Solo1959

55 minutes ago, cruisegus said:

@Solo1959 which specific VPN software

I was using PIA vpn. And again, I connected 1st to the internet and only after I was connected then I'd connect to the vpn.

I use PIA on my Dell laptop running Kubuntu. I have to first log onto the internet wifi and THEN turn on the VPN. I can't have the VPN trying to go until after the internet is connected. Until I'm connected to the internet the VPN is trying to connect. I need to have the VPN off until I am fully connected. The I can use the VPN with no problem.

I use my VPN on Carnival all the time. Well, almost all the time. It needs to be turned off when 1st connecting to the ship's  internet. But once connected I can use it and it does work.

We were in 6449. It was LOUD from the piano bar directly below us and also a lot of noise from the club in the rear. We were okay with it because we kept late nights, but I wouldn't recommend this room to people because of the noise

It was a very nice vacation get-away. This was my 4th time out since the shut down. Food quality has greatly improved over when they 1st started. There was plenty of live music around the ship. The cover band was wonderful. Grand Turk and Amber Cover were very nice, but Grand Turk remains my favorite. We had a great time and in all honesty, our vacation was very nice.

The negatives were the very long lines for everything. Pizza was closed from 3am until 10am, but that really didn't affect me personally. However, the pizza was horrible. I usually love the pizza on Carnival. It changed. The dough was often raw, the color of the suace was off, basically it sucked this time. It was my 24th time on Carnival and this was the 1st time is was actually bad. Also, another negative that can't be helped. It was an unusual situation which will be fixed - there was a lot of soot from the damaged funnel. My new white shirts have black soot spots on them, might be ruined. So keep that in mind if you go out on deck with light clothes.

But the room was nice, the food improved, the music was good and I loved the ports.

Just got off Freedom this morning. Lines for buffet, pizza, bars, well, everything are horribly long. Wait was too long for the Deli to be worth while, burgers? Forget it. Not looking good with all these lines.

The HDMI input may indeed be disabled. I have never tried it.

However, I bring movies and TV shows on a USB stick that I will play on my computer. Just for giggles, I popped it into the USB input on my TV on the Magic last month. When I did this, there was an on-screen prompt to use the USB stick.

So for the entire cruise I was able to watch my movies and TV shows right on the in room TV set.

1 minute ago, wgeddings said:

Did you post a review?  Going on Elation in Dec and would love to hear about it. 

I wrote a review but it is in the 'review' stage on CC. Basically, this was the ship's 1st cruise in a year and a half so all new (to the ship) staff working with new teams, new supervisors, new protocols, new dinner menus, etc. The first few days were a bit ... off. But they started to get their rhythm in a few days. Things improved and got good.

I think the primary focus of Carnival for this first cruise was "just make sure everybody is happy." They bent over backward to help. Customer service was excellent even though there were glitches during the cruise. They made things right for me, no questions asked. Just overly helpful and happy to be back working.

The food and the buffet were a million times better than on the Carnival Magic just a month ago. Some of the entertainers were spectacular especially a guitarist who played the pre-show for the Epic Rock on the last night of the cruise. I didn't care for Epic Rock because it was canned music playing with poor to mediocre signers, and dances that didn't relate to the songs. But the pre-show is NOT TO BE MISSED.

The ship is beautiful after dry dock and renovation. Nassau was ... Nassau, and Amber Cove was really nice.

Things were broken: the a/c in my room didn't work so they moved me, the lights in the dining room were off and we ate in the dark for a few nights. No hot water in my new room. But by the end of the cruise things were being put back together and fixed and working.

I love the Elation, one of my favorite ships and I was glad to be back on her for this inaugural cruise. Again, there were glitches getting back to cruising, but most of them were fixed within days or by the end of the cruise. They probably still have some things to do, but they went above and beyond to make sure we were satisfied.

I just got off the Elation yesterday, the first cruise back. The Cruise Director told us that we were at "just under 60%" occupancy.

6 hours ago, JaniceB said:

Does anyone know if the Value Wi-Fi plan lets you listen to Amazon music or SiriusXM app for music?  I don't want to watch videos, just music in our cabin.

It says Surf all your favorite sites, including e-mail, news, sports, weather, banking and finance. Note: Does not support Skype calling or music/video streaming (such as Spotify or Netflix). 

