welldone60

Try going through cruise compete dot com. It's a website that has several TA and maybe one of them has a cabin on hold.

We love Cabo, PV and Mazatlan but If you are looking for beach days, the Caribbean is much better. The MR can be a fantastic cruise, but the lack of great beaches is a downer. If you are looking at the Miracle which does an overnight in PV, that is a plus. Great nightlife.

Vista is a brand new ship with all the bells and whistles that Carnival has to offer, but more passengers. We were just on the Miracle and really liked the layout. Never sailed the Conquest.

It is my understanding that Maitre' D's are not expected to respond to guest emails, so your mileage may vary in contacting them.

OP, email the MD. It will put you at the head of the request line. We've ALWAYS gotten exactly as we requested,and have always gotten a response.

 

Ignore responses of posters that post what they have heard, and listen to those who have said what they have done.

 

You can also now email the steakhouse for reservations instead of using any middle men. Middle men only slow the process up, and sometimes fall through the cracks.

The brand ambassador has posted several times on his blog and FB page that the MD's will try to accommodate your request but are not required to answer emails. Most seem to answer, but not all.

Garbage, my son is a Captain in St. Thomas. The shore excursion companies have contracts with different cruise lines. They all know local time and ships time, their company depends on it. For instance on my son's excursion, he is contracted with Princess and Royal Caribbean. They are prohibited from excepting guests from those ships unless they are booked through the ship. They also take out hotel guests and CCL guests who booked privately for less money. On a trip to Jost Van Dyke from St.Thomas he had 60 guests and they lost power. The owner of the company called all the cruise ships agents and they sent over another boat to pick up the guests, all the cruise ships waited.

Since the OP was talking about PV, not St Thomas, your post has little to do with the subject. Puerto Vallarta tour company's do more business with local hotels and resorts then cruise ships so they list all their tour times using local time. We have visited PV both on cruises and land based vacations and know how the tour company's work.

Ship's will list their excursions using ship time.

So, no garbage from the other posters.

So I'm having a dumb moment (sorry [emoji4]). So with daylight savings time, Puerto Vallarta time is now 2 hours ahead of Long Beach time. We are scheduled to arrive in port at 8:00 am. Is that 8:00am port time (6:00 am ship) or 10:00am port (8:00 am ship)? Thanks in advance.

Yes, PV local time is 2 hours ahead of Long beach time. The Miracle will change their clocks before arriving at PV by moving them forward 1 hour, so ship's time will still be 1 hour behind local time.

If you are arriving at 8 am ship's time, it will be 9 am local time.

were going on the miracle in january to puerto vallarta any idea if ship time will match pv time in january ?

Ship's time will be one hour behind PV local time. If ship's arrival time says 8 am, it will be 9 am local time.

Neither, it's ship time. The miracle changes it's ship time twice during its 7 day cruise but is never the same time as the ports except when it leaves and arrives in Long Beach. Very confusing when you are trying to plan excursions.

That said, in PV, the ship will be one hour behind local time. So if the ship says leaving at 3, it will be 4 local time.

We have sailed on Princess with an overnight in Cabo. Princess ship stays anchored and the tenders run till about midnight, then resume around 6 the next morning.

Wish Carnival would do this.

In my experience on multiple ships, diet caffeine free coke is generally available somewhere on the ship, but not necessaarily everywhere. On various ships we have had luck with the bar in the lobby or one of the bars on Lido deck. And sometimes we find it in additional places. So look around, ask various bartenders, and you will probably find some. We have somewhat tired of the treasure hunt aspect of this and now order a couple of 6-packs delivered to the cabin so it is there for us in the evenings.

I did not check every bar, but did ask at the lobby, sports and serenity bar on the Miracle.

On the Breeze a few years ago there was a few cans in our cabin fridge, but none in ours this last trip.

Was not available on the Miracle last month.

I heard it's a little less if you prepay for the week, but I can't find anything to back this up. Anybody know about this?

 

Thanks. :)

As far as I know, Long Beach does not do prepaid parking.

Best thing is if can get the Carnival deal at the Maya hotel. We have not been able to get the Carnival discount on our last two cruises.

It's a multi story garage. Elevators are very close to check-in. I think the garage is pretty safe. We have left our car there several times for 7 day cruises.

Oh, by the way, it cost us $133 for our 7 day cruise a few weeks ago.

Happy cruising

We were on the Miracle a few weeks ago and bought the unlimited package for $60 for our 7 day cruise. It worked pretty good. A little slow at peak user periods.

