Squadleader

I never figured fluorescent lights used much electricity, unlike heaters, motors etc. 

I had an empty retail space, about 10,000 square feet, that had fluorescent lights. To discourage vandalism, I thought it would be a good idea to leave the lights on continuously, so the police would be able to see into the building at night since there was lots of glass.

I changed my mind when the first month, the electrical bill for just the lights was over $600, and that was just for one building, not a thousand cabins.

That's true, it doesn't even have to be a plastic card, a simple paper business card works just fine. I used a business card, I didn't try it, but I'd bet even a simple piece of heavy paper (maybe a piece of the Fun Times), torn the correct size to fit into the slot, would work too.

I think I read somewhere that even the electrical outlets are shut down when the slot doesn't have a card in it, so charging a device while you're out of the cabin, is the reason most people would want to put something in the slot while they're out of the cabin. So to be fair, unless the outlets are cut off, there's probably no real reason to circumvent the slot, which is the master electrical switch for the entire cabin.

If the workaround wasn't so simple, it would really mean that no electricity would be used in any empty cabin. I'm just guessing, but I'll bet that would reduce the electrical usage on the ship over 20 percent. The multiplier is incredible, there's probably around a thousand cabins on the ship, each with all the lights on most of the time.

Yeah, the good news is the app is here, which hopefully means it'll continuously get better, I'd be very surprised if it didn't.

Thanks Organized, that's a good recap, and all true.

Aside from whether the messages are late, the question I'm wondering about is, are people getting sound notifications on their phones when a text does come in?

That didn't happen on Holland America.

On the Holland America App, we didn't get any sound notifications at all, whether the app was open and you were sitting there looking at it when the text came in, or if it was running in the background.

I have android, my kids iPhones, alerted on neither.

I'm looking forward to hearing what experience any Carnival users have had about the phone actually giving a sound notification when a text has comes in on the Hub app.

As technology is progressing our government is making identification something a normal person cannot ignore. Starting in October 2020, unless you have the new enhanced RealID state drivers license, a drivers license won't be sufficient to board an airline flight anymore. In Virginia, a RealId compliant drivers license has a star in the upper right-hand corner, no star, no boarding flight. If you have a passport you wouldn't have to have a realID drivers license to board a flight, but I don't want to have to carry a passport for domestic air travel.

So, in my state, Virginia, even though DMV has had my social number for the last 45 years, I have to prove I have a social security number. I'm self-employed, so I don't have any of the paystub type of documentation they'll accept, and I lost my social security card decades ago, so I had to go to the local social security office with my passport and non-RealID drivers license to have a new social security card sent to me, so DMV will issue a new RealID drivers license to me.

The point of the story is to make sure at the very least, you have an original birth certificate (if lost, re-issue from your state's vital statistics dept is considered original too) and social security cards for yourself, and your children, on file at your home. Stress to the kids when you give them this stuff as adults, that it's a real pain in the rear end to replace these things, and to keep them safe. All identification begins with those two documents.

My children are of the age where they are getting drivers licenses. It's way more complicated than it was a few years ago. In Virginia, when you apply for a drivers license, you have to check a box to get an enhanced RealID permit, so don't forget to do that. We also have to have two utility bills or other documentation to prove Virginia residency, social security proof, and an original birth certificate.

Most of our international travel is cruises, and technically we don't need anything but birth certificates and drivers licenses to go, but the risk is that something goes wrong on the cruise, and for whatever reason, someone has to fly home. Without the passport book, you can't do it.

That's why I think the passport cards are a complete waste of time. A passport card will not permit you to fly. You can only fly with the passport book. The only way I think a passport card would be worth getting, was if I did land crossings to Canada or Mexico often enough that the passport card was a convenient way to avoid carrying the passport book instead. The passport card only allows for land crossings.

As far as passports go, if a child is 15 or less, it's a child passport and it's only good for five years instead of ten years like an adult passport. A child passport is less expensive, I think $110, as opposed to $145 for an adult.

I have a little less heartburn about paying $145 for a ten-year passport, as opposed to the five-year child passport, so I usually don't get the kids passports until they turn 16. I'm playing the odds that nothing happens that will require them to fly off a cruise.

I've used the chat feature on Holland America App recently, I don't know if it's the same system Carnival uses since both companies are owned by Carnival.

The chat feature was a little glitchy, sometimes a text would continuously show as unread, and it was hard to delete them, but they did come through.

The big problem for us was there was no notification when a text came in. Even when we kept logged in, there was no beep, chime, nothing. We had to actually take the phone out and check it from time to time, and see if any texts were posted. They did come through, we just didn't know it unless we looked. 

