ARandomTraveler

It's crazy to me that anyone cruises enough to reach that status. Do people not enjoy seeing other parts of the world that can't be visited by ship? I guess if you live near a cruise port and just hop on cruises for the weekend or for a week when you're bored and have nothing else to do, it could be easy, but I would much rather not repeat the same vacation over and over and over (and over and over) again. I also don't book my cruises based on when they're cheapest, I book them for when I want to take vacation, and pay whatever it costs. I also have to fly to the port, and stay in hotels, and that usually doubles the cost of the cruise. A balcony cabin during busy times of year (summers, holidays) runs about $200/day per person at its cheapest. My Singapore to Japan cruise next summer is costing me $4600 for a balcony cabin for 12 days which isn't that bad (under $200/day), but the hotel we're staying in is costing $800/day. I'd much prefer to vacation this way, than to choose to take the same trip multiple times a year during the cheapest times possible just to get a couple free drinks, which I can afford to pay for myself anyway. I take at least 1 big vacation a year, sometimes 2 or 3. And most of them are not cruises. I take a ton of 3-4 day mini trips, all land vacations. I can't imagine giving up all of those varied travel experiences to take the same cruise every time instead. But to each their own I guess.

Which month is better? I've heard May for seeing whales (I think) or September?

I'm hoping there's special Black Friday sales at the Next Cruise desk. My credit card will be ready.

I thought Carnival always had a limit to the number of drinks one could order on their drink package (or are they limiting people from even purchasing more drinks out of pocket?) Other than the title of the article, it only seemed to mention the drink package and the bottles people can order to the room. There was no mention of a specific number of drinks someone can buy out of pocket. If this is new, I wonder if they're just using the recent fights as an excuse to implement the change, because I doubt that they went through the trouble of figuring out how many drinks each person in the fight drank beforehand. Plus everyone handles their alcohol differently. Limiting the number of drinks people can buy from the package allows Carnival to calculate their minimum profit based on packages sold. Seems like an incidence of "convenient timing."

@Ourusualbeach has mentioned a couple times that it's only for sailings starting in December. I'm not sure why, but he's a travel agent so I assume he has an inside scoop based ok info he's been given directly from the cruiseline. I'm still keeping my eyes open though, and checking multiple times a day, in case they change their minds 😂

Oh ok, I get what you're saying. Yeah, I guess they just keep it and maybe use it to cover other sailings where they under-collected. I'm ok with that. How they handle their accounting doesn't really concern me, as long as the price I paid for my cruise is a price I'm comfortable paying, I honestly never even pay attention to the breakdown of the charges. I just look at the total. If I'm owed $10 or $30 or whatever the port fees are, I don't really care if they give it back or keep it. If keeping it makes their accounting work so they can operate at a profit that keeps them providing the product and service that I enjoy, that's ok with me. I've already paid it, so it's spent money.

I don't think you're understanding what he's saying. They aren't making a profit off the port fees. They're just covering a shortage that they hadn't collected properly for other port stops. For your example, if the goal was to make more profit off of teeny tiny increments of money, they could just charge double the port fees, assuming the ship will sail half full, and then when it actually sails full they can have a champagne party and celebrate their extra $10/person that they get to keep (and to be fair to your point, $10/person for a 6,000 passenger ship is $60,000, which isn't a small amount of money, but on the flip side, when they've under-charged by $10/person, they're losing $60,000, which is why they keep the port fees). I think it makes total sense.

I'm still getting the "Lights, Camera, Action..." try again later message 😭 I'm so jealous. Having to rush and book shows and dining as soon as I get on the ship has been one of the primary reasons I've avoided Oasis Class ships since I saw my first one (Allure I think) at a port in 2013. It's the one and only thing I'm stressing about for my upcoming cruise.

Man I sure wish the Miami had a Bags n Go. It seems like this is a really obvious business opportunity just waiting for someone to pick it up. There must be some reason nobody wants to do it, like insurance liability, or some regulation regarding getting a license to accept someone else's bags before a flight (the whole "have your bags been out of your sight since you packed them" issue). Why is this not a thing? I would pay $50/person for this service in order to not have to waste a day in the airport waiting for my flight, and instead be able to roam freely about the city all day. Maybe even more $ than that, if I really felt desperate.

