lolavix

If you took a price protection lowered rate and it required you to change to a different fare offer, you might not be Early Saver still. Best to call Carnival and ask if you are still ES or not.

That is what I am unsure of. I thought I had read somewhere that once you were Early Saver, always Early Saver. I will have to call and see.

Thanks.

New question--if I have done a price adjustment once, how would I know now if it was an Early Saver? I did receive an updated confirmation, and it still has the footnote that was on my original one, about losing the $50 pp deposit.

So, if you price match to a new rate and it IS Early Saver too, you continue to get price protection. However, if the new rate is not Early Saver , then you lose price protection and are stuck at the new fare even if it drops later.

So you'd be stuck with the new fare (with no price protection) AND you'd still be stuck with the Early Saver regulations?

I have done this before and as long as the new rate is also early saver you can continue to submit the price adjustments but as someone else said you would lose the OBC so make sure that any future price drops are greater then the OBC.

I don't understand this. I was under the impression that anyone who books Early Saver can request price drops up until 2 days prior to the sail date. I also thought that Early Saver fares stopped being offered within 3-5 months of sailing. If Early Saver is not offered within 3-5 months of sailing, then how could someone be eligible for price drops so close to their sale date if the new rate has to also be Early Saver?

Thanks.

Follow up to my question from 3/14--I just now received a shipping confirmation for my purchase from Saturday. The actual UPS shipping date was 3/15, so I'm guessing that the 3/14 date I saw on my account late on 3/14 was just when my package was "done" at the GC provider's end. UPS didn't consider it ready to go until 3:20 PM on 3/15. I do have a tracking number now, and the shipping date on my AARP account summary for this purchase has been changed to 3/15.

This was a surprise. I just figured I'd wait and see when the GCs showed up.

Previous order of $200 shipped and arrived without a tracking number. So, I am not sweating it.

Thank you. This is very helpful.

That sense of awe that these ships elicited from cruisers back then can still be sensed by first time cruisers simply because they haven't experienced other ships before. Unless someone purposely tells your family members that the Fascination is an older, smaller ship, chances are that they'll have a great experience, and don't be surprised if some of them comment on how big the ship is!

That would be us. We've only done one other cruise, and it was on the NCL Dawn. If you read the NCL boards, you will hear a lot of the same comments there about the Dawn that you have in this thread about the Fascination.

We picked the Dawn because we live near the port and wanted to go to Bermuda. We picked the Fascination because we want to see the ports as we haven't been to the Caribbean. When I booked our cruise in January, I looked at the other lines and Carnival was the winner. There are five of us, so even another line being "essentially the same" (e.g. maybe $40-50 higher than Carnival's prices) starts to add up when you have to account for that for five people. We booked all but one airline ticket to San Juan with credit card miles, so that isn't really an issue for this particular trip.

I know I'm in the minority here, because we have only done one other cruise and we do mostly land vacations. I have joked to my DH that we don't really know what we are missing, and perhaps that is best for now. We definitely fall in the camp of "sailing for the ports" and not the ship. It might not always be that way, but for now, it is. We loved our cruise to Bermuda on an older ship (My then six year old's favorite part of our entire cruise vacation to Bermuda? The T-Rex slide on the kiddie pool of the Dawn. :)) I'm sure we'll love our Southern Caribbean itinerary as well, even without the bells and whistles on the ship.

I apologize in advance for posting here and making everyone think GCs are available.

I just now remembered to look to see what the status of my purchase was from Saturday. Under my account, it says that they have "shipped" today but that tracking is not available. I didn't receive an email which said that they have shipped, either, despite the original purchase receipt saying that I would.

The two other times I purchased GCs, they totalled more than $500, so they came UPS and I had to sign for them. I ordered 5 $100 GCs the other day, so I am not sure if (1) they will come USPS instead of since I'm just at $500 and not over it or (2) maybe the system is not caught up yet to post the tracking number, since even USPS has tracking numbers. In addition to the tracking not being available, the shipment method column is left blank.

Did anyone else who ordered $500 or under from Saturday and whose GCs have shipped get a tracking number? I can call tomorrow when they are open, but I figured that maybe someone might be around who purchased a "lower" amount on Saturday.

Thanks.

Since you've been following so long have you noticed a pattern as to which part of the month it comes out?

