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Since we retired I found my "natural" hours are in bed about 1:30 and up about 10:00. But it is not all roses. The world conspires to get you up earlier. The fun ship wants people to keep nursing home hours. If you are not up by 9:00 they start playing ads over the PA system. If you want other than a buffet breakfast on a port day the MDR closes at about 9:00. So don't set your hopes too high about retirement letting you sleep late.

Are you related to Blerk? 🤣

Surprised they could offer Sierra Mist as it was discontinued in January.

That was my immediate thought also. They stop serving breakfast so early we have never eaten breakfast in the MDR on a port day in over 35 cruises. We use port days in places we don't get off, or just get off to wander around on our own, (like Freeport, Cozumel, Jamaica and often Nassau) because we have been there so much, to sleep very late and recharge our batteries. In that same vein we don't drink until the ship sails. It is a day of laying around, reading and and being lazy.

We don't have any social diseases either.

Different strokes for different folks 🙂 We like the chocolate melting cake but only once or at most twice on a seven day cruise but we do order ice cream also to go with it. It is a bit overpowering. As far as Carnival cakes... For us it is like pealing crawfish. When we eat cake we want some cake. Carnival makes its cakes layered with thin layers of cake and fat layers of icing. When we can actually get slices of cake we have to order a few then separate the icing from the cake, throw aside most of the icing then eat. On our last few cruises (since December) we haven't been able to get slices of cake. They cut it so thin the "slices" fall apart by the time they get to the plate and the crumbs of cake are mixed with the icing. No separating that. My favorite Carnival dessert item is a chocolate shake from JavaBlue. I take my metal straw and get one at least once a day.

Yeah, but for some of us our conscience effectively makes it mandatory. But you be you...

It is said wealth rarely lasts three generations. What I see is more along the lines of you can tell who is building wealth and on the rise and who is throwing it away and in decline.😁

The problem with discussions about "taking advantage of someone," (assuming all parties are fully informed) is that it is an opinion based discussion; essentially a discussion about morals. On the one hand, in every sale in which the seller makes a profit the seller is "taking advantage" of the buyer's need or desire for the item sold. An example following this philosophy is that lending money for interest is contrary to Islamic law because it is taking advantage of the borrowers circumstances. On the other hand classic capitalistic economics would say the moral thing to do is charge what the market will bear. In that way the scarce item goes to those with the greatest need for the item and the excess profits will cause others to produce the item thus, in the long term, increasing the availability of the item and decreasing its price to the benefit of all. But when dealing with something that is a totally unnecessary luxury and all parties are fully informed about the product and the price I really can't get morally outraged. Some may remember the days when they sold "pet rocks." People actually paid good money for a rock you could find on the side of the road for free. Were the folks who bought being taken advantage of?

I'm fairly ignorant about this stuff, but she did say it was CC she was having problems with. It might be that for other sites the internet on the ship is just fine. I ran into this kind of thing on Carnival. I have a site that I frequent that requires sign-in and only one device at at time can be signed in. On Carnival I can sign in, but after a few minutes I get kicked off with the message I have signed in from a different IP address. I think that Carnival's wifi switches connections frequently and that creates the problem. Other sites had no problem. But, as I said, I'm fairly ignorant about this stuff.

I think folks are nuts to pay these prices but I have to think it is something other than Carnival trying to maximize profit. One of the basic principles of economics is that you keep adding capacity until the cost of adding one more unit equals the revenue you will get from that additional unit. That maximizes profit (a mathematical fact). That Carnival's response to high demand is to raise prices so much makes me think that either they think the level of demand is temporary (unlikely) or the cost of adding units is very high or there is something that prevents them from adding capacity. I have to say, I am curious as to the reason.

We did try the steakhouse and it continues to have great food. The Blue Iguana was also good, but I would go for chicken rather than beef as the beef was hit and miss with occasional gristle. Guys was OK but I can't really put my finger on why it didn't thrill us. The steak and cheese sandwich at the deli was good. The Old Fashioned BBQ was OK this time, though in the past they have tended toward cold beans and mac and cheese - the portions of meat have gotten smaller with more fat so don't be afraid to ask for more. But our experience overall is that each Glory cruise is different. You just have to try the various places and find the ones good on that cruise. The main dining room was not good on this cruise, but it has been good on some others. It is pure hit and miss other than the steakhouse which has been consistently good.

Was she more upset that he fell or that he spilled a perfectly good drink?😉

It has been a while so I don't remember the details. I just remember that Carnival didn't give us any of the "turning Diamond" things until I went to guest services and inquired. On the cruise we turned Diamond they didn't say or do anything. Then on our next cruise after a couple of days I went down to guest services and asked. They said we were supposed to get the specialty dining letters and leather luggage tags and passport holders on the previous cruise but they would take care of it. The next day we got the letter and leather goods. Then a couple of days later we got another set of letters and leather goods (an obvious error so I took the second set back). So my advice is to visit guest services one day when it is not busy and ask how it is supposed to work as far as when. At least when we turned Diamond they were not really on top of things. I do recall we had to call the steak house and make the reservations ourselves while letting them know we had the letters. All is good, just a bit disorganized (at least in our case).

