Kdeet6906

 I have the Carnival Funpoints Mastercard through Barclays. It offers a point system where you accrue points for dollars spent with a higher ratio when spending with carnival, then you can exchange the points towards a statement credit by applying to a Carnival cruise travel purchase.

     The additional benefit is any pre-purchased Carnival shore excursion paid for with the card gets a 10% discount. I've used it before and the shore excursion is billed at full price on Carnivals website and then the discount is credited on the barclay credit card side. My idea is to book a shore excursion for around $500 to gain a ten percent savings of $50 on the purchase. Then once on the actual cruise cancel the shore excursion by saying you dont feel well. I think they will credit the amount you paid for the shore excursion to your sail and sign card as on board credit and since the discount was applied on the credit card side they have no way of knowing.

         This is all just an idea at this point. I have been on a Carnival cruise where a shore excursion was cancelled due to weather and the money paid was credited to Sail and sign, but I have no experience cancelling an excursion for my own personal reasons. If anyone has cancelled a shore excursion with carnival while onboard, tell us about it.

  I've only been on Carnival cruises, Fantasy which I don't remember much, 3x on the Ecstacy an older Fantasy class ship that I enjoy and can feel crowded or comfortable depending on capacity, Vista a new ship which was cool but almost too much stuff and gave a crowded feeling. 

        Then I cruised on The Pride and fell in love with the ship. I hate crowding and the ratio of public area to staterooms really governs the public areas to never be crowded. The three level auditorium is really unique as most seem to be two levels. Really liked the atrium with the three elevators and going up into the red glassed windows of the whale tail, not to mention the violin trio that plays in there. It has Guy's burger, Blue Iguana Cantina, Red Frog Pub, waterworks and slides. Just altogether a wonderful ship!

     Foolishly after that I cruised the Sunshine and it is a Destiny class ship that during an extensive dry-dock had public areas removed in exchange for more cabins, couple that with some fairly narrow areas on Lido that are hallway/food line with not enough room and the ship is horrible to navigate yourself around.

    A while ago I read about the Sunrise and how they were doing the same thing to another Destiny class ship and thought how awful, now I read reviews and its the same overcrowded type of feeling.

     I worry that one day they will cannabalize a Spirit class ship and remove the 3rd level of the auditorium and possibly other areas in exchange for more staterooms, and imbalance what currently is a perfect ratio in my personal opinion.

     I'm booked on the Pride for September 22nd to the 29th 2019, five weeks away and it can't come soon enough!