Usuallyrightagain

Interesting as this particular cruise was 8 days, and not spring break. I guess people just behave badly all year round now, even if they saved 358 days to pay for the cruise they then get arrested on...

I think the issues with Venezia this past Weds were worse because no one was getting off because of USCBP delays processing things. If you get the luggage tags the afternoon before and put the bags out at night you should be find to wait on a shady deck somewhere until the bulk of carry their own passengers have got off. We were supposed to be off at 8:30AM and we got into the luggage part of the terminal at 10:07AM so with your 6 hours I'd imagine you'd be fine. (In more detail - they instructed CYO passengers to wait on decks 10, 5 and 4 from 7:30AM onward. They said we'd be called by muster station groups to actually exit from those waiting areas. But they made a big deal that we must be out of our cabins by 8:30AM. So at 8:15AM everyone was crammed with their luggage into 5 and 4, and no one was getting anywhere. By 9:15AM you couldn't move really and people were pissed. Still no one was getting off so no way to let up on the crowds. By 9:45AM people who had tagged their bags the night before were also sick of waiting and were in the crowds too. They called one muster station around 9:55AM and people just laughed - the public areas were so full it wasn't like people were going to part the red sea and let A4 go ahead. It was poorly managed and I think between 8:10 and 9:30ish there were basically no announcements made. Marq came back on at 9:55ish to tell people off for not following directions, but they basically had - he said you had to leave your cabins by 8:30AM. Basically it was stupid.)

Venezia last week the messages constantly didn't go through. You'd send them, stare at the chat on your phone for minutes, go back to the home page, go back into messages just to "check", all seemed fine. Then when you didn't get a reply 20 mins later you'd go in and it would be there grayed out as "unsent". ARGH. It was super frustrating. I once had to resend a message 7 times to get it through to my husband. My entire family have the same type of phones (android) and no one was closing the app completely (just opening other screens while it ran). Our friends with apple phones also found it less than stellar. I had a tween in Circle C though and they loved it. We just kept popping back in to check on them and chat with the coordinator, Jane, who was AWESOME.

Yes I should have taken this approach, but for the increasingly irate texts from the car service who were booked to pick us up. We were told we'd be off by 8:30AM but it was10:07AM when we made it to the luggage area. Our last RC cruise we were off the ship in record, civilized time. I guess it's often luck.

I'm British, I don't even acknowledge Liptons. I brought my own tea along.

no offence, but I'm done with this vacation, I'm not campaigning Carnival about anything. I'm moisturizing my sunburn and cramming probiotics in my mouth while I look back at my lovely photos.

I just got off the ship yesterday. We didn't notice any fights like in the video, mostly everyone was lovely and friendly. But a member of our group saw a domestic violence assault in a public area of the ship. I guess that could happen anywhere (they hide among us being the main problem), but that coupled with the fights that we see on video and the massive delay at disembarkation means I will not cruise Carnival again. We thought the layout of the marketplace was dumb, the lines were a bit long at prime times, but we just adjusted our expectations and had no issue. The line at Guys was nuts the first day but later it calmed down and I strolled right up and got my burger (meh) on day 3. Similarly for pizza we learned the best times and enjoyed it very much. There were long lines for the comedy club evening shows, but we just got there 30 mins before once we realized. Getting back on the ship they were not good at marshalling the lines and that was frustrating. After a day burning all the skin on my torso off (damn you, Neutrogena spf60) the last thing I wanted to do was find a herd of people pushing into my line because they were told it "merged". My cons: The food was meh and we all 8 of us had upset stomachs almost every day The cabin was not clean when we went in and our cabin steward was not as good as on prior cruises Not enough seating in Gondola Lounge The balcony doors slam so loudly you can hear for a 7 cabin radius and it's annoying TV volume is mute or high TV has free movies but you can't fast forward or resume them Announcements don't play in the cabin which is hard for those of us with hearing impairment Cabins had little storage compared to RC Not many indoor activities for kids A lot of interior areas were super warm (elevators, corridors) Security staff were like a gesture rather than trained security Total lack of communication and crowd control when things went wrong when docking A few times it took an hour to get food in the MDR for brunch and dinner The pools are minuscule and people sit there on the edges with their gross feet dunked in them, or their unshowered butts on the sun deck edges 🤢 skipped the pools entirely Pros Lovely staff for MDR Lots of nice seating areas and bars Cocktail prices good Kids enjoyed the water slides Jane who runs teen club was awesome AC in cabin was fine Nice hidden decks up front had great views and were peaceful The pizza was very tasty The theater shows were pretty impressive Some entertainment like Guess The Song was super fun 3 banks of elevators and smart elevators made them way faster than other ships

