NCMtnBoys

Symphony 7-night, January 21, Western Caribbean/Mexico

We sailed on Magic the week of Nov 13th. On boarding day they announced that you could visit one of the main dining rooms beginning at 1:30 to request table changes. We visited right around then to see if we were assigned a table for two and they told us we were at a table for four. We asked if we could be changed to a table for two and they said they'd put our request in, and they would be worked on the next day, and to check the app the next day for any updates to our table assignment. Sometime later the next day I checked and our table had been changed.

Much prefer St Maarten over San Juan. Love going to Maho Beach.

We were at GT last week. At check-in in Port Canaveral the agent asked if we were vaccinated (we are) but said she didn't need to see the card, she just had to ask. She never asked one single other health question, like whether we'd been sick recently, whether we'd been around anyone sick, etc. Nothing. I was really surprised. Then onboard, there was nothing to indicate that you couldn't get off in GT if you weren't vaccinated. No announcement, nothing on the app.

Just off the Magic Saturday. We had a tender port (Half Moon Cay) and for those people who did not have a ships excursion booked, once the ship is ready to start loading the tenders they call people by their muster station numbers to head down to Deck 0 to get on the tenders. It seemed like a slow process but it did help with the normal congestion when people are trying to get off all at once. They also did this at the end of the cruise back in Port Canaveral for Self Assist - called people by their muster station numbers to head off the ship, and would then start calling people by zone numbers for those who were collecting their luggage in the terminal. We were doing Self Assist and again, although it seemed slow, we had a very short wait in line to exit the ship, unlike when everyone is trying to get off at once. I'm not sure if I liked it or not because I'd never been on a ship that did it this way and it seemed like you were just sitting there wasting time until your muster station was called. You may not be calling in a tender port but this process may affect you at the end if you do Self Assist. The other thing I thought was nice was that they had two casinos onboard... one on deck 5 (smoking) and a smaller one on deck 4 (non smoking).

Gosh, when you said worst cruise ever, and worst vacation ever... I expected to read things like your toilet in your room overflowed with raw sewage and got everything wet and contaminated, or someone was walking by your table in the buffet and spilled their food all over you resulting in severe burns, or you were sitting in the theater watching a show and a light from above fell on your head resulting in having to be airlifted off the ship to the nearest hospital. I'd hate to read how you felt about your cruise/vacation if those thigs - actual really bad things - happened to you.

We had a Carnival Mardi Gras cruise booked for this coming January and cancelled it when I discovered we were only one 7-night cruise away from attaining Diamond Plus. Changed it to Royal instead. We would have reached Diamond Plus sometime in 2020 had the pandemic not come about. But once we reach Diamond Plus, that'll be it for us... we'll never reach Pinnacle, which is fine. The way I look at it is, at least Diamond Plus is attainable so I do want to get there... but I know Pinnacle is not attainable for us (we only cruise two times per year max, and we don't cruise in suites, so it's slow going up the loyalty levels for us) so I know I won't have to worry about getting there. But I do want to get to the level I know we can get to.

Hopefully the staffing issues get resolved soon so you can sail. We sailed on POA in Nov 2016 and loved it. Would definitely do it again as, for us, it was the best way to see so much of four different islands in such a short amount of time.

I was on Breeze over Halloween in 2015 and there were some phenomenal costumes. Entire families dress up as characters from different shows - The Addams Family, Scooby Doo and Friends, The Wizard of Oz, etc. Lots of creativity! And the ship decorations were great too.

We were at Coco Cay last month on Mariner. Harmony was scheduled to be there with us, also arriving at 7:00am - same time we were scheduled to arrive. We arrived first and I could see Harmony also positioning to come in. We were not given clearance to disembark until Harmony had also parked and been secured. Kind of annoyed me, but as others have pointed out, it didn't seem to make a difference as far as getting a spot for the day. We were off pretty quickly and as we walked by the pool area, no one else was there yet. We continued on to South Beach and it ended up being a good choice, as that area didn't fill up the whole time we were there. Didn't have to wait in any line for lunch items. We went back to the ship around 1:00 and as we passed the pool area, it was packed as expected. I was happy with our choice to venture over to South Beach. I think Harmony's all aboard was around the same time as ours, but we ended up pulling away first.

Nope. Couldn't care less who the CD is, or whether we ever see or hear from them.

