Question about online check in time

[thekidsandi]

Our check in day is 6/23 for an Alaska cruise out of Seattle. We live in California. On past Carnival cruises, regardless of where the cruise left from, we could start our check in at 9:01 p.m. PT on the day before our check in day, since that would be 12:01 a.m. in Miami. We were told that Carnival uses Miami time, since that is where they are located. However, I recently heard that they may have changed the check in time to the time of wherever the ship departs from - so in our case, we would have to wait until 12:01 a.m.

 

Can anyone who has cruised recently and knows the answer to this question let me know? I guess we can just try at 9:01 p.m. and if doesn't work, set an alarm for 12:01 a.m., but I was just wondering if anyone knows for sure.

[Are.we.there.yet?]

Hi,

 

We used to be able to do this but on our Panorama cruise last week, I had to wait until midnight. 😞

 

 

[PlanoTim]

5 hours ago, thekidsandi said:

Our check in day is 6/23 for an Alaska cruise out of Seattle. We live in California. On past Carnival cruises, regardless of where the cruise left from, we could start our check in at 9:01 p.m. PT on the day before our check in day, since that would be 12:01 a.m. in Miami. We were told that Carnival uses Miami time, since that is where they are located. However, I recently heard that they may have changed the check in time to the time of wherever the ship departs from - so in our case, we would have to wait until 12:01 a.m.

 

Can anyone who has cruised recently and knows the answer to this question let me know? I guess we can just try at 9:01 p.m. and if doesn't work, set an alarm for 12:01 a.m., but I was just wondering if anyone knows for sure.

Check in for our Carnival Jubilee cruise out of Galveston this past April didn't open till midnight Galveston time (Central Time).  We tried and tried starting at midnight Eastern Time, but nothing worked till midnight in Galveston rolled around.

[VentureMan_2000]

So, everything being equal, does that mean that check-in opens up at the following times:

Cruises leaving from California:  

12am Pacific time
  1am Mountain time
  2am Central time
  3am Eastern time

[Number12]

I checked in for an Alaskan cruise out of Seattle last week and had to wait until after midnight, Pacific time to do it.

[thekidsandi]

1 hour ago, VentureMan_2000 said:

So, everything being equal, does that mean that check-in opens up at the following times:

Cruises leaving from California:  

12am Pacific time
  1am Mountain time
  2am Central time
  3am Eastern time

I would think that would be correct.

[VentureMan_2000]

It's 9:03pm Pacific, June 7 for my June 8th check-in.  Cruise leaves California.

Here is the splash-page that comes up when I try to check-in at 9:00pm Pacific:

[VentureMan_2000]

So, What I'm taking away from this is that Carnival has taken action regarding hits on their servers (computers, for the non-technical folks) during check-in, which makes a lot of sense to me.

At midnight Eastern time, everyone that had a check-in that date would try to check in, all at the same time.  This would put tremendous pressure on the check-in thruput, to the point that the servers just bogged down trying to process all the check-in requests.  I'm sure many on this board have previously experienced a 1-hour to 2-hour check-in that during non-peak check-in times might have taken less than 15 minutes.

So... what action could a company like Carnival take to alleviate this issue ?

Instead of having everyone for all Carnival cruises check in at exactly 12am Eastern, they now have then check-in on the time zone of the port the ship leaves from.  Essentially, without splitting hairs, Carnival has eliminated 2/3rds of the hits on its servers (again, computers, for the non-technical folks) during check-in as each of the mainland USA has 3 time zones.

Makes perfect sense.  

[VentureMan_2000]

10:06pm Pacific... still not able to check in.  The "Complete Online Check-in" is lit up, but get the afore mentioned display when I click on "Complete Online Check-in". 

[VentureMan_2000]

11:06 Pacific... same check-in response.

[VentureMan_2000]

12:06am Pacific... same check-in response.

I tried until about 12:17am and finally gave up and went to bed.

