me-shel

It's only two days... no guilt!! You'll be a better mama after relaxing and feeding your soul with a little time being catered to.

Thank you for all the great information, it's been extremely helpful to hear the "voices of experience" rather than just trying to interpret policies.

On the cruise side, it sounds like we actually won't be able to make any arrangements until after we board, but then it should be pretty simple. The response from Carnival:

You will need to bring enough medication and medical supplies to last the duration of your cruise. Our medical centers cannot refill prescriptions or provide the use of medical equipment. If your medication is a prescribed narcotic you must hand carry the original container and prescription. Please hand-carry your medications and medical supplies and not place them in your checked luggage.

 

We no longer have portable medical refrigerators onboard our vessels. If your medication requires refrigeration, medi-coolers are available for this purpose. Please visit the Guest Services desk upon embarkation as they are on a first come first serve basis and will require a $70 refundable deposit. If a medi-cooler is not available our ship's Medical Center will arrange storage, please contact them once onboard. Alternatively, you may bring a small insulated cooler no larger than 12” cubed.

 

If your medications are injectable, please contact our Housekeeping Department for a sharps container, if needed.

I can't quote times, but three of our bags were delivered very early. The fourth bag didn't arrive until after dinner. I wasn't terribly impressed... especially since all the luggage was dropped off together?? The early luggage delivery wasn't one of the key reasons we purchased FTTF on that cruise, though, and everything else was exactly as promised.

Thanks for the peek of your view. It looks gorgeous, enjoy!!

Main dining room breakfast menu

 

 

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These are all great, thank you! Question: Is breakfast served in the dining room every morning? Same menu each day?

I'm definitely a room-service-on-the-balcony breakfast kinda girl, and DH likes the buffet. I've done the Sea Day Brunches, but I never paid much attention to what was happening for breakfast in the MDR on the port days. My step-dad will be so happy if they're serving every morning, he loves sit-down service for breakfast.

Cruising on the Carnival Fascination and trying to "fill in the gaps" while we're traveling. Mom's unopened insulin needs to be refrigerated and here's what we *think* we know as well as some time gaps we need help filling.

Airport security : TSA shouldn't be a problem if she has frozen gel packs and a little cooler if she identifies herself as diabetic. Anyone ever asked for proof?

We'll be flying around 11 hours (with layover) so our overall travel time will be longer than that. Once we get to the hotel in San Juan... Then what? We'll be at the Sheraton in Old San Juan. I haven't contacted them yet, but are there any common services for storing meds at a hotel? Or will we just need to keep a travel cooler filled with ice?

On the ship we're expecting to request a sharps container and have Carnival store the unopened meds.

What about returning home if she hasn't had to open the extra meds? From docking to home is going to be another 16-17 hours. Will Carnival re-freeze ice packs for us?

Any experience is greatly appreciated. And if anyone has a favorite "travel kit" that works I'd love to hear about it. We're far enough out that we can order anything that would help.

They'll only let you get a lower price once? Another post suggested that we check often for price drops. I got a $220 reduction when I saw that and expected, based on that post, to continue to monitor the price in case of future reductions. I can save myself some checking if I already got the only reduction Carnival allows. Is the one reduction only for certain types of fares or is it a general Carnival policy?

I've taken four separate price drops on a current booking, booked Early Saver. Keep checking! :)

Edited to add: I checked again and I've actually taken 5 drops. Just be careful for certain gotchas when matching the rates. Ex: We originally booked on a reduced deposit. That promo was over and the new/lower rate required a full deposit. I made a payment to reach the full deposit and got an overall price drop.

I think the previous two answers covered the manner in which you can add them to your on-board account. There is no way (if you're past final payment) to add them to your on-board account ahead of actual check-in/boarding. In fact, I probably shouldn't have even mentioned "past final payment" as you cannot use them to add to your OBC at all prior to embarkation. I looked into this recently and that was Carnival's answer - you need to wait until you board the ship (or as mentioned, try to add them at check-in time).

Uh-oh. If I'm reading this right, does pre-paying your tips count as OBC? We're past final payment and have 7pax that will be on 4 different accounts. I've got 2 x $500 coming from AARP on Monday. I thought I would just call Carnival and pre-pay each person's gratuities so it's settled. Am I not going to be able to do that?? If that's the case, I'm going to kick myself for not ordering 10 x $100 cards and just using one for each person. If we have to do it at check in, my last hope would be we could load partial values from the card... And if it has to be the full value on a single account, then I totally screwed up. :(

This is great, thank you!! I'm 'leading' our party of 9, but I'll be the only one scuba diving that day. Sharing this with the rest of our travelers to help them fend for themselves for a while! ;)

We've bought them through AARP and their "Rewards for Good" program. You don't have to be an AARP member, but you do have to sign up for an online account, take some quizzes to earn points, and then you can buy them at a 10% discount. This morning I paid $900 for $1000 worth of gift cards that we'll use on ourselves.

http://www.aarp.org/rewards-for-good/

Others pick them up from grocery stores where they may earn points towards discounts on gas later.

I'm not familiar with the Verizon and Allstate programs people mention.

Get yours while they are available!

I just wanted to let you guys know. I'm not purchasing any this time around. But I had to share the news!

 

I think there should be a thread that tell others when they are up. What do you think?

 

 

CARNIVAL LIBERTY 2017

CARNIVAL LIBERTY 2016

Just ordered 2 x $500, thanks for the heads up!

