Stick93

Questions away. But at the end of the day nothing is changing. The casino will continue to lure the people in and Carnival will continue to award VIFP points. This topic is living rent free inside of you.

The more this topic drags on the more I realize how people are never satisfied with what they have. It’s like when you see someone with a cookie on the ship you instinctively ask them where did you get that from. They tell you and you go get a cookie. Here everyone knows the perks the casino gives, but the faithful few who know the gig but only get a bottle of water, a pin and their third Fanny pack have temper tantrums that carnival doesn’t punish the gamblers by spitting in their face and saying you cannot have a pin and the priority perks are not for you. Boo hoo hoo. Grow up - the casino is profitable and they give the gamblers perks from everywhere. If you cannot handle that I suggest you join them and see if you can beat the odds of losing your money in the money pit.

You would be somewhat right if everybody paid the same amount to go on the ship. But you have some people paying very little to go in an inside room and some people paying a lot to go in a suite. Then you have all the customers who our third and fourth add-ons into a room who sometimes pay next to nothing. You also have some people spend a lot on the ship and those who spend absolutely nothing extra. No matter who you are if you’re sleeping on the ship, every person get one point per night. So it really doesn’t matter how you got on the ship every night is a point whether you like it or not. Crying over casino customers is just finding a villain for the people’s point envy.

The government has a bigger game called printing money. It’s all accounted for somewhere. A night on the ship is a point. How you get there and where you sleeps make no difference. That is really my point to anyone who thinks someone should not get a point. If it’s not a level field then it’s not a level field for everyone.

Also don’t give points to cheap fares and 3rd and 4th passengers who pay less. Then double the suits and maybe people who have balances over 3k on changes.

It’s obviously a model that keep demand/prices up and revenues higher. Nobody will gain one extra point if the casino people don’t get the points on the ship. What the ship gives out to “bribe” people to get on the ship is between the ship and the person bribed. I guess if someone doesn’t like that casino people don’t have to pay maybe they should boycott and wait for their offers. If enough people do that, you too may be bribed - everyone has choices.

Casino people are paying! They may not be paying every time but you play long enough and you pay. Who cares what loyalty they get for coming on the ship on top of what they may or may not have received before. Those rooms would be filled with someone else getting the points if they were not there. Every room and person get points on every cruise the same number of points are awarded if a ship sails full. They are not stealing points from the “paying” customer. This is what we call jealousy and thinking the grass is greener on the other side. The VIFP program needs to be redone because times have changed and more people are cruising and more often. The casino is just one more gimmic to get them on.

As much as we all wrestle over what loyalty is worth - the loyalty program is here to stay and will be advanced/changed/updated at some point. The real issue is that as cruise and grows, and as the cruise lines and ships keep getting added the number of days that people of cruise also keeps growing. Just taking a few cruises over 10 year may very well put you at platinum. I’m not sure how you change a program that some people feel they’ve earned with the loyalty that they have invested in over many years. I think unfortunately one of the ways of possibly dealing with this while incentivizing people to continue to stay on one cruise line would be setting benchmarks that people would have to continue to keep status. For instance, to keep your status, you would have to cruise every 24 months or hit certain minimums to stay higher tier. Right now if you’re platinum and higher, you do not have to ever cruise again to keep that status.

I assumed that would be the answer - I come to the carnival boards for the experts as well.

Always funny when people say go somewhere else. Great business model - come sail with us and if you don’t like it go somewhere else. Very little effort to have menus on demand. I needed a menu a few nights on my last cruise and you would have thought I asked for a free steak dinner they way they looked at me. I guess they were really saying was “hey you stupid paying customer…go somewhere else”!

How so?

Is lunch free? Nope You pay for the cruise the rest is details. I like added details like the ones I would not get on Carnival. I like the ones I get on Carnival as well but they are not as fruitful. So do many people. Bribe are good - apparently bribes work so well that some companies have higher stock prices than others.

Smoke was not the issues when I was on it, except for the casino, and very close to it. The ship is very nice - practically too nice for Carnival. I thought the ship was too dirty (for sure not clean enough) and the common furniture was over worn. The Havana/Terraza area where the outdoor furniture was is in terrible shape -stained/pulling and ripped. Staff was great but summer cruises from NY on Carnival are not for people who like certain basic behavior. The only way to go is getting a suite/Terraza access and hanging out there.

Prob will have no rough stuff on the Hawaii trip - pretty safe bet.

I never understand why in one breath people agree the perks are better off of Carnival but the product is what people want. I have never seen a perk that someone didn’t want. Free drinks everyday? Free Wi-Fi? a pin and a bag? Bribes someone calls it! Okay - Carnival bribe me with something else. I may come back more…

The bribes are the jealousy of a better loyalty program. You get much more your your loyalty on Royal and hence the carnival loyalist call them bribes. 4-5 free drinks a day - everyday free picture per adult free day or more of internet a lounge with with quick foods/dessert/coffe plus a few more odds and ends of money off things spent like the kids spending at arcade, These are good bribes and their ships are just as fun with better entertainment -

Nice picture - “choir of man” on NCL- their best show. nice review.

