wemjam

There's the catch! So how much extra is this? so you pay $999 for villa (current price anyhow) and how much more for this?

You need to weight these factors and how they might impact you. Each of them has their own challenges and can be deal breakers depending on your requirements. If it means getting your rooms all together it may be things you can over look. Noise from multiple possible sources is an issue if you are a light sleeper and don't prepare (I sleep with ear plugs so it doesn't bother me). We did have a room over the show lounge once and I couldn't hear the noise, but I could feel it while trying to sleep from the bass. Had room directly over kitchen area one time (smelled garlic and onions cooking ALL the time). Too close to elevators means you get the bulk of the traffic passing your door heading down the halls - and people don't think about it and can be loud. Only you can weigh what is important to you. Good rooms together, at a price you like versus whatever challenges might be around (can you deal with the potential for slight annoyances).

Well son of a gun! So Holland has butlers for the same price... well that sucks the big one lol! I want my Jeeve's

Just have to say this... your baby in the picture looks like ours we lost a year ago. So cute!

Let me give you examples of what I have seen in the last year. Standing patiently at the customer service desk waiting my turn in line. A man and woman going at each other right in the middle of the atrium. I mean cussing, yelling, screaming at each other. We are talking right in the middle of... oh, I don't know... like 50 people. Didn't give a crap who was listening or watching. Again, another cruise, standing patiently at customer service. Three young gentlemen (I use that term in jest - like 10-13 if I had to guess - no parents in sight) are jogging around the atrium hitting and running into each other. Go running up to the Kiosk and start slamming buttons and literally hitting and kicking the kiosk. One of them then turns around runs up to the customer service desk and demands the agent give him a band aid because he cut his hand. The agent politely (man I give him tons of credit) tells the boy to please politely wait his turn in line and he would be happy to help him. This child begins to scream and cuss this guy out... I mean F this and F that and you B... It was all I could do to not grab this little punk around the neck and slap him silly. A group of kinds at 1am running down the halls banging on every single door and yelling and screaming as they do. Drunks and I mean to the point where security was called in. Again, this is is just in the last 6 or 7 cruises. These are what I would call the "bigger" things. Smaller things.... No courtesy in buffet / food lines. People feel they are too good to wait like everyone else. Attitude if they don't get what they want. Rudeness to staff and other guests. Letting it ALL hang out everywhere (again the pool deck is fine you want to be like that, but not in the indoor public places and especially where I am eating please!). Again, on ships it just this behavior just seems more "compact" and in your face than what you might see day to day. And again, IMHO my own personal experience the shorter/less expensive the cruise the worse it gets. Got to take the good with the bad.

So, this could be back firing on them already. I was curious so I looked, we cruise in 18 days and there are still Cabanas and Villas available at the $699, $999 rate. They always sold out way before this in the past at the lower rates. If you didn't snag one at least a month or two out (or more), they were all sold out.

When you used to check in at the desk for YTD my husband would always say "table just for 2 please" Since the hub app started, we haven't done that, but always have been sat just at a table for us two alone. A do agree some of the tables on the ships can be close together, to me if I can reach my arm out and touch my neighbor that is pretty close. It's not like normal on land restaurant table spacing. I guess it is all in how you define "close"

Just an FYI, they are not "flavored paper straws" they are true sugar candy straws. 100% edible. But there in lies the issue, because they are they get slimly when they get wet and are no fun to drink out of. I will suck it up (pun intended) and use one on a sweet drink like a milk shake (with the chocolate straw), and then I eat the straw too. But other than that I use my own metal straw.

I am racking my brain.. I know I had all 3 rooms linked together, and we all showed as travel companions. I know I accessed and did all the check in work, but as far as the timing I can't remember for sure if it allowed me to do all our check ins at the same time? Or if I had to go into each one and do it individually. I THINK I was able to do them all at the same time (like all 6 names came up and I checked them all or something), but I could be wrong. It as been 6 months since the last "group" cruise and I am old lol! I didn't have an issue either way getting us all the same time though, even if I had to do them individually. I would have done them right away back to back if that was the case though.

You should be able to just use their booking #'s and add it to your account too. I do this all the time when we cruise with our parents, and recently for 3 rooms when my brother and his girlfriend went too. I had access to all 3 rooms and did all the check in myself for everyone. I also booked our arrival time together (at the exact moment they opened up)... and then a few days later on a weekend, called each group and got all their info and entered it as I went.

Good to know. Since we get the benefit regardless, never really knew if it came with suite or not. We have gotten a suite, but like I said we had the benefit already regardless.

So to sum it up, it is a sign of our times and the "me" attitude of society. A lot of the info you will hear are from long time (older) cruisers who remember when times were different. This does not just reflect in cruising though, but in society in general. Cruises that are shorter, less expensive tend to draw a certain demographic. Longer more expensive cruises draw another. For the same reason that different cruise lines draw a different kind of demographic. In my experience this is how things have changed. You get people that have no respect for others and only care about their own enjoyment and satisfaction. You get people that have no problem voicing (quite loudly and rudely) their opinions on everything. Physical confrontations were never heard of say 10 or more years ago, but are common place now. People do not control their children and they are left to run at will (to the point that Carnival actually had to recently establish a policy on this). Again, it is all a sign of the self absorbed nature of society today. On most sailings, you are not going to have issues. You may experience a sense of this behavior in small ways: kids running wild, line jumpers, loud voiced opinions, seeing a verbal confrontation here or there, just rude behavior in general. Or you may see it occasionally in bigger ways, like loud obnoxious behavior on the pool deck or in the clubs (especially from over intoxicated people) or inappropriate attire (I am sorry I do not need to see your completely naked backside walk past at eye level while I am eating - and I am sorry a string is completely naked) and bad behavior in the dinning room or other areas of the ship. It is a mixed bag. I have only seen really bad behavior maybe every 4th or 5th cruise I take, but the small bad behaviors are present on every one. I personally can see how more prevalent it is based on when I cruise and how long I cruise. For example, we avoid summer cruising like the plague lol!

