teknoge3k

Sounds like a "live and learn" lesson. Always get insurance, but not through the cruise line. Make sure whatever policy you go with has a 'cancel for any reason' rider on it. I could not imagine taking any vacation without travel insurance. Not because of the risk of cancelling, but the risk of a medical issue happening.

I've not done 9:30 flights, but I've done 10:30 flights from FLL numerous times. We let Carnival take our luggage, eat breakfast on the ship and take our time debarking. Once we get outside of the terminal, we get an Uber. We drop our luggage at the skycap at FLL, have Precheck, and have been at our terminal by 9:15 at the latest. If we skipped breakfast and carried our own luggage off, we could definitely do a 9:30 flight also.

Just to add/clarify to this, you do not need to pay for wifi to use The Hub app. The Hub app is free to use on board. Not only does it have your debarkation information, but that's also where your photos are, check in for breakfast & dinner (YTD), The Fun Times, pizza delivery, and many other things that would likely be useful. You don't HAVE to use it, but it makes things much easier.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you're not sailing out of Baltimore in May. You may want to go ahead and reschedule your flights and hotels for Norfolk.

I had this exact same scenario last year with Carnival in Bermuda and I found out the hard way. NCL & RCCL have port priority in Bermuda. Depending on the port schedule, Carnival ships may not dock in Bermuda. Instead, they tender in using the lifeboats from the ship. So even though we were there for multiple days, they still had an "all aboard" time each night to be back on the ship. I believe that was 11pm iirc. After that, they do not run the lifeboat tenders back and forth. Then the next day they did not start the tenders until 9am. It was very frustrating and our biggest complaint. We LOVE Bermuda. We're going back next month but going with NCL because they're docked in port for the entire 3 days. That way we can come/go as we please all night.

I second this. Why not just skip the hotel and fly home once you debark the ship?

If your PVP wouldn't do that for you, it's time for you to find a new PVP. A text/email to your PVP and that should have been taken care of right away.

I always take a screenshot of the lower price. That way I have evidence. Calling the customer service number at Carnival is a waste of time. If you have a PVP you could text or email that would be beneficial. Otherwise, wait for it to drop again and submit it again.

You will have 2 elegant nights. They're typically your second night, and second to last night on the ship.

It dropped since I posted that 5hrs ago, unfortunately. This morning it was at $15.50

I remember when it went down to $676 for 100 shares, everyone was jumping on it, as opposed to the $1,550 today.

I wouldn't waste money on the cruise cash. Just link a credit card as a backup, then use the gift cards to pay for your casino donations. The gift cards aren't "use it or lose it". If you donate $3,000 to the casino, then just go to guest services and pay that balance with your gift cards. You could also just preload them to your account at guest services or a kiosk (NOT by getting cruise cash). Then at the end you'll get a refund for any unused funds.

He may end up skipping any of the kids clubs and just going around the ship himself meeting people. Some kids love the kids clubs while others don't. My kids never liked the kids club and always went off and did their own things. They ended up making friends on lido, in the arcade or elsewhere on the ship. The kids club was a one and done for both of my boys.

To answer the OPS question about hotels in case they get to go out of Baltimore in the future, we always stay at the Hampton Inn in Inner Harbor. It's nice to be in the Inner Harbor area and walk to everything including some good restaurants. Once you get to Penn Station on Amtrak it's a short Uber ride to the hotel. Then you can grab an Uber to the port on embarkation day. We've stayed at this hotel numerous times and have always enjoyed it.

The one who picked the 1:30-2pm check-in time needs to get there at his time, or those that picked the 12:00-12:30 time can hang back and go at 1:30-2pm. The reason staggered check-in works, is because it works. If everyone ignored their time and showed up whenever, it'd bottleneck. I have noticed more and more ports are turning people away that show up before their scheduled check-in time.