The extras on carnival (I’m platinum) really add at to a nothing burger. My Diamond status on Royal I got 4 alcoholic drinks a day off myself my wife and 4 non alcoholic drinks for the my kids under 18 who are linking to me when I turned platinum. Two free pictures one for me and my wife and each kid got $25 to arcade when spending $50 ( gee thanks!). The lounge was also a noce perk to do some work and get food - chocolate covered strawberries ! Cannot wait for 11 day cruise - 44 drinks to be served to carnivals one drink and some water. Laundry is no included but nothing comes back the same color anyways.

It’s funny how NCL and Royal fills ships from NYC all winter and Carnival cannot. In fact year over year the cruises have become more expensive like all cruises and sell well which was evidently not the case on the Venezia. However the clientele overall who cruise Royal/NCL and Carnival are different especially in the summer or at least it just seams like that to me as I have been on all of them quite a bit. Carnival product out of NY is just not that good and the ships are not as nice or entertaining as the mega ships Royal and NCL have. One can argue but the number show who can support the ships here and who cannot. Philadelphia is close to Baltimore so not sure they would do both but the demographic may be better for their loyal cruisers who are loyal to carnival.

Put your towel - everyone else does and have yet to see them move anyone’s stuff - is it right? If you care then go and eat breakfast and see if the chairs are there after. I run on the track at 7:30 every morning I can, the towels are all on chairs with no people around. Seems like the attendants who are in charge of removing the towels are also at breakfast and leaving the towels. It’s only the good people here who don’t do this. Asking this question is like asking of you can remove your tips. These are very sensitive topics

I was crossing my word carefully and did want to bring any race, religion or ethnicity into the mix. I think we all understand the problems with the crew VS the passengers - EXCEPT for the executives at Carnival.

Carnival attracts the wilder passengers and their diversity which could be their greatest strength is in turn not necessarily brought together appropriately. People need to be thrown off the ship, individuals, families and anyone who is involved in an altercation. They don’t enforce and in turn security is scared for themselves. The passengers are bigger and stronger than them. I was on the receiving end of this once where a guy twice my size yelled he was throw me over the railing because he got splashed by my 8 year old in the “Splash zone” while watching his little daughter. I yelled security and they. Amex but did nothing until I started t9 film with my phone and telling them that if I died the video would serve as proof to the fact carnival did nothing to help me. Then 10 more security people came running - but it should not have taken that long. I witnessed a passenger this summer to tell a crew member in the buffet line who was holding a sign this side is closed to go F-Herself. This was a grown up woman large/oversized and I guess hangry threatening a skinny small woman who was just doing her job. The crew have to endure this every week and day. Wake up Carnival. Everyone is welcome on the ship but if you cannot behave like you belong maybe they should walk the plank!

They will continue to charge whatever people are willing to pay for it. my last cruise was the first time in many many cruises that I did not buy the package. The funny part was I didn’t miss drinking that much. I maybe bought three drinks the whole day and most day less.

I was on Venezia and the host told me comps were also based on losses and not play - my wife played more than me and was net positive, I lost and played less and they comped me $100 for sushi and a bottle of wine. Points were about at 3000 when I left a 4 day cruise. My wife had more points and got nothing…

Okay I sailed both the Venezia twice this summer and Symphony for 1 week. The ships are very different as is the experience on the ships. If you are looking for the same carnival product that is on every ship - Venezia won’t disappoint. There are tweaking contests in the main lobby, the hair chest contest, and the same shows with 8 performers that I have seen on 3 other ships. Actually Family Feud was the best show and the cruise director MarcQ did a great job presenting it. The NY crowd on carnival is somehow more rough and rude then out of Florida and PR (the other ports I have left from)- I saw many passengers cursing at staff and berating them. Security does nothing to stop some of the madness going on and the code of conduct doesn’t exist. The ship is cramped and there are not enough pools to sit around or cool off if you want. The only area I would recommend would be the terrazza area which I took on both cruises. This area is quiet and pretty boring, without the riff raff - but there is no pool. I assume after the summer rush for sure this ship is much better to cruise. Symphony is an oasis ship that’s is has a classic Royal feel. The shows were all new to me even after being on Oasis and Allur, they seems all authentic to that ship. Hairspray was done very nice, the water show is unique and different, the ice show had very talented skaters and the forth show a show about the history of aviation called Flight and was really the best of all the shows. They actually had a model airplane flying with a person reminiscent of the wright brothers fly around the theater at the end of show . In each show there were 15-25 actors on stage at any given time. The ship is also crowded but large enough to handle the crowed a bit better than carnival. The crowd was a bit less rough even coming out of NY. Seems more calmer people and people who want to behave cruise Royal in the summer. The only downside to my cruise was in Coco Cay on the celebrity ship docked next to us my young son and daughter watched with just about the whole starboard side of our ship two people going at it on their balcony. The staff at Coco Cay was a bit rude but maybe because they live on a secluded island. But at least we didn’t see any big fights on the ship or at Coco Cay. I have more days on Carnival and when we started cruising would not think of jumping ship to a different cruise line but now will only cruise Carnival if that ship fits into my schedule better than anything else. Carnival is no longer my first choice and DW and me would rather be on Royal or Celebrity as we feel it serves us better. I have been on 10 different carnival ship and 7 different Royal ships and the Royal ships have much more WOW and wholesome entertainment plus different shows on every ships. I also have never felt in danger on Royal like I have on Carnival - which is prob why I have jumper ship more often now then 10 years ago. Thankfully there seems to be a flavor for different people. Enjoy the cruises you go on! .