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On 5/27/2019 at 2:26 PM, Shaded Lady said:

I've always wanted to cruise out of New Orleans, maybe couple it with a few days in town before or after the cruise... it sounds like a wonderful sailaway down the river!!!

Then you would also like the cruises from Seattle. While its not a river the view is amazing. On out last cruise in 2015 it wasn't until after dinner that night that we actually cleared the straits of Juan de Fuca. The one negative is since you were in US territorial waters the entire time you were charged sales tax on everything you bought on the ship.  Even with the bubbles package I was still charged .25 for every fill.     

1. Any way I can marry into your family before Christmas? just kidding

2. It should be a problem doing this.  We have done something similar. We are going on a cruise with my family in august. We have three room total. I made all the reservation thought our PVP and I am the one managing the bookings. I have each of them added to my carnival page even thought I am only listed in one of the cabins. Just made your your PVP link the booking you will have dinner at the same table(if you do assigned dinning)

I know all Conquest, Fantasy and Spirit Class all have all or some portion outside. There may be more.   That said, they do have a alternate location for those with disabilities. Just check with Guest Services when you board. I know on the Freedom they put us in one of the restaurants. 

4 minutes ago, beachnsnowbunny said:

 Horizon is in Miami, Vista is in Galveston and the Panorama is still under construction and going to California year round. 

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This is correct

On 5/18/2019 at 12:02 AM, PhillyFan33579 said:

 

Something tells me at least one person is going to be upset with you when they follow your directions and still can’t find deck 13 😊

Then the ship didn't deem them worthy!! 

I forgot one.

4. The Carnival Breeze (and all dream class ships) has hot tubs on the Promenade. I love these during the day as there is always one in the shade(I'm a red headed ginger and burn easily). On the 14 day cruise, I could always be found in one of these watching as we were leaving a port. 

I was on the Carnival Breeze back in September for the 14 day requisitioning cruise went it left Galveston.

1. My advice is if you like Italian food, do the  Italian restaurant for lunch(its free) as soon as you get on the ship. Most people will not figure out its free until later in the cruise. What I like to do it get a table in the Italian restaurant right next to a window port side and watch the loading operations. There will be hardly anyone there unlike Lido witch will be packed. 

2. There is a little known, but not so secret elevator in the spa area that you can use to get up to the serenity deck. Anyone can use it. It only goes to decks 11, 12, 14, and 15

3. My personal favorite and what I like to tell the young ones, see if you can find deck 13. Here is how you access it:

• Step 1: From deck 2 take any glass elevator to Deck 11. 
• Step 2: From deck 11 take any elevator to deck 3
• Step 3: Preferably with a lot of people watching, stand in the middle of the hallway and turn around clockwise 3 times.
• Step 4: Continue standing standing in the middle of the hallway and turn around counterclockwise 4 times.
• Step 5: Continue standing standing in the middle of the hallway do 6 jumping jacks
• Step 7: From desk 3 take a glass elevator to deck 11
• Step 8: On deck 11 proceeded to the not so secret elevator mentioned above
  Now if you complete all these steps perfectly ***AND*** the ship deems you worthy,   you will see a button appear in that elevator for deck 13, and only you will be able to see it. If it doesn't work the first time, try again, but post video of you doing it to YouTube and post the link here so we can ..um.. comment on any part your may not doing correctly😂 

Enjoy

2 hours ago, Retired_to_Cruise said:

I  do not think they will be platinum on the first of the B2B cruises. Since they are looked at as separate cruises for accounting and days sailed purposes.

This is what I thought, but after seeing Davey port, I reached out to our PVP(we actually have a good relationship with ours) and asked him that question. He said he was going to ask around, but didn't see why not. I'll let you know what I find out. I've always wanted to do a B2B for many reasons.  I've always wanted to go up to my dinning room waiter(or someone else I interact with a lot) on the first night of the second leg and go "Shhhh....I'm a stowaway"🤣

I am currently 8 days away from turning Platinum and I am thinking about doing 2 5day cruises B2B, but with two different groups of people. The first will be with my scuba buddies and the second will be with my family. I understand that I will be Platinum for the second cruise, but since my wife and son will be staying in my cabin so they should also get priority boarding right?  The problem is I will be printing up all the boarding passes and tags prior to the first cruise and since I haven't completed it yet, I thinking it will not reflect my new Platinum status on the second cruise tags, right?   I know having her reprint the passes the morning of cruise would probably work, although problematic since she is not tech savvy. Any thoughts?

