Eli_6

The biggest bummer part of this is that an excursion for "Mont St. Michel" showed up recently on the Carnival website and I was wanting to cancel my "Paris on your own" excursion and book it instead...but not doing that anymore since I paid for it ($600 for four of us) with a gift card for Paris. I may try on the ship to see if they can just "transfer" my money over from one excursion to the other. Anyone ever done this before?

Only time I ever encountered this was actually in Wales and not London and people were holding the door open for the people behind them. And it was like a 50 pence coin or something. (Do not recall exact denomination.) Sort of like the buggies at Aldi that take a quarter. I have used many gas station bathrooms in the UK and never had an issue.

Oh, I am not mad. My husband rags on me all the time for my dislike of talking on the telephone anyway.

I guess so. Even if I do get the refund, this will still be a "learning experience" because I won't be using gift cards again for shore excursions. It is worth the ten percent saved on the cost of an entire cruise, but not worth it to save $15 on an excursion.

No, I am not blaming them for that. I am just explaining why I hate talking on the phone.

I live about 5 miles from IAH on the north side of Houston. It takes us about 90 minutes if traffic isn't bad to get to Galveston. If traffic is bad, can take 2.5 to 3 hours. Hobby is much closer, but generally speaking fewer airlines fly into Hobby. It is also not as busy. I would personally fly into Hobby everything else being equal for a cruise out of Galveston. Carnival usually offers transportation from the airport to the pier for a fee. I would use what they offer. If not, I would try to take an Uber or do a car service. I don't know of any companies simply to recommend simply because we always drive to Galveston.

After 40 minutes on the phone, the second lady submitted a form to their "gift card" team who is supposed to reach out to me via email in 24-48 hours..but said to allow 3 business days. They said it doesn't show a gift card was ever re-issued so the team is going to have to research the matter and get back with me. So, basically, another 45 minutes wasted and still nothing is resolved. Basically, I just spent 45 minutes on the phone so they could fill out a form to send me to yet another department to "research" the issue. Not understanding why this is so darn difficult. I have the email showing I purchased the excursion. I have the email showing I canceled it. I am glad for all of you who have "never had this problem" using gift cards and those of you who have been able to eventually after finding just the right person to help you have been able to get these issues resolved or had them resolved after HOURS on the phone, but thus far I have easily invested an hour-and-a-half into this and still no money back. So, now I am out $150 and 1.5 hours of my time. Not worth it for a ten percent discount. Never using gift cards on excursions again. Lesson learned. And I am also not booking excursions until I am certain I want to go on them.

Still on hold. 30 minutes in, she lady who was helping me trasnfered me to someone in the web services department and that the conversation was going to be about getting me the refund. Thought I was home free. Nope. Had to go through everything I had told her and all of the information again and now she is investigating the entire ordeal.. She now has me on hold and is talking to someone with the fun shops. They are wanting to know the gift card I paid for with it. No, I don't still have the gift card I paid for with it in September. It wasn't a physical card anyway.

The idea this was "extremely dangerous" is laughable. My son is a big fisher person (room full of fishing trophies) and I have been hooked so many times in my life by him...and he has hooked himself so many times. It isn't pleasant to get a hook in you, but no one is dying. Just the other day I sat on my bed and sat on a hook. Yup, he had been messing with a line for a trout sitting in my bed watching tv and left it...then Mom came along and sat on it. In January, we were doing a trout tournament and he flung the rod back and hooked my other son. It isn't that bad. Not in the size of hooks that are used.

That's what I am doing right now. I hate talking on the phone is part of it, too. I much prefer texting. I have a hard time understanding people on the phone. And every time I start talking on the phone, my parrot starts screaming in the background because she thinks I am a "bird" in her flock and we are "communicating" and needs to join in. And Macaws are LOUD when they start screaming. I often have to go outside and sit in the heat to even have a conversation.

OH.MY.GOODNESS. Against my better judgment, I just called them back to try once again to get this sorted out. Called me main number because can't find one for the carnival shore excursions. They told me there is no separate number for the shore excursions department. They asked me for my booking number. Told me that it was invalid. Then tried to look up under my husband's name. Told me that there was no one in the system with that name. (We are platinum so I think there is.) Then they looked under my name and found the booking linked through me. Then told me the booking was made and canceled in Sept all on the same day and the money was never taken off of a gift card or from my account. No it wasn't. I have a receipt and the cancellation letter from MARCH. It was made in September. Canceled in March. Now I am on hold while they are researching. Sigh.

As an aside, I also got gift cards in the mail from refunds from Covid, too, without any problems. But I think they were sent out en masse.

Both of these are possibilities. It would go to my husband's email and he doesn't have time to check it regularly. I have looked for him and haven't seen anything, though. As for the mail--that's entirely possible. We live in a neighborhood where the houses are all on half an acre to 5 acres and the houses are far apart. It isn't always clear what the street address is. Sometimes our mail goes to other houses and no one seems to care enough to return packages to their actual owner anymore. We used to know all of our neighbors really well, but all of them have moved off and we haven't really gotten to know the new people.

