CirrusPilot

Absolutely.  2020 has been just nuts and completely upended my entire work environment.  Prior to the Pandemic in March I flew the boss's Gulfstream 550 three times each week, sometimes more.  He spends his weekends either in St. Maarten or Cabo San Lucas.  I could make the L.A. to Princess Julianna Airport flight with my eyes closed. lol  The Pandemic curbed his travel drastically which wasn't surprising of course.  He kept me on payroll but we flew much less.  Between late March and basically one month ago, I did half a dozen flights.  Saying I have cabin fever is a galactically huge understatement.  So we are anxiously looking forward to this vacation albeit, both my wife and I are a bit apprehensive about getting on a cruise ship still.  We are both in good physical shape and both closer to 50 years old than 60.  I think we will be just fine but it is something we need to take seriously. 

I talked in detail with my VP at Carnival and I feel like they have a plan of action which is more than the minimum needed for the situation.  Now we need to hope that countries do indeed get a handle on it and curtail the negative effects of a Second Wave.  I think they will.   

     Rest assured, I will post a play by play of our experience though, Carnival has never given us a bad one, ever. 

     When I posted this, my wife got an alert or something because she came right to me about it.  So the surprise is out of the bag but thats okay.  hehe

Haven't told my wife yet but I booked us on a mammoth cruise vacation in Australia and the South Pacific starting May 2021 for a full month.  My employer is letting us tag along on his jet to get there so no airline travel needed. (He's a billionaire and I am his full time pilot).  This will be our first "Real" vacation in over 3 years. Imagine that, being a personal pilot for someone with entirely too much money doesn't allow for many opportunities for me to have my own vacation. LOL  Going to fly him to his place in Tahiti and then when the cruises are over, return and fly him and his family back to Los Angeles.   My wife would never go if we had to airline it so the boss' generosity is amazing! Private charter from LA to Tahiti would cost much more than I could ever spend, let alone private jet both directions. Yay for getting to see the Spirit again.  We sailed on her for her final cruise before they moved her to the Australian market several years ago.  Three cruises back to back to back. 2 on the Spirit and one on the Splendor.  Can't wait! Popped for Grand Suite on the Splendor and Ocean Suites on the Spirit.  I think it will be awesome, especially with the ship not running full capacity.  Art auctions...here we come!! lol

150 Days until Panorama to MX 😁

I prefer to budget our cruise spending and then just bring it in Cash, load it to our S&S account once we are on board and relax/enjoy the cruise.  I also enter a card on the first day just in case but thus far Carnival has been very reliable in debiting the cash I deposited on our shipboard account before charging the card.  Basically we burn through the cash first and then if needed we let charges go to our card(s).  System works great for us. 

Alternatively Paypal sells Carnival Gift Cards on ebay and the turnaround time if you opt for electronic delivery is about one hour.  I buy however many gift cards we need to total our planned budget for the cruise and simply stop at the Guest Services Desk to have the agent load them to our account.  No muss no fuss. 

168 Days  Until Carnival Panorama!! 

Yay!! --------------

1 hour ago, azvacationgirl said:

120 Days! Celebrating our 25th Anniversary!!!!

Booya!!  Congrats on the 25th Anniversary!!  

193 Days.  Ugg!! 

Under 200 now!! Til Mexican Riviera aboard the Carnival Panorama!!  Yayy!!! Can't wait....but guess I have to.  Some of the little 3 and 4 day cruises are starting to look really appealing though.  lol  

220 to go for Panorama.  Yay!!  

We start with cruise cash, backed by a credit card we have no intention of using.

 

 

 

The last evening we visit Guest Services, apply enough gift cards to cover the balance after cruise cash was depleted, and leave the ship debt free. Works well for us.

Exactly! Between cruise cash and gift cards it’s super easy to regulate your onboard spending. I haven’t used an actual credit card on board a carnival cruise in years.

Some times we have lots of money to spend and other times we are on a tighter budget. It works great for us. [emoji106]

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Wow, I think you are my new personal hero. Did you have any credit from one of the gift cards left on your account at the end of the cruise? If so, do they refund what is left in your account or does it go back on the gift card?

Yep. We had a lot of the gift card funds left at the end of the cruise. I had it put back into a gift card and we will be using it together with savings yet to come in the spring. [emoji106]

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Wow! I wish I had that much. You are quite the planner!

Thanks. Yea I wanted to be able to just have fun and not worry about what was being spent so I started squirreling away money in gift card form a full year ahead of time. By the time the date to go arrives we had amassed a decent amount.

I actually won back our expenses on board in the casino too and quit while I was ahead.

We now have a decent amount already squirreled away for the next cruise in the spring. [emoji106]

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Yes. Cruise cash will be used first.

Wife and I just did this on the Splemdor to Cabo in June.

We had the cabin limit in cruise cash and another 3K from gift cards I had purchased over the course of a year leading up to the cruise.

No muss no fuss

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5 Hours 42 Minutes!

Finally! The day has arrived!

Now....to pack! LOL:p:p

14 hours 25 minutes!!!

13 Days now.

:)

Great review and very nice pics. Thanks for taking the time!

Wife (mine this time ) and I are taking first Splendor cruise Third week of June and as its our first real vacation in close to 4 years, I am pulling out all the stops. We both love Cabo and have been a couple times so despite the prospect of searing heat down that way, I am sure we will be either whale watching or sipping cool drinks somewhere on Medano.

Have to agree on the decor of the Splendor but meh...its a vacation so who really cares imo. We will be there to have fun, blow off steam and experiment with modern alcoholic chemistry.

Cheers!

6 days, can't wait!

Jelly!! I think that 60 days downward to 0 is the longest.

Man, I need a vacation!! lol

33 days seems an eternity even though I know it will go by in the blink of an eye.

33 Days 14 hours

Thanks. [emoji2] prolly for the best. might drink waaaaay to much if it were that easy.

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Yes you will have to go to the bar. We've had the sticker put on at check in and another time we had to go to the bar have it put on. I guess that depends on the ship

Roger that.

I had thought about the Cheers package but there is no way we will consume enough alcohol to justify the over 800.00 they want for it.

Probably won’t consume enough soda either but it’s more convenient I think.

Is specialty coffee (cappachino, etc ) included in bubbles? Lol. Maybe shoulda asked before I bought it. Whoops [emoji51]

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I was just about to ask some of the same questions so ...

Will be our first time buying a beverage package outside of the wine assortment. [emoji106]

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Usually we get a bottle of the Muscato they offer (or at least they offer for west coast departing cruises). It’s not bad. Not great but not bad. A wee overpriced of course.

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37 🤪

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Let me say that the "No" story was nothing fun at all at the time. Years later we can all laugh about it but at the time.....not fun at all. My only advice is in two parts:

1. Be sure of the answer.

2 Be sure you really wanna ask the question.

;)