Everyone has already covered most things I was going to mention. The only one thing I'll add in on is the Italian restaurant, Most people don't learn that it is free for lunch until a day or two into the cruise.  Because of this it is almost always underutilized and never a crowed(like lido)  on embarkation. I'm usually one of the first on-board and that is usually my go to place. I usually spend an hour or two up there by a window watching loading process on the dock.  However, once the word gets out to the new cruisers that they have free lunch, it will be crowed later in the cruise.  

After our next 7 Day cruise to Alaska, I will be 8 days away from turning Platinum. That said, if they implement this, I might be done with Carnival. My typical go-to order in the MDR is 4 shrimp cocktails 2 flat iron steaks(sometime 3 if I really hungry) . The exception to this elegant night went lobster/prime rib is served.  Lobster is obviously my favorite and I'll order 3 or 4 in a setting. When they dropped Lobster from 5-day cruises, I decided to only go on 7-day or longer. 

Before anyone said "that's too much food", keep in mind on  my last cruise(14 day re-positioning on the Carnival Breeze), I actually lost 10 pounds. I don't usually eat junk like  pizza, burgers, ice cream and most stuff on the buffet. Its not that I'm trying to lose weight its just want I like and it just happens to be similar to a low crab diet.

In my opinion the excuse about "reducing waste" is a sham in itself. If you have ever done the Behind The Fun excursion(I highly recommend it), you lean that any uneaten food is processed on-board and released into the ocean that has been proven benefit marine wildlife. Carnival has even touted in the past that because of this "no food is ever wasted".  While, I know we are talking about their sister line I'm sure they have the same practices.

While I know I am in the minority, this would probably make me change cruise lines. After all they already took away the live bands at shows, chocolate mints, twice a say cabin servicing ,table cloths, free room service, and tv channels. I would say this would be the last straw but they even tried taking those away, thankfully you can still request one.   

9 minutes ago, Tiger0613 said:

I once did a mock booking for a 14/15 day roundtrip Hawaii solo cruise on the Miracle(?) out of Long Beach in a grand suite for the 25% OBC.  The fare came out to about $8,500.  It would be difficult for me to spend $2,125 OBC.

 

I don't drink coffee, and I hardly ever drink alcohol.  At most I have one daiquiri on embarkation day just to say I had alcohol on the cruise.  Cheers would be a wasted purchase for me.  It would be cheaper to pay for each drink.  The only canned pop I actually like is Diet Dr Pepper.  Since Carnival doesn't have it, that mainly leaves milkshakes.  One milkshake a day would burn $75 - $80.

 

I could buy the highest package at every bingo session.  If there is one session per day, that would burn $560 - $600.

 

I purchase excursions before the cruise, I don't go to the spa, and I only get room service for breakfast.  I'm not interested in overpriced watches, jewelry, and perfume.  I don't like most of the clothing and other items in the Carnival/trinket shop.  I get the ship paper postcard and the shiny ship magnet postcard.  That only burns about $8.

 

I could use OBC to pay for automatic gratuities.  That would burn $224 - $240.  I would still have at least $1,197 left.  I will visit the casino, but I still need other ideas.

That's easy you can use OBC to book you next cruise on board(that intern get you more OBC on your next cruise)   and if that doesn't work just go to the Casino and use the slot machine trick to cash it out. 

16 hours ago, Tiger0613 said:

I have only been on 9 Carnival cruises so far, but I just called the Milestone Desk anyway.  The representative said that the 25%/50%/75% OBC is based on the entire fare for solo cruisers.

