Mic101680

Yes, they're 500 ml bottles in the 12 pk. I always order one package to my room, and bring an empty refillable bottle/cup with me to supplement. I've never been asked to empty the refillable bottle when coming back onboard from port, but I have witnessed numerous times where people are required to dump their refillables during initial embarkation to go through security.

Just off Paradise, which already has Starry. And it tastes exactly like every other lemon lime soda out there.

I didn't really see any, but I also wasn't looking. I know Red frog had a drink of the day which was $1-2 off the regular price. And Blue Iguana has the margarita pitchers, which come out cheaper per serving that buying the same amount one at a time.

We had at least 2 comedy shows scheduled every evening for both the 5 night and 4 night cruises. Most nights there were 4, with the "PG" shows earlier in the evening.

On Paradise now, and also saw them only on the first day (might can get them later if they have any left and you ask). The 16oz cups are $11.50 at both Blue Iguana and Red Frog, comes with a drink, and refills are at the 12 oz price. I'll ask about whether they can be filled at other bars on the ship when I get back onboard, but I've only witnessed people getting refills at Red Frog or Blue Iguana.

You can only take sealed, nonalcoholic drinks and sealed, prepackaged foods (no fresh fruits/veggies or meats) off the ship. It will get confiscated and trashed, and in some cases, you can be fined. Best and safest bet would be to buy some prepackaged favorite snacks at home and bring those with you onboard - I usually bring crackers or granola bars, but will usually get something local to eat as well (ex: small meal/appetizer or snacks from a convenience store).

The current CD is Leilani Ross (Lei Lei), but this is her last cruise on Paradise.

There is prime rib on one evening both in the dining room and on the buffet. Quality/cook seems to be a bit inconsistent. Keep in mind there is no steakhouse on board, but they do have a 'steakhouse selection' portion of the menu that has a filet mignon and lobster tail meal for $23.

Yes, we did the Chef's Table on the last night of a 5 night cruise (so would hace been on 1/18). We had a short kitchen tour, as well as a cooking demo from the pastry chef. The only courses I didn't like were the mushroom domes (not listed as it was an extra course added by the chef), and everything on the lamb course - but keep in mind I don't care for mushrooms and absolutely hate lamb anyway. Everything else was fantastic! Menu attached 😊

In the middle of a B2B on Paradise now. Food quality is okay to good. Nothing that will blow your mind though, with the exception of Chef's Table (which I highly recommend). Buffet has been better than the dining room (which has been very inconsistent plate to plate), but go-tos have been Guy's Burgers, Blue Iguana tacos, pizza and the deli. Some dishes in the buffet (particularly the desserts) have been dry and missing some flavors. Anything gelatin based has been like eating rubber, but other things are fine. There is a for fee sushi place, but I haven't tried that. Desserts in the coffee bar are pretty good, but are a small charge (around $3 each). Smaller, older ship, but very clean. Agree with others that some spaces could be utilized better. Overall, I like it.

Thanks! It's been great so far!

I won't go into deep play by plays for the rest of the cruise, but we did enjoy the itinerary. First day was a sea day, second was Nassau (which I wouldn't have gone ashore if I was alone as I've been here quite a few times, but my friend had never been, so we booked the Must See Nassau excursion, which we both enjoyed), third was Bimini (gorgeous island - would definitely visit here again, but is very much a beach/resort pool type of place as there just isn't much to do outside of the excursions), and last was another sea day. We did book Chef's Table for the last night, which was excellent (we didn't like 2 of the courses, but everything else was fantastic and I highly recommend the experience). Overall impressions of the Paradise is that we enjoyed our time. Service was a bit slow in some areas (particularly bar service, which seemed to also be a bit disorganized when compared to our previous sailings), the food was inconsistent in the dining rooms, and the desserts on the buffet were mostly tasteless and/or disappointing. Pizza, the deli, Guy's Burgers and Blue Iguana tacos were always consistent and were pur go-tos. (There is a for-fee sushi bar outside the casino but we didn't try it as neither of us eat much sushi). We didn't see our room steward at all until 8:15 this morning when he came by to see how many bags we would be moving to my new room for the B2B. He cleaned the room, but we were swiping extra towels from the steward's carts as we came in for the evening as we were only given 1 each/day. I've never had this experience before with the room stewards, so hoping this was just a one-off. My travel buddy had to fly home, so she took the cruise shuttle to the airport. It was easy for her to find, but disembarkation was a zoo and it took awhile for her to get off the ship. The B2B process was great! I met in the piano bar with the other B2B cruisers, and they had coffee, tea, juice, water, and an assortment of pastries for us while we waited. We received our new sail and sign cards, were escorted off the ship with some of the crew who were either going home or switching ships, showed our passports to the customs/immigration officer, and were able to walk right back on the ship. Mimosas aplenty were waiting for us at the atrium bar, we took a group photo, and then we're free to do as we pleased. We had about an hour or so before the first passengers for the new sailing were allowed to board, so I just found a nice spot in the quiet to sit and read and catch up on some personal business/emails/messages until lunch was ready.

