mz-s

I have no idea how to explain the difference in what you're seeing.

Yes, I am still getting the date and time stamp. The Important Information is 4 pages total for me, but only 2 are applicable to US sailings from what I can see.

That's odd, it's working fine for me for my September cruise booked through a TA. Perhaps you should call your TA so they can print you off a booking summary and itinerary.

It's the most expensive way to serve their food so it makes sense that the mainstream cruise lines are pushing guests towards self-serve and walk-up options. We are seeing this with the decimating of Carnival's sea day brunch menu and hours. Yet another reason to look at lines that are a notch above.

That is normal if you booked through a travel agency. I think you'll have to go to "Print Documents" in your cruise manager to print off your itinerary and booking summary that will include VIFP numbers, if you need them.

Yes, any good PVP should be able to book casino rates as well...there's just not a special Casino PVP designation is what I should have said.

Part of it is guest preferences though I think. The days of the traditional MDR experience are dead, at least on Carnival, because that's what the guests want by and large. The traditional MDR on the Excel class is tiny considering the ship accommodates 6000+ guests. The only way the Excel class works is with "rotational" dining.

There is a show on TV called Cruise Ship Killers that I watch sometimes, but it turns out that at least some of the stories told in the show are probably fake.

You can just call the casino department directly. Typically that number is in the casino offer. I don’t think there are PVP‘s that specialize in casino rates. Any travel agent should be able to book casino rates as well because you get a booking code that they can use when creating the booking.

It was on every Carnival cruise I sailed on since the restart, but I haven't been on Carnival since this past September. Good! It's sad that Carnival gets praise for doing the bare minimum but that's where we are now I suppose! I hope this becomes the standard as it always should have been!

Some of the newer tubs use jets of air, not water, and so are somewhat self cleaning. I don't know that I've seen those kind of tubs on ships but in nicer hotels they are starting to be more common at least, and perhaps in homes as well.

Put simply, Carnival does not really care about the state of their ships. They send all these emails and have the president sit on youtube every 2 weeks saying how serious they're taking things but they really don't care. When the rubber meets the road they're doing nothing. This is their new business model and their new target market - they're the Chrysler 300 or Cash For Gold of the cruise industry now. People who care about having a nice vacation would be wise to look elsewhere.

What's the harm in asking when you get onboard?

Carnival doesn't have a hard and fast schedule of comps like Royal and other lines/casinos have nor do they have a tier system. Or if they do it is not public information. We do know just from experience that slot play is rated higher than table play. That is - for a given amount of money and time in the casino, you will get more/better/more consistent comps with slot play vs. table play. Slot machines will tell you how many points you've accumulated and there is a set number of points needed to earn drinks on us. Comps after that are less clear though - how many points to earn a free steakhouse dinner or balcony room for example? My wife and I play with about $500 each per cruise, playing often throughout the cruise and obviously putting our winnings back in (though we usually come home with about $500, so we lose about half I guess) - she plays slots and I play tables. We haven't paid for a cruise since the COVID restart (well you pay your deposit and get that back in the form of OBC and you have to pay taxes and grats), nor have we paid for drinks. We're mostly getting free interiors, but are just now starting to see free balconies coming in. No offers with FunPlay yet, but hopefully that will be coming in soon as well. We'll see. Honestly as long as we can keep getting free interiors, we're happy. We cruise as often as we can (5x in the 12 months after restart as we had vacation time accrued and the cruises were free, and this was before airfare started going insane) and have a great time. After this next cruise if we can get some more better offers we'll see if we can start to status match with other lines like Virgin. I'm not sure how it will work since Carnival's casino doesn't actually have a status tier system, but we'll see. I've spoken to Virgin reps and they say they can but I want to see if I can get better offers after this upcoming cruise before I try.

Sailing out of Miami is a pleasure in many ways.

You can beg for some strawberries to be delivered to their room on JH's facebook page if you have no pride.

On my last cruise in September on the Sunshine, my steward specifically mentioned he did not have an assistant. I don't know if that was something Carnival was trialing, or if his assistant was out sick or whatever.

Well we know they're not spending all that money they're saving by cutting back cabin service on the website...

I think what we really need is about three more letters and maybe two more youtube videos from Christine Duffy, that ought to do the trick!

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

The obvious reason is they want to make the process painful. You are describing Virgin Voyages. I have not sailed yet but plan to soon.

Do I get to change my mind when Carnival hikes the rate and cuts the service?

Most of the crew I've talked to since COVID are relatively new hires like you said, and said they expect to be working for Carnival for a few contracts then move on either to better cruise lines or to go back home.

Absolutely not the same thing at all. When a restaurant charges you $16pppd ever increasing while service is ever decreasing, and doesn't specify the formula of how they got to that figure then you might have an argument.

OBC is not refundable, meaning Carnival isn't going to give you cash for it. But cancelling the tour should put the funds back on your OBC.