I have thought about this for a while. To maximize your OBC why not book solo.For example, my wife has one less cruise than me and one of the ideas I had was when I hit my milestone book the Captain Suite(or highest priced cabin I can find) as a Solo guest and then book my wife and son in a dirt cheep interior with an uper/lower bunk bed. Then once on-board just have my wife stay with me in the better room. Then when she hits her milestone revert it by having me in the cheep room. 

What others have said about glitches on inaugural voyage is true. Also keep in mind there is a increased chance of the first schedule cruise(or two) of being outright canceled due to production delays. It happens from time to time.

The record actually goes to the QE2 in 1969 when it had to spend an additional 4 month in construction when problems come up during its shakedown.  More Recently, in 2016 Holland America's Koningsdam was delayed 6 weeks and just last year the MSC Seaview had to cancel it inaugural voyage. There are more, those are just the ones I know about. 

Keep in mind the Carnival Mardi Gras is a new ship class from a builder that carnival cruise lines has never used before. While there are three other nearly identical ships(AIDAnova, Costa Smeralda, and P&O's Iona) that  launch before the Carnival Mardi Gras that should allow them to work out the "kinks" . There are things that have never been done before that will be unique to the Carnival Mardi Gras. Any one of those could potentially hold it up.   

If you do go on the first cruise make sure you have GOOD travel insurance that would cover things that are not refundable such as flights and hotels beyond the coverage you buy from carnival that would probably be canceled and refunded with the cruise.. 

I've been told one of the things that is going to be worked on and one of the reasons the dry dock was moved up is to work on the aft pool area retractable roof. Apparently it has been jammed for well over a year(maybe longer) and the only way to fix it is to complexly disassemble the roof and much of the deck above it. 

6 hours ago, JaxsMama said:

Its due to laws in Texas, however you do not pay for cheers the day you get on the ship, you pay a la carte day one.

This is correct. In fact while in Texas waters all the duty free alcohol of locked up in all the bars. I just happened to be in the red frog pub on the Breeze when when we crossed the magic line when we did the 14 day re-positioning cruise, when we departed Galveston. They stopped all sales  picked up the all Texas bottles and then the bartender went around unlocking all cabinets that had the duty free stuff. I should have asked what was going to happened the unused Texas bottles as the ship isn't going to be sailing to Texas again for the foreseeable future. 

After reading all of these responses and i did a little bit of research. If the railings heights used by cruise ship industry was truly inadequate there is situation we would expect to see overboard passengers, the unexpected and sudden listing of a ship by 15 or more degrees.  Unlike rough seas and high winds, these incidents happen without warning causing tremendous damage, and tossing anything not bolted down flying. Passengers standing on open decks and balconies will be sent flying, yet there has never been a single person reported overboard during any of the incidents.  I know there are many on this form like myself who have been on ships that roll 15-20+ degrees in rough seas, what I'm talking about is different. Imagine going from a 0 degree tilt to a 20 degree tilt in less than a second. This is the worse case scenario for someone going overboard, yet there haven't been any. In my research I found 9  incidents(there are more) of this occurring with the most recent being the Carnival Sunshine on Oct 28 of this year when one of its stabilizer failed. 

Others include: 

April 26, 2016 - Panagia Tinou, , Ventouris Sea Lines

April 21, 2010 - Carnival Ecstasy, , Carnival Cruise Lines

July 30, 2008 - Pacific Sun, , P&O Cruises

January 2, 2008 - Radiance Of The Seas, , Royal Caribbean Cruise Line

October 25, 2007 - Norwegian Star, , Norwegian Cruise Line

September 18, 2007 - Dream Princess, , Caspi Shipping

July 18, 2006 - Crown Princess, , Princess Cruises

February 4, 2006 - Grand Princes, , Princess Cruises

If you have a cabin with a Balcony and need to quickly cool the room or quickly purge the... um... fumes from a recent bathroom visit, prop the balcony door fully open and then open your cabin door for a few seconds. The positive pressure from the inside part of the ship will blow your cabin air(and lose papers if your not careful) out the balcony.  

My bet is they will be announcing what will be replacing the IMAX on Panorama.

Don't put too much stock in this but, my co-workers's collage friend's sister is dating a guy who's mother's Pastor's fitness trainer said the Panorama will feature the first Whirly Ball at sea!!

