mz-s

The gratuity is automatically charged. It's entirely up to you if you tip more, and it is a personal decision.

Carnival would just as soon the platinum and diamond cruisers move on. They want new cruisers who don't remember what Carnival is capable of.

Seaday brunch used to be really special. I wouldn't be surprised if soon it'll be gone entirely, because of lack of popularity they'll tell us.

I used to think that gratuities were good and should remain, but over the years my opinion has shifted. I think that gratuities and tips should be gone across the board across all aspects of life. I know a lot of people share that opinion and very few people love tipping and would be truly sad if tipping went away, so I don't see why the culture can't shift in relatively short order. It's obviously bigger than you or me but it really seems like we're hitting a tipping point, pardon the pun.

Such a shame. They've cut back the menu and hours for brunch so much. It used to be a highlight of my cruises and on my last cruise on Magic it was really nothing special, like the rest of the cruise to be honest.

Where did you hear this?

Best time to buy them in my opinion. You pay barely more than the cost of the cup and it's filled with Fun Ship Special (rum punch). Or - pick them up from the tables when people leave them behind thinking they didn't buy them. Not kidding on my last cruise my wife and I picked up 4.

I don't think ships need 1 AP per cabin but they need a lot of them because the steel walls and doors do a fantastic job of blocking the signal. Far more than your average hotel would need.

Sure they will. You will pay for the tumbler but not the drink in the tumbler.

I really think it's just that on longer cruises there is so much more luggage for the crew to handle it takes them longer to process it all. And on longer cruises there tends to be more Priority guests than a normal cruise so the Priority text on the luggage tag means less.

The only way Carnival will make even basic wifi free on their ships is if Royal does it first. And even then they probably won't.

I don't see how revenue is relevant here.

They can only raise prices if the consumer will bear the extra expense.

I wonder what the backhaul for this 5G at Sea will be. Will they have their own satellite link or will they use the ship's existing satellite link (starlink or whatever).

I only wish things worked out differently and the Fantasy class had lived on with a line like this.

Only one device can use the plan at a time. As long as your family can "pass the baton" and share the plan with one person having access at a time, you can share one plan. Or say you and your husband share one plan, and your kids share one plan. That would allow two concurrent connections.

speaking from personal experience at least two out of those five are incorrect.

I assume the 5G will be using the ship's Starlink as backhaul, but that's just an assumption I don't actually know how it will work. The problem with cellular roaming on ships right now is it all goes over Cellular At Sea, an AT&T company (no matter who your carrier is), so there is no competition and thus rates are very high. With Starlink offering near land speeds and reliability and 5G being more efficient, I would expect to see this 5G be more affordable than the current Cellular At Sea over time.

Good point, laser precision is needed here. 😉

95.6% of all stats on the internet are made up on the spot.

The fact that so much used to be included in a Carnival cruise used to be a huge selling point.

We may be going off topic here but the reality is that something is only worth what people will pay. The cost to produce the good or service is irrelevant to the market. We saw this in the early part of the COVID restart where Carnival was giving away rooms to nearly everyone just to operate again and get some money coming in they didn't have to pay interest on. They were taking huge losses on every sailing. The take home here is if the tides shift and tipping/gratuities go away, that does not necessarily mean higher prices by itself.

I think what you read was that you have until midnight before embarkation to make changes to your pre-purchases. After that everything is frozen until you get on the ship.

Then they can do that. Others can do 5G roaming. What is wrong with having the choice?

The price you pay for roaming isn't the price a huge corporate account pays for one thing. For another, there are a lot of people who need to be connected at any cost and with 5G roaming that opens up their ability to work from the ship vs. flying to an AI or Hawaii or something so that opens up a market for Carnival.