moongal

I just got back from my first cruise, I took my youngest daughter and my mom, and now my oldest son who originally didn't want to go on the trip has decided he would like to go on a cruise after all. Of course I am itching to go back (yes so soon!!). So I was looking at a cruise that would fit into our current schedules and found a short 4 day one on the Triumph but it leaves in 21 days.

I am wondering if my son can get a passport that quickly even with the expediting, and if I booked the cruise and he didn't get his passport on time, would it be possible to take my daughter again instead of him? (I'd still take him at a later date) but I wouldn't want to miss the cruise if I could just take my daughter instead.

Is this something you can do? Switch passengers at the last minute? If so is it difficult? Do they charge you?

Where did you come by this information? (That photos are recycled 3 times....not trying to start a fight but just curious, I would be interested in reading about how Carnival is eco friendly. I was under the impression that most photographs are not recyclable due to the chemicals, although some modern printing can be recycled.

Hello, just off a first cruise on the Magic here and am wanting to comment on the picture waste I witnessed.

I saw everyone getting their pictures taken and we ourselves posed for and bought quite a few, but I was completely taken aback by the massive stacks and stacks of photos at the end of the trip that were just going to go into the garbage bin.

It seemed an enormous waste of photo paper and ink or chemicals.

I know the carnival higher ups do not spend their days reading these posts, but is there any way to get them to consider a less wasteful method for selling photos?

In this digital age, I don't understand why the pics cannot be viewed online or at special kiosks and then only actually print the ones you wanted to purchase.

When we did our dolphin encounter in Grand Cayman we were directed to a computer screen where we had to select which photos we wanted to purchase and those were printed out so there was no waste.

Perhaps there could even be a channel on the stateroom tvs where you could peruse the pics in your room and make note of its number and then have only those printed.

We need to all work together to protect our beautiful planet for our children and this just seemed so wasteful especially when you multiply it by all the ships on the fleet.

We are just off the Magic and we found that our AT&T iPhones did not work at all while on the ship. Could not send or receive texts. I had called AT&T prior to our trip and she assured me that it would work and cost 50 cents each way (to send and to receive). We had planned to use this method to keep track of where my daughter was in the event she made friends and wanted to go do something by herself (she's 13)

We were heartily disappointed when we found that it did not work on board. I tried everything. Bought an Internet package, turned on roaming turned off roaming, turned on and off international data (or whatever it's called) but we were not able to get any texts to go through. In asking around it seemed no one else was having any luck unless they had Verizon phones.

Don't know if this is just unique to the Magic, as they are still on the old Internet system ( if that would have any impact on cellular????)

Well it certainly restored my faith in humanity a bit to be able to see that people could still be kind to one another.

I also forgot to mention the most amazing example of all the love that happened to us.... We were on our shore excursion in Grand Cayman when my mother took out her special wallet with her passport, cash and credit cards to pay for something and left it sitting there on top of a display of some sort near the checkout. She walked off leaving it there and we were getting ready to board the bus back to the ship, we were completely oblivious to the fact she had even lost/left her wallet! All of a sudden some people from our ship came running up to us asking if the wallet was hers.... I guess they had matched the drivers license or passport photo to her, and gave it back to her ALL INTACT and EVERYTHING still there!! We were shocked and amazed!

We were so in shock that we didn't even get the people's names and if you are reading this we love you and thank you from the bottom of our hearts as that would have ruined our trip if she had lost her wallet. What nice lovely people!!

First time cruiser here just back from the Magic 7 day sailing.

I am curious to know if what I experienced is the norm for cruising Carnival, or just a fluke.

It seemed while aboard the Magic a magical thing happened in that everyone I encountered was super nice and full of love! People would hold elevators for people and try to make room to squeeze one more on, people would talk to me in the elevator or in a random line, it didn't seem to matter where or how but it was like we were all just a giant happy family.

While on my shore excursion in Cozumel, I did the catamaran sail and beach excursion and I was having trouble hoisting my big OLD self back up into the catarmaran after snorkeling and there was a male passenger from our ship standing at the stairs you had to jump up onto to get back on the boat, and he helped me get back on board. He said "don't worry, I've got you, I'm not going to let you fall" and I just thought that was so kind! He had never met me but was so helpful! I'd probably still be bobbing around the ocean if it weren't for his kindness.