Your folio numbers will be different even when using the same credit card. You can tell on the printout who purchased what.

Happy sailing :)

We were just on the Miracle. Friends had a 4K. They were able to open their doors without asking.

It seems that is was unlikely since John's new west coast cruise has a limit of 500 bloggers registers, well above the 150 count.

 

However I was totally wrong about John doing an Alaskan bloggers cruise. What I failed to remember was that one of John's favorite CD experiences was when he did Alaska. I am sure now that he is looking forward to doing that again.

Not unlikely at all. I told them that they were on the bloggers cruise and when we went to John's blog to sign them up, it was closed. This was first of November, 4 months before the cruise. I have not talked to them since they sailed but will see them early next week and I will hear what they have to say.

We have had 4J's on several ships, but not the Sunshine. We love them. The two odd shaped, larger cabins on the front of deck 6 and 7 are HC cabins. On some ships, these odd cabins, the beds can not be made into a king, not sure about the Sunshine. If you book a HC 4J and get bumped out of it, they can put you in an OV on a lower deck.

For pic's, go to cruiselinerooms dot com. They may have some there.

Quote

7. Carnival offers a more appealing itinerary, with one night docked at Cabo, and one day at Puerto Vallarta

Just so you know, Carnival ship will not stay in Cabo all night. They will leave around 7:30 - 8 pm, sail around the Sea of Cortez, and return the next morning around 7 am.

We know John pretty well and know he floats a lot of trial balloons just for their response value. I feel the odds are strongly against this cruise happening as a blogger's cruise.

 

First, even though the west coast cruisers have been begging for a west coast departure blogger's cruise for years, when John actually scheduled one on the Miracle, happening now, only about 150 PAX signed up vs 600 to 700 from Texas or Florida on previous blogger's cruises.

 

Second, Alaska cruises are more costly and have very few regular cruisers who live within driving distance of Seattle, making the total cost with airfare even more expensive for most cruisers.

 

Third, Summer time means more children and families onboard and many veteran cruisers (blogger types) prefer to cruise when fewer children are present.

 

I may be wrong but i will be very surprised if this comes to pass.

We have friends on this cruise and they tried to sign up for the bloggers activities several months before the cruise and were told it was closed.

Near the intersection of Av Ruiz and Reyerson. About two blocks to Papas and Beer or Hussong's.

We were also on this cruise. Had a great cruise.

Our cabin was serviced twice a day. We met our room steward on the first day. He asked about ice or any other special request, never mentioned when we wanted the cabin serviced. Never saw him again for the rest of the week. Room was kept clean and always had a full ice bucket.

We did AT dining and only had a wait on the first elegant night. Food was good, only complaint I had was the Eggs Benedict at the sea day brunch. The sauce was terrible. Tasted like powdered cheese sauce from a cheap box of mac and cheese.

Did not see any of the comedy shows.

Did a whale watching tour with Ocean Riders in Cabo. Had fun, saw plenty of whales. Did the speedboat tour through Carnival in Mazatlan. Fun with a pretty good lunch at the end. Did a private ATV tour in PV. Lots of fun, got dirty, stopped at a great little place near the end of the tour for a tequila tasting and a snack.

Wish we were still on board, good thing is we are booked on the Valor for August so at least have some planning to do.

We just got back from the Miracle. 7 day parking at Long Beach Port is $133. So if you can get a room with parking and shuttle for $170 or so it's worth it.

With a 11 am departure I would do a cab or hire a Limo. I would not try using Carnival's transfer or a rental car. The rental car company's will be very busy.

It's amazing that this can happen on a cruise ship where each booking is tied to a physical cabin with a unique cabin number. It's not like it's Southwest airlines where its a free for all for seats. The only thing that makes sense to me is that someone at Carnival screwed up and handed out a block of cabins to customers that were reserved for a TA or another "electronic" problem happened with their database that causes duplicate bookings. Unless by oversold they mean they exceeded lifeboat capacity.

 

I could be wrong about my assumptions. It would be good if someone with cruise ship reservation knowledge can explain to us how this could happen. I'm curious :)

It's probably not that they oversold the number of cabins, but that they have sold to more passengers then life boat capacity. Life boat capacity is the controlling factor on the number of passengers allowed.

The luck of the draw. I don't think it has anything to do with how many times you have cruised with Carnival. We have never received an upgrade of any kind, in fact we have never received an up sell call.