cruisingguy007

Good point. Plus being 450% more expensive and offering way less coverage, for me anyways.

That's terrible, I could certainly see why you'd want to jump ship to a new line after something like this.

Interesting development, went to pay off a cruise yesterday and then proceeded to snag insurance for the trip and found that many of the plans no longer cover financial default, whereas before they almost universally did (from my previous cruises). Luckily, I found one that did and it was a good price with the coverage I wanted but now it seems like the insurance underwriters don't want to get Crystaled either. Default coverage may become increasingly harder to find it seems which, ironically, kind of defeats the purpose of insurance to begin with.

To be fair, they can say whatever they want, enforcing all that nonsense is another matter entirely. I read plenty of the gibberish contracts you speak of and they can be quite comical sometimes lol. I don't think expectations of being civilized, courteous and following the rules is on par with the word salad, toss as much crap on the wall and hope some sticks bullcrap, that makes up the bulk of T&C's that are written as a one-sided hope/wish list essentially. Decency/safety is a basic concept. No long contract required. They could certainly remove that "small cash deposit" option though or disallow folks to sail that have unpaid fines and the problem would naturally work itself out. Making passports mandatory could be another option to facilitate problematic passenger disembarkations, though that would hurt some passengers who follow the rules, don't cause problems, and don't have passports.

They did say in a round about way: "Disruptive behavior will not be tolerated and any guest whose conduct affects the comfort, enjoyment, safety or well-being of other guests or crew will be detained onboard and/or disembarked at their own expense and will [be] banned from sailing on Carnival in the future" Sounds pretty much like a nightclub standard (x-bouncer myself for many years), pretty self explanatory, don't act like an arse, keep your hands and feet to yourself, don't touch any ladies without permission, don't be too loud or obnoxious (hold your liquor), no screaming/yelling/fighting/outbursts/loudly using profanity/threatening folks etc, basic common sense and courtesy. It's not too difficult to understand. You do bring up a good point though, some with try and claim victim-hood or some kind of "ism" as a defense for being a jack-arse and unlike a nightclub, it's not as easy to toss them out or simply not let folks in for a variety of reasons or no reason at all. There are more difficulties on the ship with enforcement to be sure, probably best done before the ship leaves port but some passengers know to behave until the ship is far enough away or wait until the last port stop and is on the way back. I do think enforcement will be more so on the backend vs disembarking folks, it's much easier to wash your hands of knuckle head passengers than to try and clean up mid cruise. Once folks start finding their names on cruise line no-sail shart-lists, word will get out.

I just don't see that happening with a fresh round of lock downs announced just yesterday. Even in Shanghai, they announced closures of cinemas and entertainment venues. Any cruise line would be nuts to take a gamble over there with an almost certainty of being shut down and wasting a bunch of money. 2023 at the earliest and only after a six month period of non governmental intervention/lock downs.

This! This is the only way I've seen what OP has described, basically the lowest rate and they pick your cabin. Interestingly, I've noticed that it now goes beyond the basic categories and lets you select a few sub options while still offering the guaranteed rate. I was temped but it's kind of confusing because there is no language acknowledging the sub categories selected (basically up-sells at booking), this is a shortcoming and will lead more people to second guess if the sub category selections will be applicable. If they added a small note that acknowledges those selections I think more folks would do it. I certainly would, I just don't want to pay more than basic category rate and end up not getting it or simply paying more.

That's probably across all brands, their Carnival brand seems to be doing well in the capacity department, other brands, not so much. I'm sure they would love nothing more than to sell some of their under-performing brands and focus on the domestic core brand but who will buy it and for what price? Having the assets on the books makes things appear better and helps with padding/projections but at some point, may become too big of a anchor on the core brand. A breakup and decoupling of dead weight may be in order but will be a tricky endeavor to get a decent price or optimal outcome, if they can wait that long, their hand may be inevitably be forced. I think you made a fine point about raising prices too high and too quickly, especially in the face of cutbacks/reductions. Anyone who's sailed on their classic product will notice, blue card folks may not. Customers will flock to the competition at certain price points, even if it costs a bit more but the value is greater. I'm already seeing more included with some competitor brands and not everyone will be fooled by the low fare price and will compare all the up-charges or "all-in/overall" rate. This could certainly be a problem moving forward, especially with the economic pressure that many passengers are facing. Perfect storm so to speak.

The length of cruise matters and also which port you sail from, some ports seem to have more problems than others, it's only compounded on the cheaper shorter cruises.

Lot of hopium required for that. If it goes anything like the restarts here, the lines won't have the same leeway they did in the USA and will just be shutdown again. Trying to operate in that kind of arena with folks who can shut you down all willy-nilly, or impose impossible levels of standards is a big gamble. Plus is costs money to move ships around and provision. Seems like a risky proposition that could turn in to costly wasted endeavor. The cruises to nowhere may turn into self fulfilling prophecy.