What is Whierly Ball you ask?? Well its best described as "a combination of lacrosse, hockey, basketball, and bumper cars". Google it!

Just imagine if it were true(its not), its just as fun to watch as it is to play.  

Was on the Breeze for the 14day repossessioning cruise at at the end of September. I purchased the premium package. Overall I rate it as poor. Social Media sites seem to work well, I could even make phone calls on FB messenger  but beyond that it was very painful to use. Some site took several mins to fully load on my laptop and android tablet. I couldn't login to my bank account as I keep hitting the security timeout before I could get to the main page load. On the last day it took me over 30mins just to get checked in to my southwest flight. 

I was just on the the two week repossessioning cruise on the Carnival Breeze and before the cruised I opted for the AT&T unlimited talk and text cruise plan and I also had the premium internet package

The WiFi on the ship was just too unreliable. While I was sometimes able to make VOIP calls on both google hangouts and Facebook messenger it was buggy at best and I couldn't rely on it for incoming calls.

The AT&T plan in contrast worked really well. All the ports we visited were covered on the plan. The only condition was I had to make at least one call from the ship before any of the islands we visited would be covered(to prevent non cruiseser from abusing this plan I guess). The plan was $100 and covered you for exactly 30 days from when you activate it. It also gave me 2 or 3 gb that data that I didn't really use. There were really only two negatives I experienced. The first was while at sea there was increased delay that sometime lead to two people talking at the same time, but it minor. The other issue was anytime you were leaving or coming into port the cell service on the ship would be turned off so you would have no signal from inside the ship. Even when docked, unless thee was a cell tower right at the port, you still had to go outside to get a signal. While at sea, there was not anywhere on the ship I didn't have coverage. The only other annoyance(small) was I had my phones timezone set to sync to the cell provider. When they first turned on the cellular at sea after we left Galveston my phone switched from central time to GMT so I had to hard set the time zone on the phone.

Normally I would not have gotten the phone plan, but it was a 14 days cruise and I was cruising on my own and we had two family emergencies(why my wife stayed behind) just before the cruise and wanted to stay in touch with the family if something bad happened. .

Next you'll tell me the midnight buffets are gone and they don't have live Jamaican bands on the pool deck anymore.

Don't forget the live bands for the shows, the chocolate mints on your pillow, or straws when you order a drink.

I really haven't has a problem booking an Aft Balcony for Alaska. We went in 2015 and booked less than 6 month before and had several still available. We are going again in 2019 and have two next to each other.

Now about the aft balcony in Alaska, its the best decision you can make. I like the aft in general, but found in Caribbean they can be hotter than the usual balcony, but in Alaska this is a huge advantage. For the most part the ship blocks most the wind so for us it was very conferrable(I had on shorts everyday). In contrast, while in Fjord I did venture to one the front observation deck(in my shorts) and froze my butt off so the difference is night and day. On top of that your view is not limited just one side of the ship. When we transversed the Tracy Arm Fjord we got to see everything twice(once going in and again coming back).

Now, the one negative about the aft balcony is its a low pressure area. This means if anyone and I mean anyone in a normal balcony is not following the rules and smoking you are likely to smell it from time to time. You also may see some soot from the ships exhaust collect on things.

... though given the current state of LNG bunkering facilities in the US, the ship will most likely be in Europe for a while.

Galveston will have the facilities in place within the next year. In addition, they just won DOE approval on a plan to expand LNG capabilities even further with the goal of becoming a major LNG export port.

https://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/news/galveston-bay-gets-lng-export-permit-doe/

Same thing happened when we on the Magic a few years ago. We had left Galveston the day before on are way to Roatan, Early that morning I knew something was wrong as I could see Cancan port side as we sailed past. We watched the morning show on the TV and the cruise director mentioned that they were going to make a special announcement in the next hour. The announcement said someone was really ill and needed to be disembarked on the a hospital ship in Cozumel A day or two later I talked to one of the family member who told me that they had a massive heart attack. So on that cruise we visited Cozumel twice and even with the diversion we still arrived in Roatan on schedule