Priscilla Cat

Baltimore will never get to the point of turning anyone away. Don’t worry at all. We have sailed out of Baltimore a dozen times. Currently, we are parked there for our 2-week cruise to Panama Canal Only one time did I see every spot taken on the Carnival side of the lot (Royal Caribbean has the other side), and they parked cars where the group buses and shuttle buses drop off their passengers. And there is an employer lot that can be put to use, plus any Royal Caribbean extra spaces are available.

I saw the same article he/she is referencing. I don’t know how to attach a link, but it came up on msn.com, which news articles change each time I click on it. But if you go on msn.com and search Carnival, and scroll down a little, the article is there, and it does reference the omelets on Lido. Whether the article is correct is another story.

This was 2016 when KLM still flew in. They stopped a few weeks after we were there. We cruised there in 2014 and went back for a week in 2016. It’s a great experience. (Hopefully the photos can be seen - I am not tech savvy.)

My husband. were on the same cruise. We had a fabulous time. It helps a lot that we live 2 hours from the cruiseport, so it’s pretty stress free to get there. This is our 4th cruise on the Legend this year, and our 9th out of Baltimore, the rest on the Pride. The spirit class is our favorite. We love that no matter what floor we’re on, we can get from the front to the back without having to go up/down/around. We were in an aft balcony, port side, on deck 6. (We are platinum and for the first time this year, there was a platinum area to wait before getting on the ship. We had 12-12:30 check-in, got to the parking lot around 11:20, was let into the terminal building as soon as we got there at 11:45 or so, and onboard started promptly at noon.) I, too, don’t understand why there isn’t a movie screen. The Pride has one and it’s the exact same class. We have seen all the shows so didn’t go to any. We contemplated the variety show you reference and when I clicked further on the hub, it gave a description of a one-man show, so we passed. We usually enjoy the comedians, but thought the three of them weren’t that funny. I heard other cruisers say the same thing. We generally go to the PG shows as the R shows are too late for us (!), but did go to the one R show that two comedians did at the same time in the Follies theater at 9:30 pm hoping for better shows because of being adult rated, but were also disappointed. We have seen much better comedians on our other 3 cruises this year. We generally (prefer to) tune out all announcements, but did hear Gabe a number of times. His schtick was “This is Gabe, your cruise director, coming to you from the ceiling…”. The announcement about the delay in St. John was made by the captain. We were sitting on our balcony, so we did hear it. Otherwise, we never would have heard it since unless we open our cabin door when announcements are made, we don’t hear them. I have a very hard time understanding most of the captains, but it was something about a technical problem that the chief engineer was working on. Now here is where my husband and I differ. I thought I heard something about getting the gangway to detach. My husband heard something about getting an engine to start. How can two people sitting next to each other hear something so different?!? The captain did say that he would keep everyone updated, but I didn’t hear him make another announcement. We knew whatever the problem was had been fixed when we could see from our balcony that the lines were being cast off Portland’s weather was absolutely miserable, I agree. We had a 2 hour excursion to see city sights and one lighthouse at Fort Williams. There were port-a-potties at the lighthouse, but whoever maintains that lighthouse’s facilities should be shot for the condition of those facilities. They were disgusting. It was our first time in Canada on a cruise and those days were beautiful weather. We had all day tours those days that were wonderful. Whenever we cruise to some place new, we generally take a ship’s excursion and then see what the lay of the land is and see if we would like to go back. We plan to take the same cruise out of Baltimore again to hit up some other things, but everything we do the next time, we can do on our own. We did self-disembark and were in our car at 9:36 am. ilovesailaway: we didn’t go to the gym, I’m sorry I can’t give you any information.

Anyone know if room service can be ordered through the Hub app? Thanks!