Deck 10 is hot, the open lido area you'd expect to be hot, but the corridors and marketplace were hot and humid too. Some corridors near cabins would be weirdly warm also, we walked almost the whole ship just to be nosy and definitely I'd say midship corridors often felt really warm.

I only found ones from last year, half moon cay and the fight that was on the news.

Afternoon tea choices were $2.50 a teabag! I didn't even look at them

Yes, his announcements telling everyone to leave their cabins by 8:30, but then chastising people for leaving their cabins were amusing. I don't know what he thought would happen in the 75 minutes when he didn't make any announcements. I think it could have been handled better in many ways. The staff did seem to be somewhat checked out in many respects - After the assault we witnessed we actually had to ask the security crew to have someone clean up the blood and debris left on the stairs - they just were not on their game. I looked on TikTok but didn't see any fights from this sailing - just the famous one last year and some from other ships. I guess we might never know for sure what caused these delays today.

We just got back from the 6/27-7/5 sailing and it took over 2 hours for us to disembark from the ship due to enormous delays with USCBP and Carnival's dire lack of crowd control/situation management. People were lined up in corridors and every public area, dragging luggage down stairs one step at a time in queues and just general disarray for hours this morning. The rumors on board ranged from a couple of people were arrested for marijuana possession and had to be handed over, to full-on a brawl went down last night and every holding cell on board was occupied (one person even said someone died, but that seemed a bit much). Does anyone on the sailing actually know what happened? We didn't see any fights but a member of our party witnessed an assault. Not quite what we'd hoped for vacation.

I'd imagine you can't get off the ship in Mexico. I'm not sure how old you are, but does it not stress you out to not have a passport to hand in case you need to go back to the UK urgently? I'm a dual citizen with two dual citizen children, so my life is what feels like a constant renewal of passports, but if one of them expires I feel really unsettled until the new one is back in my hand again.

This is awesome, thank you so much for sharing. Love your diligent reporting. We are booked in a balcony room so seeing it in real life has been helpful. I already told the other members of my family that we will have to SEVERELY pare back our packing... I looked at my old photos from RCL cruise in 2019 and we had oodles of space for storage - at least 6 drawers, full over the bed cabinets, two separate wardrobes... And there was a wardrobe separating the main bed from the sofa bed, this time it seems like I'm going to be able to reach out and touch my tween/teen - UGH! LOL. Oh well. We will pack like minimalists and try and deal. @Saint Greg (this isn't due to Saints Football team, is it?) - is there space underneath the bed to stow our duffles? Thanks again!

Thank you for the video! Found another of a standard balcony cabin too, both look nice. I'm a little worried as they seem to have less storage than the RC ship we sailed on previously. For 4 of us in a cabin I'm thinking it's going to be a giant squeeze...

This is the same for us. We are sailing in late June. For the RC cruise I researched so much, knew about drinks cards, boarding, dining, etc.. For this one I'm clueless. I feel really unprepared to make the most of it. We had an amazing MDR setup with RC and I have no idea how dining works on Carnival. Plus we're bringing some first time cruisers so I feel I'm responsible for their experience. I might start biting my nails 😆

Hello! 8 of us (4 adults, 4 teens) are on this too. Very much looking forward to seeing some real photos of the cabins next week... Does anyone have any insight into the boarding process (if you don't pay for fancy priority)? We have to book a car service and I'm getting antsy worrying about the timing - if I tell them I need to be there at 1PM and then our slot is 2:30PM I don't know what we will do with bags and testy people for 1.5 hours... Conversely I don't want to have to move the booking earlier at the last minute. I really trust my car service, but I know they need to take other bookings so I don't want to take over their day. Our last cruise we drove to it, and it was from Bayonne, so I feel unprepared for NYC boarding.