplating it, we set up a fake registry with three things to see what it'd look like on the giver's end and we weren't impressed.

 

I just caught the part about it being a third party company--that makes way more sense now. I love CCL, but the line can barely operate the Bon Voyage program, let alone the wedding registry's.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Congrats on your upcoming wedding. We have been planning and organizing for a year and are down to the wire now.... About 60 days to go.

 

 

I would prefer it the latter way as well. When we were contemplating it, we set up a fake registry with three things to see what it'd look like on the giver's end and we weren't impressed.

 

I just caught the part about it being a third party company--that makes way more sense now. I love CCL, but the line can barely operate the Bon Voyage program, let alone the wedding registry's.

[rollissaria]

I thought this was a good thread to bring back up to date as I've seen a lot of new brides to be joining in on other threads!!

 

Any recent brides out there have any experience with this? Was it worth creating the registry for? Did any of your family members use it?

 

If I'm reading correctly, there's a service fee of 10% (which...stinks, yes, but really isn't that bad...if they were buying you something, they'd pay tax anyway, and shipping too probably)...but does this really go on your account as OBC?

 

I created a registry, but haven't received any gifts yet, but am still 5 months out from our wedding. I don't care one way or another if we do...just wanted to give people options :) What is everyone else doing for registries?

[Tasha4199]

I thought this was a good thread to bring back up to date as I've seen a lot of new brides to be joining in on other threads!!

 

Any recent brides out there have any experience with this? Was it worth creating the registry for? Did any of your family members use it?

 

If I'm reading correctly, there's a service fee of 10% (which...stinks, yes, but really isn't that bad...if they were buying you something, they'd pay tax anyway, and shipping too probably)...but does this really go on your account as OBC?

 

I created a registry, but haven't received any gifts yet, but am still 5 months out from our wedding. I don't care one way or another if we do...just wanted to give people options :) What is everyone else doing for registries?

 

Congrats! I used it on the Dream in July. It was super easy to set up, and a few guests did purchase items off it, which came as OBC. Made it easy to plan and use. Most guests still did cash or brought physical gifts to our pre-wedding party, but since it was pretty effortless, I do recommend it.

[muah3iluvzu06]

Hello all,

 

Has anyone used the Carnival wedding registry? If so how does it work?

Were you glad you used it? Any suggestions on things to avoid?

 

Thank you for your help!

 

We got married on the Glory last month (ceremony in St. Thomas & reception on the ship). We used Carnival's Wedding Registry and all of our guests loved it! We got a little over $800 in OBC added to our sail & sign account. Our guests loved the convenience of being able to use that vs buying a physical gift (although we did get some of those too). Since our guests also cruised with us it was much easier than flying to the cruise port with a gift. We loved it & its very user friendly. =]

[Snowmeo]

My wife and I used it last October.

It was easy to use but only 4 guests of around 100 opted to use it. I believe most saw the Fee and decided that was ridiculous. We received a couple grand in checks/cash at the Bridal Shower and Wedding even though we put a card in with the invites showing they could use the Honeymoon wishes (or our Bed Bath & Beyond registry), but as stated, most didnt use it and gave actual gifts or cash.

As far as it working, it worked fine. The OBC showed up and was used on drinks (we actually ended up transferring it to another cruise as our honeymoon cruise was cancelled due to Sandy).

[HeatherC430]

I used it in April of 2011 - even with the service charge, a lot of people purchased things from the Carnival Registry as a portion of their bridal shower gifts. It was easy to use & at the end of our wedding cruise it was really nice to basically have all of our onboard expenses paid for!

[rollissaria]

For those of you that used it and received the OBC through the registry, were any of your guests upset that it didn't go towards what they thought they were purchasing? For example, you had a dolphin swim on your registry, somebody gifted you $$ towards that, but you used it towards drinks and never made it on the excursion?

[Snowmeo]

For those of you that used it and received the OBC through the registry, were any of your guests upset that it didn't go towards what they thought they were purchasing? For example, you had a dolphin swim on your registry, somebody gifted you $$ towards that, but you used it towards drinks and never made it on the excursion?