Lido deck was crowded, which was expected as this was a full/sold out sailing. Food was pretty standard for embarkation day. We just went for dessert as we had a big breakfast at the hotel that morning. Not sure if it's just the Paradise or what, but ya'll have overhyped the funfetti cake - the cheesecake layer was delicious, but the cake part was dry and the icing tasted like nothing. I was disappointed 😞 After dessert, we sat at the Red Frog Rum Bar, got drinks, and people watched. (Note that yes, the Tervis cups are available at both Red Frog and Blue Iguana for $11.50, which includes any frozen drink. The cups are 16oz and refills were $10.50 - same cost as the 12 oz drinks). Both the Lido deck bars had daily specials, which were typically $1-2 off whatever the drink of the day was. I didn't notice an6 happy hour specials. Once the sail away party began, we decided to walk around and get acquainted with the ship, which is nearly identical to the Ecstasy, which we just sailed on in October. Our room was ready, but our bags weren't there yet. We noticed right away that the beds were not separated and that there was barely enough toilet paper for 2-3 uses, but the room steward was nowhere to be found. We decided to just drop off our backpacks in hopes of running into someone later, and went back on the upper sun deck to enjoy the scenery as we pulled out of port and sailed out of Tampa Bay. The plan was to have a chill cruise, and we were off to a great start. We had your time dining, so when we finally got hungry (after sunset), we went back to our room to change for dinner in the dining room. Felt it was odd that we still hadn't seen our room steward yet, but then again, we came and went at oddish hours. We still needed toilet paper, but the beds had been split at this point. Off to dinner we went. Dinner was good, service was good, but we did notice some major inconsistencies. Both of us got the brisket, which was surprisingly flavorful and tender. My travel buddy was missing the mashed potatoes on her plate, so was brought a second to replace it. Good thing she just scraped the potatoes onto her existing plate instead of allowing the server to swap the plate entirely - the brisket on the new plate was chewy and tough, even if the flavor was still good. We shared it, but our first plates were far superior. After dinner, we walked around some more, swiped a spare roll of toilet paper from one of the public restrooms and headed back to the room. Good thing we did because the room steward still had not stocked the bathroom, but had left his card on the desk. Our room was an interior on deck 7, right behind the art gallery area. First night was a little noisy, next 3 nights were fairly quiet, and the last night sounded like someone was trying to break through the wall. Clearly this was where luggage was being brought up and down the decks for room delivery. I was fine with the noise, but it bothered my travel buddy some.

Greetings! Currently onboard Carnival Paradise for the second leg of a B2B. I can't find the recent posts where people had questions, so here we go. Port of Tampa has been easy to navigate. I parked in the Channelside Garage right across the street, which is $15/day. You can prepay online, print out the pass, and show it to the attendant as you come in. They exchange it for a different ticket, which you need to keep to get out of the garage. They had no problems linking both my parking passes into one ticket. It's a short walk across the street to terminal 2 and 3, so we just rolled our luggage with us instead of doing a drop off first. Porters met us outside the building and took our luggage with no issues. Longest wait to board was getting through the security scanners. We arrived right at our arrival appointment time of 11:30, and it took about 30 minutes to get through. VIP/priority boarding appeared to be a little faster, but not by much. Once through Security, there was nobody in line at the check-in desks, so we showed our passports, breezed through this process and walked right on the ship a little after noon. Yay!

I would suggest to look at the deck plans of the ship and see where the smoking areas are. If you're sensitive to smoke (like me), then you may want to try to book on the opposite side of where the smoking areas are on the upper decks. Assuming you have a balcony cabin of course. If no balcony, then it probably really doesn't matter either way.

