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We were playing Beatles trivia on a cruise and my 20 year old son knew all the answers. They did a bonus round and my son got up with the other two people who'd gotten all 20 answers correct, the winner would be the first to answer 3 questions correctly. I heard someone from another table say that now my son would lose because he'd clearly been cheating (maybe because of his age they didn't think he'd have known all of the answers about the Beatles?). Well, he was the first to answer all 3 questions correctly, and they were tough questions. The two older players he was competing against were much kinder about him knowing all the answers than that crabby woman at the other table. Not everyone who gets all the answers right is cheating.

Our first cruise was in 2013 and we cruised once or twice a year since then. Comparing the first couple of cruises to the last couple of cruises there have been significant changes and differences. I don't know that I'd say you'd be disappointed, I guess that's all up to you but I will say we've gone from LOVING the cruises to the last couple of them saying we probably won't cruise again for a while. We usually come home from cruises eager to book the next one. We cruised in June and already had a Christmas cruise booked. After that June cruise we found we weren't nearly as excited about our upcoming cruise. The Christmas cruise was fine but we got off of that cruise with no desire to book another cruise.

We sailed on the Valor in 2018 and we did not care for the layout or that stadium seating either. The decor is ancient and even 5 years ago the ship didn't seem to be maintained very well. We've also decided that we will no longer do 5 day cruises. The clientele and the atmosphere are not what we enjoy. We did a 5 day in June and an 8 day at Christmas and on both ships the passengers seemed to be more inconsiderate, rude, and aggressive than on our past cruises. We would often see people push past waiting passengers to be first in the elevators and would be completely inconsiderate to people on scooters or using walkers. Initially we thought it was just how it is on 5 day cruises (cheaper cruises) but our 8 day at Christmas wasn't a cheap cruise. Maybe it's the Carnival clientele, maybe it's just how people are these days.

I would never pay the same price or more for a Carnival Cruise as I would for a land vacation. I think Weinstein is maybe considering their new big ships but not all of the rest of the tired old ships with minimal staffing and cutbacks in every area when he says they're "too much of a value". Comparing a Carnival cruise to a land based vacation is comparing apples to oranges. We were on the Breeze in June and I felt like it was a fine vacation for the price but it certainly wasn't worth any more than what I paid for it. I most certainly wouldn't consider it "way too much of a value". There seem to be so many cutbacks in so many areas that it was almost depressing. We decided on that cruise that we will move to a different cruise line for a while because Carnival isn't the value that it used to be.

Our favorite time to sail is in February. There are fewer kids (although there does seem to be more and more kids each year), the cruise rates are phenomenal, and often its still cold, rainy and overcast where we live, it's so wonderful to get to be in the sunshine and warmth. Plus, we book our cruises fairly far in advance so it can seem to be forever before it's finally here. Time flies by because we are busy with so many other things towards the end of the year that we don't think much about our upcoming cruise, school starting, all the kids activities, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, then the kids go back to school. A month later, we're on a ship.

Congratulations! I hope you have a wonderful cruise!

We've done 5, 7, and 8 day cruises. On every 5 day we could frequently smell people smoking marijuana throughout the ship. On our 5 day in June there were several balconies around us who did it and we would smell it anytime we were on our balcony. It is definitely a different clientele on the 5 day cruises.

thanks for the replies

If I have OBC, gift cards, and a credit card on file for my Sign & Sail account, will the OBC and gift card balances be used up before they begin applying charges to my credit card?

We have sailed using the Military discount once, under my husband's name, they have his DD214 info. We (none of us) have ever received a Military discount or promotional offer.

We sail out of Galveston and its the same ports they've been going to for as long as we've been cruising with them. I have noticed that they've added some new iteneraries but its just a new shuffle of the same old ports and more and more they are adding Puerta Maya, that is not a addition. These new ones are never iteneraries we'd be interested in going on. I don't mind there being one port out of 3 that we don't care for, that's just a fun day on a less crowded ship, but all 3 ports, no thank you.

We have only cruised once since the restart and although it's a cruise so how bad can it be, we noticed a lot of cutbacks or "differences". We've got another scheduled in December, but with the constant notifications of changes and cutbacks we may also be done with Carnival for a while. I ordered a margarita on the Breeze in June. the new mix is the absolute worst I've ever had. Ok, so they wanted to save a little money and went with a cheaper mix, I understand. That awful margarita was the first and last mixed drink I bought on that cruise. I also won't be buying any on our December cruise. They saved a little by switching mixes, I'm saving A LOT by not buying it. We also paid for the bubbles for my son, we haven't cruised in a while so didn't realize they'd switched from Coke to Pepsi. Again, they saved some by switching, we'll save a lot by not buying their Pepsi products. We also had extremely slow service in the MDR for dinner and breakfast. I don't mind paying for a 3rd entree or even paying more for a margarita if they used the same mix they used to. I understand they've got money to make up and that everything is more expensive these days. The problem is that I can't just opt to buy a more expensive margarita or pay more for Coke instead of Pepsi when on the ships, they don't offer that choice. These aren't big things or certainly the only things, they didn't ruin our cruise but they are things we noticed and didn't appreciate and if you couple these with the constant announcements of changes and cutbacks we've decided that Carnival cruises may not be what we're looking for anymore.