Eli_6

I like the one with the frogs.

Good suggestion. However, I already have about 1k in gift cards to use for spending on board. And I don't have thousands in unpaid cruise fares left. My Sept cruise is paid in full--with gift cards. For next year in Europe, I still have over 5k in FCC I am applying that has to be spent by Aug 2024. And after my problems getting shore excursions refunded last year, I am hesitant to use gift cards to pay for shore excursions. And obviously I can't use gift cards to pay for hotels. This probably doesn't matter now anyway because I just found out my child may needs some dental work so that will probably push me over minimum spend. Sigh.

Based on @ObstructedView2's post, it sounds like it is a targeted offer to people with the regular old Amex card and not the co-branded cards so that may be why many aren't seeing it. I promise I am not making it up, though. It is definitely there for me.

It may not be on the cobranded cards.

I have an Amex platinum but people are seeing it with green and gold, too.

If you have an Amex, you can get 25,000 points for spending $1k on Carnival until October 10th. This is a good deal if you already have a cruise you need to pay off or excursions you need to buy, etc.

I looked at Celebrity over spring break but it would still require them to miss over a week of school. I had them miss only 3 days this year for a Europe cruise and it still turned out to be very stressful. We have a little leeway because we are in private school, but still ynder Texas law, you can miss something like 18 days without having to repeat the grade. My younger son ended up with two bad illnesses and missed like 15 days. (One was Covid and the other was a really bad stomach virus where he threw up for about a week straight and then had diarrhea for another several days.) We almost couldn't take our trip. It was down to like a single day and for the last few weeks of school I was having to tell him, "Unless you are on the verge of being hospitalized, you have to go to school." So, long story short, I would MUCH prefer to take the trip in the summer. Not worried about the heat. I grew up in Laredo which is further south than the pyramids. I once saw a bank clock hit 130 degrees. The feels like "temps" where I live now (Houston) have been hitting 115 F regularly and my kids are playing soccer in it. And I am sitting outside watching them.

I was just deposing a witness and not in trial. I think the case settled.

Oh wow. How long is that flight to Singapore with layovers? 30 hours? I tried to get my husband to go to Australia (even booked the cruise which was basically free) and he refused to go even in biz. Said he wasn't interested in doing that long of a flight. Sigh.

I am wanting to go on a cruise to Egypt and the Holy Land in 2025. I am looking for a May or summer cruise to fit with my kids' summer break as we typically do 2-3 weeks in Europe every summer. (HAL has one in late May for 2024 but we already have a cruise booked to Italy for 2024.) I was wondering approximately when HAL comes out with these schedules. I noticed that Celebrity and Cunard already has their Egypt cruises out for 2025, but they are during the school year.

The only time I have ever encountered bed bugs...had a deposition in Philly. Flight delays. Flight from hell in a middle seat delayed again even once we boarded. Total delay of 7 hours. Arrived at $700 per night hotel room (near opposing counsel's office) after midnight. Unloaded my boxes of evidence and unpacked. Pulled back covers and there were bed bugs. I didn't have it in me to get a cart and reload all those boxes and change rooms, etc. so I slept on the couch. Point being: It can happen anywhere.

Actually, some of the more popular excursions for Europe do sell out months in advance. Especially when it is a port that Carnival only visits once or twice a season. I started looking last year in September/October for my May/June 2023 cruise and waited to book a couple of them I was interested in. By January, my first choice for Brussels, and La Rochelle were ALL already sold out and my second choice for Paris (behind an excursion that had not posted) was sold out as well. They were available in September. Same with some of the excursions for the Alaskan cruises. I was told by my TA to book the small bout tour up the fjord as soon as I booked (and I did) and, sure enough, a month or two later, it was booked up. The whale watching by yacht was another one that even though I was booking 6+ months out it didn't have enough availability for all 4 of us. The less expensive helicopter tours also sold out very quickly. Furthermore, last year I saw the prices often go up DRAMATICALLY about 6 months before the cruise. Some as much as 50 percent. I had one excursion that I booked for $79 in September that was $149 by the time of sailing. Even an extra $50 per ticket times 4 people times 8 days = $1600. That's basically the cruise fare for 1 person. And with how much the cost of EVERYTHING is going up right now, I see no reason not to go ahead and book it if I can. I also want to go ahead and book some of these because I need to meet a minimum spend for a sign up bonus on a credit card and was planning to do that by going ahead and booking travel for next year. I only have 3 months to meet it. I just paid 720k Avios (British Airway's miles) for 2 first class and 2 business class round trip tickets (fully refundable and cancellable) from Houston to Barcelona that would have cost us $73,249 if I had paid cash for the tickets. You don't get $70k in airline tickets for just the cost of the taxes by starting your planning 2 months before the cruise. I am already working on compiling my avios for a 2025 cruise from Athens to Egypt/Holy Land. The reward tickets have to be booked as soon as they post (355 days in advance) to get 4 on one flight because they usually only offer 4-6 per flight and that means I need to be accumulating avios now and already have them "waiting" to be spent as soon as the reward flights post. This is also how I paid for 4 business class tickets to Scotland in 2022 (and to our cruise out of Dover), 4 biz class tickets to BCN and home from Heathrow in 2023, 2 biz class this year to go to Scotland at Thanksgiving, and 2 First and 2 biz next year. (They only had 2 first and 2 biz available because I was a couple of weeks late getting my points all transfered to Avios so we will be split up between cabins.)