Same boat for us. Driving an hour to the terminal and hopping on the ship is just so easy. Unfortunately NCL only sails out of New Orleans or Galveston December through March or April. We have been sailing about once a month between September and March or April so moving to NCL we will have to cut down on the number of cruises. Also, the NCL itineraries out of New Orleans have no variety so we will be doing Galveston a lot. But NCL does have some nice longer cruises out of Galveston that we are looking forward to. So fewer but longer cruises. But it is kind of our last shot at cruising. Driving to Galveston is about as complicated as we are willing to get since we don't want vacations that are a lot of work. If NCL doesn't give us the cruising experience we once had with Carnival then we will just cross cruising off our list of activities.

Maybe, maybe not. I haven't seen her face. Good fashion involves drawing attention toward one's best attributes and away from the less attractive attributes. That's why a butherface will show lots of cleavage and/or leg.

Glad you got the bathroom for sid_9169

You have a valid point of view. I largely disagree but if you haven't experienced the problems it is understandable. We have cruised Carnival exclusively since 2001 and since reopening have been cruising five or six times a year with all cruises being a week or longer. Pre-covid we were very happy with Carnival. Post-covid, during the masking period, we didn't like the masking but understood and the lower number of passengers about made up for it. But once the masks were off and the ships full again things seemed to fall apart. At that point the food quality went downhill fast and that decline continues. The service overall has gone downhill. The real killer though is we started, for the first time, feeling not totally safe. A different class of cruiser became more common; people who are rude, aggressive and don't know how to behave in public. We have not seen any fights, but we have seen a small number of assaults. It only becomes a fight when the person shoved, or whatever, reciprocates. Our unease with the new class of passengers (though they be a small percent) caused us to book a cruise for next January on NCL as a test. Then on our Carnival cruise last month my wife was assaulted so we have booked more NCL cruises and will be making them our primary cruise line going forward. They have not tried to be the low cost cruise line so we are hoping for better passengers. But we recognize that in today's society boorish people may be unavoidable on cruises. If so we will give up cruising. At this point our thinking is that Carnival's attempt to be the low cost cruise line has attracted low class people. While we will probably continue to take some Carnival cruises (fourteen day Journeys cruises have always had more genteel cruisers) I don't see us ever being regulars again. We don't think Carnival gets a bad rap. People are just recognizing the reality.

Waiting for Megan to make contact again took me back to the days of Apollo 11 and waiting for them to make contact again after going around the other side of the moon.

I'll recommend it to my son who fractured a rib. His brother is a sports med doctor and told him to watch sad movies so he wouldn't laugh...

I understand your concern and while they say you have to bring up any charge issues before disembarking it may be possible to get it fixed. I don't know. But I do know that the time it would take to fix the $23.01 error will be worth much more than $23.01. I would write it off as an educational expense and check my onboard account each day on the Hub app in the future.

The balcony is partially covered and only after something like 4pm when the ship is headed directly away from a sunrise or sunset (and I imagine the reverse in the morning, but we sleep late) will there be no shade up against the room wall. While the balconies on the sides of the ship tend to be mostly full sun or full shade the aft balcony has, in my opinion, a better mix. I think it best meets your desire for shade and probably disappoints sun worshipers.

We were in cabin 7442 on the Glory last month. We generally prefer another area of the ship but decided to try an aft balcony as that was the last area of the ship we had not tried. As you will see below our experience there was not good, but chances are you will not be as unlucky. We had no problems with noise, smells or vibrations. We did not like all the walking that being at the extreme end of the ship entailed. My wife wears one of those fit-bit things and counts steps. She was just under 50% more steps on average than on other Glory cruises (we did six Glory cruises since last September). When we arrived the room was a dump. It was in the worst shape of any room on any of our over 35 cruises. But as I said on another thread: At that point things were looking pretty good. But then we found a major disadvantage of the aft balcony when combined with those Carnival currently solicits as customers. My wife was laying on the lounger on our balcony and some yahoo on deck 10 (the open deck above) decided to see if he could hit her with his chewing tobacco spit. He partly succeeded. We called security (NOT 911, they chew you out for calling that for a non-medical issue - dial 7777, customer service) and they arrived with a ready made story that someone must have been cleaning on the deck above and some water splashed her. When we pointed out the used chew pouch they said sorry and disappeared as fast as possible, nothing they could do. So, use the balcony at your own risk. But cabin 7442 is in great shape.

Get some sleep!

From reopening from covid until a few months ago there was no priority boarding for Platinum or Diamond. Being able to check in two days earlier was the only boarding perk.