I bought them on January 30, February 12 and today. I think there were also some available on or around February 2, but I had just purchased some a few days earlier and didn't get them that time.

I keep the AARP site open on my computer, and will check periodically each day. Also, when I get up in the AM, if I have an email notification from this thread as well as the Verizon thread, as I did today, I know that they are available. Both AARP and Verizon Wireless have them available at the same time.

First post today saying they were available was at 1:30 am my time or 12:30 am CST and the past several times they have been releasing them at midnight.

If you are in Denver, it means that it was 2:30 AM Central and 3:30 AM East Coast time (which is what the first post for me says for today.) The $500s were gone by prior to 7:30 AM here, since that is when I got up. If I lived in CA, though, I'd have gotten them before I went to bed.

I will say that I've only been watching for them since the end of January, and they do seem to come up around this middle-of-the-night time, which does make it harder for those on the West Coast (except the real night owls).

Ugh I've been checking for these for days! I even checked last night and when I saw them this morning I got happy until I noticed the "sold out" . Any way to be notified these are available other than checking every few hours?

I've only been looking for these since the end of January, and they have come up at around 3:30 AM on the East Coast all 3-4 times since then. I usually am up around 7-7:30 and have come in at the tail end each time. Today the $500s were gone on both AARP and Verizon, but the $100s were still available.

Last time the GCs came out, it was a Friday. I got mine the following Wednesday. I don't know if where you live affects the timing, but they come from Ohio and I live on the East Coast. The previous time I bought them (end of January), it was six days.

I started out looking for a cruise for my family of five (kids would be 13, 11 and 9 or so). After doing some research about what we might like to see and do, now I'm thinking we might just do a 2 week land vacation, which would include some time in the Juneau/Glacier Bay area and then flying over to Anchorage and doing additional things in that area. I don't want to miss Glacier Bay, but the cruise prices for how we'd want to do it and when we can sail (typical summer months, not May or September), with a balcony, were just too much. I know everyone says once you go to Alaska you'll return, but with a family of five, there is less likely to be a repeat trip anytime soon, so I want to be sure we see what we want to see while we're there.

We're probably not going for 2 more years, but I am hoping by that time I'll have enough airline miles to get the flights, or most of the flights, for free.

I'll be reading along here, though. :)

February 12th was the last time they were available. I am waiting, too!

I have a fairly extensive review in my signature of our NCL cruise to Bermuda two summers ago. Since it's our only cruise to date, I'm sure when we do our Southern Caribbean cruise this summer we will find it wildly different. It was very nice to have the ship in one place and use it as our hotel. We did all of our touring on our own and found it very easy, even with three kids in tow.

Tell me more about Tom Moore's jungle....

What did you do there? Did you have any trouble finding it on your own?

If you follow the link in my signature, you can read about Tom Moore's Jungle in more detail and see some photos(page 5). We basically just walked around for about an hour. We didn't do any swimming in caves, as I know organized tours will do, but it was pretty and a bit different from the beach.

The sign on the street was fairly well marked, and I think we told the bus driver that we wanted to get off there. There was another couple on the bus with us who also visited the jungle, so you might not be alone there.

Terrific review and gorgeous photos. :) I had a question about Coral World.

How long were you actually at Coral World before going to Coki? I'm wondering if my family will have time to visit it, since we are planning an island tour by taxi for the morning and arriving at the beach around 11:30-12 PM and probably need to leave Coki no later than 3 PM. We like to snorkel, so I didn't know if we should try to visit Coral World or just do the beach. This is our first visit to St. Thomas. I have kids so our time to visit Coral World might take longer than that of two adults. (The map you posted is very helpful.)

Thanks.

Curious if my family of five (3 kids) is going to need more than 1 taxi. Do they have van-type taxis for those that need them?

I know this is the Barbados board, but if you are going to St. Thomas, I noticed that there is a Turtle Encounter at Coral World. It's obviously not in the turtles' natural environment, but it would free up your time on Barbardos.

I think GCs are only through Verizon Wireless, not other Verizon accounts. We have Verizon for internet, cable and landline, and I didn't see any GCs through that account.

For the AARP GCs, you don't need to sign up to be an AARP member. However, you will need to sign up to use the website, and you'll need to have sufficient points to purchase the discounted GCs. I haven't seen anyone mention that here, only to go to AARP "Rewards for Good". I signed up there and took a bunch of quizzes on their site to rack up some points. If you sign in every day, you'll also get points. You'll need at least 1000 points to purchase a $100 GC, and it goes up from there.

