Considering carnival wedding...need advice

[Nkcaf720]

Hello. I am recently engaged and are considering a cruise wedding with carnival. Specifically ships IMagination or Victory. I've been reading a lot and my only concerns are the photographer and whether or not to get a travel agent. I'm worried about the quality of pictures taken and if I should hire a separate photographer but then how do I get around carnivals policy of only using thier photographer.

 

The reason I think hiring a travel agent would be nice is in communicating with carnival since i've read reviews where people have gotten little detailed information prior to wedding on where they meet and they may be able to get better pricing. We would be booking a min of 10 rooms and I would love to get a discount for that.

 

Please give me any advice you think I may need. Date would be for January 2014.

[Twin A]

I'm getting married on the Imagination! Using a travel agent and booking as a group would certainly make logistics easier. But we found that the perks and freebies came at the expense of higher cabin prices for our guests - at least for our sailing. So we've let everyone book however they wish.

 

I don't have any personal experience with the photography yet, but the Carnival brides that write reviews usually rave about the excellent job that they do (although the packages are extremely expensive).

 

Hope this helps!

 

Typed with my thumbs on a tablet

[Pjsgal]

Agree w Twin A... Carnival doesn't offer discounts for group booking. You pay more to get perks

[Councillady]

My son got married on the Pride in October 2011. It was my first cruise. We had 15 people cruising. Carnival did a wonderful job. It was great because the folks that didn't cruise got to board at 10am with us and disembark at 5pm. Carnival did a fab job with ceremony, reception, cake, pictures, everything! We spent $5000 on pictures and I would put them next to any photographers pictures. They know the angles and light and where on the ship to get the most dramatic shots. We have pictures of them with the Key Bridge as a background. A photographer not familiar with the ship, etc. would not get these photos.

 

We all booked separately, I got an aft wrap cabin which was great for private gatherings. My daughter-in-law worked directly with carnival and they kept giving her upgrades due to the size of her party and the wedding.

 

Me, the first time cruiser booked online and had no problems. Spoiled myself with never want anything but a suite with a large balcony! lol

 

The best thing is this type of wedding saved A LOT of money and yet she got everything she wanted, wedding, reception, cake, pictures and we had her wedding dinner in David's as we cruised down the Chesapeake.

 

I HIGHLY recommend, these 50K weddings in this economy, ridiculous. They had a wedding and own a beautiful home with a SMALL mortgage due to the Carnival wedding!

[brklyn78]

I was married on the Pride in January of 2012. You can see the pics taken by the photographer here:

 

Carnival does have some perks if you book with them directly. For every 8 cabins in your group, they give you the equivalent of one person's fare free. You can choose to share that information with your group and pick a lucky guest to go free, or keep it to yourself and get a nice discount on your own room (we upgraded to a suite).

 

I was very concerned about the price for our guests, so I chose to book directly with carnival, working with the groups department but booking using the early saver rates. This way, my guests got the cheapest rates possible. If you do conventional rates, they have this convoluted points system where, depending on how many people book, you get a free cocktail reception (not your wedding, a separate one) or each guest gets an On Board Credit of a certain amount...but the problem with this, as I saw it, is that the difference between the standard and early saver rates was greater than the on board credit (which is per room, not per person). The people in the groups dept try to convince you that you should do regular rates and get the points, but the math simply doesn't work ($50 per person extra costs, $75 OBC per room). They won't offer you the early saver unless you specifically tell that that is what you want.

 

The downside here, and it's one to consider carefully, is that I ended up acting as travel agent for both our families. Many of them were first time cruisers and weren't sure what to ask for (if they don't ask for early saver, groups will try to sell them regular rates too) so I actually did conference calls with each of them and carnival to book their rooms. If your guests are more travel savvy then this you many not have this problem.

 

A disadvantage of using a travel agent is that you cannot talk directly to carnival about any concerns. I wanted to make sure, for example, that all of us were seated together during diner, and I wanted to decide who was sitting at which tables (25 people required more than one table). I was able to work directly with carnival on this. I think if I had to talk to my TA about bookings but carnival about the wedding (the TA will have nothing to do with the wedding planning) it would have been a bit confusing. This way I just talked to carnival about everything, and never got the dreaded, "I'm sorry, you have to talk to your travel agent about that" response. I also didn't have to limit my planning to hours when the travel agent was available. I don't know if Carnival is 24 hours, but its' pretty close. I did all my planning during after hours.

 

I think doing a cruise wedding was a great decision and I don't regret any part of it. It was actually my second wedding, and it was WAY more fun and MUCH less stressful than the first one.

[Nkcaf720]

Wow the pictures look great. I was just really worried becuase I've been reading some mixed reviews on the carnival photographer and options you get when choosing the pictures.

 

Thank-you everyone for the great advice I'm sure I'll be needing more once we book it, but I think a cruise wedding will be the way to go for us.

 

Also did anyone have any difficulty booking where the dates they wanted were not available?