It seemed no matter where we went on the ship everyone was super nice. We had some smokers ruin our balcony experience but I truly feel that if I could have found the smokers (couldn't tell where it was coming from) they would have probably put out their cigs if they had known it was bothering.

Just wondering if this is a normal occurrence on a cruise ship or I just got lucky and had super nice boat full of people?

Can't wait to go back on another cruise!!!

Just off the Carnival Magic today and am writing a review of the Circle C club. When we were planning our trip I was looking all over for Circle C information and could find very little so for anyone out there wanting to know more about Circle C club for kids age 12-14 on Carnival here are my experiences. (long review ahead!)

I was traveling with my 13 year old daughter and my mother, I am in my fifties and my mother is in her 70's so we were really excited about the Circle C club because we hoped that my daughter would be able to have some "young people" fun on the trip. My daughter was excited because she wanted to meet some other kids and have some fun.

We pre-registered our daughter for Circle C online prior to our trip, which I highly recommend if you are planning to have kids age 12-14 participate. There is a youth programs orientation the very first night on board and you can register them at that time, but for us we did not make the orientation because we were spending all of our time walking around being lost on the ship and trying to find dinner etc... the evening sped by and somehow despite our best efforts to get there we missed the orientation.

There was a "meet and greet" scheduled for 8 or 8:30 scheduled for the first night which we did manage to make (after rushing through our dinner and skipping dessert to get there in time...) even though we got to "Our time" dining early, on that first night service was very slow, so we had to skip dessert in order to get out in time to get over to Circle C for meet and greet.

Once over to the Circle C Meet and Greet in the Circle C area, we sent my daughter in and waited in some chairs outside the area. I saw a bunch of other parents going in with their child, but that was so that they could register their kid. Your child will be given a sticker for their sign and sail card that says "Circle C" on it at this time, although we never could figure out what purpose the sticker served.

After about an hour of sitting around outside the Circle C club (watching what was going on in the inside..) they sent all the parents out and all the parents then left for destinations unknown on the ship. I wasn't going to leave as I didn't know how or when to come back and pick my daughter up. (other note... AT & T cell phones DO NOT work aboard the Magic for text messaging) I figured I would just sit outside the club and when the activities were over she would come out and we would go on our merry way. Every so often I would peek in through the glass on the doors and she seemed to be having a grand time chatting it up with some other girls.

She finally came out about 45 mins later with a printed Circle C schedule and asked if she could stay because there was going to be a dance in a few minutes and she wanted to stay with her new friends. I said she could stay and as the printed schedule said it was only going to last 30 mins we said we (my mother and I) would just continue to wait outside the Circle C club until she was done. My mother and I had not made any plans for this evening other than getting my daughter settled into Circle C so we were fine with just relaxing and chatting on the comfy chairs outside Circle C. Little did we know what was in store for us the rest of the evening!!

So we settled into our comfy couch seat ready to just sit and chill till daughter came out of Circle C....but about 5 minutes after the dance started we started seeing different packs of kids running out of the club. We were wondering what was going on.... and then all of a sudden we saw my daughter with a giant pack of girls leaving Circle C running out of the club and she hollered over her back as she ran by with the pack.."Going to get ice cream!"

As we were feeling a bit lost that first night on the ship and still had no idea where the ice cream place was, we set out to follow my daughter because I had not given her permission to be running all over the ship, and she was with such a large group of girls that I was afraid if she got separated from the group they didn't all know each other well enough that the others would even notice if she was gone or not... so my mother and I frantically started chasing after the group of girls.. but needless to say we couldn't keep up and I saw my daughter disappear into an elevator.. I was panicked that I would never find my daughter again as we had made no advance plans of what to do if lost, or separated because we did not anticipate that they would not stay in Circle C.

We finally found the ice cream location, but there were no pack of girls that included my daughter there... we then started to head back to the Circle C area in the hopes she might have gone back there. I don't remember much except being practically in tears that I couldn't find my daughter and wondering where she was and imagining all kinds of terrible things but finally the gaggle of girls she was with showed back up to Circle C. She seemed to be enjoying herself immensely and begged to be allowed to stay a bit longer. Despite my wanting nothing but to go back to the room and collapse (long travel day) I said ok... thinking to myself "ok now they will stay in the Circle C club and we can relax"....WRONG!

