Eli_6

Wow! That is a good price!

I have heard really good things about the Yacht Club. It is in line with the Havana area and (in my experience) less than NCL's Haven. I recently priced a Haven room on the Prima out of Galveston and it was over 9k for 2 people...and it wasn't even a holiday week or anything. Hard pass on that.

I don't think you understand what I am saying. Maybe I am not wording it correctly. If you "carry off" your luggage and have priority, you go to the priority waiting area and debark first before everyone else. That is how I have personally gotten off the ship in my last several cruises. It has been that way for me every time we have been in a suite or had FTTF. If you do NOT carry off and put your luggage out the night before, they call you by zone AFTER the "carry off" people debark. Priority in that case is usually zone 1 or 2. They also usually have you meet somewhere and then let you go as soon as all the self debark people go. I have done it this way with priority debark before, too. Unfortunately, you get off much later that way.

The increase in the cost of groceries, gas, cars, and housing is hurting the people who might otherwise use their discretionary income to cruise with carnival and no longer have discretionary income. When property values go up, taxes go up and rent goes up for those people who don't own. Maybe the people who make 100k+ are still ok, but the people who make 25k-50k are being hurt by the aforementioned because those items are a much greater percentage of their household income.

Those of you who think the economy is doing so great are fooling yourselves. Just because you aren't PERSONALLY seeing it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Your own personal experiences are not reflective of the national and international economies that affect CCL and CUK and their pricing. See: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/household-wealth-suffers-biggest-loss-since-2008 https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/27/stock-market-losses-wipe-out-9-trillion-from-americans-wealth-.html https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/recession-threat-stock-market-crash-bank-of-america-2023-outlook-2022-11?op=1 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/recession-outlook-2023-q1-forecast-inflation-stock-market-recommendations-bofa-2022-12?op=1

If you carry off your luggage you can. If you have them take your luggage down, you have to wait until after the carry off people go.

Good idea. I didn't realize any of the fares had refundable deposits...

Houston is one of the fastest growing cities in the US...and Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio are not far behind. All cities are within a 5 hours drive from Galveston. I don't know exactly how many people live in the metro area of those 4 cities combine, but 30 million people live in Texas and I would say probably 2/3 to 3/4 of the population of the state lives within a 5 hours drive of Galveston. I live in Northern Houston and I can be at the Galveston cruise terminal in under 90 minutes in traffic. Flying is a nightmare and we like to take long weekend cruises out of Galveston. We would love the chance to do the Yacht club since Carnival is now moving her only ship with a decent Havana area to another port.

I would LOVE this! I hope it happens.

I bought more Carnival. I am 42. I have a long way off to retirement to ride this out. Also bought Amazon and TSLA. I sold a bunch of TLSA when it was at $1100-1200 (before the split) and then sold some more (after the split) at $310. Since it is down to $150 now, I am buying up some more to replace what I previously sold and maybe get some more. TSLA is the lowest it has been since Covid...I am sure, in part, to Elon Musk and his ridiculous antics. Fortunately, I sold all my Twitter a long time ago before Elon took over.

"Just in case" my May 28th pride sailing cancels, I have been putting the cabins I want on on the Venezia on a 48 hours hold every couple of days. (I don't want to risk the $800 deposit to deposit them.) I asked my TA to do the free hold once, but I feel bad doing it over and over again. Problem is, the inside room I want that is across the hall from the Vista balcony I want, doesn't show up on the Carnival website because the website just shows the first ten or so inside rooms available on that deck in the aft...and there are more than 10 cabins available. So, I can't put it on hold on my own. Is there anyway to get the other inside cabins to show up on the website?

Anyone else who wrote to carnival to ask about the May 28th sailing (or other sailings no longer on the website) hear anything back? I have NOT. I emailed guest services and asked on John's page. No response.

That seems ridiculous. I thought this was going to be for a balcony for 4 people. I booked a 4 day, 4 person balcony for a holiday weekend for 1600 and thought I was being screwed. I only booked it because it will require my children to miss zero school and my husband to only miss 1 day of work so that by itself is worth a lot.

😂🤣

All my cruises have been good since the restart except for my Pride Europe sailing--and it was the one I paid the most for! The financial channels are predicting we will go into a recession towards the first of this upcoming year and today stocks were down significantly and have been for the last three days...some of them (like tech) the lowest they have been since Covid shut downs. One of the first things people are going to cut in a recession is discretionary spending on vacations. Increasing the prices is not going to help the majority of carnival's clientele (who are likely the middle class or even lower middle class) cruise more frequently during a recession.

100 percent agree. Bedt layout, worst condition of any carnival ship I have been on.

Your post prompted me to try this when Venezia Terrazza cabins didn't show up and, sure enough, they showed up when I used an icognito browser!

And now I just did what Tom and Cheryl did and tried an incognito browser and the cabins were there! What???

I have had that happen not only with cabins, but even with date availability! I often try searching in my incognito browser if I am really interested in a date.

All the talk about the Venezia got me interested in booking her. I was looking at a couple of the sailings to the Northwest in September, but there are no Terrazza cabins (balcony or cabana or Vista or premium) listed for those sailings on the website other than just the inside ones. I thought it might even be a glitch in the computer so I checked again this morning and it was the same situation. Are they already sold out? This seems unlikely. Do you think that Carnival has taken them off until the website until they come up with a prize they like for this "specialty" class? Why then leave the inside rooms?

I just recalled there was one exception, but that was when I cruised with my kids last Christmas and they had just started allowing vaccinated kids and we had to stand in the "kid" line to make sure they were vaccinated. It didn't matter if you were a suite, platinum, diamond, etc., if you had a kid you were stuck standing in the long *ss "kid" line waiting behind all the people who didn't have the proper documentation on their kids or were trying to get their unvaxed kids on board without an exemption or had an exemption and had to show their documentation. But that shouldn't apply now.

I asked John Heald shortly after the restart if the Suite guests had to stick to their boarding time (because I had booked a last minute suite and had a late boarding time) and he said that suite guests could arrive at any time and board at any time and did not have to arrive within their allocated appointment window. That has been my experience post-covid at Galveston, Pt Can., Dover, and Seattle. Before Covid, FTTF was the same way but just they boarded after Suites, Platinum, Diamond...but is all in quick succession. Not sure now since it just came back.

I LOVE the Havana area on the Vista class ships! My favorite. I would recommend either the corner Vista balcony or one of the middle aft balconies. The ones closer to the edge are fine, but the ones on the end are slightly longer. If there is a major price difference, go for the aft facing balcony. The balcony on the Vista corner room is nice, but the room is actually a little bit of an odd lay out so I actually like the room on one of the middle 4 balcony rooms better. The premium Havana balconies are not worth the up charge from a regular aft facing balcony.

On my Europe cruise this summer, there were so many platinum and diamonds that the "special" line was often longer than the normal line. Oddly enough, a couple of times people were continuing to stand in it even when there was a much shorter line in the regular line. 🤔 Couldn't figure that one out at all.

I book FTTF when sailing out of Galveston to get off the ship sooner. It *sometimes* saves a day of taking off work or school. Of course, if the boat is delayed getting into port, it doesn't matter.