TVChick16

Thanks for the responses!!! That's really sad for the Blue Bus owners.  It seems like the permit restrictions were new and sudden. Since their livelihood depends on these bookings, it's such a shame that the rug was pulled out from under them only 2 months into the season. I can understand the need to restrict the number of people allowed at the glacier, but why so sudden?

I sucked it up and decided to book the Mendenhall Glacier Experience through Holland America and pay $15 more pp for only 2 hours at the glacier instead of a full day.  Because our sailing is in 3 days, it would not allow us to book through the Navigator app or online, so we called Holland America and successfully booked the excursion. 

I booked the Blue Bus Glacier Express to Mendenhall Glacier through Viator months ago for July 13 (next week). I received an email today that my reservation had been cancelled with no explanation. I got on the site to investigate, and all dates are grayed out through August 2024. 

I booked this tour because it allowed you to spend as much time at the glacier as you wish whereas excursions booked through the ship and other tours I find only give you 1.5-2 hours at the glacier which is not enough time to do the hikes we want to do.

I saw on another thread that someone used the white buses through Juneau Tours for the same price as the Blue Bus ($45pp), but those are sold out online.

Does anyone know if there is another comparable option? I'm leary of taking the public bus as it drops you off 1.5 miles from the glacier, so that's an extra 1-hour walk round-trip along the highway. I cannot find another tour that doesn't rush you in and out in less than 2 hours (and the short tour through the ship is $75pp!).

My group of 4 were just on the Sensation for the January 2 sailing. It had been a few years since we sailed on a Fantasy class ship, but we found it perfect for a 4-day sailing. The ship is clean and there are many upgrades throughout. It was kind of nice being back on a smaller class of ship because it felt more like a home in that it didn't take forever to get from point A to B. We were in cabin U15 (and our friends were in U3) on the front of the ship and when we needed to run back to our cabins from the back of the ship (or head to dinner in the rear dining room each night) it didn't feel like a journey.

The public decks areas were pretty crowded on sea days, but that's the norm on the smaller ships. You do need to get to the showroom and the comedy club early in order to get a decent seat but we've found that's the case on all Carnival ships.

The staff was great throughout the ship and sailing out of Miami is always a bonus.

Ay "tips" for being picked to be part of the show? I know my girls would love it (OK, so would I ;)). Do they pick ahead of time or should get there early and sit up front? Or is it all just completely random?

If you want a better chance of being selected, sit on the end of an aisle in the front half of the room. Be ridiculously exuberant. If you are an adult, you won't win the grand prize as it always goes to a kid. But everyone selected walks away with a mini travel version of a Hasbro game.

The room will be split down the middle... blue team on one side and red team on the other side. Those picked have to answer either a Scattegories type question or a Trivial Pursuit question correctly to actually get on stage.

They will normally choose 3 adults and 1 child for each team and then 1 person to be the captain (that person sits off stage and pushes the button for Simon Flash... I don't know what else they do). There are two rounds featuring two different games, so up to 20 people total will be able to play.

At the end of each round, each player from each winning team chooses a Monopoly card. The players from the losing team part the stage with a miniature travel version of a Hasbro game. At the end of both rounds, all of the players from the winning teams go back up on stage with the cards they selected and insert them into a "ATM". Whichever person's card displays the highest number wins the grand prize. I've watched this game half a dozen times and every time they rig it so the youngest kid wins the grand prize (which is an assortment of Hasbro games which I'm assuming they ship to your home). The remaining non-winning players leave with a mini travel Hasbro game.

The on-stage games vary, but they are life-sized versions of different Hasbro games including Connect Four (using basketballs instead of checkers), Simon Flash (each person has a large light box box strapped to their chest), Operation (like a skee ball game), Sorry Sliders (slide large game pieces across the floor into a curling-like target) and a few others.

They hold this game twice on the 7+ day cruises (normally held on sea days) and it's pretty much always sandwiched between Bingo games, so the room may be pretty full even if you get there early. If you sit in the balcony level, you won't be selected.

It's something fun to watch once or twice, but it's kinda cheesy.

My husband and I cruised on the 01/02/16 Carnival Breeze sailing. My birthday is 01/01 and I've cruised during my birthday week many times, but this was the first time that I received birthday gifts from Carnival. A couple days into the cruise we came back to our stateroom to find a gift tin with two gifts cards inside. One was $10 to the Cherry on Top candy store and the other was a complimentary dinner for two to Cucina del Capitano. It was a pleasant surprise and we redeemed both of them. It came with a card that said "Happy Birthday Month" which made sense since we weren't onboard during my actual birthday.

One of our tablemate's birthday was on January 3rd and she said she also received 2 gift cards. Hers were different than mine as she received a $25 gift card to Bonsai Sushi and a 2 free tickets to the Thrill Theater.

Did you he give a reason for servicing your cabin last/so late? Was it just because it wasn't a priority?

Yes, he just wanted to get the other cabins turned over first. It was fine with us as we had already showered that morning and weren't planning to hang out in the cabin.

We were intrigued with watching how the crew members scurried about in between sailings. We watched the last people disembark and then wandered around our own personal ship! I don't know what anomaly made it so that we didn't have to get off and get back on. We went back to the atrium to watch the first passengers board for the next sailing. It was cool to see the excitement of passengers as they boarded the ship.