Next few minutes we see the gaggle of girls running out the door again and my daughter holllered "going to Arcade!" Oh no... where is the Arcade??? How long are you staying there?? There was no time to get all the details worked out as these teens traveled fast!! So we took off as fast as our tired old bones could move chasing this pack of girls to some arcade because yet again, I was afraid that my daughter might be separated from her new best friends and find herself alone and lost in this big ship. Remember this was the first night when just navigating to the toilet in your stateroom feels like an adventure! (exaggerating there a bit...but still seemed very lost that first night)

We finally found the arcade and saw the gaggle of teen girls talking to some random pack of teen boys. There was no where to sit in the Arcade... no old folks parking tired butts section...so we stood....watching around the corner so daughter wouldn't see us "spying". After a while I took another look around the corner and saw most of the gaggle of girls had gone...and I saw my daughter and 1 or 2 other girls standing talking... I wondered where all the girls had gone, when I saw a door open up and some boys come out and entice some more of the original gaggle into what was the Club O2. So the Circle C girls were being snuck into the Club O2 (Club 02 is for the older teens) by some older teen boys....NOT COOL !! (at least not for this Mama!)

So I retrieved my daughter who did not go in the Club o2 because she knew we were watching from around the corner.... and we finally headed back to the room.

She was quite upset with us for ruining her fun and said she was perfectly fine and there was no reason for us to worry and that none of the bosom buddies would ever leave her alone or she would never get separated (typical teen thinking) and that we worried for nothing.

So as I was too exhausted to figure out the future we just went to bed and figured we would get it all sorted out the next day.

Next day daughter wanted immediately to head back to Circle C to be with her friends... we talked about what to do about getting separated and made all kinds of plans.. they give you a daily activity schedule just like your daily Fun Times but it is for Circle C activities so there was alot on the Circle C schedule that she wanted to do, so we headed back over there again, and she went in to participate in whatever that scheduled activity was (I can't remember now) and within seconds she was out the door running with a different pack of girls heading off to the food area.. again, I followed along behind , because a part of me just wasn't comfortable with my daughter just running the ship with kids she barely knew completely unsupervised. I guess I must have been the only parent who felt this way because the other kids seemed to have no restrictions and could just run and go where ever they pleased without having to check in with their parents.

My daughter did say the night before that some of the other girls were scared when they started sneaking into the Club O2 because they said that if their parents found out they would probably get into trouble. After my daughter was done at the food section with that pack of girls I retrieved her again and we left. She told me the other girls were going to go back to Club O2 where they had made boyfriends the night before (after we left) and that they had all decided to "date" and was telling me about all the drama... some girls didn't like their new "boyfriends" etc. and were going to go back to Club 02 to "break up" and the boys were buying them all arcade games to get them to stay etc... (a bunch of typical teen stuff)

We came to the conclusion that Circle C was pretty much an unsupervised sham. They never stuck to any posted schedule... the activities shown on the daily schedule delivered to the room never seemed to happen and Circle C was basically just a place to meet the other kids, and a meeting spot, but then once enough kids showed up, they basically just ran unsupervised wherever they wanted and did whatever they wanted.

We decided this was not something we wanted to be worrying about (what my daughter was up to) for the entire trip so we did not participate in anything Circle C after the 2nd day and we were all a lot happier when we decided not to deal with it any longer. My daughter is a good kid and tells me everything, and I was the only parent who was actually keeping an eye on what was actually going on there. I did not see any parents at all after the meet and greet time.

So if you are ok with your teen (12-14 year old) running the ship completely unsupervised and mixing with other teens from Club 02 (15-17years) then go for it....your kid will have a great time running with the other kids. Just be sure that they go the first night.. that is when they get their packs together.

If you are like me and not quite ready to let your kid run around the ship unsupervised then I don't recommend it. Perhaps if the cell phones had worked and I could have kept in touch with Text msgs I might have reconsidered, and we did purchase a walkie talkie but it made so much noise (disturbing to the other passengers) and barely worked at all that we abandoned it. So for us Circle C was not anything for us.

After we gave up on Circle C we all just hung around together and ended up having a great time and my daughter was even surprised that she could laugh so much at "old lady" jokes and it ended up being a very nice bonding time with the 3 generations and I am glad that I had her spend the time with us instead of running around the ship.