🙃 Ya I tried the box of plastic straws, but it was a pain to walk around carrying those. They weren't very convenient to fit in your pocket. Inevitably the time I wanted a drink was when we were as far away from the room as possible and we (well if I am being honest, my husband lol) would have to trudge back to the room to get a straw because neither of us wanted to carry the plastic ones around.

We got lucky I guess, the ones we got are great. They aren't sharp (the ends are actually rolled if that makes sense), collapse into a nice little container (very compact) and are very easy to clean with the included collapsible cleaning brush. I love mine. PS: They actually came with nice silicone end for the drinking end too. I took it off because it didn't need it.

Ok, yes...... but common courtesy would be to let them know so others are not impacted by you not showing up. 🙃 Like service being delayed to assure you are not just running a little late, or someone else being given your spot if you do not want it and they do. But of course, in todays day and age common courtesy isn't so common.

Not sure about Holland, but I have cruised Carnival to HMC for a lot of years and always get the cabana. Other than the set up of food and beverages, and checking in once to see if everything is OK, we have never had food brought to us. Servers walk around offering booze, but food was ALWAYS served in the Pavilion and was buffet style and you got your own. I am not sure how Holland would do this at HMC either? I would assume they would do the same thing with the buffet set up as there are no other restaurants. It isn't like at Amber Cove or Grand Turk where they have a restaurant that offers choices you pay for and you can order off a menu and they will bring it to you.

Just an FYI because it wasn't mentioned. They system will also ask you about your travel arrangements. Arriving by car/air, etc. If by air it will even ask you about your actual flights, etc.

As mentioned, your level doesn't matter with this issue. We are Diamond and we have rooms assigned almost immediately after booking months out, and one time we didn't get our room until we got to the port. So it is irrelevant. It all depends on what works best for Carnival. They may still be trying to sell the "better" rooms available right up to as close to cruising as possible. We have been lucky though I will say, and for the most part we have always received a room that we might have picked ourselves. Haven't gotten any clunkers.

You can also google the room numbers you have selected with the word "video." I have had good luck getting videos on rooms to see what they were like on line. As Drazil65 said, check the deck plan! Look for the following for deck 6 especially: 1. Are you close to elevators - lots of traffic and noisy 2. Is there rooms above and below you (this is the way to go, as they act as buffers). If not, what is there, something that you might have noise issues with? 3. Kitchen area above or below? This can mean odors and heat from cooking (had room with cooking smells awful one time) 4. Are you close to a central "open" area - can get noise from the lobby at night with music, etc. (even all the way to the top decks) 5. Do you have to worry about anyone and motion sickness. Lower and central is better for this 6. Deck 6 on the Vista is where the movie theater is it looks like and circle C - toward the front for both. You DO NOT want to be close to these. 7. You also likely would not want to be above the main theater, again noise (well more the bass you will feel than the noise you will hear)

Yep we invested in some collapsible metal ones with their own little case and cleaning brush. Just clean it each night in the room.

When we have won them I always give them to a young kid I see around the ship. We do the same thing with free stuff we win in the shops usually. Also, any Diamond gifts we may not want. We call it "let's go make some friends" We will sit on the Promenade and wait for the right age/gender child to go past for whatever we have and then pass it on to them. Always makes their day! 😃

Ya, I am getting the feeling it is the "bigger" ships that do this brunch, and the mid to smaller ones we sail don't. We are on the Sunshine again in a couple weeks, will be interesting to see. We sailed on her in January and just the normal snacks passed and drinks.

If you are worried about the party vibe, then this! Longer cruises tend to be more "mature" adults (and I don't mean age, I mean behavior). Shorter cruise tend to be a little more of a ruckus kind of group. NOLA being a party place to start with, many people will "combine" the two together. Party in NOLA a day or two before or after a cruise so it will attract that demographic. The Valor itself is a Conquest Class Ship. We LOVE these ships, always have. The Conquest herself is our favorite. The bigger ships have a lot to offer, but we love the Conquest layout and also the ratio of people to space seems like things are more spread out and not as crowded as other ships can feel IMHO.

☹️ I read a headline that the Florida cost got slammed too. That is too bad, so sorry to hear about how this cruise is turning out. PS: I told my husband about the ship listing hard on you guys and dishes everywhere. Seriously, I would have been up and running for an outside door if that happened thinking she was going over. In my own little world in my head I have always thought if I can at least be "outside" the vessel somewhere I got a shot at swimming for it lol! I love to cruise and I love to swim, love the water... but crazy enough that is my #1 biggest fear. Drowning. I joke all the time I must have died that way in a previous life.

It really is up to you. I would "price" the room they are offering you straight up and see what the savings is they are offering you. I have seen where their upsell is not really that much different in price, and one time it was even higher than buying the same room outright. Also, only you can decide if the added benefits of the spa room are worth the cost for you, also is the location good for you. Finally is the $314 doable within your budget.