[Carnival_Brides]

We are getting married at sea this January, so we are in the midst of planning with 44 days to go!

 

I have found everything that brklyn78 said about group bookings to be true and we also elected to take care of everything ourselves. We selected the rooms we wanted as soon as the dates were released and booked rock bottom prices on Early Saver (we've had one $12-40 price drop between the cabins). We were initially expecting 15 cabins (people had passports and deposits and elected not to go) and ended up only have seven with 17 total guests, so we're glad we didn't go the groups route because it wouldn't have qualified as a group rate.

 

I enjoy that I can call Carnival directly and get the answers I need, instead of going through a middleman and hoping they ask the proper one. I read TA horror stories on the Carnival boards, so it's just a little bit more work for the reassurance.

 

We did our engagement pictures on the Glory over the summer and were thrilled at the results. We also made it a point to speak to the current Pride photog (he leaves the day we board) when we went on the Cruise to Nowhere earlier this month. We also grappled with whether to bring our own, but since Carnival has come up with the Dream Photography concept (on Spirit and Dream class ships) and trained their photogs in wedding photography, we are electing to go the Carnival route.

[Nkcaf720]

Well I did it! We are booked for carnival Freedom January 19th 2014. We will be getting married in key west on January 20th. We booked the 2 hour reception and booked the ceremony through weddings to go key west. Thank- you to everyone for all your great advice this forum is truly a heavens sent and has answered so many of my questions and concerns. I feel great full to be making an informed and confident decision. And of course I will post afterwards a review to help other future brides. :)

[LATNBride]

We got married in April on the Elation, our pictures came out great. We wanted fun nontraditional photos.

 

http://m.facebook.com/wcfernandez?v=photos&cps&album=a.522957368771.2012546.169000302&__user=0

[Sonobride]

Definitely use a travel agent! We were married on the GLORY in August. I had the same reservations that you do, but it was all great in the end.

The travel agent helped organize the large group of guests that we had at the wedding, as well as traveling with us on the cruise. We had 34 people come with us on our cruise! it was great!

My pictures were with the cruise photographer that I met that day. I was hesitant, but they came out amazing. No complaints on that.

Go for the cruise ship wedding...! Good luck

[rollissaria]

Okay, how did I not know about the book 8 rooms, get one fare free thing? We booked using the group department at Carnival, and are currently at 7 rooms and I know 3 more planning to book. I know we booked using the early saver rate, to save people that extra $50, and our guy at Carnival said everyone would get charged that rate plus any upgrades. I am wondering if I should call him to make sure we qualify for that, I would love to have that extra fare!

[Nkcaf720]

We're expecting about 20 people to join us on the cruise all close friends and family. We would have def qualified for the 8 rooms and perks that went along with it. But everything had to be booked within 2 weeks of each other and the room rates would have been more expensive. Adding it all up I would have been imposing a larger cost on all my guests juts to get a few perks and it wasn't worth it. I'm hoping they will be ale to do something for us since a lot of my guests will be booking high category rooms. Also with the group booking You dont getlowest price Guarantee so if the price drops your guests receive credit for the difference, It's the one thing I'm disappointed in carnival for. I mean if all 10 rooms were a interior I would understand. But we just booked a suite and our family wil prob book another 5 balconies, with maybe 1 or 2 interior rooms. That's a lot of money we're putting down plus the reception and cocktail hour I reserved. It would be nice to get something for all of that. No matter what I'm happy tho and it has been a pleasure working with carnival thus far in booking everything.

[lazydayz]

We used a travel agent. Negotiated a $20 per cabin credit for OV or higher. Some of wedding guests booked early saver, past guests and resident rates, which were cheaper than group. Ended up with enough in group that they get two bottles of wine as well as champagne and strawberries at embarkation. We have 32 people sailing and ended up with one free fare (would hve been two if everyone had used the same travel agent but we encouraged everyone to book as they felt most comfortable)and a good size OBC, which we used to prepay tips for some lucky guests, including the bride and groom. Can't believe it is almost here. 1/31 on the Paradise.

[Olp41]

I saw a cruise that would be right up my alley for a cruise wedding, but I am scared about the photography!

 

Do they allow you to purchase a CD with the photos on it, with the copywright release (or whatever it is called)? Honestly, this would be the main thing I would want to buy. I can print photos, or get them printed.

 

I did read that they do not allow professional photography or equipment. Would they buy it if I told them that the cameras we have are beginner's cameras? It's a DSLR, but it's not the professional version. And none of my friends/family are professional photographers, but I would really like for my future sister-in-law to take photos if she could.

[Nkcaf720]

I've read a lot of reviews and seen a lot of advertisement for wedding photographers who only do cruise weddings. I think carnival just says they don't allow photographers to help deter people from bringing thier own. They also say you can't bring an outside cake on board or your own flowers but after talking with the ceremony company we hired they said in thier experience the brides they've catered to have never had a problem bringing it back on board. So we'll see what happens next year.