CruisingWalter

So they squeezed in a few extra berths to add less than 100 people, most likely a few more interiors here and there. If it was 500 or more, than would be a big deal. But Celebration and Mardi Gras are for all intents and purposes the same size. Maximum capacity is still listed at 6500 for both ships and that's most likely due to the lifeboat and limitations there.

They have shown as "additional" on the Carnival website since the ship launched and they still say 'additional' on the website today. They were originally scheduled to be an additional fee, Cucina is an additional $10 I believe on all other Carnival ships. Not sure why they've never updated the site, but as noted by the previous poster, John Heald did say those venues would remain complimentary on the ship for the foreseeable future. I honestly can't see them charging for those venues ever if they want to manage the dinner crowds on those ships.

Where is that information about Celebration holding more passengers? Everything I can find shows the two ships being identical for passenger counts. Approx. 5280 double occupancy, 6500 completely full. Jubilee is showing similar numbers as of right now as well. As for the original question, I would fully expect ChiBang the Cucina del Capitano to be included the same as Mardi Gras in order to spread out the dinner crowds. The MDR would be overwhelmed if they didn't. As with Mardi Gras go with the anytime dining so you have first choice at those two restaurants starting at 5:30. I would suspect Pig and Anchor will also be included like Mardi Gras, again to spread out the dinner crowds. If ChiBang is like the Mardi Gras version, stick with the Asian side of the menu. Blue Iguana has better Mexican food than ChiBang if that's your hankering. Cucina is on par with Olive Garden, maybe a little better, though I will say the lunch during sea day was fun. Best restaurant on Mardi Gras is Rudi's Seagrill so if you're looking for an awesome night out, I highly recommend that restaurant. 555 is a good steakhouse, but Rudi's was the best meal onboard for us.

You should never, ever purchase travel insurance through a cruise line, any cruise line, always purchase it independently. We get far better coverage for either the same amount as the cruise lines or less going third party. We've been cruising since 2006, we purchase insurance for every single cruise, but never with the cruise line. If you cruise enough, definitely look into a yearly policy vs. the per cruise policies. Usually that works if you cruise 28 days or more in a single year or four 7-night cruises.

She worked 9 months straight. The typical captain contract is 3 months on, 3 months off. She IS getting a much needed break right now.

Nope, I had the premium package. No WiFi enabled calls directly with my phone. It could have been done with WhatsApp, FB or other app. But not direct "Calls over WiFi"

I was just more amused by his teaser. Obviously that space has something to do with whatever entertainment Nick is designing for that ship. 🙂

The head of Royal Caribbean's Entertainment, Nick Weir with a little teaser this morning...His official title is SVP, Creator in Chief at RCI Entertainment. In other words, he's responsible for all the original shows on RCI. 🙂

I will eat most anything once. I think live bugs are the only thing I have passed on so far. But most things I'll at least try it.... It doesn't always go well. 🤣

We've taken three cruises so far since the restart. NCL Escape, Carnival Mardi Gras and Virgin Scarlet Lady. If anything we're more excited than ever to keep cruising. I think one thing that happened while we were all 'away for two years' is our recollections of the onboard experiences might have grown the more we were away. We might have all remembered things 'just a little better than they really were.' On top of that, everyone is dealing with staff shortages and supply chain issues are still a thing in the culinary world. So it's entirely possible the meals they're serving us right now might not be the same ingredients we used to have pre-pandemic. I will say the NCL Escape specialty restaurants were absolutely on point, the MDR is usually 'meh' so we don't go there. Scarlet Lady was amazeballs with food at every single venue. Carnival Mardi Gras was pretty good at most venue but Rudi's Seagrill was one of the best meals we've ever had at sea. We have been going on these cruises accepting that things are not fully back up to normal yet and we're just happy to be back on the ships. I've been filming and posting long cruise relaxation videos (up to 2 hours) on my YouTube channel of ocean scenes from the cruise ships 'just in case' anything happens again. I told my wife I missed those views more than anything and I was not going to miss them again. 🙂

Yeah she left Equinox years ago to go to the Edge and then about 10 months ago she joined Beyond as she was under construction. After a 9 month run on the Beyond, she and Bug are taking a well deserved vacation. You should follow her on TikTok, fabulous feed and you can also follow BugNaked for her feed as well. 🙂

Wooooooo, 14 days out of Athens sounds lovely!!

I was wondering how the ship would work at capacity. I think we had 1100 ish when we sailed.

The only time I saw them standing around chatting was during the slow times. Didn't really notice how quickly they were bussing tables as we were just there to grab breakfast and get back to our balcony. That took over 25 minutes to get our food because of the wait to flag down someone, but I really didn't pay much attention to what was happening in the greater Galley area.

We were on a Princess cruise where one couple ordered, caesar salad, roast chicken for the wife, steak for the husband, and vanilla ice cream. Every. Single. Night. They said everything else on the MDR menu was 'too adventurous.' Nevermind going to an Indian, Thai, Hibachi or other cuisine. That's what I mean when I say it's all subjective. Some folks think anything beyond "steak and potatoes" is terrible. Two tablemates tried my escargot on my last cruise and hated it, while I love it. I find the mexican side of the menu at Carnival's ChiBang terrible, the food was so bland it was almost flavorless, but I see glowing reviews of it here on Cruise Critic. So when you see people saying "this restaurant was just terrible" you have to see exactly what their complaint is and possibly read it with a grain of salt. Was the food really bad, or do they just not like what they were served. So food is really really subjective. 🙂

In the restaurants it's just like any other restaurant, you place your order and they serve you. In the Galley if it's slow you can go self order. If it's busy you need to flag down a server and have them place your order and get your food. It's not a great system in The Galley at the moment.

