KarmaCruisers

So we’re on the radiance right now..quite literally this is the entirety of the buffet on the Lido deck, captured in one shot, from above (Cucina Del Capitano)

Your VIFP is definitely a factor; once you get platinum or Diamond, they know you’ve “paid your dues” and give you a better rate.

The buffet on the radiance is a sad joke. BUT it makes up for it by having Cucina, Guys Smokehouse, and Big Chicken.

I almost can’t believe my eyes…the only explination is Carnival finally got the stuff together and upped their bandwidth..OR, not many people got the WiFi package (and this ship is LOADED!)

I’ve been on almost all of the carnival ship classes (excel coming next month) and I like all of them except: Spirit Class - only two dining choices, on a 7+ day cruise!? Vista Class - poorly designed guest areas (seems like a size 12 foot shoved into a size 6 shoe)

Yup; one time we had like $1000 OBC..we did exactly that, cashed out like $980 IIRC. You just gotta make technology work for you; not against you

IMHO I think these brawls are from people who didn’t pay for their cruise (family member bought the entire clan cruises) I saw a YouTube video where the girl said their family trip was on a specific cruise (I forgot which) but she said they were “203 strong”!! if you have 203 LIVING family members who can all go on a cruise at once..believe me there’s going to be problems..

Bingo! Virgin is too expensive for millienials! They can only (barely) afford Carnival.

That can’t be right..no way someone employed on a carnival cruise ship is making $250k per year (unless it’s MAYBE the captain). Also; on the low-end..I don’t think they can get away with paying less than US federal minimum wage of $7.25, since they’re a US-based company. (The employees have US taxes taken out of their checks) I would wonder if she turned in the $500...as many crew members have told me, any tips they get MUST be turned in, to be put in a “fleetwide” pool.

That’s a GREAT analogy! I’m going to start using that for things.

yes, you can grab a bottle at any bar, you can grab bottles to take into port with you also, and they are 500ML. no “fancier” still water onboard. ”bubbly” water only comes in the normal small bottles. Personally on our last cruise on the British Isle’s..the bottled water was some local brand, and it tasted like POOP! we actually would order the bottles, and dump the water out and refill them with water from the sink in our stateroom (if you didn’t know; that water is actually purified using multi-stage RO, similar to a system you’d have under your sink at home) however, in the states, princess used a different brand, which was much better tasting than it’s UK counterpart.

I would MUCH rather listen to Polka than MANY other music types…to me, Polka is “happy” music. (Almost like Mexican music..makes me feel like I’m at a circus)

3 SIM cards are a good choice..when you’re out in open water, there is no LTE signal..but on land, all over the UK, our LTE was great (we used the “Orange Holiday Zen 8GB package…Orange bought 3 I think)

The real problem is covid hurt SES BAAAAAD; but reading news, hopefully by 2024 they’ll get 6/11 birds in the sky workin; and that’s what it takes to enable their new MEO system.

Either place; almost no large companies want to have USA “IT” folks anymore, India and Philippines will do it for Pennies on the dollar. (But unfortunately is also actually WORTH the same..pennies)

I would bet dollars to donuts that Princess division of CCL; has NO “IT” staff in FTE status and just does piece-meal work as needed. and the “onboard” IT staff..unfortunately less knowledgeable than your local GeekSquad. Sad times.

Don’t be too excited; it’s StarLink in name only..they didn’t pay for enough bandwidth to satisfy all ships needs. imagine upgrading to a cable modem, capable of speeds up to 10Gig!…but you paid for their cheapest package..10Mbps (yes, 1000x slower)…that’s what princess has done..Paid for the StarLink name..but they’re absolute cheapest offering possible. times are tough; those shareholders demand results! (We want our CCL back to $40 a share!)

Dunno if anyone follows this stuff.. https://www.ses.com/press-release/sess-third-and-fourth-o3b-mpower-satellites-successfully-launched#:~:text=Comprising an initial constellation of,connectivity services around the globe. Sounds like they got a second pair of birds shot up on 4/30/23…only two more to shoot up to have a functional O3B mPower array…so hopefully by end of 2023 the bandwidth on ships WiFi will return to pre covid levels (as an aside, when we took our first princess cruise in 2019, the WiFi was G-R-E-A-T!)

For machines it’s $2.50 per 1 point on “slots” and $5 per 1 point, on “video poker”. ie: You put in a $100 bill to a slot machine (we’ll use lightning link as an example) and play $2.50 per spin…you push the “spin” button 40 times, you’ve earned “40 points”…doesn’t mean you’ve “lost $100”, you may be up down or sideways.. another example you put in a $100 bill into a video poker machine and play $1.25 per hand, and play 80 hands…you’ve earned “20 points”…again, doesn’t mean you “lost $100”…

When we got our CBS offer in November, IIRC, the offer didn’t “show up in the system” for a solid 30 days (the newer CBS offers actually say “please wait 12 days after sailing before calling”

Can you tell me about this princess “core” offer, @sgvcruiser

To add..honestly you’d probably have better luck tweeting at Elon, showing him your results on Princess (that is using HIS BABY STARLINK)..from what I can tell he doesn’t like his reputation tarnished…

If you think these people actually read emails you’re on one…they have EA’s that “sort” their email. The issue of StarLink/SES on at the same time..they could have it set to Active/Active so it’s load-balancing between the two ISP’s. (Some of our offshore call centers have it set that way) The only resolution is these cruise lines pay up for more bandwidth; or less cruisers purchase the internet package. (But you’ve also got ship crew who have phones sucking up bandwidth too) It’s gotta be possible too..because for a short while in our new office in Oakland, we were using MonkeyBrains as an ISP, over satellite and we’re able to provide 50Mbps to 1000 employees at once…so..do the math..even 10Mbps is fine for MOST tech work.

Neither have I and over 5 cruises I’ve lost $30k! Best was last year our bounce back offer was $500FP and balcony and Plus package. same play on this cruise last week..only balcony and $500 freeplay, no plus. EDIT: we’ve never gotten snail mail or email offers worth a damn..only the “earned” offers from the boat itself (use within 6 months of debarkation)

Following! (As we got off the ship as you got on) I agree on Sabatini’s being a LOT of food..but it’s good AF!