Sooo for anyone out there that is wondering about Circle C, that is what I experienced... hopefully it will answer your questions.

Hello,

We are scheduled to leave on the magic next Sunday. I purchased a FTTF pass because I wanted to be on the ship as early and fast as possible (we are very excited!)

I was planning to get to the boat at around 11ish, and was really looking forward to boarding early and maybe enjoying a less crowded boat for a wee bit before all the people were on board.

I just got an email from carnival informing me that there will be a staggered embarkation process and my time to board the ship is 2pm-3pm. They said everyone must be onboard by 3 pm so I am assuming I must be in the last group. I am very upset because that defeats the purpose of why I bought the faster to the fun pass!!

Does anyone know why carnival would sell the FASTER to the fun pass if you cannot get there any faster? I feel like I wasted my money. :(

Gosh, now I am almost afraid to go! I went ahead and purchased the insurance for everyone but it seems that what was available thru carnival could wind up up being painfully inadequate if costs could run into 100,000k! I looked at the links that someone posted for buying additional insurance, but it seemed somewhat similar to what was offered by carnival. Does anyone ever purchase enough insurance to cover up to 100k? I will definitely look into it more tomorrow (was on the road all day today to visit in laws)

I'm just worried I might not be able to buy any more since we are less than 2 weeks away.

I hope these do not seem like stupid questions, I never travel and am not travel savvy and I don't want to risk financial ruin by having an illness or accident out of the country.

Wow really interesting stories! I understand about the reimbursement. I don't mind paying out of pocket if I know I will recover some of that. Now I am wondering if I should purchase even more insurance. Can anyone recommend a good travel insurer? I know it will probably be too late to get more for my upcoming trip but in the future I want to make sure I am well insured.

Omg thank you for everyone's quick responses! We are booked to leave in 15 days! I just went in a purchased the vacation insurance!! When I booked I didn't realize it helped with medical issues. I just thought it would reimburse your money you paid for the trip. I declined it when I booked as I was willing to risk that amount in the event we had to cancel but after reading this story, I wanted to make sure I was covered for medical also.

We do have health insurance and I would never dream of going on a cruise or trip without sufficient funds (cash and credit cards) and passport, to be able to handle any emergency, but still like the peace of mind knowing I'm covered for something that might be so costly.

Thanks for all the advice, I got in right under the wire and I do feel better!

Hello, new to cruising here and just saw a story on local news about a family that had a medical emergency aboard a carnival ship. Son Was apparently diagnosed with appendicitis and sent off ship to get help in Progresso.

Long story short, mother had no credit cards or cash to pay for surgery nor passports or money to get home for medical care. Had to resort to having strangers make donations via ********.

All of this got me worrying about the possibility of myself or one of my family members getting sick on the ship. Does anyone have any experience or know anything about what kind of medical care is available onboard? I assume there is a doctor..... Do they have facilities onboard to treat any medical emergency? What if something life threatening happens when you are smack dab in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico? (We are scheduled to be on 7 day Magic cruise to western Caribbean)

I never even gave a thought about this till I heard this story and now I am really curious and a bit worried. (My kids are really great at coming down with stuff at the worst possible times!)

Any info would be appreciated!

Thank you ever do much falkcor!! I appreciate you sending me the links! Going to print them out and hopefully will give me a little idea of what I might be able to do when I get on the boat!! Can't wait!

Hey Everyone!!

New here to cruising and so excited for our upcoming trip on the Magic!!

As I am one who loves to plan everything in advance....for me that is part of the fun, I was wondering if anyone happened to have a copy of one of the daily itinerary pamphlets I hear gets delivered every night of a cruise listing all the activities for the next day?

I saw in another thread somewhere that someone uploaded a club ocean (I think that was what it was called!) for kids activities and I thought it would be so cool if I could see an example of the possible offerings and what I might be able to expect.

I am sailing on June 21 to Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Montego Bay. I am so excited it's all I can think about! I am 51 years old and been spending all my time raising and caring for a family and I have never been anywhere!! Our vacations usually existed of visiting the in-laws for a week. So this for me will be the trip of a lifetime!!

Thanks in advance if anyone is able to do it