I am on the Carnival Elation as we speak. I paid for the Value Plan. I usually pay for the faster plan. My experience is that I do not see any difference at all between the two plans. I watch Amazon Prime video, I watch Pluto TV. I see You Tube. I won't pay extra for the big plan again. On this 5 day cruise, an upgrade to the "better" plan is only $20 so there was little risk here. But I get everything with this Value plan.

As a caveat, I do use a VPN. It is possible that the VPN allows me access to these sites. But the speed of this Value plan is 15mps, the "better" plan on Carnival Magic last month was 11mps.

The only problem I experience with either plan is inconsistency. Sometimes the wifi just goes out for a few moments.

But i am happy to save the money and get the same experience.

I'm going on the Elation on Monday. I, too, got a crazy deal. The fare was less than the cab ride to the ship. And I live a whole mile away.

I just came off the Carnival Magic and had a spectacular cruise. It wasn't perfect, but lets be honest here, it was wonderful.

Amber Cove has something for everybody. It has traditional excursions into the island, but it also has a huge cruise port with pools, restaurants, music... You can absolutely have a great time at this port.

Bimini is a little different. Think of it primarily as a beach day. There is a very long thread here about Bimini. But for the average person, when you get off the ship, there will be a free tram right on the dock. The tram makes several stops including a free beach. There's also a pay beach. I'm sure you get added amenities at the paid beach, but it's the same sand, the same water, and you wil enjoy the free one as well.

My cruise Monday will be Elation's first cruise after the shut-down. And her first cruise after last year's dry dock. I am excited to see the new things and the changes.

Please post a review when you get home.

On 9/18/2021 at 1:21 AM, samiam0403 said:

Ordered 3 tests on 8 September, shipped 8 September, and an expected delivery date of 9 or 10 September. I still don't have them. Shipping tracking link with FedEx states it is an invalid tracking number. Sent an email 3 days ago to customer service (as well as a daily follow up email), and have received no response other than an automated one. I am less than impressed.

The exact same thing happened to me! And I was on the phone with them every day. The representatives are very polite, but they have nothing they can do except, as they told me, send a follow-up request to the warehouse. They tell me to call them the following day for more information. Nothing. Not a word from them. Luckily I ordered early, but I want to take them up on their refund offer and find a test someplace else.

3 hours ago, firefly333 said:

Actually I'm glad you didnt have a screaming title but I was watching for a thread about magic. Look how carried away they got about positive crew cases on vista. 

 

I leave in a week and toning down my buffet expectations.. sigh. Too bad.

Lunch buffet aside, I think you'll have a very nice trip. Have fun!

Yes, I did notice that the front was also blocked off. My usual room is 2216, a 1A solo with a porthole. So I tried to walk past it to say hello. But it was closed off. Most of those rooms are porthole cabins. Four of them are small 1A. They are using that area for staff. I don't know if they are using it to isolate staff with covid or just to spread staff out to minimize double bunking for them. But it supposedly was being used for staff this cruise and the rooms were unavailable for booking.

1 minute ago, Bostwick girl said:

also got off the Magic this morning, and we were on deck 2. Noticed the corridor was closed off by the aft elevators and wondered what was going on. We figured they may have been using those for isolation rooms. I’m assuming they told you why they moved you. I didn’t have WiFi but my friend had the social media and that worked great. I was really surprised at how well the Hub app worked.

, 

I got moved because they said they needed to do major maintenance in that area. Probably lowering the WiFi speed, lol. Just kidding.

6 minutes ago, jetsfan58 said:

Sometimes you have to swallow up the mishaps and just enjoy the Ride!! Hopefully you were glad and grateful to be on the water again!

Yes!!! What a relief to be back on a ship. Four of my cruises this past year were cancelled so this was so welcome, too short, but so nice to be back. I had a tough year, things got rough for me healthwise (not covid) and I didn't know if I would get this chance again. So it was particularly wonderful to be back at sea. And the balcony they gave me -- wonderful! I loved it.

I did have a very nice vacation and I am VERY thankful that I was able to go.

Of course there was no compensation, lol. They DID allow people to wander around the port - so technically they DID let us go to Amber Cove.

One of the biggest problems was that I was waiting, along with a LOT of other people, in the Atrium Lobby for over an hour and a half waiting to get off the ship. This was a technicality that the ship could and should have either anticipated or cleared with the port prior to our arrival and prior to having people wait on line wasting time.

