ProgRockCruiser

Wait, what? Everyone says that's impossible! "No-one will gamble! May as well just shut them down!" 😉 Thank you for the comparison notes. I think I would enjoy a Holland America cruise, but I don't think I would go out of my way to change from my preference for Carnival right now.

That's good for you, and probably many others, but not our typical situation. Our one or two backpacks are full of camera gear (DSLR/Lenses + GoPro stuff), or something else "fragile/valuable". And I'd rather not drag around a couple "airplane carry-ons" even just for a couple of hours (since we like to get on early), so I'm happy to check a piece or two, and if doing that, I may as well use a bigger suitcase (which also allows us to bring the aforementioned snorkeling gear). And since we typically take 7 or 8 day cruises, the bigger bags help there too - plus leaves room for souvenirs. So, as usual, YMMV, and what works for one person is generally not going to be universal.

Maybe April 2023 is just "too far out" for the policies in place, so it is throwing an error that is is not handled properly? Which might be a sign we won't need it past a certain date? Anyone having issues for March 2023 cruises? Anyone having success for cruises further out?

Someone mentioned cost, but that isn't really the intent of the question. Although others have mentioned balconies, and we almost always get one, that wouldn't be a deal-breaker, we'd just modify our early-morning habits to get moving a bit faster and enjoy the public outside decks over coffee. Honestly, I can't think of a single-item deal-breaker, per se. Even if the ship went to (what we consider) the same boring ports, or our favorite bars were not available, or Guys Burgers and/or Shaq's Chicken and/or Blue Iguana Cantina were closed, we'd somehow make it work. Now, if it was all of those, I suppose that would be a deal-breaker. But individually, nah.

I was hoping this thread was about a new policy where Carnival was going to allow me to grab a Mai Tai during line-up for check-in to enjoy whilst waiting to board, and then take it on-board, and it would be part of the Cheers package too. Dang. 😁

I think you are mis-interpreting the question. The OP is asking, I suppose, because it never occurred to them that there was an upside to doing so. If one has never done so, it does seem like extra work with no obvious benefit. Especially since we are all conditioned to check out big bags when flying. (And what a nightmare that has become at Pearson and other airports in Canada...) I don't think they are being judgmental, just curious. For us, we drop the bags with the porters - we aren't interested in lugging around a couple of large-ish suitcases (we usually pack our own snorkeling gear, for example). We pack a few extra pieces of lightweight clothing in our carry-ons "just in case". But we also board wearing what would be OK for dinner - me in khakis and a polo shirt, her in a dress or pants of some type with a nice top.

Ah, OK, thanks for clarifying. We get Cheers!, so there is little chance of us ever exercising this.

The baby arrived while in port in San Juan? Lucky you on the timing! 😉 Sorry, I love parsing out sentences opposite to the intention. 😜

You can get bottles of liquor on-board two different ways: From the "Duty Free" Fun Shop, to take home with you at the end of the cruise. Relatively cheap ("Duty Free"). From the (online pre-cruise and I guess during the cruise?) "Fun Shops", to be delivered to your cabin to enjoy during the cruise. This is relatively expensive - about $80-100 for a what I guess is a 750ml bottle of hard liquor. You can browse products/prices here: https://www.carnival.com/in-room-food-beverages?q=:price-asc:category:liquor&sort=price-asc&page=0

So you aren't "adding" a name, you are changing the name from the default "TBD" booking. I think they let you do that up until a few days prior to sailing (so they can build and submit the manifest). Call and ask!

Whenever I have booked a cruise, I have always had to go back to add my wife after making the booking, IIRC.

How are either of these scenarios possible? #1: "Oh hi little girl/boy, are you ready to board now? Don't worry, you don't need adults with you or anything. I'm sure they'll show up eventually." The only thing I can think of is the child boarded with at least one parent, parent(s) got off the ship to get something from car or whatever (and yes, technically abandoned their child!), failed to re-board in time. #2: "Oh you're sailing the Freedom? OK, good, welcome aboard the Liberty. Don't worry that your barcode scan isn't working all seven times we check, it just says you aren't supposed to be on this manifest."

What a bizarre thread. The gist of it is: Carnival should spend a bunch of money on non-functional changes (I won't even call them "upgrades") to make a ship (possibly only temporarily borrowed) from a sister line look more like the rest of the fleet, for sailings that will occur well outside the "normal stomping grounds" of the rest of said fleet. And they should do it immediately, rather than wait for a known drydock within the next two years. Yeah, that's the smart thing to do with all that money that others claim they don't have, which is why the stock is tanking, CCL is going to go bankrupt, etc. 🙄

I cannot comment on why Carnival has not yet dropped the test requirement that you seem to still experience. I'm just commenting on the general trend (still very recent) for the other cruise lines that have been dropping the test requirement. Who knows, maybe Carnival will drop it for European cruises sometime shortly. A month ago the other lines still required it, AFAIK.

Sarcasm noted, lol. The majority (all?) of European countries, and hence their ports, have dropped the test requirement for entry, so the cruise lines are able to drop the requirement for cruises to those ports. I do not believe the same is true for (the majority of, or perhaps large minority) Caribbean/area ports/countries. Therefore, the tests are still a default action to satisfy many of the ports of call. But I don't track it daily, so maybe things have trended that way in that part of the globe too. Or maybe those countries have asked the cruise lines to continue "a little bit longer" even if visitors coming in by air do not face testing requirements, perhaps because their health care systems are not as robust as Europe's.

