jimbo5544

Good luck and enjoy your cruise. Let us all know how it works out.

Any market turn down (and there will absolutely be one this year) will have a devastating effect on the company (the potential negative variables in our world are just the upper crust of possibilities). The market is at an all time high in terms of berth backlog. They are 30 bill in the hole and growing (estimated 8 BILLION more coming in the next 3 years).

Which has absolutely nothing to do with what Carnival does. Thanks for the stock tip though….. Where will they be when the 30 bill they will owe (and are leveraging up) and the market (at an all time high flattens out. If you choose to the Monstrosity of each year at absorbent rates (butt ugly by the way, looks like a joke cartoon that we would see on the Super-bowl add) then do it. I will pass, not even sure I would sail it for free, unless it had open bar. Is their stock position better than Carnival? Sure. Does that have anything at all to do with Carnivals new build or what Weinstein commented and your interpretation…..no. I will repeat it again, spending 2 billion every 10 months for a ship that absolutely needs to sail full and at the highest market rates in a almost saturated market is a fools folly, the math does not work. You may think differently…which is fine. Oh….Icon is butt ugly. which has just as much to do with this thread topic as RCCL stock price does to adding another excel class ship.

Thanks for the link. I agree on the 30 bill being a factor. It gets way more gray after that. How would it look for the company that maintains the best fiscal policy after a forced shutdown and is 30 (thought it was 32, but lets not squabble over 2 bill) billion in th hole and then state that new builds are wrong when you are getting outpaced by the competition (and recently add several to the books. Does that make it appear the RCCL is doing the right thing? Not in my book. The math does not work.

Thanks for all the feedback. Much appreciated. This will be our first.

Was our experience as well.

We are doing AMA Budapest to Nuremberg Christmas highlights in November 2025 with both pre i2 nights in Budapest) and post (3 nights Prague). Would love to hear more on ow you enjoyed the Prague add on.

Amen to that!

Amazing all the experts we have here……. 😎

Seafood shack is another very good option for pay added to the cruise experience. We so not do it every cruise for sure, but do indulge from time to time. Carnival’s different food options def enhance the cruise experience and the options, especially on the newer ships, probably lead the industry. Options are a good thing.

Alto I may be wrong, pretty sure some non Europe Journey cruises are 12 days as well. As others have mentioned, I am not sure the longer special cruises are frequent enough to have “standard” menus. In addition they sometimes do special dinners, as example we did a “al fresco under the stars”

I googled the cruise port and her eis the link for hotels on that site https://www.norfolkvisitor.com/norfolkhotels/

I looked in the East Coast departure board, and did not see anything for Norfolk. As it is just a seasonal home port, not all that surprising. Here is hoping some that have sailed from there chime in.

Carnival, like the industry, is still recovering. Some here said not all that long ago, they were down and out, specifically in the new ship market. I disagreed as I knew they simply HAD to compete, and they did, at least the way that they do. VV is struggling for more reasons than size, but the reasons are what they are. Excel class is their future, at least for now. All that said, the clock is ticking on some of their hardware. They have some unique (compared to their competition) issues, they have a number of home ports that they will have to either abandon when their smaller ships are gone, or come up with a different approach. From where I sit now, I do not see them abandoning the ports with the height. Issues, unless they have to. If tur the options are new builds….doubt it… that fit or redistribute sub lines ships that do fit. We will see how it all works out.

Certainly no argument where the industry is going, or the reason why. Market saturation is a given. Larger ships going fewer places charging absorbent rates to cruise. Sure sounds like paradise to me.😂

Or it could be a few unhappy customers. Check out the thread on the “The Points guy” and their rating of Carnival food. All that said, people vote with their wallets, not super critical posts.

hmmmmm sounds like someone is not happy. I got lost on the oblige comment…. Garbage food, garbage cruise line, garbage clientele, garbage experience. Did I miss something?

Careful, you do not want to disrupt the agenda….

We recently completed a 14 day cruise on Celebrity. The lido equivalent on Celebrity, while more extensive in choice, we significantly below in quality, I could give details as to why we thought that. As to the MDR experience , service at atmosphere were clearly a win for Celebrity again, we thought quality was below what we regularly experience on Carnival.

Horrible news. Pray for all of them and their families

Life is full of choices and selecting cruise lines and ships to sail on is one of them. That said, the way you feel about Carnival is an overstated version of how I feel about NCL. No right or wrong, just choice. Good luck with getting an NCL ship (on any) in San Diego. The itin options are just so limited…speaking of meh. Cruising continues to change and evolve, more mega ships doing shorter cruises, going to fewer places. Just the cruise lines following the dollar. Does that make me happy? Nope, but have not been asked. Bigger monstrosity of the Seas bigger and uglier every 10 months reaches a saturation point (at 2 billion per), has to bust….sooner rather later. Icon is possibly the weirdest, ugliest of the bunch, but the lemmings are paying stupid rates…so

There was some sad vids…..

Sometimes we all walk and sometimes I go and come back for the pickup

Nice review, we traveled many places on Liberty over the years, including our forst trip to the Med. She will always hold a special place in our hearts, including couple trips in the Captain’s Suite.

Done the walk several times. You can park wherever you want, the walk is easily done, I usually do the walk and drive around for the pickup. Easy peasy.