talkorpi

Are you by any chance talking about Izumi Sushi in San Antonio... I know it's off topic but I was just there and it is a similar thing

So maybe I am just remembering wrong but I used to think ships would change homeports every other year or so. However, I feel like we haven't seen much change aside from the seasonal ports lately. Feels like Galveston / New Orleans / Long Beach / Miami deployments haven't really changed in a while. How much longer until we see a switch up in some of these ports? Of course I know Jubilee is replacing Vista in Galveston and Celebration is taking over Horizon's itineraries soon in Miami but I swear ships used to rotate all the time. Am I crazy or is Carnival tending to keep ships based in the same place for longer? And why?

Wait, WHAT!??!?!?! I had that in May on Vista and it is the best dessert I have ever had. If it's discontinued I will be heartbroken

The term "class leader" here means the first ship in a new class. Since the first Excel-class ship was MG, she is the "class leader" while Celebration and Jubilee are just other ships in the class.

Not yet. I wish they would bring it back. We did this on Breeze in 2017 and it was easily the highlight of my cruise.

So I was looking around at the Carnival store to see price increases at the Fun Shops when I noticed "Faster to the Fun" as an option. When I click on it it says you can purchase it for $49.95 per cabin. I don't have a booking so I can't test this out but it looks to me like FTTF might be back. Can someone with a booking verify? https://www.carnival.com/faster-to-the-fun/MIA/faster-to-the-fun-101031

I have been hoping for this for years. We don't get off the ship in Belize anymore and honestly I don't get the hype of Cozumel - kind of tired of it. I know this is personal preference but if we could get an itinerary like Mahogany Bay - Costa Maya - Grand Cayman I would be soooo happy with that - if not just for some variety!

More than doubling the price of water? Nice, Carnival! Ugh. Just when I was thinking I had enough saved up to book a future cruise, they come with another (and perhaps most severe yet) price hike wave. Ay caramba...

I guess I would be in the same boat but on our cruise in May we had the only negative crew experience of the entire cruise on the first night in the Steakhouse. The food was amazing but we had very bad service and the crew were honestly rude, which was the first time I have ever experienced that in our five cruises. To me, $100 for two people needs to have great service on top of the food. Here's to hoping our experience was just a one-off bad night for them. I wouldn't be back for the new price based on my last experience.

That Chocolate Honeycomb Cake is seriously the best cake I have EVER had. I would book another cruise just to have one slice of it. On Vista in May I may or may not have taken three slices back to our room and kept them in the minifridge...

That's what I thought. I was planning on waiting to buy on-board to see if they had a "specialty dining package" but with the increase it would've made any potential savings irrelevant. Ended up pre-booking the steakhouse and Jiji the day before the price hike. Now I feel like I got a bargain with the new prices from this news...

Good grief, didn't we just bump the prices a couple months ago? I don't blame Carnival since this hyperinflation isn't their fault, but I don't think I would pay $48 for the steakhouse. I usually only order one of each course in the MDR anyways so this won't affect me. I can already see the people who order seven lobster tails having a meltdown though 🤣

Mmm... Carnival food... now you've got me dreaming on this overcast morning at work... MDR: Beef tenderloin (the best thing I have ever eaten on Carnival), teriyaki salmon, eggs benedict & round hash browns, Steak & eggs and brunch, cold fruit soups (especially peach and cherry cream), blackened pork tart MDR Desserts: WCMC of course, caramelized banana cake in MDR years ago (not sure if it is still offered but it was very good on the Triumph in 2014) Jiji: Literally everything but our favorites are the Nanjing style duck and the Hakka noodles Steakhouse: Crab brown butter risotto, surf & turf Lido: Blue Iguana breakfast burrito (egg, cheese, ham, hash brown, and green salsa - so good), Deli buffalo chicken sandwich, Blue Iguana fish tacos, Buffet chocolate honeycomb cake (literally the best cake I have ever eaten), EMPANADAS (they had an empanada station on Vista and it was SO GOOD every day) Used to like the Straight Up and Guy's Burgers as well as the brisket & collard greens at Pig & Anchor, but both were markedly worse on our last cruise so I'm not sure how often I will have those on my must-eat-this-before-the-cruise-ends list anymore 🤔🤔🤔

I was having the same issue when poking around on the booking engine yesterday for Radiance out of Long Beach. It said there were cabins but then gave me that little red bar error message thing. Weird.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything but I believe the comment about Galveston being within a < 5 hour drive from four of the eleven biggest cities in the country has something to do with it. Galveston is the ultimate drive-to port in the country and I guess since the demand is much higher they have to price to match. Not fun for the consumer, especially the non-gambling but still extremely budget-conscious cruiser like me who can never seem to get these elusive deals or casino offers that make it so affordable. I wish Galveston prices could go down. And Carnival, if you're listening, can you start mixing up the itineraries a bit? Give us more than just Cozumel and Belize, please? More Grand Cayman would be nice and maybe - just maybe - do some 8-days that go a little further east more often? ❤️

