Lee Cruiser

On ours it was the same type cabin (balcony) just one deck up. I can’t imagine anyone would pay that.

At $206 for one deck up, I would hate to see what higher decks would be

We've received a lot of upgrade offers over the years, but this has to be the worst one ever. To start with we typically book the areas we want to start with. In this case it was a balcony cabin on Valor, mid-ship deck 7. We received an upgrade offer yesterday. When I clicked on it just to see what the offer was, it was a move from the deck 7 balcony to a deck 8 balcony for $206. You can book that cabin right now for only $24 more. We prefer deck 7 because we don't want to be below the Lido, so we wouldn't have taken it even it were free. We've seen a lot of upgrades offers (some for suites for a few hundred more or higher deck balcony for $15-20 more), but this one is actually laughable!

Wow! That's a lot. Can't imagine us using that much. We don't gamble, so ours would be primarily on shopping and excursions. We could rent one of those HMC cabanas 😀! The most we've had was $750. We are approaching our 25th milestone. We will spread that over two cruises with me taking it and then my wife.

The comedy club is an enclosed room where people know it's going to occur and have the option not to attend. Not saying Carnival should be policing language, but there are a lot of us who would not want to listen to constant foul language while trying to relax on a cruise. It's one of the reasons why we spend a lot of time on our on balcony. However, Carnival should be enforcing no children in the serenity area.

We've always (20+) booked online ourselves.

Carnival's debt load is a major, major factor. However, another contributing factor is that Carnival issued millions of new shares of stock, greatly diluting the value per share. Carnival has 1.26 billion shares of stock outstanding, which is over a billion more shares than RCL at around 256 million.

Yes, I know. That's why I said not sure about that. But, it's certainly the same principle if they want to create an "urgency" for booking, whether it's a cruise or a villa.

Not sure about that, but we have been following a Valor cruise in November. For a week or two it had been showing only a few cabins available and none on our favorite deck 7. After a week or two, one showed up as available so we went ahead and booked it. I went on today to compare prices and after another couple of weeks all of a sudden there are 15 cabins available on deck 7. Definitely seems suspicious since the final payment date is months away.

That's good. We only did it one time several years ago and got stuck on deck six near the dance club. We could hear the subs going until the early morning hours. Haven't done it again since. We just pick the rooms we want and if those aren't available, we don't book.

We've had this happen several times. Not sure why people think that others want to listen to their music several balconies down. We always use headphones if we are listening to music or watching a video.

The OBC for the whole cabin is included even though it may be intended to be per person. Really only a problem if you are booking with someone else (non-spouse) who is in your room and paying their own way. If you book something before the cruise using all the onboard credit such as an internet plan or excursion, the other person may not be happy that you used their part and could request a refund for their part 🙂

You can't do wifi calling or regular texting. If you have an i-phone you can do i-message and facetime with the premium internet. You can't do it with the social plan, but not sure about the value. We typically get the premium, especially now that it's only $1.70 a day higher than the value.

While there is always a chance that something could go wrong, there is a six week dry dock window before your cruise. Also, Carnival must feel pretty confident that it will be enough time because they scheduled a new three day cruise before yours.

Definitely not a good comparison. I certainly don't think bread (or any other item) has went up 300% in about seven years and stayed there.

Is it worth it? Really depends on whether you think it's worth $150 to get on the ship 20-30 minutes quicker and be able to drop off your carry-ons in your room, have priority tender (only at a few ports), have a special line at guests services (we rarely go to guest services, probably five times in over 20 cruises) and getting off the ship 30 minutes or so sooner. For us, it would absolutely not be worth it! Back when it started it was $50 and your stateroom was ready when you boarded, it was worth it. Now ridiculously expensive for what you get!

In general we didn't feel crowded on Mardi Gras with two exceptions: Grand Central and elevators. Elevators were horrible. The center bank of elevators would be better divided into two smaller ones. If you are standing in the center waiting for an elevator and one of the ones on either end open, you may as well forget about getting it as people who just walk up get on before those already waiting. These elevators also have a terrible design. Not only are they small, but the buttons are on the side of the elevator.

That's strange. I have compared balcony prices on several cruises for next September and Mardi Gras and Celebration are considerably higher than several other ships including: Horizon, Magic, Vista and others. I can't do Sunday to Sunday, so haven't check Liberty, but have done Valor and it's much cheaper (per day) than Mardi Gras as well.

We bring our own individually wrapped straws. The candy straws are too slimy for us and it's hard to clean and sanitize metal straws.

We've been on Valor several times, with the last being back in January. We always do the five day cruises on it. We love it and have it booked again in November and then next January. We are definitely not party people. We go on a cruise to relax. We did one four day cruise out of N.O. on another ship and we wouldn't recommend four day cruises. These tend to be weekend wrap around cruises and many treat them like a long weekend. For some, it is one big party. We've never experienced this with the five day cruises out of N.O.

The stock for all three is popping today, well above the overall market. I'm not sure the reason, but it looks like RCI is leading the way as it is up a lot more than the other two.

That may be true, but it's also a reality that Carnival has added more cabins to every steward so they could cut back on the number of stewards needed. They are way overworked now and it certainly takes them longer to get them done.

My guess is that with the demand for cruising, all of the big three survive.

It has already been extended through July 31, 2024 ShareholderBenefit23-24.pdf

Has the NFL schedule even been released yet? I was looking the other day for a cruise out of N.O., but couldn't find any schedules.