Lee Cruiser

Great news!! We knew it had to be coming soon.

We have one beginning September 23. I’ve been believing that it wouldn’t require testing since the CDC dropped their cruise ship program. I haven’t ordered tests yet either because I’m still thinking it will happen soon!

Yes, I am with you. I believe it is coming in the next few days. Hopefully it will be like these with mostly no testing.

We've been wondering the same thing. We are booked there before our cruise next month.

I put the parenthesis in the wrong place. I meant that RCI is still requiring testing for 6 day or more cruises from those ports.

It's a bummer that they are not dropping the testing requirement for 6+ day cruises like NCL is (at least in Galveston and L.A.) Hopefully Carnival will follow NCL and drop those as well. For cruises from Galveston and Los Angeles, testing requirements are as follows. For cruises that are five nights and less, unvaccinated guests aged two and older will need to bring a negative COVID-19 test results on embarkation day. On cruises that are six nights and longer, all guests aged two and over will have to bring a negative test results with them to board the ship.

I would take pictures of the schedule as it played. Certainly would be better to have it listed somewhere on the app

Two big reasons: As Blerk mentioned, it speeds up the embarkation process. That's probably the biggest reason. Second, it also cuts down on people trying to go to their rooms before time. Lots of people had been doing that. It's really not making more work since the cabin stewards are already going to all the rooms anyway. If someone were to steal your card, your picture is attached to the account. If they try to use the card, it would be pretty obvious that they are using someone else's card.

You may be right, but I'm thinking they change their policies very soon, especially when it comes to testing. I don't expect them to wait until after NCL's policy has been in affect long enough to determine whether or not there are outbreaks.

I wouldn't count on that being the case now. I would look for Carnival to follow soon. I already figured that they would announce no testing on longer cruises later this month. Now, I would expect more.

I'm guessing that has more to do with the places they are visiting. They are dropping the vaccine requirement to cruise, so that is a start.

Glad to hear that about the Valor. I had the premium plan on the Valor back in January and it was worthless. On the Mardi Gras in April the internet was great. Hopefully it will be good on Vista next month.

We had $700 for our April Mardi Gras cruise and some of it did go towards gratuities.

In all our years of cruising we've never seen a tipping envelope, so this is new to us as well. We usually pre pay tips (not always), but we always tip extra. We just leave the tip with a quick note of thanks. For instance, we typically tip our room steward $10 extra each day. We leave it on the bed with a sticky note attached.

We have taken several cruises out of N.O. We have cruised out of there in the months of September, November, January, April, and May. We do Carnival and we've never had a delayed return.

Wow! That's a lot of flips over the past week, but I know that those going on shorter Bahamas itineraries will be glad to hear this news.

Don't think that inflation hasn't affected Carnival, other cruise lines and hospitality in general. My wife and I noticed that the packs of chicken breasts we buy on a regular basis have increased over 40% in the last four months. They are also paying these much higher prices for the food they serve and everything else, so they either have to raise prices drastically or make cuts to help ease the costs some.

Fights are not just happening on Carnival, but also on other cruise ships and other places. Disney had two fights in the same week and several this year. https://people.com/travel/massive-brawl-breaks-out-between-families-at-disney-worlds-magic-kingdom/

In the midst of all the news over the last couple of days, I had missed this article about Carnival greatly enhancing internet bandwidth and access. This is good for the many of us who like to have internet when we cruise. May come with another internet price increase before long though 😀. https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/27925-carnival-cruise-line-rolls-out-it-updates-more-bandwidth.html

Maybe this is the reason that John Heald is going on "holiday" for the first time in three years. 😀 He probably doesn't want to be on FB right now. I haven't looked, but I imagine the comments are pouring in.

Guests craving a late night snack will no longer be able to enjoy Late Night Snacks in the Lido Restaurant, which had often been light fare from a single buffet line, but will be able to get Pizza Plus options instead. This includes the late night pizza as well as pasta, Caesar salad, and sandwich options from the pizzeria. I'm wondering what is considered late night. The pizza line on Mardi Gras was horrible around 9-10 on our cruise in April. Can't imagine what it would be like with adding additional items. Hopefully they will had additional help as well, though that would probably defeat the purpose of why they are doing it to start with.

Yes, that will affect everyone. We are not huge brunch fans anyway. We typically go eat breakfast on the Lido and then get lunch later. But, with the brunch serving now closing at 12, the lines for everything else at the noon hour will get longer.

It was added to the Carnival protocols page

Yes. That’s correct, except for ports that require it, which is mainly Bermuda on shorter cruises. John Heald did a video on Facebook this morning about it. Apparently, there’s been a lot of confusion about it, but that’s to be expected some since it’s so new.

Most of the ones I’m talking about, including my wife and me, have not been boosted and had the vaccine well over a year ago. In fact, many of these haven’t been vaccinated once, much less had the booster.