In2why

The Cheers program would not benefit us, and I wonder how many people drink even more than they normally would to make sure they get their money's worth.

We had all the drinks we wanted and didn't break the bank on a 7 day cruise.

We ordered a bottle of Rum from Bon Voyage because for us it is the most versatile. We were able to bring a 12 pack of beer with us, that is always a crap shoot of course. That beer was for DH to drink in the cabin. When on deck hanging out we ordered a bucket of beer a couple of times. We had 4 ports so cheers are wasted on those days in my opinion. We bought 2 bottles of liquor in port to take home and fully expected it to be confiscated when we boarded. It wasn't. Surprisingly we had more than we could drink and still remain comfortable. But neither of us like being stupid drunk.

We also bought a soda package for me. Not going to lie.....I shared it with the kids sometimes, and got a coke once in awhile for the rum. But none of us are big soda drinkers so even then Carnival made money from it.

The water on board is great and I am a well water snob who hates most strange water in city's. Being in the sun we drank plenty of water and juices.

My kids love cruising as much as I do, if not more. We went during school so there were not a lot of kids on board, but they still made friends. I also think at that age it depends on the child. Does your son like to spend time away from you at home? My nephew had never been in preschool or daycare so he hated camp. He wanted to play with the other kids but only if Mom or Dad stayed with him. So if your 5 year old is a bit independent and has already spent time with other kids he will likely love it. If not, maybe not. There is a lot for kids to do on board. My youngest was 6 when we went on our first cruise and we will cherish the memories forever.

If you're doing a mock booking without being logged in Past Guest freebies will not be included since the site doesn't know it's you.

I was logged in....I think it was for a b2b either out of Ny or PC since I was only looking at insides on those cruises. I haven't cruised an inside yet, but if it gets me on a ship for 14 days I am considering it.

Excellent review.....can't wait to read the ending.

It just happened today. Past guest special, free two cat upgrade, price though was $12.50 extra per person per day to NOT have bunk beds. So price increased $200 versus the rate originally shown.

I saw that as well. I can't remember which mock booking it was though since I have looked at so many over the last week. But I remember thinking it was bizarre since dear hubby and I are not going to sleep in bunks.

Where did you get this impression? On our recent cruise last month, I was able to order multiples with no problem.

Did they bring you an entire second plate or add the extra steak or lobster tail to your plate? I have read quite a few reviews stating that they had to finish their first portion before being given a second ? That wasn't your experience? I know I would like to order some of the more intriguing options for us all to taste, like rabbit or snails but wouldn't want to order it as my meal.

Yes, same here. We don't usually request the same servers and so far, have not had service that was exceptional enough in the MDR to merit leaving extra. Honestly, we've only had that kind of service in an MDR once and it was on our first cruise.

After thinking about this a bet I guess I would tip extra if someone in my party had allergies and the server made up a special dish for us. Or if we wanted multiples of something and they arranged it. But my understanding is that they won't provide an extra of something anymore unless your first meal is finished and then they bring another plate? In other words they won't provide extra shrimp or an extra lobster tail with your meal. I think that is to shame people from asking for larger portions?

http://www.zydecocruiser.net/menus/AT_AF/glory/western/gloryWestern.htm

 

http://www.zydecocruiser.net/menus/AT_AF/glory/eastern/gloryEastern.htm

 

American Table Menus are available on Carnival Glory, Carnival Liberty, Carnival Imagination and Carnival Inspiration

I really hope this spreads to the Valor before October. Anytime they can use local food products will mean better food and I love the idea of the menu being based on the locales visited.

The breeze on the balcony dried my hair quicker.

The servers are tipped with the automatic gratuity which we prepay. I haven't had bad service, but nothing more than expected either. We haven't tipped extra. What has prompted those of you that do tip extra? I am trying to think of that type of scenario.

We have tipped our room steward and bar server extra for extra service but I am stumped on what extra service could be provided in the Dining room.

We have always likes spreading our wings and cruising other lines.

We just couldn't beat the Value that carnival provided

Now that the price points are getting closes we will defiantly cruising other lines.

Yes...the prices on Royal and Norwegian are about the same on some cruises. I am still deciding

You can have a private photo shoot. We did on the Legend. All you have to do is stop by the photography desk to make arrangements. The phones at camp are determined by the kids ages and availability. My brother was given one because his son was 4. We were not because our boys are older.

Yes, I am looking at an October sailing out of Port Canaveral because some family are going and want us to join them. Normally we are flexible and price determines our sail date. I am surprised that a cruise on the Valor during hurricane season is so high. I will likely skip it at that rate.