No problems with any of our cruises so far this year - January, February and May. January was 60% full, but February and May were pretty full. Carnival Legend for all three. Didn’t test after any of them since we had no symptoms. My husband and I haven’t had Covid at all so far, at least not that we’ve known about, but neither of us has been sick with anything since this all started. I think we’re doing pretty good, especially since I am a cashier at a busy grocery store in coastal Delaware, albeit only 10-12 hours a week. I figured I would pick up something from someone, as I have had many a cough, cold, allergy, etc. medicines pass by my register, but knock on wood, we’ve been extremely lucky.

I posted a long explanation of my story earlier today on the Carnival Legend Roll Call May 22 sailing if anyone wants to read that one, but in a nutshell - -Uploaded negative test at 10 am yesterday - Started calling at 8 am, Eastern time, took 10 minutes of repeatedly hitting redial to get connected and get in the queue, 89th in line - Held for exactly 2 hours - Less than 5 minutes to get my husband and my travel authorizations emailed to us Quite a process. Way too complicated. I can see chaos tomorrow during embarkation.

I submitted ours at 10 am. I am resigned to calling tomorrow. There is no way anyone can handle 5000 submissions (with 2 ships being in port on same day) quickly.

Unkind and unnecessary.

So…it keeps circling back to sounding like a way for Bermuda to make a LOT of money off cruise ships to replenish the government coffers. Granted, the requirements are the same for vacationers flying into Bermuda, but generally, I imagine, there aren’t a couple thousand people flying on multiple days each month for the next 6 months. My rough math of the number of passengers on our ship on May 22 (Legend), plus the number of passengers on the Norwegian Joy that is scheduled to dock the same day we do, is over $225,000 on that day alone, if both ships are sailing near capacity, which it looks like the Legend is, at least. Gotta wonder how long they’ll use the Covid excuse to collect the fees. There are also similar requirements for our New England/Canada cruise in September, but the only thing it will cost me is some time to go online and take care of those requirements, as Canada isn’t charging an arbitrary fee. But it is what it is. The Baltimore port is a 2 hour drive from our house so no airport drama or airfare cost for us, and I want to cruise to Bermuda one last time as our last two tries were cancelled due to a hurricane and Covid, so that’s life. I’m sure I have wasted much more money many times over the years than the $80 fee that I paid to Bermuda for my husband and myself.

I don’t use a TA. I booked this cruise directly. And we have always gotten any notices from Carnival promptly up until now. Both my husband and myself received emails about how to get our Platinum benefits once onboard, and I was able to check us in, so I know Carnival realizes we are sailing in a couple weeks. I chalk it up to “s**t happens” and luckily I am very detail oriented in most things so generally chaos doesn’t reign, but I can see potential chaos on embarkation day with this sailing being one of the first to Bermuda for the season. (And as a side comment - if this is a requirement of Bermuda, and I want to go to Bermuda, I will follow the rules, but this is quite the sweet moneymaker for Bermuda. $40 per person for people who have already proven they are vaccinated and had negative tests to be able to sail to begin with on our ship, plus the Norwegian Joy that is on the schedule to be docked in Bermuda on the same day we are, is quite a haul just on that day alone.)

I just saw above that S&LMom received an email about the Bermuda requirements a week ago. We have received nothing so far. Very inconsistent communication. We are good, but hopefully those who do not receive any communication are the savvy ones who already know what to do.

I understand what you are saying. I can see both sides. We should all do our due diligence, and read the protocols on Carnival’s website often, but the extra requirements that are particular to Bermuda should be communicated, at least for the first few cruises there until it becomes more common knowledge. We sail in two weeks and haven’t heard a thing from Carnival, yet two people on the roll call got notifications already of the extra requirements. I figured we would eventually be notified also, although I already researched it and have applied and paid for the Bermuda travel authorizations for my husband and myself. But it’s been 4 or 5 days since I read that on the roll call and neither of us has gotten any notification. We are good to go, except for downloading our (hopefully) negative tests to the Bermuda website, but I can see a cluster on embarkation day with people who are not aware. Not everyone follows John Heald, nor are on Facebook at all. It should be an interesting embarkation day.