undercat

Yes, I had booked direct with Royal. I received this Friday at 3:10 PM. I got a phone call at work shortly thereafter.

I booked directly on RCCL. Received cancel email Friday mid day. I immediately called RCCL. Happened to speak with agent who didn't know (yet) about cancelled sailings. He was very helpful in getting us on the Navigator going out same day our cancelled cruise was supposed to leave.

Thanks publicpersona and anjomojo! I was getting confused between the various communications and the two active Empress threads. I'm sorry that your cruises were cancelled. What a mess!

Apologies if this has already been stated in this thread and I missed it.

Has anyone who booked directly with Royal (not through a TA) been notified by Royal of the cancellations? The letter to the TAs went out on Friday. I guess Royal sends the news to TAs first to allow TAs to service their clients, but is there a typical lag time between TA notification and direct-book client notification? I am curious because some of those price-protected Majesty sailings have already sold out, so if a direct-book client doesn't get Royal's cancellation note until tomorrow (Monday) and isn't on CC/FB/other social media to have heard the news indirectly, that client's options have been significantly reduced. I recall at least one direct-book client posting that they hadn't received any notification from Royal.

Thank you for your review and photos! Those sunrises, sigh....

Yikes...sorry for all those affected by the cancellations. I'm glad I'd already cancelled our May 28 sailing, because like someone upthread mentioned I wouldn't want to be on what will now be one of the first sailings out of dry dock. I've been waiting for the Labor Day Empress itinerary to be released, but at this point I'd want her to get some sailings and reviews under her belt before I'd book her again.

Hi Tom.....I asked JH today when the announcement would be made about the new suite perks and he did answer me and stated Soon and he thought we'd be very happy with the changes

Thanks for sharing!

I'm looking forward to seeing what suite perks CCL will roll out. Even double cruise points would make a suite worthwhile for us, since we're newbie CCL red card holders. For double cruise points at current suite pricing, I'd probably trade up to a GS on our Fascination cruise. We wouldn't require a special restaurant, special servants, "free" drink packages, any of that - not from Carnival. We could go to other cruise lines and pay a serious premium for those things if we wanted them.

I'd like for Carnival to make the suite experience special but keep it simple. Tossing in the FTTF experience plus double cruise points would be lovely. Of course, platinums and diamonds already get FTTF and more, so it might not sway them as much towards a suite. But for red card holders like us, it would be a real incentive.

check out the two messages

 

he was in E183 we were in E244

 

Id suggest that anyone looking for a FAST website to research ship deck plans check out vacations to go. This is NOT an endorsement of the company or their services. BUT, I use that website on almost a daily basis to check out ships, deck plans, public space layouts and yes, prices. I have never booked with them or even called them to check on a booking. They have the fastest loading and pretty easy to navigate set of ship info I have found anywhere though.

 

anyhoo, what ever website you go to to check out the deckplans on the fantasy and fascination, check out those cabin locations, right in front of E244 on both ships is a tiny alcove that is the lower landing for a set of stairs

 

follow this up on your ship deckplans to atlantic and you'll see this takes you to the port side and behind the aft dining room on both ships, one more flight of stairs up and you come up thru the floor of SERENITY on the port side! woo woo!

 

normally to get to serenity you go thru puttin on the ritz or the forum, OR you have to come down from outside aft of coconut grove\windows on the sea a deck above

 

note these stairs DO NOT go down to upper deck

 

so, a kind of sneaky set of stairs but if there was a problem in the dining room requiring an exit from the rear then these are the stairs that would get everybody out and up or down - kind of a ship thang....;)

*bumping* this thread from 2015....

cruise_mojo, how did you like E244 on Fascination? I'm having a tough time gauging the cabin size from photos on a certain cruise rooms website. It looks roomy-ish, smaller than a balcony cabin on a Conquest-class but roomy enough to stretch out a bit. The balcony looks AWESOME, but DH and I spend more time in the cabin than on the balcony (although I do love a good balcony nap!) The balcony cabin interior on the Glory was a good size for a weeklong cruise. I'm trying to gauge if we should step up to a Verandah Junior suite for the Glory-sized interior space, but THAT AFT BALCONY would be tough to give up.

Now, for a GS or EGS upsell at the right price, sayonara aft balcony...

Another poster put up photos of U230, but it's laid out differently with the pullman bed and the head of the bed on the same side of the cabin as the door. The layout difference can impact roominess, or at least perceived roominess. Judging by the photos it seems doubtful that these aft cabins are actually 185sq feet like Carnival's website claims, unless that square shower basin is taking up more room than I thought! :cool:

ETA: I found a few more E244 pics in this thread - http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=36127657&postcount=13 - but as I'm not always the best judge of depth of field in photos taken from various cameras, I'd still like your opinion of this cabin.

There is another way to get to the old booking version. I find it a lot easier than switching browsers all around, deleting cookies, hoping for it to work, etc. It requires editing the URL, but it's a very simple edit ...