Exactly what I plan on doing for my upcoming B2B! FYI - check your ship - some of the older ones still use coin operated machines instead of having card readers on the machines.

I just wouldn't, for all the reasons people have already mentioned. If I was in your shoes, and if it were that important to me, I would just buy small packages of the ingredients you use (usually can find snack size packets at the dollar store, or Walgreens/CVS around here) and then mix them once you get OFF the ship and are headed to the airport. Or find some other kind of prepackaged snacks that you can eat and have those handy instead.

I don't think it's necessary to check multiple times a day - once in the morning or evening is plenty since I imagine they aren't updating this information multiple times daily.

You'll just have to sign in and check each day. My last TBA was assigned about 30ish days out, but others have reported anywhere from when they booked the cruise all the way to not knowing until they arrived at the port. I also never received any kind of notification with mine, so had I not been checking every few days, I wouldn't have known it had been assigned.

I brought canned sparkling water onboard in October and just had it in a tote bag, along with 2 bottles of wine (1 for each of us in the room). No problems with mine, but others around us I guess were randomly stopped to check inside the cartons and bags.

I always intend to do this, but ultimately forget and check in 3 days later. I've never had a problem getting a time slot before noon, which is fine for me. I don't have to be first on the ship - there's not usually a lot going on anyway until the afternoon anyway.

A friend of mine said she wanted to try it out on our next cruise, so we went ahead and booked it. She's an incredibly picky eater, and I hate salmon (which seems to show up on the Chef's Table menu a lot), but we both said "well it will be an experience!" and agreed we can do a late night pizza run or make sure we have something from the buffet waiting in the room fridge if we end up hating the CT menu. Open minds, but prayers we don't get something we won't eat or don't like, lol

I'm doing my first B2B this month and from what I've researched here and other places, and advice I've been given: Make sure you call to have the back to back reservations linked, and I've been told to double check with guest services sometime while you're on board during the first leg to make sure they are aware (should be if it was linked beforehand, but good to be sure). You should get instructions in your stateroom sometime during the first leg with details for where to meet to disembark the first cruise and embark on the second. There are some reports of people never having to get off the ship, but the official procedure is that they will escort you off and through customs/immigration, and escort you back on, then issue you a new sail & sign card. There are some reports of mimosas waiting for you when you are done with this process, but this seems to be at the discretion of the staff during that cruise. If you're changing rooms (I will be), you'll need to pack up your bags and leave them inside your stateroom for the luggage crew to move your things to your new room. Advice I have been given is to make sure your stateroom steward is aware as well, even though they should have a manifest of some kind that alerts them to this. If you're not changing rooms, then you of course won't have to worry about this. (I'm unclear on whether new luggage tags will be given for your bags, or if they automatically know where to move them to, but I plan to go ahead and print the tags for the 2nd cruise and have them available to change out). As far as your traveling companions go, the first should be normal as I'm assuming you would be arriving at the port together and boarding together. The first companion(s) will disembark as normal. For the second companion(s), they will likely be asked if the whole party is there and will just have to let the staff know at the port that you are arriving separately or that you are already onboard. The rest should be as normal.

Yes, they really will hold you back and ask you to come back later, especially if it's busy at the time you show up and it's not at or after your selected arrival time window. That said, I've personally witnessed and experienced a whole plethora of things that happen vs what Carnival's procedures actually are: you might get lucky and they might go ahead and let you through the initial check in line and security screening, but then they may have you step to the side at that point before you can actually board. You might get lucky and they waive you through the priority line, even though you are not part of the priority boarding groups (happened to me once when traveling with elderly friends). Personally, I would plan to arrive within or after the time slot you selected, and if you want to board earlier next time, make sure you sign into online check in as soon as it opens up to be able to get the time slot you most want.

If it's working correctly, then yes, you should get a sound and you'll see an icon at the top of your screen (like you would with other app or text notifications). However, like others have already said, more often that not, it doesn't give you the notifications. Sometimes closing and reopening the app helps, sometimes uninstalling and reinstalling helps (which is what guest services will usually tell you to do if there are problems), but nothing is fool-proof. And I'm not one to look at my phone every 3 seconds, so I usually will get the messages but not see them until well after they're relevant.