I would not show up any earlier than 3 unless you want to take advantage of the shuttle over to the Bayside Marketplace, which is not a bad place to kill a few hours. We showed up at 11:15am because checkout at the Miami hotel was 11am. So we dropped off the checked bags with the porter, locked our carry ons in the car and took the shuttle over to Bayside. But be aware, when we did this in July, the shuttle disappeared after 1:30. We waited until 2:30 and it never came back so six of us ended up ordering a Lyft to get back to the terminal. The check-in hosts at VV were not happy at all that the shuttle left us stranded at Bayside. It was only a $15 fare and guest services gave us a $15 OBC on the ship so it was a wash. Just frustrating at the beginning of our cruise so if you do opt for that, make sure you get the contact info for the driver and ensure they are coming back at 2:30/3:00pm to pick you up.

Oh yeah it's brilliant. BUT you might miss the turn to drop your bags off with the porter. We did the first time around. If you need to drop off bags, get into the far right lane as you're approaching the terminal, it'll literally be right in front of you at the end of the road. Just before you reach the terminal there's a big "AHOY" sign on the right with a driveway and a small grey sign that says Terminal or Drop off, make that right turn to drive up to the terminal and drop off your bags. As you pull out of that area and back onto the road, get into the left lane and the entrance to the parking garage will be about 100 yards from there. If you miss the terminal turn off, no big deal, you can make the loop circle back to the terminal in about 60 seconds. I speak from experience. 😆

No free calls or text messaging while at sea. You will be connected to the maritime cellular service with fees up to $14 per MB if you don't switch to airplane mode while on the ship. Your best bet is to use WhatsApp or other WiFi enabled calling app. Calls over WiFi did not work on Scarlet Lady for us and I also have TMobile. The only ship where WiFi calling worked for us so far was the NCL Escape. I will say my wife was able to use the internet and stream TikTok all day long with the included internet package. She could not stream YouTube or any other video service. I paid the extra $10/day so I could upload videos and do livestreams from the ship and that was totally worth the extra $10/day.

@krueg2828 VV is one of the most pro-active cruise lines out there for most any dietary needs or requirements. They're an active Vegetarian/Vegan supporter and will handle most any need. Just let your server know when you sit down any requirements you have and they'll make it good for you. Enjoy the cruise, they are an AWESOME food cruise line. I have a full food tour on my YouTube channel, I can't link to it here on CC, but if you search Where's Walter Travel on YouTube, you'll find my Scarlet Lady playlist. 🙂

Looks like Captain Morgan is owned by British alcohol conglomerate Diageo. But I did find an article calling Diageo "the Coca-Cola" of alcohol so maybe that's why they're gone? Guilt by association? 😆

@aml3679 very fair review and you did the absolutely perfect thing going into this cruise, you adjusted your expectations. Too many people go into those reviews with "Well on Celebrity everything is SO MUCH BETTER" without giving the ship they're on a chance. You gave the ship a chance and you had a great time. Especially as Freedom and Celebrity ships are two completely different experiences. We've only sailed the Mardi Gras on Carnival so far, have not tried any of their smaller ships yet. Thanks again for the great feedback!

One other plus for Nieuw Statendam, they have AWESOME private cabanas on the top decks. We rented one for the entire week on Nieuw Amsterdam and it's the best cabana experience we've had across 8 different cruise lines so far. If you want to splurge a little, get one of these cabanas. https://halfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/HAL_2018_Cabanas.pdf

Nieuw Statendam has the most interesting itinerary. We've sailed Nieuw Amsterdam which is a previous generation ship and Celebrity Reflection. We enjoyed both ships but the Statendam does look quite lovely. Turks & Caicos - One of my favorite islands to just chill. The beach is right next to the ship. Not a whole lot to do on this island but chill and I like it. San Juan, Puerto Rico - My favorite destination in the Caribbean. SO MUCH to do on this island. This past March we did a food tour with San Juan Food Tours and it was awesome. St. Thomas U.S Virigin Islands - Beautiful island, lots of snorkeling excursions here, more food tours and a lovely island to visit. Half Moon Cay, Bahamas - Their private island, pretty much a beach resort. I do love St. Maarten, but Reflection is also going to Nassau which is a very boring port for us, we stay on the ship in Nassau. Soon they will have a new pier with new options nearby so we might start getting off the ship. Falmouth is an absolute 'no-go' for us. We won't leave the port area, even on a ship excursion. It's the one of the few ports in the Caribbean where we don't feel safe leaving the port area. So for me, from the choices you gave, it would be Nieuw Statendam.

NSA is the one show everyone talks about as being 'weird' or 'not for me' but it's not representative of all the entertainment on that ship. That's what surprised my wife and I when we cruised Scarlet Lady. I expected many more sexual innuendo shows or overt sexual things throughout the ship and it wasn't there. Just that one show and the other one she has, with both shows being very easily avoidable by just not going to The Manor on those evenings. For us NSA was a bad show as well and we left after 10 minutes, but it's just one of many shows and performers throughout the ship. I'll agree, there's no "traditional big stage show" and you don't have the 'traditional comedy shows' but that is the whole point of that cruise line, it's not the same old entertainment as everyone else. but we really enjoyed Duel Reality in The Red Room and the various singers and performers at On The Rocks and throughout the ship. And we LOVED the drag queen show in The Manor, that was so over the top funny. Have never seen anything like that in any cruise. We've done 8 cruise lines so far, soon to be 9 and 10, and we do agree Virgin is the most unique of any of the lines we've sailed. But the quality of the food and the incredible crew really makes us excited to get back on Scarlet and try her sister Valiant soon as well. 🙂