 

Not a complaint, but then our cruise was cancelled and the one that replaced it was just a cruise to nowhere for 3 days so there weren't any excursions. Most of the gift money was picked as "drinks by the pool" with a couple "swim with the dolphins" ones. We had every intention of doing both, but I can't imagine anyone being mad at a newlywed couple because they did or didn't do a specific thing on their cruise.

[salty's wife]

My Husband and I were married in 2012 and used Carnival's Registry. We had a great experience. Because we were both in our late 30's, we were pretty established with household products one normally registers for as wedding gifts. My fear was if we didnt register anywhere, we would get gifts we would never use.

 

One nice feature of the registry is normally when guests give you money, they have no idea how you used their gift. With the registry they know the money is going to fund a good time on your honeymoon and not boring household bills.

 

We opted to so several small increments for fun things like massages, drinks, and photos. We found those who only wanted to contribute small dollar amounts (like $25) didnt get appalled with the small service fee associated. Those who were planing on giving large dollar amounts didn't seem to mind - at least i didnt hear any complaints.

 

Because our family is spread out all over the country, we aso used the features on the site to update our family and friends on our wedding planning. I blogged updates on humorous planning issues. We posted pictures and information like directions to the ceremony. The website information was printed on our invitations.

 

It is interesting in that some of the excurions on the registry were not available for our actual cruise. We ended up registering for airfare and trip contributions on the big dollar amounts that way we weren't fradulent in saying what the money was going toward.

 

We still registered at a box store for very few items because we knew some people wanted to bring a gift to the ceremony. We still got a few surprise gifts.

 

The registry met all of our needs and many guests said they thought it was easy to use and enjoyed contributing to our honeymoon experience.

[rollissaria]

That's awesome guys, thanks for replying! I like to know that folks who receive items off of theirs found it useful, but also that their family and friends liked it too! I think I will keep mine up!

[amc80]

What is everyone else doing for registries?

 

We got married in Florida and then boarded Freedom of the Seas. We had 23 sailing guests. We decided to not do a registry. People were already spending so much money to fly to Florida (we are all on the west coast) and go on the cruise, I didn't feel right suggesting gifts as well. When asked about a registry, I always said that their attendance was gift enough (and meant it). Some people still got us gifts, and they were mainly cash or gift cards, since lugging presents cross-country isn't practical.

[kgj1970]

I used it in November 2011, several of our family members used it for bottles of wine, dinner in the steakhouse, pictures, and drinks. It was very nice to get the cards telling who each gift was from. It was put on as OBC, but still, when we ate at the steakhouse we considered it a gift from my parents, when we drank a bottle of wine it was still a gift from a friend, and we got one of our cruise pictures from my sister. I thought it added a nice touch to our honeymoon.

[LVDFW]

If you chose the Help upgrade, or contribute to cruise cost, do those options also show up in your OBC?

[salty's wife]

If you chose the Help upgrade, or contribute to cruise cost, do those options also show up in your OBC?

 

There has been changes since January to how funds received. Here is the current information from the registry...

 

When will I receive my gifts from my Carnival honeymoon registry?

You are on your way to your Funship cruise! To help make sure you have a great time, there are three types of gift fund transfers:

 

• All funds received through your Carnival Registry for on-board items and activities will be applied to your Carnival E-Gift Card and emailed to you 14 days prior to embarkation.

 

• The "Carnival Cruise Trip Contribution" will have your gift transferred to your Carnival E-Gift Card 55 days prior to embarkation. This will allow you to use these funds to pre-pay for items or make payments toward your cruise.

 

• After the 14 day automatic payment, all gift monies received through your registry will be sent directly to you by ACH bank transfer or via check in accordance with your account set up (see "Your Account").

 

More information about the Carnival E-Gift Card can be found here: http://www.carnivalgiftcards.com/. Any unused funds will remain on your Carnival E-Gift Card.

 

PLEASE NOTE: Any couple signed up with the Carnival Registry before January 1st, 2013 will remain subject to the previous Payout Description - please see Couple's FAQ "What if I signed up with the Carnival Registry before January 1st, 2013?"

 

 

Hope this helps. We used the registry and it was great!

[LVDFW]

Do you know how to change who pays the surcharge? It says in the FAQ you can, but I can not locate it.