CruizinSusan70

Sailed on the MG for 28 days this year. Could easily fit three people to the right, three people to the left and one person (DH) behind me in my scooter in the middle. That's 8 people with a scooter or 9 people with no problem. And my husband is not a small guy. The problem with the elevators was when you were already waiting and others jumped ahead of you. Happened more often in the midship section, which seemed to be the busier of the three sets of elevators.

All of the ports you mentioned are Carnival third tiered ports that they are the only game in town or maybe have one other line like Royal to compete with. They will not come out with a new build in the 80-90 K range, but will refurbish the Spirit Class ships in the future in order to supply the limited demand of the third tiered ports. With not much competition, Carnival can charge a premium at ports such as Norfolk or Mobile.

Thank goodness there are some cruisers that still pine for the older ships in the fleet. They have long ago been in our rearview mirror. From what I have seen on initial videos of the Celebration, Carnival raised the bar once again. They tweaked a few things for the better and made some minor improvements and we're looking forward to our 33 future nights booked on her.

Hope so, will find out in January on the Encore. If not, will enjoy them on our B2B on the Prima at the end of February.

Thought that the pickings were better as the day went along. Dinner raised the bar substantially compared to lunch, in our opinion. At dinnertime, we went three times and never had a problem getting a table. Lunchtime in Hudson's was great on sea days.

The MG is nothing at all like an indoor shopping mall. The vast majority of RCI's fleet is more of a mall concept with their promenades. If you actually sailed on one, you would know the difference. Check out YouTube videos for confirmation if you'd like. Happy sailing.

The Excel Class is a game changer for Carnival because they finally decided to provide their customer base with a ship option that is more in line with what their competition offers. There will always be old school Carnival cruisers that pine for the archaic Fantasy Class or love the space ratio of the Spirit Class. If a cruiser only sails on a single line, whether that be Carnival, Royal or NCL, then they do indeed have blinders on. It's 100% their choice, but it's like only eating vanilla ice cream for the rest of your life. It gets monotonous after awhile. You need a scoop of a different flavor once in a while.

Fully aware Joe about what the OP was referring to. My post was about comparing Onda on the Prima with Sunkey1's post about the removal of tablecloths on Carnival.

We were on the 11 day repo cruise from Galveston to Miami on 10/31. Ate at Hudson's 3 nights for dinner and another 3 days for lunch. We used 4 specialty dinners, another 3 dinners in the Indulge Food Hall and a late dinner one night at the Local. The beef Wellington was done a perfect rare. The chicken rotisserie was surprisingly good and was also available at lunch. It consisted of dark and white pieces and the white was primarily a boneless breast with skin on and a frenched bone. Other highlights were the NE clam chowder, the honey creme brulee and the bread pudding with whiskey caramel sauce. Would have no problem ordering seven different entrees if needed, but the wellington with carrots was so good, it would be consumed on multiple nights

Go with the Prima. Will be able to embark from Port Canaveral during first qtr of 2023. If pushed back into second qtr, Prima will be doing 5 day sailings out of NYC, so I would lean towards Escape, Joy or Bliss.

Since Carnival was where I cut my cruising teeth and about 50% of my cruises have been on Carnival, I never considered Nassau and Freeport as being part of the Caribbean.

Surprised after enjoying the midnight buffet with all of the extravagant stuff consumed you were able to......

5 half size portions equals 2.5 regular size portions. So, since two are included, we will still have to charge you the $5.00 cover charge for the extra half size portion...we could give you a half size piece of prime rib so you'd have a little turf to go with your surf.

C'mon. There had to be a disagreement during bingo.

No tablecloths in Onda. White marbleized tables.

Platinum cruiser with Carnival for over 10 years. Your laundry is put in your own mesh bag. They then take your bag and combine it with another dozen or so maybe more mesh bags and put all of them in an industrial sized washer and do your wash in hot water and then dry them all in another large industrial sized dryer. Have almost 25 cruises on Carnival and almost 50 overall. Have personal experience with this and because of shrinkage with a nice shirt that was my DH's, we have not used the perk for years. This is our personal experience with the perk. Others have reported the same as us while many others enjoy the perk and their clothes come back unscathed. Just reporting the facts.

Since this was a Princess cruise, did the blow up dolls wear tiaras?

I always lumped Freeport in with Nassau since they are usually on the same itinerary and I always considered them different from the eastern, western and southern Caribbean groupings that are lumped together. I stand corrected if Nassau and Freeport are considered part of the Caribbean.

That's the way it usually is on the newer ships. Stake your claim on day one and be a regular or occasionally swing by and get a drink to go.

That's why they make vanilla and chocolate. Many Carnival cruisers that are used to ships under 135 K tons and have never taken the blinders off to sail on larger ships from RCI, NCL or MSC think that the 180 K ton MG is too big. We have sailed on her for 28 days and have 33 currently booked on the Celebration. It's a game changer for Carnival and brought them into the 21st century compared to the newer builds of their aforementioned competitors. If the MG at 180 is too big, then it's safe that you'll never cruise on RCI's Icon Class at 250 K. But, the Icon has a much better space ratio of 7,000 passengers versus the 6,000 on the Excel Class on Carnival.

With the Viva already under construction not much will change between her and the Prima. But, the last four ships in the class could benefit from cruiser feedback and hopefully tweaks will be made. The Improv and Syd's could easily be double their current sizes since these two venues are way too small for the demand. Since the Galaxy Pavilion is a moneymaker for the teen and family contingent on board, I doubt that changes will be made there.

Other lines are being more lenient concerning wearing long pants. Both Carnival as well as Royal are no longer enforcing the requirement of men needing to wear pants in their specialty venues and steakhouses. Know this from first hand experience on the Mardi Gras and the Oasis OTS this year. My DH wore long pants on the Oasis zero times over 12 days in June. Will wear them once on our current Prima cruise in Le Bistro starting today.

But there are still certain venues in NCL where pants are required. Le Bistro comes to mind as well as the Manhattan Room on certain ships (not the Escape).

We should hopefully be OK. I'll know in a few hours after we embark today. The problem is that we had 4 nights included with our package and I bought another 7, since it was slightly more reasonable per night than only buying 2 or 3. So we have 11 reservations to make.

Take a look at the updated Celebrity Beyond, many of the areas are similar to the Prima and their main pool is substantially larger. The Beyond also has the infinity pools up on their top deck, similar to the ones on deck 8 Ocean Blvd on the Prima.