draco_m

Are Carnival gift cards only redeemable on bookings with Carnival or can I use a Carnival gift card to pay a fare on Expedia?

I'm planning a Carnival cruise and I want to pay for it with Carnival gift cards.  Do I have to book directly with the cruise line to use Carnival gift cards?  Or can I book with any travel service and use Carnival gift cards?  Thanks.

I’ve done Alaska cruises three times. The Glacier Bay scenic cruising is much more spectacular and enjoyable than Tracy Arm. But they are all nice of course.

Three reasons not to for me.

 

I'll keep the money in my pocket for as long as possible. I firmly believe in paying on time; I see no advantage to getting it out of the way.

 

Second, if you have a good amount of OBC, you would not be able to put it towards gratuities if you pay in advance.

 

The cruise and taxes must be paid in advance. Paying gratuities with your other final charges actually spreads out the total cost.

Listen to Natty on this! Especially reason #2. If there is *any* chance - even one in a hundred- that you will not use all your OBC (onboard credit) then you're want the OBC going toward your gratuity. Otherwise your OBC is simply forfeited.

Most of my OBC goes towards gratuities. Maybe a drink or two as well.

I just got back from a Carnival cruise on the Inspiration. I bought a large(ish) bottle of pepsi in port. I drank about 1/4 of it while walking around town and brought the rest on board back to my stateroom. I didn't have any issues.

Did you read their feedback? 599 negatives in the past year for cards with $0 balance, no communication, and super slow shipping.

 

Not very trustworthy IMHO and not someone I would order through on ebay.

But to be fair... during the period of receiving 599 negatives they received over 63,000 positives. So for every negative they received over 100 positive. Of course do your own due diligence, but this seller has an extremely good reputation.

I have a cruise in less that two weeks.

*all* of my OBC shows up on my boarding pass but...

only *part* of my OBC shows up on my cruise details screen.

So don't trust the cruise details screen.

So your full size luggage was able to fit through the security scanners? We have a 29x18x?(never measure the length since they say it doesn't matter)

that I assumed we couldn't carry on since it was 29...but if you've been able to carry on something that large and fit it through the scanners...that would be great news.

 

I hate being separated from our luggage as well. On one of our other cruises (not Carnival) we watched some luggage get dropped into the ocean so ever since then we've been really paranoid about checking our luggage and just want to carry as much on ourselves as we can. The reason we got FTTF-so we could just drop it off in our room.

I didn't have a problem. I've only been on two Carnival cruises, though. Maybe I just got lucky.

Maybe I'm missing something but I always carry all my luggage into my cabin, including my full size luggage that would never fit in an overhead. I never knew there was a size restriction.

I'm strong/fit enough I can haul our luggage up to the room no problem.

I never really saw the advantage of being separated from my luggage.

Oh yeah - even though the credit posted to my account some time ago, it does not show up on my "cruise details" screen on carnival.com. So their IT system is a little messed up.

I faxed mine in late October. No response. So I faxed again earlier this week. NO response.

So I called the 800 number. The shareholder credit had been applied to my account. They just forgot to respond to me? Anyway, the person sent me an email with the OBC clearly posted. SO all is well.

Moral of story - it's probably already on your account they just forgot to email you. But you should call and confirm.

Someone just hit 1,000 days with Carnival last week. There was a post on one of CCL's FB pages (corporate or JH's).

I enjoy Carnival cruises. At my current pace it will take me 164 years to reach 1,000 days at sea!!

Cool thanks guys. Well, I got my one free drink in 2014 and now I get a bottle of water instead! No worries. It's a minor setback in the big scheme. I just need to adjust expectations a little bit.

Was there a recent change in the VIFP program? Last year (2014) I took my second Carnival cruise. I got a coupon for a free drink. I’m taking my third Carnival cruise later this month. It looks like I get a free bottle of water as a “red” member. Wha??? What about my free drink?

Good thread!

