SmogMonster

Anyone know of a hotel near POM that will allow us to stay there one night pre cruise and then let us leave our car in their parking lot during the cruise?

Well, its not a deal breaker for us but I would definitely prefer table cloths. For me, its more about the gradual slide into mediocrity. Many on this thread have been cruising a long time. We remember when the dining experience was very upscale on every night. The waiters wore white gloves, used a little brass brush to brush off the crumbs between courses etc. The shows were vegas quality and we had live steel drum bands playing cruise music on the pool deck.

This was back in the middle 90's. Since then, alot has changed. Now we are subjected to a hokey collection of games like Hazbro (Embarrassing in my opinion), recorded music that so-called "dancers" dance to, Serving myself out of a bowl in the MDR, and to quote Yul Brenner...ect...ect...ect.

The luster and Classiness of cruising is long gone. And this is not just on Carnival, Royal and NCL have made similar changes and I am sure other lines have as well.

The big question...where will it stop? IMHO, we are stilll on the down side of the slope.

The Casino still provides this service.

Hate to say it but this is not always true. Last time we went to the casino and asked them to punch it and if we could have a stretchy lanyard thingy. The hostess asked us if it were for kids. When we said yes, we were told that it was policy not to punch them for kids or give them a lanyard as that would be a "hanging" hazard.

Now we just take a hole punch with us and do it ourselves.

I'd rather have the various discounted pricing options so I can pick the one best for my situation. If kids sail free doesn't give you the best price for your situation, then don't use it. I prefer early saver. I don't expect carnival to discount my already discounted fare... I also have to live with the early saver restrictions. If I were not a past guest and didn't want the early saver restrictions and wanted to choose my own cabin, the kids sail free promotion would save me money on several cruises I looked at... It saves money over the always higher fun select pricing...

 

RCCL doesn't give me the same pricing options so o usually end up paying more anyway...

 

 

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I think the point that the OP is making is that while advertized as kids sail free, this is not really true. Our evidence is what we have experienced when attempting to do a mock booking for the same cabin, same cruise etc. The price is not different when compared to what I paid for 4 paying customers. two adults and two kids. Also, I did not book early saver and had not other discounts other than past guest.

I guess I am the opposite. Carnival ruined Caesar salad for me because it was terrible. Way too many anchovies and tasted very fishy. Now I am afraid to order Caeser salad anywhere else!

On the other hand, I love the spring rolls, just wish they would give me more sauce for them.

This just shows how food quality is very subjective and because it is, I put no stock in negative or positive food reviews!

The people I feel sorry for, are the one's that are not knowledgeable with booking a cruise. We know what to look for.....know how to do dummy bookings.....know about the price drops.....how the promotions work...etc.etc.etc.

Thats exactly what I did. Did a dummy booking without logging into carnival under my account. basically, a brand new booking with no way for Carnival to know that I was already booked. Still $100 more for the kids to sail free.

I agree with the OP. We are booked on the Glory. Bokked it many months ago. You would think that the kids sail free program would be cheaper than what I am payingn now. At least thats what I thought. So I logged on to carnival to see and low an behold. NOPE. Actually it would cost me $100 MORE for the kids to sail free!

Looking forward to your review. We sail on the Glory on June 14. Hope you had a great time.

Once you get to HMC, there is a little beach shop near the water. It is where you can rent snorkels etc. You need to go there right away and ask to rent a clamshell cabana. They will charge you $20 and then walk you to one. If they are all taken, they have more and can set one up for you.

We might be in the minority but we dont like My Time Dining. Someone said in an earlier post that you can still get the same wait staff with ATD. I am not sure this is true unless you are willing to wait quite awhile. We have asked for particular waiters and never had it happen. If their set of tables is full, you will either have to wait or sit somewhere else.

We enjoy getting to know our waiters and them getting to know us. We like the dancing waiters also and arent afraid to get up and dance with them.

If I were you, I would go ahead and try it and see if you like it. You never know. Also, the two top tables are placed way too close together so there really is no way to have a private conversations etc.

Sorry your kids didnt like it but i dont know that I would blame Camp carnival. As you heard from the replies there are many who love Camp carnival and some that don't. My kids love it and usually spend most of their free time there.

i do agree with you that parents need to prepared and realize that their children might not like it or want to go. Plan accordingly.

I took my 14 year old son and 12 year old daughter on the Dream last August.. I was pretty certain they would love joining the children's club activities but boy was I wrong!! Lol.

 

Fast forward a few days into the cruise I found out that some of the teens where smoking and drinking on the ship. I'm sure it was a handful of them but my kids made it a point to let me know that they made a right decision by not signing up for the Kid's club. They had a great time anyway and it was nice seeing them enjoy each other on the trip. I may plan another for us next year!!

Help me understand this. I think you are saying that they were smoking and drinking while at Kid's Club? Is this correct? I assume so because you said that your kids made a good decision not to got to the Kid's Club. Personally, i find this very hard to believe. these are supervised activities and the Carnival employees would lose theri jobs if they permitted this to happen.

If it didnt happen at the Kid's Club, then why are you blaming the Kids Club Program?

Azarmara, Princess, Celebrity and HAL do enforce their dress codes for the MDR. Even NCL with its "Freeslob" cruising enforces the dress code in one of it's dining rooms on board (the other MDR's motto is nothing is too ratty for dinner).

Well, i am not sure you are correct. can you share evidence of your claim? i searched Princess and Celebrity webistes and reviewed their contract. There was nothing anywhere on the Princess site or their contract that speaks of curfews.

Celebrity has only this: "Ship's management reserves the right to enact curfews on an individual, group, or ship-wide basis, if in the sole judgment of the ship's Captain, such steps become necessary to ensure guest or crew safety."