I get it. And tonight when I booked our Jade cruise for September 2023, I had them leave the BOGO air promo off. As enticing as that promo is, I want control over choosing my flights... choosing the departure times, routing, layover cities and number of stops. The BOGO price of the flights for my sailing was $1450 for two people, round trip CLT-ATH. I may or may not be able to book something for that price when I do book my flights, but for me it will be worth paying extra to have a say in the flights AND book them months earlier than they would..

If I'd have had the Key for our 8-night Mariner sailing May 28th, I would have been very upset that the cruise terminal embarkation was a total cluster. The chaos in the terminal totally devalued the early embarkation benefit. We arrived for the shows in the theater 45 minutes early because I wanted certain seats. I saw the restricted area for Key/Suites/Pinnacle. It never looked like it quite filled up, right up to show time. I think if you arrived 20 minutes early you'd still find seats there. And if not, there are plenty of other seats. The restricted seating area in Studio B (ice show) was smaller and the show we went to did fill up, so I'd definitely get there 20-30 minutes early.

He did, but there were still many who were not wearing masks after that. We started wearing ours from the time we left our car at an offsite parking lot, on the bus to the terminal, in the terminal and wore masks onboard all week from day 1, any time we were outside our stateroom with the exception of when we were sitting in a lounge chair on deck 11, or when we were sitting at our dining table in the main dining room or the Windjammer. Wore them on the 5-hour excursion we did, in Bermuda. Wore them all through the last day as we disembarked and boarded the bus to take us to our car. Very few mask wearers,. Guy sitting behind me and a row over on the bus clearly sick, and no mask. As I've read in other posts, I noticed an increase in sickly symptoms onboard by about day 6-7. We've done Covid home tests twice since returning home Sunday and still negative. So sorry you weren't able to sail on this one, hopefully you'll be back sailing soon!

We were also group 1, but got down to deck 4 at about 6:45am. There were about 20 people in line ahead of us. I would have felt the same as you if I had arrived at 7:30 when the ship cleared... but arriving early, it seemed organized to me. Several crew directing people to where they needed to go to get in line. There are just A LOT of self-assist folks, it seems.

We were on the same sailing. I thought the sets for Gallery of Dreams were amazing!

Just off Mariner yesterday, 6/5. No reservations for shows, just show up. There is a section in the theater reserved for pinnacles and suite guests. Same for Studio B for the ice skating show. Burgers and dogs at the very back of the Windjammer, available for both lunch and dinner.

I think some people are contracting Covid after they take their embarkation test two days prior to boarding. Whether it be in an airport or on an airplane to the port city, dinner at the port city the night prior to embarkation, or whatever else, that period of time between testing and embarkation is potentially high risk for exposure. We sail on Mariner Saturday from Port Canaveral and are driving to the port. They are doing mass testing onboard on Day 4 because Bermuda requires a negative Covid test to disembark and our pre-cruise test this Thursday for embarkation Saturday is too far in advance of our arrival in to Bermuda on Day 5. I suspect the Day 4 testing will reveal positive cases. I am planning on getting take out Friday night after we arrive at our hotel, wearing my mask on the shuttle to the cruise terminal, in the cruise terminal and onboard when outside my stateroom, avoiding elevators, avoiding the casino, spending time on our balcony instead of on deck. I don't use the pools or hot tubs, don't sit at bars... my main concern is the dining room, Windjammer and theater. Will wear my mask in the theater and until seated for meals. I don't want to be one of those positive cases revealed on Day 4 and ruin the rest of the cruise. We are vaccinated and boosted twice, but want to return home healthy and not get Covid in the days that follow. If I end up getting Covid, I will at least feel I did all I could to avoid it, short of not cruising at all. But we're ready to cruise, so are taking as many precautions as possible.

I also called tonight to see about getting the approvals for Saturday's Mariner sailing, because I had gotten the "4-day prior" email this morning as opposed to the approval email that I was expecting since uploading of Covid results is no longer required. I didn't know whether to expect an approval email to come later or whether I would fall through the cracks. Began in position 51 and roughly 50 minutes later we had our approval emails. Doing the proctored home tests early Thursday morning, then will hit the road to Port Canaveral early Friday morning so long as our results Thursday are negative!

Great! Maybe Saturday's Mariner departure approvals aren't far behind!

We sail on Saturday also. We did our applications and paid the $40pp on May 2. With these changes, I'm hoping our approvals will come early this week since we no longer have to upload results two days before. We had planned to upload our pre-cruise results Thursday knowing they would not be the actual results to disembark in Bermuda since they'll do onboard testing on Day 4. Kind of frustrating to see there have been reports of people not receiving their approvals. Hoping that this week they'll just do mass approvals and send them since they won't be waiting for uploaded test results.