I felt like my flight options were worse than normal also. Especially for a holiday week. Not sure what's up with that. Flights into MIA were fine, several nonstops to choose from, but on the way out...terrible. One nonstop flight the whole day, and it's at the very end of the day.

I'll sign your petition 😂 Don't feel too bad. My ship IS on the list but I can't book anything either so the list is garbage.

My screenshot above shows the ships that will have the option. Wonder is not on that list.

I just looked online (instead of the app), went to my cruise planner, selected "entertainment" and got this note...womp womp. Looks like Symphony WILL be part of this program, but my sailing isn't allowing it yet, and since I sail in 3 weeks, my guess is that I won't be able to, but I'll sure be looking multiple times every day between now and then just in case 😂. Thanks for the heads up. I never would have looked otherwise. How did you know you could do this? Did they send you an email?

No way! How? I just looked in my app and they don't even have any shows listed for my sailing, unless I'm looking in the wrong place. Symphony thanksgiving sailing.

I just checked FLL for flight options and unfortunately, there's only 1 non-early morning non-stop to my destination from there as well, but thank you for the suggestion, I'll keep that in mind for next time just in case. The OP might have better luck depending on where they're flying to. Either way for me, it's too late to change my flight. I bought my tickets in April for the lowest price they've been. A 1-way ticket to DEN on southwest is now $689, and also, the nonstop flight that I'm on is completely sold out from both MIA and FLL. I'm flying Thanksgiving week, so no surprise that it's expensive and sold out. Its good to know that FLL can be an option for next time though, thanks for the suggestion.

I think Seattle is the only airport that does this

I'm guessing that whatever savings you got them with your diamond discount is going to cost you exponentially more in having to purchase a beverage package. Any way to swap the cabins and just put things back to "easy?" No good deed goes un-punished.

On my Symphony Thanksgiving cruise, the price has stayed $133.99 for almost 6 months, except for a few days right after the final payment date where it was listed a bit higher, at $140.99. It went back down to $133.99 after that. The sailing is 3 weeks away and I just checked, the price is still $133.99. This price includes every sale they've had since April of this year (including the Easter sale, Memorial Day sale, 4th of July sale, and every "sale extended" sale in between). Maybe during Black Friday there will be a better one, but if you're on a sailing during a time when a lot of kids and families are on vacation, my guess is the price won't go very low, since demand will be high.

Below are 2 threads that might give you some good insight on dining and drinks. The first is a thread about people's favorite specialty restaurants, and the second is a live cruise review from @Sea Dog who shared a lot of the different drinks he tried, along with their recipes.

Pre-pandemic, a taxi from Old San Juan to the airport was around $25. Their taxis are regulated so they have flat fees based on "zones" that you're traveling to/from/within. They also charge a small fee per suitcase, so the more luggage you have, the more it will cost. The last time I was there, I seem to remember that Uber had just started to be allowed, but they weren't letting them into the taxi area at the airport and you had to leave the airport property to meet up with them.

While on hold to book over the phone, I continued my attempts to book online. I had originally checked the box for "My dining time is not available," so I switched it to "My time dining" and whaddya know, it let me complete my booking 🙄. This will be my first Quantum Class cruise, and is making up for the Singapore cruise we had booked in the summer of 2020 that got cancelled. The only downsides are that I should have booked this 3 weeks ago when the price was $1600 cheaper, and the cost of hotels in Singapore have gone WAY up since 2020. Really looking forward to it though, and am lucky to be able to go at all, so I won't complain.

Good question, that might be the issue. I'll have to call RC and sit on hold I guess.

I've been trying to book a 12-night Singapore to Japan cruise for next summer, but every time I try to pay the deposit, it tells me "Sorry, something went wrong, we are unable to complete your transaction." I've tried using 3 different devices (iPad using Safari browser, iPhone using Safari browser, PC desktop computer using Google browser). I've also tried using 3 different credit cards, all of which have a $0 balance, and minimally a $26,000 credit limit (all 3 are Visa). Is there a glitch with Safari or Google browsers? Is RC not taking payments from Visa? Am I forgetting to enter something or check some box that is in an obscure, non-obvious location on the screen (I clicked "I agree" on the terms and conditions).

Yes

Then they should have made this a discounted cruise with notice to people who booked it that major public areas would be closed and pools would be unavailable. This is totally unacceptable to charge full price for a cruise with these areas under construction.