libbyonthelabel

6 hours ago, xkritter said:

No...so far they are refusing to refund the deposits. At the moment they said they will transfer the deposits to a new booking. I will say the employees I have spoken with have been great and understanding. However the cost of the Carnival trip is substantially more than I what I found on RC and because of the ship and cabin location changes the Carnival cost no longer supports what I would receive.

Wow, I can't believe they won't refund them. It is very shortsighted. I know for me the change in rooms would have been an entirely different cruise experience. I am sorry, that really stinks. I hope you get the deposits back. 

14 minutes ago, xkritter said:

Glad you got it worked out. I spent alot of time today shopping around and decided to move our group to a Royal Caribbean sailing. 

Thank you, Did Carnival refund your deposits?

Carnival didn't handle this well at all. and it's too bad they lost your booking. I expect you're not the only one. 

I spent 6 hours and 40 minutes on the phone with carnival today, most of it on hold. I was attempting to change 3 cabins into two Vista Suites, almost the same price. If we couldn't have an aft wrap around like we originally booked it would've been a huge disappointment/problem. Then I had to get transferred to the resolutions department, I waited for her for over 3 hours. Then she said she wasn't actually authorized to make that change and told me I would have to be transferred to executive resolutions and that would be at the minimum another hour. But then at the last minute she asked me to hold for 10-15 minutes, ended talking to her boss and got it approved. It was a long experience and at some points my frustration showed (never disrespectful) and the two people I dealt with were always so nice and understanding. That helped. 

The only thing I did that actually saved my experience was while I was waiting for the resolutions person, I put a hold on the two Vista Suites (which were available) with a hold booking. The rest of the VS's disappeared while I waited. So I am so happy I did that. 

Glad this is over, not happy how it transpired but I think the carnival reps did a great job with the frustration they had repeatedly been getting. 

2 hours ago, xkritter said:

I am not happy at all. We had a aft wrap booked and the extra long side balcony next to it. Now we have a side ocean suite and a side balcony 4 cabins down. When I called they said if I cancel I lose my deposit.

 

I could pay more for a Vista Suite in order to get the wrap back but I can't get the other cabin back next to us.

 

Not sure what we are going to do. I don't want to sail with our current assignments at the price we are paying.

I am in your same exact situation. I will fight to get my deposit back. I don't want to sail at these prices either. When people were booked in an interior and are getting the same rooms we are at a fraction of the cost. I appreciate people posting their situations so I have this information to show how unfair it is. 

7 hours ago, Indytraveler83 said:

Did you book with a PVP or TA?  

 

August 2023 is far enough out that they may (should) be able to make it right, especially a TA or PVP.  

This time I booked with a PVP. I thought that and will try to call again to get through but I would imagine everyone's cabin assignments went out yesterday as well on this cruise so I am not sure what they will do. 

4 hours ago, Cinnamon2 said:

Just got my cabin assignment on Spirit for Dec. 3, 2022 and am not happy with what I consider a downgrade.  I had specifically booked a balcony on the Empress deck of the Freedom so my cabin would be quiet and between decks of cabins only.  Now I am below the Lido deck.  Also, they didn't give me an ambulatory handicap room which I had on the Freedom.  I know there are more of those rooms available on the Spirit than on the Freedom so they messed up.  Also, we are booked and linked with a total of 7 cabins and we seem to be shotgunned around the ship.  Oh well, phone calls will need to be made . . . 

They separated all of us as well. 3 rooms in a row and now we are on 3 different floors. Shotgunned around the ship is a great phrase. 

19 minutes ago, sd63 said:

If you are downgraded for your cabin can you cancel with no penalty? I had a B2B on Spirit, originally booked same cabin on purpose and now have been reassigned to downgraded cabins on both cruises. How is that possible?

Well at least I am not alone in my disappointment. I am sorry for you. I will take this as high as I can if they don't give me my deposits back. 

1 hour ago, nwcruiselover said:

What a disappointment this must be for you.  It isn’t right.  Were your bookings connected so they were aware you’re all cruising together?  I hope something can be worked out for you.

