Never seen this many plats and diamonds on a cruise

[kew1031]

On 9/23/2023 at 10:34 PM, stobe1 said:

And for what it's worth, I never nonrev for cruises. I just pay for my flights like a regular Joe. I want to make sure I get there lol.

My S.O.'s daughter works for Southwest, and dad has the free flight benefit. Bit him in the butt several times. We flew to Florida for a cruise several years ago using those benefits, and barely got seats every leg going and coming back. PreCOVID, "we" were going to L.A. to see my daughter. I paid for my ticket and wound up being by myself because dad's free flight was bumped and bumped and bumped. If we really need to get somewhere, we pay for the flight!

[DANCING GRANDMOMMY]

On 9/23/2023 at 2:58 PM, BlerkOne said:

I will never understand why the entitled think Carnival owes them something. I like good food, good service, etc. We get that in Carnival. Carnival offers us multiple ports within an easy drive. I have been impressed with the number of visible security personnel on my current cruise. It's all good 

Which ship did you get good food on? Have not experienced that for some time in the main dining rooms. We have to book the specialty restaurants, or ala carte from them to get food that is the quality of the main dining rooms in years past. During the restart, we just extended grace assuming they had lost staff and were training new. By now we are not so inclined to continue to use that excuse. I have 3 more cruises booked with Carnival. I am hoping the new menus will change things.

[mz-s]

23 minutes ago, DANCING GRANDMOMMY said:

Which ship did you get good food on? Have not experienced that for some time in the main dining rooms. We have to book the specialty restaurants, or ala carte from them to get food that is the quality of the main dining rooms in years past. During the restart, we just extended grace assuming they had lost staff and were training new. By now we are not so inclined to continue to use that excuse. I have 3 more cruises booked with Carnival. I am hoping the new menus will change things.

 

Carnival's food quality has seriously declined since the restart, but I think the newest ships (Celebration and Mardi Gras) are somewhat immune to this as the flagships.

[BlerkOne]

22 minutes ago, DANCING GRANDMOMMY said:

Which ship did you get good food on? Have not experienced that for some time in the main dining rooms. We have to book the specialty restaurants, or ala carte from them to get food that is the quality of the main dining rooms in years past. During the restart, we just extended grace assuming they had lost staff and were training new. By now we are not so inclined to continue to use that excuse. I have 3 more cruises booked with Carnival. I am hoping the new menus will change things.

Just off Carnival Miracle. Other cruises just this year include Carnival Dream and Carnival Venezia. Since cruising restarted:

Carnival Horizon, Glory, Valor, Mardi Gras, Ecstasy, Celebration, Dream, Venezia, Miracle

 

We have not tried the new menus yet, but are looking forward to trying.

[Prometheus1]

Also think if Carnival continues to run  "longer cruises" that is a plus. Royal is changing to shorter cruises. With the exception of my Jubilee B2B next summer I am only looking at  12+ day cruises.   I think also as has been mentioned, new cruisers may spend more in the beginning or if you only cruise 1 time a year or every other year.  The more cruises you take, the more you zero in on the things you like and don't like. Have met many people who like the longer cruises, but I know I have met cruisers that would never go for a cruise longer than 5-7 days. Plus getting time off from work can be difficult.  I think the Carnival Greenland cruises are great (the first one they offered sold out very quickly) and I can't wait to go on one. Of course longer cruises mean more days which means more Platinum and Diamonds. Time will tell!

[Eli_6]

It ended up not taking long once we started boarding.  Not sure why there was a delay on boarding.  So far trip has been great except my husband's back is bothering him. 

[Eli_6]

So debark was a debacle.  Took 1 hour 40 minutes to disembark. I think every plat and diamond bought 20 guests with them to unload with them.  Even worse, Carnival was just letting people off the boat who were not priority who were waiting in the lobby even though they were simultaneously announcing that people weren't supposed to be waiting in the lobby.  So, basically, if my husband and I had simply come down to the lobby and waited (which no one was supposed to be doing) at the same time we went to the reflections rest. (where plats were told to go for carry off/express debark) rather than going to the platinum waiting area, we would have been off the boat with or before the diamonds and way before we actually were.  Really annoying they allow so many people to benefit from breaking the rules. Adding insult to injury, the passport machines were down so it took extra long.  Those 1,000+ people without any sort of priority who got off before us by breaking the rules ended up making us stand in line for over an hour to get our passport looked at.  

[stobe1]

15 minutes ago, Eli_6 said:

So debark was a debacle.  Took 1 hour 40 minutes to disembark. I think every plat and diamond bought 20 guests with them to unload with them.  Even worse, Carnival was just letting people off the boat who were not priority who were waiting in the lobby even though they were simultaneously announcing that people weren't supposed to be waiting in the lobby.  So, basically, if my husband and I had simply come down to the lobby and waited (which no one was supposed to be doing) at the same time we went to the reflections rest. (where plats were told to go for carry off/express debark) rather than going to the platinum waiting area, we would have been off the boat with or before the diamonds and way before we actually were.  Really annoying they allow so many people to benefit from breaking the rules. Adding insult to injury, the passport machines were down so it took extra long.  Those 1,000+ people without any sort of priority who got off before us by breaking the rules ended up making us stand in line for over an hour to get our passport looked at.  

 

 

I hear ya. I know it sucks. I think at the end of the day, they just want everyone off the ship ASAP and don't care if you are blue or diamond and don't care what order you debark. They just want to get to a zero count ASAP so they can start embarking the next cruise 

 

I have posted this multiple times over the years but this is one reason we rarely use our priority debark. It is always mass chaos trying to get off the ship. We just grab a seat on lido or a lounge chair somewhere and wait until last call and breeze right off the ship and thru customs with no lines and no hassle. We book our flights for mid to late afternoon just so it is even more stress free getting home and can have a preflight cocktail or 5 at the airport before our flight home. 

 

We always embark late (1 pm or later) for the same reason. No lines and no hassle for boarding. 

 

The only priority benefits we use now-a-days are the guest services line and priority tendering.

 

Edited October 3, 2023 by stobe1

[princess76021]

10 minutes ago, Eli_6 said:

So debark was a debacle.  Took 1 hour 40 minutes to disembark. I think every plat and diamond bought 20 guests with them to unload with them.  Even worse, Carnival was just letting people off the boat who were not priority who were waiting in the lobby even though they were simultaneously announcing that people weren't supposed to be waiting in the lobby.  So, basically, if my husband and I had simply come down to the lobby and waited (which no one was supposed to be doing) at the same time we went to the reflections rest. (where plats were told to go for carry off/express debark) rather than going to the platinum waiting area, we would have been off the boat with or before the diamonds and way before we actually were.  Really annoying they allow so many people to benefit from breaking the rules. Adding insult to injury, the passport machines were down so it took extra long.  Those 1,000+ people without any sort of priority who got off before us by breaking the rules ended up making us stand in line for over an hour to get our passport looked at.  

this deserves the "oh crap" button

But I know what you are talking about because it happened to us!

Hugs and hope your next cruise you get to see your "perks"