 

1. At the very end of the URL, add on ... &be_version=1

 

2. Near the beginning of the URL, you want it to show Stateroom/Stateroom2/. As an example ...

Instead of ... carnival.com/BookingEngine/Booking/Book?embkCode=...

Put in this ... carnival.com/BookingEngine/Stateroom/Stateroom2/?embkCode=...

 

Here is a full example of a corrected URL (CruiseCritic truncates the URL so you need to click the link to see all)

http://www.carnival.com/BookingEngine/Stateroom/Stateroom2/?embkCode=FLL&itinCode=CSM&durDays=8&shipCode=CQ&subRegionCode=CS&sailDate=01212017&sailingID=74621&numGuests=2&showDbl=False&isOver55=Y&isPastGuest=Y&stateCode=FL&isMilitary=Y&evsel=&be_version=1

LOVE this tip and the nice, basic layout on the resulting page! Thank you!!

I logged into my Paypal and I was only charged $80 as expected.

When making the purchase for the $100 gift card, the website said $100, and after I entered the code it showed the $80 final price after taking out the $20 flash sale discount (like DebbieMo posted).

Not sure if I'm allowed to name the seller, but I bought from paypal digital gifts on eBay for the ecard option. As firemanbobswife said, the website said to allow up to 24 hours for ecard delivery. Not sure if ordering from Paypal's shop made a difference in how my PP account was billed versus those who ordered physical cards from a different seller, although this COULD be the case (hence why I specifically ordered from Paypal's shop for this Paypal event, in the hopes that things would go most smoothly).

Chill pill anyone???

Well done re: tablets :)

/thread

Thanks OP! In for 1 :)

I just realized that I forgot about the coughing kid incident. ...

 

LMAO @ the visuals! Shame on those parents for not teaching their child to be considerate of others!

Absolutely totes this:

I've been trying to do mock bookings to see what staterooms are available. No matter what ship or stateroom categories I look at it just gives me one room number. The deck plan with available rooms doesn't come up. Anyone else have this issue? I didn't like when they changed the booking page. I hope this isn't the new way to pick a stateroom.

The "select more options" does not show up for me.

This seems to be a new "feature" of the website: Assigning you a cabin without giving you an option to change it online. This "feature" was recently noted in this thread: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2324953

I created a mock booking in Chrome and experienced what you describe: Automatic cabin assignment with no option to change or even to see where on the deck plan the assigned cabin was located. Try accessing the booking engine via a different browser, or try using an online TA site to view available cabins.

Thanks OP for sharing!

I'd also be interested in a staggered check-in report from someone not as lucky to get the earliest slots, for instance someone with a noon or later check-in slot. I'm aware that check-in is different than boarding, but curious as to whether staggered check-in creates a smoother boarding flow as well.

I did read that thread. I heard the sound for very short time. A horn describes it well.

 

We were in the center aft. Of the 12 aft balcony cabins, only 4 have the pullman bed for a 3rd person.

 

There is no room for a sofa. There is barely room to walk around the beds put together. At the foot of the bed there is only room for one person to walk thru. On the sides of the bed you can step by someone standing. It's tight.

 

Don't worry about the sofa. Just get out on the balcony.

 

The Serenity had nicer lounge chairs. That area was almost always at capacity. Spring break had much to do with that.

Thank you! We're booked one deck up on Empress. Looking forward to that big balcony for sure!

Thank you for your photos and review! We're booked in an aft balcony on Fascination from SJU. Did you hear the "sound" I've seen described on another thread? People described it as a ship's horn sound. I'll see if I can find the link to that thread.

ETA: Here's the thread: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2289707

I noticed from photos and the cabin descriptions that Fantasy-class aft balconies do not have sofas. Does the cabin feel too small for a sofa? I've seen photos of the two center afts and they seem to be a bit bigger, still no sofa but I'm hoping there will be a few extra square feet to spread out.

LOVE the photo of the wake. We've found that we prefer being aftwards, but this will be our first true aft cabin.

How was Serenity?

When he/she initially said "three tablets", people like me are thinking ELECTRONIC tablets. Like an ipad that's worth a LOT of money.

Me too! Then I was reading about the printouts of the presentation, and thought "oh, this person brought their electronics plus some printouts because they were working during their vacation." Only when the other poster mentioned notebooks did I go back and read the OP's posts again and it now "fit" that these tablets are the old-school paper kind. At least they're not the older-school Moses kind.

And yes, I know people who would have multiple electronic tablets on a vacation. Between DH and I, it wouldn't be unusual for us to have an Android tablet, a Kindle, and an iPad on a vacation. Some folks carry a work device and a separate personal device. The idea of three electronic tablets in one cabin wouldn't surprise me, although I'd hope someone traveling with three electronic tablets would lock them in the safe when not in use and not just put them in a drawer (giving even more credence to the "notebooks in the nightstand" view.....d'oh!)