My last Carnival cruise (2014) I purchased a small bottle of booze in port. I thought I had to turn it in when boarding and pick it up after the cruise. Turns out I just walked back on the ship with it and no one ever asked me any questions. So I just mixed some drinks in my room the next couple days.

I dunno - maybe I was supposed to turn it in?

I'd go with Bob on this one. :D We got flack over taking 12 750mL bottles for 12 sailing wedding guests. We were all together and it was too difficult for them to count the number of people vs. the number of bottles. We had to hand them out to go through screening and then recollect them to get them back onboard (we had a rolling case).

Yup. I'm going with Bob for sure. Two 750ml bottles for draco and mrs. draco!

Thanks for the responses. Ugh. I don't know what to think. I'd prefer the 1.5L box, but if there is a decent chance it wouldn't make it on I'd feel safer simply bringing two bottles.

Carnival policy is each adult passenger can carry on a 750ml bottle of wine.

Any issue with my wife and I carrying on one 1.5L box of wine (classy!) instead?

The reason I prefer the box wine is it is better for the environment and it comes in a plastic bag so the wine stays good after opening it because the bag collapses so the wine is not exposed to air.

I like the sounds of a $0 tour! Thank you :) How far did you go out before seeing fish?

Maybe I got lucky on the location but I just swam out 20/30/40 feet and there was coral all over the place and lots of fish to see. Just bring a mask and snorkel because I didn't see any for rent where we walked to.

This is what I was talking about...

http://www.beyondships2.com/cruise-article---a-walk-to-seven-mile-beach.html

Grand Cayman is fine on a budget. My wife and I spent a total of $10 there. We *walked* to Seven Mile Bay. It's about 30-40 minutes to the start of the beach and then you can keep walking further along the beach if you want. We hung out on the beach, went swimming and snorkeling. Saw a million fish it was great. Then we walked back into town and got two beers for $10.

If you have a toddler and want to do this $10 tour, I recommend a toddler carrier because you do have to walk along a street for a way and you don't want to lose control of the kiddo.

If you are tight on money you can skip the beers and it becomes a $0 tour.

Warning - although this is a public beach, I didn't see any public restrooms and trash cans and such. So plan accordingly.

How much does Cheers cost? And can I buy one Cheers pass then just order drinks for my wife?

 

Even the two of us together couldn't drink 15 drinks in a 24 hour period.

I found an FAQ that answered my questions. Thanks.

This program won't work for us. No way can we drink $100 worth of beverages per day.

We decided against the cheers program (with everyone here's input) See we are dreaming on Dec 27th for 7 days! Anywoo...both parties have to get the cheers if one in the cabin does....tips are included per say and you have to buy it for the whole cruise...Breaks down to a whooping 804.00 and change for seven days for two...Avg. achchol 100.00 a day price...for two! Hubby and I are getting off ship at all three ports so that leaves 4 days and many many drinks to drink to make the cost figure out...Get what I mean. Also I can not drink 15 drinks a day (and Walk)and hubby would have to drink my extra to make it worth it...LOL That is a lot of corona at 4.95 plus 15% tip for him to drink! I would love for him to remember the cruise! LOL ROFL Also you got to cut out another whole evening on our cruise because free champaine will be served on New Years Eve...See it is not worth it for us...Now the bottomless buddies makes since for us...I love sprite and OJ and cranberry juice...We are thinking about just getting a bottle of there vocka and bam all the mixers are free

LOL $800 for drinks. I don't spend that in a year!!

How much does Cheers cost? And can I buy one Cheers pass then just order drinks for my wife?

Even the two of us together couldn't drink 15 drinks in a 24 hour period.

I would do whichever cruise has more port stops! Honestly every port has plusses and minuses. So I would prefer to have more stops regardless.

My wife and I did the Splendor last year (2014) and the reason we chose that cruise is because we visited four ports while some of the other cruises were just three ports.

Grand Cayman was my favorite port because we could walk to an incredibly beautiful beach with excellent swimming and snorkeling and didn't pay a dime to anyone. But it sounds like the itineraries have changed.