My excursion was cancelled so I just stayed on the ship. I've been to Amber Cove several times so I know I didn't miss anything by not wandering the port area.

I just got off the Magic this morning. WiFi kind of depended where I was when using it. I originally had an aft cabin on deck 2, very aft, window looking at the wake. My WiFi speed was 15mps. They moved me to a balcony cabin 7433 where I could barely connect at all and it was painfully slow. On Lido deck and Deck 11 speed was about 5mps.

So they do have good WiFi but they don't have the access points covering the whole ship.

I just returned from my 5 night cruise. I had a very nice time, it was a great vacation. But the experience was ... mixed. There were good and bad things, but over all it was a very nice cruise.

The good was that the ship was beautiful, spotlessly clean, and looked wonderful with the new paint. The staff were even friendlier than before.

Our waiter at dinner told us that the ship was at 45% capacity.

The bad included:

1. The lunch buffet. Yes, Guys, Pig and Anchor, Mongolian Wok, Pizza, Deli, Burritos, etc., they were all open and good. But the regular buffet items were poor. Selections were limited, meat was dry, this was not typical of the quality formerly on Carnival. I hope it comes back to the quality Carnival used to offer.

2. VIFP was a problem. VIFP gifts were not available. Guest Services said I needed to send an email to Carnival and they would mail one to me. No pins, no gifts.

3. Platinum past guest party was held at 5:45pm, right at dinner time. People at my table popped in on their way to dinner. My fear is that they'll continue to schedule at an inopportune time, then claim that because the party is poorly attended they will stop holding it. The time needs to change back to where it was, around 5pm.

4. There was a huge problem getting off the ship in Amber Cove. A number of staff had covid, they were in isolation, and their contacts were held in quarantine. As such we couldn't go on any excursions and were allowed off the ship late in the afternoon only to stay in the port area, no leaving the port.

5. During covid the ship had gone a long time without staff, and therefore without full maintenance.  As such, they were fixing problems on board during the trip. My cabin had nothing wrong with it, but they moved me, from an outside room to a balcony, because they had to do major maintenance in that part of the ship. I was happy to move, but lucky there were so many empty rooms to choose from.

All-in-All it was a very nice cruise. I had a great time. It was not my best cruise on Carnival. And not my best of my 4 Magic cruises. But I had a great vacation.

I expect and hope that once the cruises start coming back and they begin to fill the ships once again that things will get back to normal.

I am currently on Carnival Magic. I have about 25 Carnival cruises behind me.

I will agree with the OP. The buffet is VERY limited compared to what Carnival used to provide. I can excuse closed stations, etc. But the offerings here are poor compared to pre-covid cruises.

Yes, I believe it will change as things move on, but truth is truth. Today the buffet is not what it used to be.

1 hour ago, Oceansaway17 said:

Single rooms on RCI are a joke when compared to the newer NCL ships.

They have dedicated inner hallways with truly solo cabins and it is quiet too.

Also have the lounge area with snacks.

 

IMO both RCI and HAL try to have a few solo rooms, but they scatter them around ship and for the most part pricing is not good either.

 

I have done Ncl Epic, Escape, and Bliss each having wonderful solo room experience.

 

The problem with the other cruiselines is their solo rooms are all inside. Only on RCI did I find the outside studio. I don't know why cruiselines seem to think solo cruisers want to be in a inside room. Give me a studio outside or balcony. And I don't need to be segregated by solo status. I like to meet people and I consider myself to be friendly so a room anyplace on the ship is fine with me. But please keep the studio price lower than for a standard stateroom.

The studio cabin is really only a good idea if it costs less. I've been looking at cruises for next year on Harmony of the Seas and the studio price is the same as a standard cabin. And with the standard cabin you get double points. I did luck out for two Harmony cruises with studio ocean views this year for less than $900 for 7 night cruises. But next year the price is the exact same as for a standard room - with only single points

On 8/23/2019 at 6:45 PM, Anyislandwilldo said:

Are these sugar straws being used across the entire fleet or just specific ships for now?

 

I'm on Carnival Liberty right now and there are only plastic straws so they're probably using the supply until it is gone. 

5 hours ago, Shaded Lady said:

It's the same, from the same place, by the same people...

That's interesting because it is different than what someone had told me. It might very well depend on the ship, and the supply in the room service station.