Sell it and tax loss harvest. There are much better bets out there than waiting around for a decade with hopium. Book the loss and keep it moving.

Most of the analytics I read predict it wont go much further down than $2.50-$3.50. I don't see it going to zero.

Devils advocate. What does Princess and Celebrity including drinks have to do with rowdy behavior? A lot of those rowdy folks seems to have those green/yellow cups in their hands.

This post aged well with Vegas making headlines yesterday. Guess OP's going cruising. 😁

I kind of dig that about this place, gotta have a bit of thick skin round these parts and folks aren't afraid to call you out on BS. Everything isn't always rainbows and unicorns, telling it like it is and calling it how it's seen is kinda how it's done in the Carnival forum lol. If you haven't caught at least one timeout, you ain't doing it right. 😁

Another big problem is that things have to go perfect and return exactly to pre-covid levels for all the fiscal hypotheses to play out. I just don't see that happening, there will be hiccups. Plus, plenty of folks who are still put off cruising. Not everyone is going to be as enthusiastic about catching covid as some ardent cruisers here are. I've read several posts about some folks getting covid on nearly every cruise since the restart and being totally fine with it lol. That's devotion! There is still a subset who won't cruise with a higher risk of covid and winter covid surge/flu season will be unknown until Dec. Couple that with high airfares to get to ports for many, a cooling economy and higher costs for daily living and the risk is certainly there of things not returning to pre-covid levels. The drive to port people will probably remain strong but that still doesn't mean it won't take discounts to attract them. The discounts certainly attract the blue cards, they've been disproportionately represented on the cruises I've taken since the restart, lots and lots and lots of blue cards. The real question is will they return without the huge discounts?

Yeah, here is California we have a serial killer on the lose, kids/coaches getting shot/killed at schools, kids getting robbed/shot after school, shootings/murders/robberies nearly every weekend, an entire family was just kidnapped, multiple domestic murders, some poor lady even got decapitated in the middle of the street recently etc. I'll be safer vacationing in Mexico 😂.

Can't go anywhere: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2022/10/04/state-department-travel-advisory-violence/8179510001/

Don't forget to add mass corruption since people like to point that one out for Mexico but conveniently forget we have plenty right here in the good ol USA. I was literally just reading a story about a LAPD officer who was taken out by his own in an "accident" in fact. We tend to see ourselves through rose colored glasses because we're comfortable/familiar with our own problems. Tourists areas in Mexico are probably safer than many big metro areas here in the USA. If it were so bad, so many folks wouldn't be moving to Mexico from the USA. It's gotten so bad that some will soon be demanding to build a wall to keep the gringos out. 😁

Nope, not even in my top five, I'm much more worried about catching a cold, flu, covid, legionnaires or noro than I am violence is Mexico. Once you understand it, you'll realize that it doesn't concern you, you aren't the target, and that they don't want the backlash of harming tourists, especially cruise tourists, who will cause an international incident and bring a ton of scrutiny/bad coverage. They don't want that black eye and forcing the governments hand to respond because of pressure/embarrassment. Dead tourists isn't a good look. Stick to cruise line excursions if it makes you feel better but press on, plenty of dangerous places right here in America.

Interesting. It's very strange, it's not even listed on this particular cruise and when I search for it, it pops up, but when I try to add it to the cart it says "invalid product" in red. Can't tell if it's sold out or if they are just not doing it. I guess I'll just keep checking back.

It's very nice being disconnected, it makes you focus on the cruise instead of constantly checking useless websites/videos/social media. Going without it will make you realize just how much most rely on their phones as a fidget device lol. I've never bought it once and won't, it's such a time suck. Congrats on breaking free lol.

Thanks for the observations, Serenity was a madhouse on our recent Miracle trip as well. I also seen some behavior of some groups trying to use their own speakers and being told they couldn't but ignoring staff, also some vaping & pot use back there and folks drinking and carrying on. I actually like a party atmosphere so it was fine by me and solidifies that Carnival is my kind of cruise lol but I can see how others may like a more subdued option. I suspect I may too when I get a little longer in the tooth but I'm trying to squeeze out every last drop of fun out until then 🙂. Thanks for sharing.

Is the Chefs table back on Carnival or still shutdown? If so, when does the option open up? I don't see it as an option and I'm not sure if it's just not available or is sold out, cruise is over 100 days away still.

It was reported in the earnings call that the European cruise market is still soft, while the North America market is booming. Not sure there would be a need for it, expanding the North American market seems to be where the money is.