I am not that principled. At some point, I don't have that kind of time to invest hours and hours on hold over $150. I am about right now about to start working on an attorney letter to an insurance company because they owe my husband's medical clinic over $30,000 and have delayed paying for about 8-9 months. (I am attorney and practiced for 12 years full-time in commercial litigation and still do work for a few select clients, but took time off to raise my kids.) I also have two young kids that consume a lot of time. Only reason I post here as much as I do is that it is more entertainment for me...but I don't consider getting angry on the phone with Carnival as entertainment. I did shoot carnival excursions an email and may try one more time on the phone later, but my max amount of time to invest in this before giving up is going to be about an hour.

Well, I did this because: 1) This is a European itinerary where Carnival is just in that particular port once or twice a year only and many of the excursions do sell out well in advance; and 2) Carnival has been dramatically increasing prices on everything including excursions. Some of them are 50 percent more now than they were 6-9 months ago. Carnival only had a few excursions out for this particular port when I booked it. One was basically a winery tasting. I booked it for my husband and I. Later on, an excursion came out that looked like it was more "family appropriate" that I could take our kids with us on and we would all enjoy so that is also why I canceled it.

I also asked my TA to "move" a deposit from a less expensive cruise to a SUBSTANTIALLY more expensive cruise taking place at the same time. (This was after the 2024 European schedule came out.) They have done this in the past. She said "Carnival won't do that anymore." I ended up calling Carnival myself, removing her from the booking and got my deposit moved no problem. I am not booking anymore with any TA. Everyone I have used has just made the problem more difficult rather than easier.

Thanks. I will try asking for shore excursions when they start demanding all of my information. Would be helpful if they could just have shore excursions as one of the options on the menu.

It doesn't help that my TA also sells shore excursions she organizes in Europe so I already feel like I am cheating on her by even booking a Carnival excursion. But I wasn't that interested in the excursion she offered in Bilbao. I would put money on the fact the problem was paying with a gift card. Someone else on here had this same problem when paying for a shore excursion with a gift card and then canceling.

I mean, I don't know what Carnival's secret intentions are or what their secret marketing strategy is/was...I just remember what they "said" during the restart. We were on MG second sailing and they made a big deal out of Chibang being free for us when it would normally be a "for pay" eatery. There were also huuugggeee lines outside of the YTD dining room at about 6-7 ever evening. And this was when MG was sailing at partial capacity so I am sure it is even worse now.

I already spoke to my travel agent and was told she had nothing to do with the carnival shore excursions.

Thankfully it is only $150 and not more. My time is valuable enough that I am not spending any more time on this issue, but I won't be booking excursions on a "maybe" anymore and just having the attitude of "Oh, well, I can cancel and get my money back."

Or, if you do, don't do it with a gift card! Before all of the "options" came out for my May 28th Pride sailing for excursions, I had booked my husband and I on the Rioja Alvesa excursion in Bilbao, Spain. We booked it some time ago and when more excursions became available, I decided to cancel it and book another excursion. The charge for that excursion was $149.99 per ticket. I received a refund for my ticket ($149.99) but never received a refund for my husband's ticket ($149.99) even though I paid for them at the same time and canceled at the same time. I did, however, get an email notifying me of the cancellation and saying a refund would be forthcoming. It has been about 6 weeks now and we have neither gotten the OBC or a gift card in the mail for my husband's excursion. That $149.99 seems to just be gone. (We are on different rooms and I suspect that I paid for mine with OBC and his with a gift card.) I tried to call Carnival about it. I just sat on hold for about 20 minutes. Then, finally someone answered...after I had given them all the needed information, there was suddenly no one on the line. I waited a bit and then the "hold music" came on. After some time, someone new picked up and asked for all of the information again. By that time I had close out my window on my computer with the booking information as I had already given to someone and told the woman I would have to bring it up again so it would take a moment. She then hung up on me...for no reason. So, the first 25 minutes on the phone were wasted. Getting very annoyed at the hassle of trying to get this $150 back and suspecting it is just gone.

This is corrent. There was originally going to be a charge for Chibang and Cucina. Then it was just for the the first season. Then it changed again...

No, I absolutely think that is the case. I have noticed it, too. Seems to have gotten so much worse after Covid.

Funnily enough, the two incidents of really bad behavior I experienced with other guests were both with older men. Once, a seemingly able bodied man cut in front of a paraplegic (like literally controlling his wheelchair with his mouth) and my elderly Mom with a walker who had been waiting for some time for an elevator. Like just walked up when they had been waiting 10+ minutes and walked on because he could walk briskly and they couldn't get quickly to the elevator. I said something to him about not cutting in line in front of the disabled and he then went OFF on me. Called me a "fat ass," started screaming, etc. Another time, I asked if people milling about in front of the dining room at brunch were waiting for a table (because I couldn't tell if they were in line or what) and this old man says, "What do you think we are doing genius?" I responded something to the effect, "Well, I can't tell. That's why I am asking." He then made some general insults to my intelligence. My husband said to him, "Please don't speak to my wife that way." The old man then stands up, starts bowing up at my husband (who is literally 20+ years younger than him and several inches taller) and gets in his face and says, "I will knock your teeth out!" At that point, we all just turned and walked away. My son says after we were out of earshot from the man, "I don't think that old man needs to be trying to fight people. He might break a hip." The man was probably 75 or older. After these two incidents, I no longer correct anyone and if someone says something nasty to me, I act like I don't hear it. People are so on edge lately and it isn't always the people you would think who seem to be on the very of losing it.