pellanor

I wholeheartedly agree with the OP. Krista with a "K" is a jewel on our cruise on the Westerdam last month. I only wish I didn't have jet lag that had me in bed by 9 the first week of the cruise!

Congrats on the upgrade! We booked a guaranteed oceanview and got an upgrade to a balcony room on deck 5 (VC). V is for balcony and C is the subcategory. I think the subcategories are mostly location with "A" being midship and most desirable.

My wife and I are going to be on the same sailing. We had a great time on the Westerdam on the December 9 sailing last month to Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. We didn't enjoy the jet lag both ways, but we're back for more. Looking forward to following along!

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Sounds like we should just do fixed dining for dinner going forward. It's odd that Carnival gives shared table option for YTD but doesn't let people pick whether they want to share table or not during fixed dining.

My wife and I been on 5 Carnival cruises. We like to chat with others over meals. For three of the cruises we booked YTD and requested shared tables for dinner each time while checking in on the app (25+ times). We were always given our own table (usually a small two person table) and was never given a shared table at dinner. The only time I've had a shared table assigned was at seaday brunch. Is there a point in requesting a shared table at dinner for Your Time Dining? Is the only way to get a shared table for dinner is through fixed dining?

Was the last show different from the one before?

Need to pass the time somehow....

I didn't realize the change from risotto to mashed potatoes until I saw this post. Risotto was better. Both lobster and broccoli were better than expected.

Agree calamari was awful tonight.

Changed from first elegant night to second elegant night in 2022. Same time when $5 surcharge for third entree was added. https://cruiseradio.net/carnival-cruise-increases-steakhouse-prices-moves-lobster-night/

The rope really confused me at first. Didn't know what the ordering process was even though I've been on other Carnival ships before.

Will have to try P&A tomorrow to watch my 49ers!

Pizza was surprisingly good on this cruise! Comes out fast too, much faster than wait times I experienced on Pride and Miracle.

Lobster is tonight, which is second elegant night. Looking at the menu right now for dinner tonight on the ship.

Lobster night in the MDR!

Me! Had no idea I was sailing on a cc group cruise! 🙂 My first excel class.

I thought you mentioned you can camp out at a machine and order a drink without playing very much?

Does the lido menu have a consistent day 1-8 rotation like the MDR menus?

Can you ask the maitre'd to assign you to a table you prefer for your future check-ins? I've heard of others who do this, but never tried myself since I usually do fixed dining.

Totally agree. I wish there was a rock band on my Princess cruise. And live music is often just like piano music with no vocals. I often can barely hear the music over crowd chatter. Carnival always had a rock band, guitar music, and piano music close to every night.

Quite a few Carnival dishes are a bit off from how you would normally see that dish.

Another difference is no fixed dining on Princess. How much this matters will vary depending on your personality, but we love to share table with fellow cruises. This is rarely an option on my Crown Princess cruise last week. We made reservations for shared table and was sat at our own two-top every night. Different from Greg's experience, there was a line to enter into the dining room 3 of 5 nights for me, with waits up to 15 minutes even with reservation. Maybe it's the time I chose or the dining room I chose, but I prefer Carnival's table reservation system when you're notified in the app when a table is ready. On another note, all the table tops had tablecloths, which I greatly prefer to Carnival's no table tops.

I was on the Crown Princess last week. I agree with all the comments for that cruise but I was never given a time but only a group number. It was not clear to me what time the group number corresponded to. Cruise arrived at 8 am and immigration started at around 8:15 am? I had group M and cleared immigration at Club Fusion onboard around 10:15 am. They had facial recognition scanners aboard. I did this process on Celebrity in February when returning from Cabos to San Diego on a round trip from LA. Immigration was in person at port. So the process on the Crown Princess was very different. As it happens Celebrity Eclipse was at port on the same day last week and also was returning from Mexico.

Re: casino. Aside from worse game selection compared to Carnival, the casino's location on Princess ships doesn't help since isn't really on the way to anything else. You'd only pass it if you go between the theater and guest services/DaVinci restaurant. Besides the problem of getting to it from any aft stateroom (go to deck 7, walk across, then down), you basically have to go out of your way to go to the casino. On Carnival, it's hard to avoid walking by the casino, since the theater, most of the music venues, Alchemy Bar, and the MDR are all on deck 2.

Love to hear about your opinion on Princess casino v. Carnival.