I think it depends on WHICH U.S. port you are sailing from. We did a B2B on the Paradise out of Tampa and they DID NOT make us get off the ship. We just had to go to the customer service desk on board to pick up our new Sail & Sign cards.

It was cool but weird being the only ones on the ship for the hour or so between the last passengers off and the first passengers on. We walked around and took photos of the quiet venues, and there was a lot of quick cleaning and sprucing up happening on board.

We had the same cabin, so we didn't have to move our things, but our room steward wasn't actually aware that we were staying! We saw him on the morning of our second leg and told him we were staying on board... and he thought we were kidding. Once he realized we were serious, he said that our cabin would be serviced last, and it actually didn't get serviced at all until turn-down that evening. BUT, we did receive a complimentary bottle of champagne and some chocolate covered strawberries as a B2B gift before dinner on the first night of the second leg.

One of my favorite parts of the cruise is arriving at our table the first night and meeting new friends. In the 10 cruises I've been on, Carnival has done a great job of assigning tablemates. As a matter of fact, we are going on a cruise next week with a couple that we met in the MDR in January!

We keep in touch with a lot of our former tablemates. I'm 38 and my husband is 39. We've been married for 15 years and don't have children. Carnival tends to pair us with other couples around our age, although it seems there's often one couple at the table that doesn't show up every night. I've cruised with my mom twice and they've paired us with couples / friends of various ages.

I was thinking about my "food plan" this morning (10 days to go!) and already decided that Guy's Burger Joint would be our first stop after boarding. :D

I headed upstairs to the sun deck looking down on the Lido to meet my fellow Cruise Critic folks.

Carolyn, it was great to meet you and your son! We had a great time on the cruise and booked our next one while onboard. :p Thanks for posting the pics of our roll call M&G. Obviously from the pic above Jimmy and I were all smiles and excited to be cruising! :D

Great review! We'll be on the June 29 Fascination sailing.

I've been on many cruises and they have a different show each night. According to the Fun Times it seems that the Fascination just repeats Motor City and Divas each night but at different times. Is this true?

These are our servers Jin and Lee with my daughter on the Dream last

summer. They were awesome!

 

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We had the waiter on the right (I believe her name was Ni, not Lee) on our Valor cruise in January. She was very good... she started bringing us and our tablemates multiple entrees even though we didn't order them because she wanted us to get the full menu tasting experience! :cool:

Thanks so much for the review... I enjoyed tuning in every day for the next chapter. We'll be on the Valor with the same itinerary in two weeks... so excited! :D

Thanks so much for the review so far. We'll be on the Valor in less than 3 weeks and I can't wait to read more! :D

My mom won a cruise in 2004 and she invited me to be her plus one. It was the first cruise for both of us. I did feel bad leaving my husband at home, but he had experienced cruising once in his life with an ex-girlfriend.

After the cruise, I realized how wonderful cruising was and told my husband we needed to do one together. We did our first cruise together in December 2006 and have been on 3 more together since then. And we'll be on another one in three weeks!

My husband and I do everything together and I think if I cruised without him again it just wouldn't feel complete. Of course, we don't have any kids and I don't take vacations with anyone but my husband.

We participated in the "The Carnival Quest" on our last cruise on the Inspiration. It was held at midnight in the same showroom where the comedy shows were held. They asked people to team up in groups of 6-8, so we paired with two of our MDR tablemates and another group of 4. Needless to say we got to know each other quickly!

Some of the things they asked for were a condom on a man's head (we won this one but only after we broke several condoms!), a pair of "warm" undergarments (meaning someone had to be wearing them and take them off), a male and a female from each team to completely swap outfits, piercings "below the neck but above the knee" (only one girl went up to the stage for this... and basically pulled her boob out for many to see), two girls kissing with tongue, two guys kissing on the lips, plastic surgery scars and many other raunchy things. The first three people to run up to the hosts with their completed item for each category scored points.

At the end the points were tallied and our team came in 2nd! First place received 3 bottles of champagne, 2nd place received 2 bottles and 3rd place received 1 bottle. We brought ours to the MDR the next night to share with the rest of our tablemates and tried to describe what we did (or refused to do) to score the loot.

Of course, every time we ran into our teammates on the ship all we could do was laugh since we'd all see each other half naked. :o

On a previous cruise on the Imagination we participated in Carnival's "What's in the Bag" which is way different than "The Carnival Quest". Basically anyone that wanted to participate in the bag game went up on stage in the main showroom (it was in the middle of the day on a sea day). We were split into two teams and everyone emptied out the contents of their bags, purses, pockets, etc out onto the floor in front of them. The team to send a member running to the middle with the item scored a point. Most things were tame - foreign currency, do not disturb sign, man wearing lipstick, etc. The most risque thing they asked for was a man wearing a bra that woman had to take off her body. Our team won and we all received Carnival medals.

We love Porthole cabins... they are a great value! My first cruise was in and inside cabin (not my choice, but we won the cruise so no complaints!) and I hated not being able to tell what time of day it was, what the weather was, etc. I don't need a spectacular view, just some natural light! So, my second cruise was in a PT cabin on the Fantasy. We paid less than the going price for an inside cabin. We have also sailed in PT cabins on the Imagination and the Inspiration.

My husband gets seasick, but he takes Bonine every day and has never had a problem in the PT cabins. When I'm in the process of booking our next cruise he always reminds me to make sure I see if there are any PT cabins available!

You can see pics of the cabins we have stayed in... links to pics in my signature.