So, I got my flights booked for my Carnival Europe Legend cruise next summer and wanted to go ahead and book my hotel rooms. Cruise leaves out on May 30, 2024. We are flying in 3 days ahead (2 nights in hotel) and out the day after (so one night in hotel) the Legend gets back in to port. However, when I went to look at hotel rooms, it seems like only maybe 25 percent of the hotels have their availability listed. Is it simply too early? We cruised in Europe in 2022 and 2023 and I swear I was able to book my hotel rooms out really early the last couple of years, but maybe it wasn't quite this early... Also - why in the world can't Carnival put up its port excursions on the ports it goes to year after year? I mean, I would think they would offer the same excursions they did last year and they year before. Many of these ports are NOT new. And, yet, it seems like every year I have to wait until 1-2 months before the cruise to see what excursions trickle in and are going to be offered at the European ports. I can see ones offered in the past on the main page, but yet they aren't available for my booking. This makes it hard to plan. And clearly booking an excursion you would "like" to take to make sure you have something booked when you know there is one out there you would like to take way MORE but isn't posted yet doesn't work either since getting your money back isn't exactly easy. For example, I would really like to take the Monteserrat (sp?) excursion on the debark day in Barcelona (which, in turn, affects where we stay and whether or not I make other plans) but who knows if it will be offered. It was last year, but will it be this year? Currently, there are only 2 ports with excursions listed. If this needs to be moved to another forum, that's fine but didn't know where exactly to put it as it is sort of a weird topic.

You can run into jerks who are rude/obnoxious/entitled on any length of cruise, any ship, any cruise line, any port, and at any price point. I think the difference is: 1) that people who have something to lose are less likely to get in a physical altercation; and 2) people are more likely to lose their cool and resort to physical violence when they are wasted drunk. The short cruises definitely lend themselves to people inclined to get wasted. And I think they also are more likely to have people who don't have as much to lose in the event of an arrest/charge/lawsuit so aren't as inclined to walk away when someone offends them.

Well, if that's the case I would like to point out that NOLA seems to have the market cornered on people falling/jumping off ships.

As an aside, I am really wanting to take a cruise to Egypt and the Holy Land in 2025 and wish HAL, MSC and Royal would come out with their summer cruises. And, yes, I know it will be hot in the summer but no hotter than where I am coming from which is actually about the same distance from the equator as the pyramids...only we have humidity to make it worse.

I don't think Carnival will be in Norway anymore, but someone can correct me. They aren't in Norway in 2024. Environmental regulations for the Norwegian Fjords changed in 2024 so I don't think Carnival's older ships meet them.

Have you considered getting in points/miles?

In the past, they *usually* came out about December or January a year-and-a-half in advance. So, summer 2025 would come out in December of this year. However, they were a little earlier one year and much later this year. So, really, no one knows but I wouldn't even start looking until November or December.

Maybe they thought that the bucket might be used as a weapon...

On the website, it now allows you to pick for the Vista. A spot came open on the second full sea day and we picked that.

Watched the video again. I like it when the guy says, "Yo, we need to get the eff up out of here or we may get banned for life." That was awesome.

Include smoking in that as well. Oh, wait, I read the ship does smell like smoke as well. Guess they got the whole thing down.

I can't say for certain, but I am thinking the Journeys cruises aren't where the fights are happening...

I watched the video of the fight in the night club. The person's phone said it was 5 something a.m. as did the article I read (for whatever that is worth) that said the ship had to be escorted by the Coast Guard back in to port. I didn't even know the night club was open at 5 a.m.!!! And there were a bunch of people there! A bunch of adults!!! What grown adult is at a night club at that time? I can't even make the 10:30 comedy club.