I can't speak from experience since we don't sail until October, but we'll be staying in OSJ pre-cruise and I've been researching this with two people in our party over 70. I was really excited to find out about the free trolley that goes around OSJ.

http://www.touroldsanjuan.com/trolley-map/

https://sanjuanpuertorico.com/trolley-old-san-juan/

I can't answer the questions about where HAL docks, but it seems if you can get yourself to any point on the route, doing the hop-on-hop-off trolley might be a nice middle ground between a formal walking tour or exploring on your own.

We loved our banner from Shindigz - durable vinyl, inexpensive, minimal craftiness required, and the perfect size for the door.

In this pic it was on the inside as a surprise but we moved it to the outside. I ordered the self-adhesive "low tack/no residue" (basically a giant sticker) but was still worried about leaving anything behind so we ended up sticking it up with a few pieces of poster putty... just in case. This was before they added the fire retardant requirements so not sure how it would stack up today.

Sounds like kiosks may be the way to go, with GC's purchased in smaller denominations so I can split them between rooms/accounts.

A twist on my own question: Can you apply a VISA gift card to your account?? DH is getting some as a spiff from work, if we can use them onboard we may just stash them away until departure. I'd be worried if we applied too much we wouldn't be able to cash out the difference, though.

If we get a discounted gift card (ex: AARP), can we call in and pre-pay our gratuities across several rooms with the gift card? We're past final payment & our fare is fully paid.

And for anyone who'd question why we'd pre-pay gratuities: We're footing the bill x3 rooms, x7 pax this round and the less we have to keep track of while on vacation the better! ;p

Well that's a twist... I didn't even know I had a PIN. How do I find out what my PIN is??

Our teenage daughter's bringing a friend with us and we're nearing final payment. If I give her mom the confirmation number for their room, can she use that to call Carnival and make her payment? Gratuities?

Say: I want to pay $xx toward the room balance, plus $xx to cover gratuities for this specific person?

We can shuffle her money through us if we need to, I just thought it might be easier to give her that option.

Kind of related. If I wanted to take a cruise with just me and my 3 kids (leave hubby at home) do we all have to cram in the same cabin. Or can I book a connecting cabins with 2 in each? My kids would be 17, 15 and 7. I would put the teens in one and me and the 7 year old in the other.

You're fine. It may not let you book online, but you can just call Carnival and book over the phone. Our girls were across the hall at ages 10 and 16, and will be two doors down on our upcoming cruise. When I called they said the website doesn't recognize you're trying to follow the rules when it sees the young ages.

From Carnival:

• Where minor guests can be booked in relation to relative or guardian:
  
  • Guests 12 and younger
    If the relative or guardian insists on booking separate staterooms, minors must either be directly across the hall or next door. Guests 12 and under may not be assigned to a balcony stateroom without a relative or guardian (25 years of age or older).
    
  • Guests 13 - 17 years of age
    Can be booked up to 3 staterooms away from a relative or guardian (25 years of age or older).
    
  • Guests 18 – 20 years of age
    Do not have any restrictions and may book whatever location they prefer.
    

Looked at Fare Viewer and notice that it lists cabins by categories but my booking doesn't specify category just cabin type and number. Is there an easy way to determine the category of my cabin other than looking at a deck map and figuring it out from there?

It's on our email confirmation of the bookings if you don't want to look at a deck map. It lists our categories (6B Oceanview, 8A Balcony, etc.) right under the Stateroom number.

I'll ask for any price drop I see on the Fare Viewer since it only takes a minute to submit the form on the website. I figure every $10 gets me a free drink! I've submitted 4-5 times now to get to $150 savings on one of our rooms.

We had 4 booked Early Saver and dropped down to 3. We'd booked under a $75 deposit so they charged us $50 and gave us $25 as a future cruise credit. Those numbers can obviously vary based on the rate/promo that was booked. I did everything over the phone so they "looked around" for a 3-person room, said we'd be fine to stay but they reserved the option to move us if they needed. We ended up adding a different 4th person later, same room.

Thank you for the replies. Do either of them have Guys burgers?

They both do. :)

You can compare what's onboard side-by-side here:

https://www.carnival.com/cruise-ships

Click the check box next to both ships and hit "Compare Ships" at the top.

We sailed them both this past year and agree - no real difference. Go with the best dates.

Thank you for the great tips. We have a varied group traveling and are trying to provide options for different interests & budgets. This is very helpful!

We almost missed our 12:30 flight home out of FLL, literally running through the airport with the door being held at the gate with the agent yelling our name as we ran toward him. It was all because of customs at the port. Carnival was prioritizing people with "early" flight times to get off the ship first and kept stopping us from getting in line since they didn't consider our flight early enough. We finally stopped listening and went through the line. They were also asking anyone who was driving to wait, but there were people in the customs line around us that were driving or getting picked up so that didn't really help.

I think 11am *should* be fine, but it's definitely something I'd worry about after that experience. I'd have paid the extra for the peace of mind, too.

We'll be doing the same route and have some in our party that want to zipline so I'm curious what island(s) may be better than others as well.

We had a kyss bag and it began to fall apart at the seams. One seam was part of the locking mechanism. We switched to a cool bag. They are now selling thier 2nd generation of the bag and the quality and function is much better than the kyss bag. We never had a problem or uneasiness when using our bag at the beach. We lock around 2 loungers most times but have also locked to palm trees and other stationary objects. If its just a phone and wallet items, I like to use my waterproof case that came with an arm band.

We got a Kyss bag for this exact issue and have been dragging it around for about 4 years without any trouble - that's too bad about yours. And definitely disappointing they didn't respond to you. The Cool Bag looks another great option, with some nice extra features. We'll have to look at that one, too. Gen 2 is definitely a bit more money, but it looks like a really well designed bag! Have you used Gen 2?