Wondering if we'll see any GCs this week, as they weren't offered at all last week...;)

We did the Boston to Bermuda cruise two summers ago, and the bulk of our spending was for the cruise itself. My kids were 10, 8 and 6 at the time.

On Sunday, we purchased the three day transportation passes. We used these to get to the south shore beaches the first day. On Monday, we used the passes to visit Tom Moore's Jungle, and then we went to Fort St. Catherine's Beach by way of St. George. We took the ferry back to the dock that afternoon. On Tuesday, we spent the morning at the beach again and did a little bit of shopping before we departed.

Besides the passes, we bought lunch at Horseshoe Beach on Sunday. We brought pre-packaged snacks for Monday's lunch, but we also got ice cream during our travels. On Tuesday, we were back at the ship for lunch so we didn't spend any money that day, except for our souvenirs.

We didn't spend a lot of money on the ship--mostly on some photos and a few more souvenirs.

Right now, I am planning a southern Caribbean cruise, and the cost of the excursions is making me :eek:, because my one and only basis of comparison is the Bermuda cruise, where we spent virtually nothing additional to get around the island. I know that there are excursions you can do, but since we were brand new to cruising and knew we wanted to see the beaches, that is primarily what we focused on. I also believe that you could probably research the excursions and do them on your own...the nice thing about Bermuda is that you are there for 3 days, so you don't have to worry about being back on board at a particular time until the last day.

Have fun!

We've only sailed on one other cruise, and this will be our first Carnival Cruise this summer. Since booking our cruise last month, I have been reading along and I want to say thank you to all who have helped me so far...

1. We have two cabins, and I booked Early Saver for both. I just got my first price drop...granted, it's a net gain of $10, but it dropped the price by $60 (we lost $50 OBC). So, not a huge gain, but right now, I'd rather have the price drop than the OBC...within an hour of my submitting the form, the price drop was approved and our fare adjusted. (The other room has no price drop yet, but I'll keep looking for both).

2. I learned about the Carnival GCs you can buy through Verizon Wireless and AARP. I've purchased quite a few in the past month, and am thrilled to be able to save 10% on the price of my cruise. I know I wouldn't have known about these unless I read Cruise Critic.

3. Related to the GCs, I was able to use them and get the deposit I had already paid refunded back to my CC. Since I had a $1250 deposit, this was a substantial savings. I wouldn't have thought to try this but I had read that some had done this successfully on their bookings.

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for being so helpful and willing to share what you know. :)

Now, back to reading...;)

"If you are 10 years old or in fourth grade, you can participate in a fun online activity and receive a voucher for a free 4th Grade Annual Pass. Print out the voucher and take it with you and your family to a national park, where you can serve as an ambassador and introduce your family to the National Park System. This program, called Every Kid in a Park, begins September 1, 2015, and runs until August 30, 2016. National parks and other federal lands and waters all across America are excited to share their heritage with young people."

More information can be found here:

https://everykidinapark.gov/ or http://www.nps.gov/kids/features/2015/everyKid.cfm

Yea, $40 is kind of a "chunk." I re read Herods and it says something about how many people are on the tour for price "change" or something like that. I know when I was researching Dominica, I wanted to go with one excursion, but for 2 people it would be $100pp, 4 people in van would be $20 cheaper, etc up to 10 people would only be $40/pp. Some on my roll call were interested, but I didn't want to get involved with organizing something. So I went with another excursion that had a "flat rate/pp." Spencer was my lst instinct and sometimes it's good to go with them, so I guess I will just keep that tour!

I am in a different situation as there are five of us, so we do boost the number of people in a tour but the price differentials add up quickly for us--even with kids' tour prices. I hope you have a great time! :)

KelseyD--My roll call consists of just me right now. ;) We're still six months out, so we'll have to see.

Cruisin Karen--I wonder what constitutes that price differential. I have heard good things about both tours, but I can understand the disappointment.

Thanks everyone. I was thinking the same thing...most people are not going to pull their kids out of school within the first week or two it starts.

If they start after Labor Day, it wouldn't be pulling them out of school...it would be missing the first few days of school and just starting late. I still don't think many people would want to do this, but it might be a trade off with the parents getting an extra vacation day built in due to the holiday.