Carnival Luminosa Sept 14-Oct 15 Seattle to Brisbane...gonna be an adventure!

[TrqoisWtrs]

Was thinking I might try a trip report, although considering the internet situation on these transpacific voyages, not sure how 'live' it will be lol.  Because it is starting to be interesting and we haven't even boarded yet. 😝

 

First problem arose when people were booking their flights back to the US after the cruise.  We cross the Int'l Dateline so that threw a wrench into things, because Carnival didn't indicate actually skipping a day on the itinerary like they did when I took the Splendor to Singapore in 2019.  The itinerary then clearly skipped a date and so it was easy to figure out when to fly home.  This itinerary shows the cruise ending on Oct. 15.  However, when people went to use Fly2Fun for their flights home, Carnival's database was set so that they had people flying home Oct. 14.  So that created lots of back and forth you know, over there at that other place, of when are we actually flying home.  It was starting to get testy, because you would get new people joining and they would ask and start the discussion all over again.  I'm staying a few days in Brisbane anyway, so my flight is later.  But B2B peeps next cruise starts Oct 15, so that's pretty clear to me.

 

Carnival sent out their first letter of criteria to sail.  1) We need to show proof of a negative covid test...basically taking a picture of your test, along with the current date on something, is accepted.  No proctoring needed.  2) Then the letter said 4 days before embarkation, we would need to register to visit the Philippines and show when boarding a QR code we received from their website.  3) We also needed an eVoa (electronic Visa on arrival) to visit Indonesia which Carnival would handle and charge the $35 to our S&S account.  Fabulous, all sounds simple.  But wait, come on, its Carnival...did you expect this to go smoothly? 💣☠️

 

Then Carnival sends out a second letter of criteria changing what they told us.  Now we need to each get the Indonesia eVoa ourselves and show that at embarkation.  Holy He!! what a cluster that turned into.  So the Indonesian website pretty much crashed with all of us trying to use it.  You were required to upload a photo of your passport and a selfie.  The website was super glitchy and SUPER picky on the photos you submitted; everyone's kept getting declined but it wouldn't tell you why.  So everyone was helping everyone out with tips.  Try re-cropping it, try not to have a glare, scan and then crop, make sure selfie and passport pic match.  That's how bad it was.  Then it asked for the address where we are staying in the Philippines, uh what?  So we all just started putting in the address for the Indonesian port which luckily got accepted.  The icing on the cake was that almost all credit cards were being declined due to it being a possible fraudulent foreign website.  Seriously, some folks were stuck trying for hours and literally multiple days to get all the required information entered.  Luckily I got mine no problem, except my cc did get declined, but I just used another one. 

 

Turns out we still need to register for the Philippines, but we cannot show it at embarkation because contrary to what Carnival initially told us, we can only do it 4 days prior to our actual arrival in the Philippines (which is Oct 6.), not 4 days before boarding. So Carnival is telling us we will have use of free internet on board to complete the registration.  Yeah, right, like that will go smoothly lol.  A whole shipful of people overloading the ship's wifi, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where its doubtful we could even have wifi.  And if its glitchy and chaotic like Indonesia was...omg I feel sorry for Guest Services.

 

So I'm thinking embarkation is going to be a nightmare.  A common misconception was, well I just won't get off the ship in Indonesia so I won't even try for the Indonesian visa...NO you need it to board.  And a lot of us feel like some people still don't even know they need the Visa.  So many said they aren't receiving the communications from Carnival and it was because of that other place that they found out.  So embark is going to be absolutely mad.  I can't imagine trying to get that Indonesian visa standing in line at the Seattle port.😵

 

Check in is tonight for me.  So do I go for late boarding or early?  Highly doubtful we will push off at 6 like we're scheduled.  At least the next day is a sea day; guessing we could haul @ss if needed to make our 7am docking at Ketchikan on the 16th.

 

Honestly it blows my mind we're even having these problems.  Carnival's research team must be the worst if they didn't find out all these things before sending out that first letter, to then have to contradict pretty much everything they told us.  Its no excuse they've never been there.  We all travel places and do our research these days as to what is needed to fly or enter different countries.  Not to mention adding in a Brand Ambassador that muddies the water further with some of his postings....

 

so let's see where this goes lol, yippee ki yay.....

[balcony bound]

Wow.  This will be awesome to follow.  Hope you have great internet along the way and can post.  

 

Oh, and I probably would have given up LOL

[Ferry_Watcher]

Check-in on this day will be long.  Each passenger will be 'going to the counter' to show proof of all needed documents.  There will be additional training for Seattle staff for this sailing.  Last year during a similar TP cruise, Carnival sent folks from Corporate/Miami to help oversee embarkation.

 

[ninjacat123]

Wow!!  This is crazy-complicated and I hope all goes well.  Looking forward to reading about your cruise👍😎