Yes, our bookings were all connected. Thank you, it really is a huge disappointment and I could book for a future year where we can all be together but I don't know that my mom will still be alive. I wanted to take her to Alaska.  But we won't be going if this is the situation. 

I am furious with my assignment for our August 2023 Cruise. We had three rooms, all connected and the center was an aft wrap around. (aft balcony next door and balcony on the other side)(7447, 7445 and 7439) We now have three separate cabins on three different floors. All over the place, no wrap around. (5250, 6163 and 7349) This will not work for my 83 year old mom at all. So disappointed. 

Completely agree with Linsuesue. We have 4237 on the Legend in August for our Alaska cruise coming up and we have 4237 on the Pride out of Baltimore in a couple weeks. Great having two rooms, especially when snoring is an issue and the balcony is amazing. The balcony is much deeper on the lower levels, you can put a lounger out from the outside cabin wall to the railing on 4, higher up we couldn't do that and  had to run the lounger alongside the railing. This is our favorite room on these ships. We like it better than a Grand Suite. 

My only complaint was that there was no red frog IPA beer on tap and I had to walk 30 seconds down the side to get to the red frog pub. Yes life sucks sometimes.

.

Love this post. We just booked our first Havana cabin and immediately scouted out how far the Red Frog Pub was from us:)

when you get to the terminal is there a priority line to go through security. on my last cruise out of baltimore the security line was horrible. i did not have FTTF but while waiting in the line i was looking to see where the priority security line was for future cruising and did not see one. on my next cruise i am hoping to get FTTF.

Yes, when we got into the very first line there was one official looking at ID's but two sides. He was working both sides. The other line was long but we were right at the front of the other and moved right on through.

Yes, we were on May 10-17 and we bought the week plan. But boy was it buggy. And really I paid $60.00 for email because even when I wanted to look up something simple about a port, it rarely loaded. It also told me several times when I logged in that my birthdate and folio were wrong, which they weren't. This resulted in me being locked out and then it magically started working the next day. After all that, I needed to have email, so I guess it was better than nothing.

Just to throw my experience in here, because I was very appreciative of others info when I was getting ready to sail out of Baltimore for the first time.

We were FTTF and were on the May 10-17 sailing. We got to the port around 10:45 and they had already been letting cars in. They lined us up in rows and we took turns, it was very fair (order you came) and organized. We got into the terminal at about 11:00 and were seated by 11:10. We went through all the fast lines. The only place they screwed up is they did not direct us to FTTF boarding seating section. But I was paying attention and when I saw what I thought was FTTF, I got up and asked and sure enough, they sat us with the wrong group. But we got tagged onto the last of the FTTF cruisers. Priority boarding started at 11:45 and we got on about 15 minutes later. It was so smooth I would say Baltimore is my preferred port.

As for getting off the ship. They told there was no need to be down to the dining room annex for the FTTF cruisers until 9:15am. But I didn't buy it. We got down there at 8:30am and were called to get off at 8:50am. We were in the car at 9:07 am. (this was May 17th) It was so fast! But don't listen to them and don't wait. I feel bad for the FTTF cruisers who came down and the room was empty and we left 25 minutes earlier, I guess unless you don't care about getting off fast. But we did.

I did a lot of research re: the cabin we booked for an upcoming cruise. I deliberately chose port side so that I can sit on the balcony and watch as we sail in/out of ports. Lots have commented that it is great to be able to do that (and this will be our first balcony cabin). I also deliberately chose to be under the Shore Excursion desk because those supposedly have little noise. Cabin side and location is important to me, and I paid the fare to get to choose (not for them to choose for me, which was markedly less).

 

Whatever you decide, best wishes for a great vacation!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Thank you for saying this! This is exactly what I was thinking. Whenever I am on a cruise, there is always a more preferable side of the ship for me. And I put serious thought into what side when I have a choice. And speaking as someone who just booked a cruise for April 2016, I do a lot of planning and thought so moving would not be easy. And I don't think that would make me a jerk.

Where will the FTTF appear online if it becomes available?

We got the offer, and in fine print at the bottom it said it was good for a maximum of two sailings. So we were able to book two cruises for only port fees and taxes. Legend in August and Breeze in January. I was very surprised it was good for more than one sailing.