dabomb6608

Seems a bit extreme...its not even that bad...😅

My first two cruises 2019 & 2020 were during spring break for our area. Traveled with a group of 2 other families that are all teachers. We always had a blast. Definitely busier, more kids and more young adults. Only real issue I had was the college group across the hall from us being loud when they returned to their room late at night. Besides that, nothing else stands out in my memory as being unpleasant on those cruises. If you go into something only thinking/worrying about the negatives, the negatives will be the only thing you see. It’s a cruise with thousands of randoms. Statistically you are bound to see rude, obnoxious or unpleasant people. I’m not going to let someone else’s poor choices ruin my vacation for me. Obviously there comes a time when intervention is needed. Lord knows I was close to my limit with the group across the hall from us by the 3rd late night wake up. But for the most part people just need to carry on with their cruise. It’s not worth the frustration a majority of the time.

Rereading it that is probably true. I think at the time of that post there was another active thread where that post would've made perfect sense. I was thinking they meant it for that thread.

We are heavily considering a 7 day trip on the Venezia out of Port Canaveral for next January. We think it will be a fun/different experience. Should fare better on the embarkation port side of things compared to the NYC port reviews I have read. We thought Port Canaveral was fantastic 2 weeks ago and look forward to visiting the area again. All new itinerary for us as well, so will be nice visiting new places. Between our list of options for the week that works best for us this one is ranked #1 on my wifes list. She has a lot of Italian blood in her and is 10/10 for it. It was a tie between this and a 6 day Vista for me. Solely because of pricing honestly. With regards to the Venezia I think my personal biggest concern is lack of traditional lido deck with lots of loungers. I could spend all day laying out in the sun and be happy as could be, my wife wants the shade after a while. With it being only the two of us we never had issues finding a pair of loungers on the Mardi Gras. We seemed to get out before the big crowds showed up, which helps. Hoping the same holds true on Venezia, even if that means heading to the aft area. Which from what I have seen is where the DJ plays so that is prefered location. Or even heading to Serenity, we frequented that as well on Mardi Gras. Won't hit gold this time but will be on the following cruise. Which we are talking about doing a 2025 mid-year(ish) 5(ish) day cruise to the new Celebration Key.

Prime Rib is the second one and was $12 on the Mardi Gras 2 weeks ago.

My suspicions exactly.

Does this move occur automatically during booking or once you select your room you get offered the upgrade. Or is it a "to be assigned" type booking that they select the upgrade for you? I've seen those sales plenty in the past but never fully understood how it worked.

I agree most people would/should know they are on the list. And without a doubt that is what occurred with this situation, the scammer has every reason not to pass that "little" tid-bit along.

I'm certainly no developer/coder but there should be plenty of avenues available on the back-end to implement a "check" for Sail/No Sail during booking process without CCL Planners being able to have full access to a No Sail list. Could even block out any reasoning for the ban and simply redirect concerns/questions to customer service reps.

I was speaking more broadly to any situation that would result in someone being on a Do Not Sail list, not just ones that have monetary reasoning. But I definitely get your point in situations like that.

A slight derail from OPs question but related to upgrades overall... When there is a sale active that says "Free Room Upgrades" what exactly does that mean?

Interesting. Seems like an unnecessary way to rack up refund processing fees and customer service hours. I wonder how often situations like that actually happen. I guess not that often if they haven't implemented a way to avoid someone paying deposits or more and then getting it cancelled after the fact.

If it was an actual CCL Planner, I would think they should have seen the "Do Not Sail" flag associated with you prior to getting to the stage of paying for the bookings.

I wouldn't say the ship itself is the reason we cruise. But it is a contributing factor towards our cruise selection. Especially if I am spending 7+ days on it minus a few hours per stop. We have talked about trying Royal Caribbean. But Carnival hasn't disappointed us yet so we haven't been "pushed" to doing so just yet.

The Mardi Gras does as well. Looks like they are mainly summer season cruises. If we did a 8 day, between our work schedules and her masters degree classes, it would have to be a winter cruise.

That makes sense. We have always had either Ocean View or on our most recent a Balcony. I guess if there isn't much "upgrade" from what you currently have booked that would also reduce your chance of getting a call.

Think you had the wrong thread tab open. 🤣

Are upgrade inquiries from Carnival just luck of the draw or do you request to be put on a list? We have a CCL Planner guy that we have used for each of our 3 cruises (plus 2 that were canceled during Covid) and have never received any kind of upgrade offer.

Thats what I was noticing when I was looking this evening. Lots of Nassau and Cozumel.

I completely understand I am basing my opinion on two opposite ends of the class spectrum. Not to mention our limited experience. Some things we really enjoyed out of the Mardi Gras... The various dinner options. A couple nights looking at the MDR menu it just wasn't appealing to us. We liked that there were various free/cheap options to fall back on when that happened. Pigs & Anchor was good. Cucina Del Capitano was fantastic and free both times we went, although as I understand it should have been $16 the second night for us. The steakhouse is nice as well but is on most/all carnival ships as far as I have seen so not a contributor to this discussion. It was really nice being able to hangout in the Alchemy/Fortune Teller area while listening to entertainers in an area that was very spacious and didn't feel like we were stuffed in a corner of the ship. This one I am sure others might have similar layouts, but looking at deck plans on Spirit I don't see it at a glance. The large Serenity Area with beds and loungers. And even the large second floor Lido area around the main pool. To us it just didn't feel like we were on a ship with 6000 people. We never had issues finding a spot. I'm not denying there might be another class we would like. We just both were very impressed with the Excel and I think it will be a tough class to match.

I think our preferred cruise is the 7 day Jubilee on the week that works best for us in January. It is a close(ish) port that we could drive to in a long day, the same itinerary we enjoyed last week, and an Excel Class with the bonus of being new.

This is actually something I hadn't considered...but I've wanted to try a B2B. My only thing with doing a 3 or 4 day B2B is the risk of less than pleasant crowds. In our (limited) experience and from reading online it seems the shorter length/cheaper cruises risk that. I will look into it for comparisons sake though.

This is basically what we did with last weeks cruise and ended up flying to Orlando with Southwest out of St. Louis. Saved a little bit of money over gas/food/hotels driving there and back. Think it was right at $500 for round trip.

As a motorcycle rider I jokingly pointed the throttle out to the wife right before the ride started and held it wide open when we rode "because why not". I had no idea the throttle actually did anything. I also had no idea there was a boost button...guess I will have to ride again next time we are on an excel class!

$15 per person...high enough to be not worth it to do more than once for us. But it was fun and worth the experience.