Personally, i would be ok with Curfews. I am just challenging your position that the higher price lines do this.

Azarmara, Princess, Celebrity and HAL do enforce their dress codes for the MDR. Even NCL with its "Freeslob" cruising enforces the dress code in one of it's dining rooms on board (the other MDR's motto is nothing is too ratty for dinner).

It probably depends on the ship. We have friends who have cruised on Princess and Celebrity and can tell you from their experience, kids were all over the ship, dress code not enforced etc.

this is probably true of Carnival as well. We have been on some carnival ships that enforce their policies and on other ships that could care less! i wish that Carnival would consistently enforce their policies across the fleet. I get tired of seeing all the youngsters using the hot tubs as their personal pools. We even had a few times when the kids were doing canon balls into them! But then again we have seen inconsistent policy enforcement on RCCL and NCL also.

CCL suggests a lot of things.

Tips

Dress,

Kids curfew,

Serving food at the buffet,

making noise in the hallway late at night,

You dont have to follow any of those things.

 

Do what you want.

After all its CCL.

 

The low price leader.

Hmm, based on your logic, the high priced leaders enforce their dress codes, have curfews and police the hallways at night!

NOT! I love it when a CCL basher proves that they dont know what they are talking about!

Gatormama,

I just read your first post and realized you adopted a girl from China. I am not sure why our experiences were different. Oh well.

I agree with you that it would have been a whole lot easier just to get a US Passport.

Did not get to the bottom before posting.

1. You can readopt a child in the U.S. to obtain a U.S. birth certificate.

2. Foreign adopted children are not legal residents; they are American citizens. It is an adoption visa and they are American citizens when the plane touches U.S. soil.

3. All foreign adoptees travel to America on a foreign passport which is a legal document and can be used by the parents as a passport for the child if the issuing country recognizes dual citizenship (not the best idea since the U.S. government has no obligation to help if there is a problem)

 

 

I still don't get why the parents just didn't get a passport for the kids?

Gatormama, I am interested in your position. Have you adopted a foreign born child? If so, your experience was very different than mine. Also, was yours before 9/11? All immigration laws including adoption laws changed after that fateful day. It is not true that a child automatically becomes a citizen as soon as their plane touches down. It is automatic in SOME cases but not all. It depends on whether the child has an IR3 or IR4 visa. It is also not true that a foreign born child when readopted on the US gets a US Birth Certificate. What they get is a Certificate of Foreign Birth. Printed right on the Cert are the words "This document is not proof of US Citizenship". I know this because I adopted a foreign born Child under an IR4 Visa and readopted her in the US. She has a Certificate of Foreign Birth. We had to get a Certificate of US Citizenship which we could not apply for until we had the Cert of Foreign Birth.

They had a passport for the child.

They did not have a passport for the child. They had his current Ethiopian passport with entry Visa.

Also, on the original blog, the family claims that the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 allows an adopted child’s foreign passport with US entry stamp to be used as proof of US citizenship. I looked it up. This is not true. In fact the CCA of 2000 simply states that the foreign passport with stamps (among other documents) is required to OBTAIN proof of citizenship such as a Certificate of Citizenship or passport.

I think I may have discovered the problem...Many, including myself, have asked why carnival did not accept the adopted child's us birth certificate. I was looking at my adopted daughters US birth Certificate. What is actually is, is a United States Certificate of foreign Birth. It also says that the certificate is not proof of US Citizenship. When we readopted our daughter in the US, we were told that we also needed to get a Certificate of US Citizenship which we applied for and received. Only the Cert. of US Citizenship proves Citizenship.

In order to board a cruise ship, proof of citizenship must be presented. Based on the families own blog, they did not have this documentation. The US birth certificate they refer to is a cert of foreign birth. Since the green card was a digital copy, it was also not usable.

It would be nice to hear more details from the family. Some have said that too much documentation probably confused the boarding agent. I dont know that I agree with this but could be. I am sure that cruise ship boarding agents get handed all kinds of documentation that is unnecceary and are trained to sort through what they need and what is superflous. The original blogger states that the adopted child had a us birth certificate which would imply that the readoption process and us citizenship process was complete.

I really dont understand why Carnival didnt accept the US Birth certificate. To me, that is the big question.

Headhurt, You are an excellent writer! Enjoyed your review and the way you word things. great Job!

Several posters have said the the child automatically becomes a US citizen upon entry to the US. This is not necessarily true. Having adopted two children, i can tell you that automatic citizenship only occurs if the child's visa is an IR3 Visa. If it's an IR4 visa, the child must be readopted in the home state of the adoptive family. Only after that, will the child be granted US Citizenship and receive a Certificate of US Citenship and BC.

An IR4 Visa is given to a child when the child:

is coming to the United States to be adopted.

was adopted abroad by only one parent (if married).

was not seen by the parent(s) prior to or during the adoption.

To the OP, the best way to avoid all this is to get your adopted child a US passport. Our guatemalan daughter got hers when she was 6 and has cruised many times since then. ( she is now 10) We have never had any problem.

Here's another question on this. SDo they charge you for the last day of the cruise even though we are usually off the ship by 8 or 8:30am? that would suck because I have no plans to drink $50 worth of alcohol before 7am!

We did the bella Perllina bracelet thing too. Bought some as gifts from daughter etc. they are very nice. But it was crazy in there. The sales rep in the limelight lounge was challenging the group to beat the record for the number of bracelets bought. I think it ended up being sixteen!!

We were very aware that they were not super expensive bracelets and we really werent getting that big of a deal. But from the actions of most in there, you would think they thought they were getting the deal of a lifetime!

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