Good grief. I have been trying to respond to this thread for two days but I couldn't log in! Anyways, I have been to both of these ports twice. Our first cruise in 2013 as well as most recent cruise in May of 2022. On our first cruise like newbies we did an excursion in each port and on our last cruise we only did an "excursion" in Roatan. Honestly, out of the few ports we have been to, Roatan is one of our favorites due to our last trip! We purchased the "Relax on the Beach" package from Carnival directly for our cruise this year. This basically is just an amenities package for the free beach attached to the port. However, Mahogany Beach is very nice, and, since we were planning on purchasing most of the amenities in the package anyways, it actually came out cheaper to purchase the package than individual rentals per person. There are a couple different options, I think you can purchase just a beach package that comes with reserved seating with a clamshell or umbrella, water float mats, and a day pass to use the chairlift. You also have the option of adding a snorkel rental or a kayak rental, which I recommend doing since it is the same price as just the regular package. It is sold in bundles of two which means you only need one ticket for every two people in your group. At the price of $70 for a ticket, I think that $35/pp is a great value considering how many things you get out of this. If you don't feel like going out to explore Roatan and want to maximize your time relaxing, I would highly recommend this excursion from Carnival! We had an amazing time at Mahogany Beach and the Kayaking was very fun as well. In Roatan in 2013, we did the Gumbalimba Park excursion. It was nice but I honestly preferred Mahogany Beach. Belize is more of a mixed bag - it's pretty much all adventure-type stuff. There is no beach in Belize that I know of and the tenders drop you off in Downtown Belize City. On our 2013 cruise we did the Altun Ha excursion and it was fascinating as it was our first (and so far only) Mayan Ruins excursion. I would highly recommend this excursion but as it was nearly ten years ago now I'm not sure if/how much things have changed. On our 2022 cruise, we stayed on the ship in Belize. Some people in my traveling party had a heart disorder so doing any of the adventure-like tours with high amounts of walking or strenuous activity was a no-go. While I enjoy those types of things, if your entire party can't participate in those types of activities and you don't want to split up, then you might have a hard time finding an excursion in Belize. Have a wonderful time!

Was on the Vista in May. The cruise right before ours arrived back to Galveston about 2 1/2 hours late, and the cruise before that one got back about four hours late. Our itinerary was changed to accommodate for propulsion issues, but we were never late arriving/early departing from any of the ports on the revised itinerary. The cruise Director told me in May that they had loaded the parts onboard during our cruise and were going to be fixing it by the end of that month. I haven’t really kept up with that, but that may have solved the propulsion problems that were plaguing the ship at the earlier half of the year. Water worked fine for the entire trip. After our sailing, which was my first on a ship newer than the Dream Class, I realize that I much prefer the older Carnival ships layout-wise. Vista didn’t have enough public space or windows in my opinion. It was still a great cruise and had great dining options, but just my personal opinion that the ship’s public spaces were not well-designed. Hope that your upcoming cruise is wonderful and is completely issue-free! 🙂

Shhhh! Don't give them any ideas! 😉

Sounds about right for Certified Carnival Problem Child™ Carnival Vista! 🤣

Only been on the Conquest, Dream, and Vista classes (now that Triumph class no longer exists). Of these, I think Dream is my favorite and Vista is my least favorite. Dream is basically a slightly more modern Conquest class with an incredible Promenade which we love. Vista, on the other hand, was not for me. Felt cramped, not enough windows, bad atrium, and lack of public space compared to older ships was glaring. Haven't had the chance to try the Excel class but always wanted to. Just waiting for the right price...

Risteily Turusta olisi niin hauskaa! Aina halunnut Suomeen...

Kind of agree with the consensus here. Icon just seems like Oasis class with a few minor tweaks. I was hoping that all of this talk of a "revolutionary design" and it being the "most innovative game-changing ship the industry had ever seen" meant we would be getting something a little more... different. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in my opinion, as a lot of the new features look interesting. Still, I can't help but be a little bit disappointed considering how much hype there was. Oh well - time will tell and we will find out for sure how this works out in 2024!

Saw some news today that Costa Cruises abruptly cancelled an entire years' worth of sailings for the Costa Fortuna, which is a Destiny-Class ship in the Costa fleet. With the recent decisions by CCL upper management to move assets from Costa to Carnival, do you think that this could indicate Carnival taking over the Fortuna and Magica from Costa in the coming years and potentially see those two ships added to the Destiny/Sunshine class sailing as Carnival ships? Just thought it was some interesting news to stumble upon... makes you think... Edit: source - https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/28528-costa-cancels-majority-of-fortuna-s-cruises-for-2023-and-2024.html

Glad to see such a positive reaction for a highly anticipated ship that has still yet to be officially revealed! I <3 the CruiseCritic boards