First, you should review what Carnival has to say, officially: https://www.carnival.com/Legal/covid-19-legal-notices/covid-19-guest-protocols?icid=advisory_cruisehealth_040122 That explains a lot of what you ask, including nuances of boosters, etc. You have differing pre-cruise COVID Test requirements based on booster status. If you don't submit electronically, they will check your paperwork as hardcopies - takes a bit longer, but no big deal.

I might have a possible answer. Per the Carnival website: On the Carnival Horizon, Carnival Panorama, Carnival Sunrise, and Carnival Vista, there is one USB outlet (5 volt, 1000mA) in each stateroom. On the Carnival Celebration, Carnival Jubilee and Mardi Gras, there are multiple USB outlets at the desk and next to the beds. It isn't specified, but I might suppose that the LNG Excel ships also have 1000mA (1A, i.e. 5W at 5VDC) power limits on those USBs. https://help.carnival.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2822/~/electric-outlets

Keep in mind some of the more recent smartphones and related tech (iPads, etc) can be charged much more quickly using high power USB-C / Lightning / whatever chargers and accompanying cables, 5A (25W) or potentially even higher (9A, 45W). I don't know what current the standard USB-A ports will offer, possibly max 2A (that was a typical "high-ish power" USB spec in the past), so they take longer to charge. But you need to bring those device-specific AC adapters, sometimes provided with the equipment, sometimes available as OEM or 3rd party accessories. e.g. the new Samsung phone I just got can be charged using a 25W charger (i.e. 5A supply) via USB-C. A regular USB-A port with cable converting to USB-C may not push those amps, so will take longer to charge.

Perhaps, if the OP meant to type "$119.90". (Their specific values seemed to be stated with particular precision.)

Here's the link to the webpage. https://www.carnival.com/help?topicid=1106 It is also one of the Popular Searches topics that pops up when you click on Search from the main site. I have no idea what would be $119.

I was gonna say something snarky like "hmm, imagine that, for a cruise out of NY/NJ" (NYC and Jersey do have a self-promoted image of being "gruff", shall we say), but sadly, it appears that rude people are everywhere. It doesn't help that there are current events happening that are putting a lot of folks on edge more than usual. I know I've been a bit off-put recently.

Many other countries require a visitor visa of some type to enter the US for tourism purposes. Citizens of Canada, along with 39 or 40 others, do not require visas: The Visa Waiver Program (VWP), administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in consultation with the State Department, permits citizens of 40 countries to travel to the United States for business or tourism for stays of up to 90 days without a visa. https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/visa-waiver-program#:~:text=The Visa Waiver Program (VWP,90 days without a visa. But keep in mind there are Canadians who do visit the US under a work (or other) visa, so the function still can apply, which I guess is why they ask.

On Carnival, most ships (MG is the only one different, I think?) have the casino on the Promenade deck (usually deck 5 - I can't find it on Vista on the deckplans, losing my mind...), while the MDRs are on decks 3 and 4. You might find it convenient to walk through the casino to get fore/aft depending on where you are when you start your journey to dinner, but it usually isn't technically a requirement for reasonable access to the MDRs, in my experience. EDIT2: just found the casino on Vista class is indeed on Deck 4, along with the upper level of the aft MDR, so you might have to walk through the casino for the "best route" to dinner if you start out at the fun shops on that deck, for example, and don't want to pop up to deck 5 first.

Well, except for the Park MGM, as noted in the article. And of course that article is slanted - there appears to be zero "slant-free" anything these days, everyone's got a spin. I could say that your current status (retired) makes any conclusions you state about the future are potentially invalid, because you are not active in the field, and everything you might conclude is tinged by 30 years of "how it used to be". Anyway, I was just pointing it out as a data point, as it is something that never would have been considered 10 years ago (or 30...). And the article noted that too: The authors conceded that, “It is an irrefutable fact that a slot machine located in a smoking area of a casino makes more money than a slot machine in a non-smoking area.” The question is: if you take away all smoking, will the gamblers still gamble? And will they gamble just as much? But they also found that casinos that offer smoking do not perform better than those that don’t allow it. It showed that the Parx Casino in Philadelphia; Empire City in Yonkers, New York; Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, and Resorts World in the Queens section of New York have slot machine win-per-day performance that is greater than those in Atlantic City over the past 12 months. (I'm neither a smoker nor a gambler, so I have no idea what those places mean in terms of context, or if they are cherry-picking results, or what.) Right now, the question hangs in the air (much like something else), but I would hazard a guess that 20 or 25 years from now, after a generation of smokers have, um, "moved on", there might be a shift. Maybe it will be the vape-crowd dominating the argument...

Recently I read an article that concluded that Las Vegas casinos would not be adversely impacted if they banned smoking, because generally the clientele would simply adapt, as they have elsewhere in their lives. Ah, here's an article about it: https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/casinos-gaming/smoking-ban-no-longer-a-threat-to-casino-revenue-report-says-2594067/ So while smoking on ships in the casino is probably here for a little while longer, maybe it can one day become the reverse of what it is today on some ships: the smoking casino is isolated, away from the main thoroughfare, while the main casino is smoke-free for the enjoyment of all the non-smoking guests, who currently have to walk through it or find annoying detours.