Make sure they have some down time. It is really exciting for them too and between the sun, fun, all you can eat ice cream, food on demand, late nights and an overload of the senses it can get overwhelming. On our first cruise I was shocked when my 6 year old had a complete and total melt down. He is always the most laid back kid. We went back to the cabin and I made him take a nap while I cuddled with him. Completely out of the norm. After that I made sure to stick closer to their schedule at home and give them breaks to just relax. We all have such great times on board. They prefer cruising to every other vacation we take.

I am looking online planning our cruise already. We have prepaid our tips, does the staff onboard the cruise ship already aware of this or will be expected to tip on top of the amount already paid?

 

Do we tip at the ports as well? I am really confused as to how this all works. First time cruisers, and nervous we will do something wrong.

 

thank you.

We also prepaid our tips. This was our experience on our last cruise.

We didn't slip our steward anything extra at the beginning of the cruise, but we did tip extra twice. Once my youngest wet the bed. I think he just slept way too deeply on the ship that night since he had not wet the bed in years until that night or I would have brought a pad with us. I removed all the sheets and the mattress pad from his bed so the steward would know we needed the bed remade and left a $10 on top of it. The Steward and assistant were great, the room was always cleaned when we were gone so we rarely saw either of them, and the only other time we tipped was when we called because we didn't know how to work the thermostat. It was night time, not to late but late, and we were freezing since it got cold outside that night. We gave him a $5 when he came and explained why we were still freezing.

When we had room service delivered we gave them $3 each time. There were 4 of us in the room and I ordered 3 or 4 items at a time.

Normally we just let the 15% cover any of our bar or soda orders, but we had an really excellent guy who served our entire family as if he were there just for us. Because it was a large family group we pretty much used a part of the deck by the pool as our meeting place the whole cruise and he hung out with us, knew all of our names and we never waited at all for drinks. Even if it was sodas ordered with the soda card. Each time he brought us a bucket of beers, or a round of drinks the guys gave him a couple of dollars and I know that my husband and brother both tipped him extra at the end of the cruise. If we had moved around or he hadn't been so excellent with brining the kids sodas, and even the older women coffee we wouldn't have bothered or tipped extra and let the 15% stand.

We didn't add extra or remove tipping to the food service in the dining room, lido, or steakhouse. They did what was needed nothing more, nothing less.

In the ports we tipped our driver just like we would a cab driver in any city. We tipped the crew that took us to swim with Stingrays and snorkel in Grand Caymans $20 because he actually personally helped us. But the other tours were group tours and other than when the operator put his hand out he never interacted with us so we just said thank you and considered the money we spent enough.

Other than that we tipped the porters that took and delivered our bags 5$.

I think bare bones with tipping could be the prepaid tips and then the porters at the terminal a dollar per bag, and that is really all we planned for, but circumstances were different in person.

So far as money goes......stay away from the pictures if you don't want to spend too much money. There are really overpriced and you can ask people to take your picture of your party and just about everyone will. For us the Steakhouse was okay, but not that big of a deal. Excursions are better and less expensive if you book your own. If you are driving to port look at hotels with free parking and shuttle service, it was cheaper for us to stay one night in a hotel then for parking at the terminal and we got free shuttles and breakfast. You will spend more than you expect so build in a cushion. But how much is entirely up to you.

Mike has a point. Carnival created this monster by not banning all indoor smoking when they stopped cabin balcony smoking. This week I even saw people in their night time clothes coming to the casino to smoke in the mornings on sea days.

They are not going to ban smoking in the Casino they would lose too much money. People with bad habits have more than one and they want us to gamble and drink.

I am also curious whether they have lost money by banning smoking on balconies? People who used to get balconies to smoke can and do book insides now.

As for wearing nightclothes and coming to smoke in the casino.....that surprises me, but I wouldn't be surprised to see people up on the deck getting coffee and a cigarette before getting dressed. I wouldn't do it, but I know others would.

I have been on 14 cruises and never had a bad experince and we've had fires, missed ports, total port changes, no ports at all, really really rough water, horrible servers, theft out of our luggage, gas leaks in our rooms that made it unbearable to even step foot in and probably worse. I have also traveled everything from celebrity to carnival.

 

The problems you are talking about happen on the nicest ships to the worse.

 

I have been on celebrity were dinner has taken 2 and a half hours to get through sometimes 20 minutes between courses. But my family never dwells on it. We sit relax, hang out, talk and enjoy our selfs because at the end of the day were not cooking so who cares.