I hope Mr. White is reunited with his stuff!

I also thought electronic tablets. As they're paper, he may have just been going to dump them, so may not even be looking. Loose pads probably won't get far in lost and found. Best thing is to ask Guest Services for a big A4 envelope, put them all in there together, write his name on the front, seal the envelope, and then hand that into guest services.

^^ This!

January 2017 is months away....and I just wish they would put out the August 2016 sail dates for booking. I realize they are delaying as late as possible for the opportunity to put Cuba on the itinerary list but it is already March 2016 and only half of the summer is available for booking on Empress.

Agreed! I'd like to see the Labor Day itinerary, which appears to be a 5-day GC-KW based on the port schedules.

Thanks OP for the intel!

This is my photo from Glory in 2011. I'm afraid the image is a bit small, but I don't have this photo uploaded to an online photo sharing site

Yep, just as I remember from our January cruise! Searching for it is half the fun (finding it is the other half!)

So what's probably happening is that they're doing some A-B testing of the website changes. This is a pretty common thing, basically some people will see one version of the website, and others will see a different one. After running the experiment for a length of time, they'll look and see what percentage of people booked with different options enabled or disabled.

This makes sense.

I used a different computer and the Chrome browser today for a mock booking, and I was assigned a cabin with no option to change or view other cabins. I don't like that non-option at all. At least Royal's auto assignment still lets you view deck plans and select a different cabin. If the goal is to make it easy for newbies, without alienating the experienced cruisers, Royal's approach is a good compromise. If the no-choice Carnival version wins, I foresee more telephone bookings, longer wait times on hold for a representative, or more people turning to travel agents rather than dealing with Carnival phone reps.

Personally I'd resort to the book-and-change. Book what they're assigning me (if I "must" book at all) then call afterwards to switch cabins and get what I really want. Still inconvenient, though.

My condolences on the loss of your mother.

Have a great trip!

Leaving on her in 45 days!

Please post a review with lots of photos when you return! I really enjoyed your Enchantment review, so I'm looking forward to your impressions of the Fascination. We're booked on Fascination for the 6-day December 26 sailing. It's the 7-day itinerary minus St. Thomas, and it fits well with our holiday/vacation/family schedule as it stands right now (things can and do change, however).

Ugh, sounds like what Royal Caribbean did when they "upgraded" their site during the autumn. The system automatically assigns you a room based on your selected category, and you have to hunt on your own should you wish to change rooms. It's not difficult to do, but they don't make it obvious how to do it.

I'm not seeing the automatic room assignment on Carnival's website on this particular computer and in the browsers that I use, but sometimes I get the new site layout and sometimes I get the old one. Varies by itinerary, even. I'll report back once I see it, particularly if I find some obscure way to force cabin selection (other than using an online TA website, of course).

I'm so sorry that your family is ill....but there is no private messaging on Cruise Critic.

You are correct - but certain mobile forum apps support private messaging within the app. It's not through CC but through the app's own infrastructure.

Daaaaaaaaaaang dude....

 

 

 

You win the Internet for the rest of the day and probably Leap Day too!!

As for the bed linens thing, when we took our first weeklong cruise I was surprised to find out that the cruise lines don't change the linen daily or necessarily every other day either. I simply hadn't given it much thought prior to sailing. This perception on my part is due to land-based hotel experiences where you have the option for daily or every-three-days linen changes. It makes ecological and cost sense that a ship using its own water wouldn't routinely change sheets every day unless those sheets were getting soiled every day, but perhaps OP was coming from a land-based hotel hospitality point of reference regarding the linen change thing. Perhaps the comparison point of reference isn't home vs. ship, but rather land-based hotel vs. ocean-going hotel.

Considering I was on the ship for 21 days I was probably a lot more observant than you were on your 7 day cruise.

 

Like I said, I do not lie.

21 days is a long time to be in a semi-confined space, IMO. It's like having a houseguest overstay their welcome. Charming quirks turn into "get-off-my-land" over time. Of course you will observe more things on a 21-day stay versus a 7-day one, and if the things you notice happen to irk you, they may irk you even more upon repetition.

You saw what you saw, I'm not doubting that you saw rust or broken tiles, but the hyperbolical reporting made me raise an eyebrow: "Almost all of the tiles in the buffet are broken." I guess "almost" is there to soften the whipslap of "all", but the implication is of a much larger percentage than I recall seeing on our January Glory cruise.

However - I think you identified the real issue: my time aboard Glory was much too short. I didn't spot nearly the number of potential flaws. I think I need a 21-day journey so I can investigate the broken tile percentages for myself. I'll see what's wrong with the Steakhouse too, maybe even the Spa. I think I can accomplish the same flaw identification mission over the course of a mere 14 days if I purchase Faster to the Flaws. I can do it!