I woke up at 2:30am and tried again.  This time I was successful.  I got my arrival time and went back to bed.

 

[VentureMan_2000]

So, I'm still not convinced that the online check-in time begins at midnight of the cruise port as at 9:00pm Pacific, my Cruise Manager check-in highlighted, and I was able to select it.  The fact that I received this same message even after midnight indicated that they may have had some software maintenance going on at the time -- maintained that likely ended after 12:30am or later.

[BlerkOne]

I checked in for our recent cruise at Midnight Eastern time. I have no idea what time that was at the embarkation port (Barcelona).

[cruisegus]

How many days prior to your cruise can you check in?

[VentureMan_2000]

6 hours ago, cruisegus said:

How many days prior to your cruise can you check in?

Log into carnival... it tells you the date

.

Edited June 10 by VentureMan_2000

[silvercrikhix]

I live in CST and 2 nights ago was able to check in at 12:10am EST. 

[silvercrikhix]

On 6/7/2024 at 11:22 PM, VentureMan_2000 said:

Error sorry 

Edited June 10 by silvercrikhix

[csm5986142]

We've been on 35 cruises with Carnival and for as long as I can remember, I have been able to check in at exactly 9 pm (midnight Eastern) 16 days prior to embarkation (being platinum/diamond) but tonight, for the first time, it's not working for me.  I'm getting the same error that was posted above.  We are sailing out of Seattle, so I guess I'll try again at midnight here on the west coast (or just wait until tomorrow morning).  

[VentureMan_2000]

13 hours ago, csm5986142 said:

We've been on 35 cruises with Carnival and for as long as I can remember, I have been able to check in at exactly 9 pm (midnight Eastern) 16 days prior to embarkation (being platinum/diamond) but tonight, for the first time, it's not working for me.  I'm getting the same error that was posted above.  We are sailing out of Seattle, so I guess I'll try again at midnight here on the west coast (or just wait until tomorrow morning).  

Were you able to check in at midnight Pacific ?

[csm5986142]

Unfortunately I fell asleep. 🙂  I had tried again just after 11 pm and it still didn't work. 

I checked in when I woke up this morning at 6:15 am.  

[PayneAS]

On 6/10/2024 at 4:09 PM, silvercrikhix said:

I live in CST and 2 nights ago was able to check in at 12:10am EST. 

It isn't about where you live but where your ship is departing from. If you were departing from an East Coast port, then yes, you would have been able to check in at 11 pm CDT (midnight EDT).

[VentureMan_2000]

45 minutes ago, PayneAS said:

It isn't about where you live but where your ship is departing from. If you were departing from an East Coast port, then yes, you would have been able to check in at 11 pm CDT (midnight EDT).

Not that simple...

[PayneAS]

21 hours ago, VentureMan_2000 said:

Not that simple...

It really is. That is what this whole thread is discussing. Previously, you could check in at Midnight EST/EDT no matter what (well for NA cruises. Don't know about Euro/Austra cruises). 

Now they've apparently changed it so you can check it at Midnight for the time zone your ship is departing from. Departing from San Fran? Midnight PST/PDT. Departing from NY? Midnight EST/EDT. Depart from Galveston, Midnight CST/CDT. I don't know what time zone they pick for European or Australia cruises, I don't think I've seen any posts for those yet. It would be interesting if they went by AEST. Then you would be checking in at 10 am EST/EDT the previous day. 

[modes]

This is something new because I also can’t check in and it’s after 9pm pacific time . Has anyone received a notice about this change ?

[Top_of_the_Cube]

To me, it makes sense to tie the midnight check-in to the embarkation location time zone, but apparently it was just a computer glitch.  I believe John Heald addressed this, saying that he was told the IT dept. will be "correcting" this so that it goes back to midnight EST.

 

Of course, it could also be that Carnival IS working on making this change but the programming went live before they actually intended.  I recall this happening a few times in other areas of their web site over the years.