 

As servers walking around on the desk there are only 1 or 2 that walk up and down the whole top deck getting drinks for the thousands of people aboard and they are usually only out during peak ours. So its hard to cater to one couple or even one area of the boat. There a bars all over the boats its very easy to get your own drink. A lot of cruises these day are a lot of self serving.

 

As for the singer not showing up maybe he or she was sick some times thing happen something that minor should not effect a vaction.

 

For your steward not clearing out your fridge. They are human with a lot of rooms with multiple guest and co workers telling them things throughout the day sometimes they forget things just like you would. Tip for next cruise just write a little note and put it on the bed. Thats what my family does and while they are in there cleaning they will see it and do what you have asked.

 

My luggage has arived at 10 oclock at night thats how all cruises are. Tip for next time You should pack Everything youll need for the day in your carry on. This tip is listed on every cruise website...

 

Cruise ships want you to buy everything and every anything you should of done your research on the pictire program before purchasing. Asked what price and size pictures were included ect. Thats not their fault you didnt ask or know what was included. Pictures are also expense they are on every cruise.

 

All the problems you have stated mostly aren't problems to begin with are just the way most cruises work. Maybe you should just a different vaction next time.

 

Yes some things aren't ideal but you make the best out of every situation. I guess my family being a waitress, my mom a lunch lady and my dad a police officer were just happy to be on a vacation.

 

Do your research before your cruise so you no what its like and your not upset with the ending result.

If cruising was as you described I would never cruise. Heck if there were many people who had the experiences you have I would never cruise. I love it, But I really like when I book a week in a beach house as well. You had a gas leak in your room and that was fine with you? Seriously? People stole things out of you luggage and no biggie? You were just glad to be on a vacation? I am just not that laid back.

Always an incubator for different illnesses anytime we spend time in crowds of people. A ship just has more people. Sorry you feel horrible and hope it passes soon. If anyone is interested Elderberry has been proven to be as effective bas tamiflu and can be taken as a preventative during cold and flu season. You can buy it at the drug store or even better make your own. I make a honey mixture for the kids, but a great use for a bottle of Vodka you get on board is making tinctures. Add 2 cups of dried elderberry to your vodka put it in the pantry and shake it every couple of days for a couple months. Then when flu and cold season comes around take a tablespoon each day. And if you catch the flu or a cold take it every four hours. Research it, seriously more effective than Tamiflu.

My wife got the offer also, just booked another $414{total for 2 no trip ins) balcony for friends, one rm in her name, one in mine.

Yep, both my Mom and Step Dad got the offers so now we will do the same thing, since DH and I got nada. Looks like the cruises out of NY are the best deals and that b2b from Ny to San Juan is really attractive. But there are a couple others as well.

All you have to do is use your S&S card. Have your step dad check his offers at carnival.com under the VIFP section. He will need to input his VIFP number to see his offers.

 

Also if he doesn't have any offers after he books another cruise have him Email casino@carnival.com and include his VIFP number to see if they can give him any type of comp. All they can say is yes or know. No harm in trying.

I looked it up for him and he had some great cruises to choose from, when looking it states casino cash amount depends on cruise booked. Is there a way to compare those when looking? Looking at the cruises I don't see that listed

Put your sail and sign card in a machine or hand it to the dealer when you play table games.

Thanks for the info. I don't gamble much but my Step dad on the other hand went what I consider crazy on our last cruise so I will have my Mom check his account. But I didn't think he did anything special other than use his sign and sail card

Stupid question but if you cruise and gamble in the casino are you automatically part of the deals when you sign up to gamble, or do you have to do something special to be part of the Ocean Players Club?

Ah, gender discrimination and double standards at their finest. What ever happened to fighting for equal opportunity? Prior to the 19th century, it wasn't socially acceptable for women to wear pants.

When men stop having hair long enough to braid coming out of their underarms and or hairy backs then they too can wear spaghetti straps or sleeveless shirts.

And most women care about what they look like and would not wear a sleeveless shirt or dress to dinner if they had back or shoulder acne.

Khakis and polo shirt for guys (solid colors so they look good in pictures) and usually a Sundress with sandals for my daughter and I. I also like maxi skirts made of Jersey/cotton material. They can be worn long or short depending on my mood and be casual or dressy depending how I pair them.

I booked an ov guarantee on my cruise last week and was to my great surprise I was assigned an obstructed view Jr.Suite!! I called to verify and sure enough it was mine. :D

And I suspect this is why some people who are Diamond or Platinum get upset. They mistakenly believe that they should get the upgrades over it being the luck of the draw. IMO