To have a chat or text type app that doesn't have any notification sound really defeats the primary purpose of the app. I've got lots of kids and it was impossible to get responses from them because they didn't even know I had texted. Every app in the world will drive you crazy with notifications if you let it. This poor app didn't even know how to do it.

Can anyone who's used the Carnival Hub app, tell me if the Hub app actually gives a sound notification when a text comes in.

Thanks!

That's interesting Corby, that's one month after the 911 attacks. I was able to buy several upgrades to suites (Ok, upsells), very cheap at the pier, during that same period. Ships weren't sailing full anymore. We were at Disney World a few months later, and the Magic Kingdom was empty in the first couple of hours of the morning, something that never happens today.

Those attacks put a huge chill on any travel industry which depended heavily on people boarding aircraft.

That was the dawn of a new era. We flew to New York about a month after the attacks, and I can still remember my wife and I had the discussion before the flight, that if anything went south on the flight, we weren't going to just go along for the ride, even if it meant getting killed.  That's also when police boats with 50 caliber machine guns first appeared for sail aways.

We've done the Glory once and her sister Conquest twice.

I happen to hate lines, like really, really hate lines.

For someone like me, research and lots of practice (around 20 cruises on different lines now), has given me the ability to actually enjoy almost any cruise. In my early days of cruising, that wasn' t the case. 

Cruising like almost everything else in life is a series of small obstacles. I've learned small tricks that make huge differences in successfully overcoming those obstacles on the cruise.

I've stressed this with my children, the difference between having a 5-star experience on a cruise and a nightmare is the very small differences in how you go about things, like being early for everything, not on time or late. Yeah, it means I've had to adjust my nature (on time, or even late), but that little difference, is what I look on as being the cost of having a great experience, as opposed to a nightmare, 

We get to the Main Dining room for breakfast when the doors open, and I love having that leisurely breakfast with my children dearly, we actually talk. 30 minutes later there's a line at the main dining entrance, and if you wander up to the Lido buffet, a group my size may end up at different tables. And to make it even better (rolls eyes), everyone is bouncing up and down to get this, get that, and wolfing down the food. Ok, I get it, some people just want to hit things hard and fast, and move on, perfect for them, but just shoot me (head-shot please) if I that's how it's going to be. 

Young people usually have a lot harder time getting up and moving, I recognize that I was the same way. However, the reason I pay thousands of dollars for this experience is to enjoy my kids company. I make it a condition of even booking the cruise that everyone agrees to get up at 7:30 and get moving. They don't have too, they can stay home, but if I'm paying for it, that's what it costs them to go.

I really liked what one poster said earlier,  you avoid crowds and lines, by avoiding crowds and lines. He's right on the money. You can do anything, eat anywhere, and still avoid lines and crowds, by doing it when others don't. 

That's the art of cruising well, it comes with knowledge. 

The reality is there are several thousand people on this cruise with you. If you choose to ignore that fact and think you can breeze around the ship and get what you want, when you want it, you're going to have a very disappointing cruise. The experience you desired was available to you, you just didn't know how to get it.

I happen to love Guys Burgers and going to the Comedy Club with my kids. Between those things and the main dining room, I love the experience on Carnival ships.

The next thing is I have completely removed any pressure around port days like I used to have because I no longer want anything from any port except warm weather, warm water, a great sandy beach, and an umbrella or shade. All the crazy jazz on the islands the tourism people and cruise lines dream up,  are things I completely ignore. 

I enjoy the resort, entertainment, and fine dining aspects of the ship, and at every port, we go have a wonderful beach day. We usually cruise in the winter, so we appreciate the beach days more. 

Last, in general, you're going to find that older ships are going to be doing the shorter cruises, so I never book a cruise shorter than seven days anymore. Plus all that turnover is harder on the crew and it shows.

In my old age, I've also come to realize there are fixed costs to me in time and aggravation associated with travel in general, and cruising in particular. 

We drive 14 hours to get to our most common port, the packing, the embarkation process, unpacking, then packing to leave, then the disembarkation process. There's no way I'd do all that stuff for an experience less than seven days long.

Freeport sounds like a good bet since you have to get an excursion or cab to a beach anyway.

For what it's worth, Grand Turk may also be a very good target of opportunity for snorkeling. We love Grand Turk, or any of the "private Island" type venues because it's an instant can of beach, just pop the top. What could be simpler, walk right off the ship and onto a wonderful beach. Near the ship the ocean bottom is rocky and a bit unpleasant to walk barefoot in, but as you walk further and further to the left along the beach away from the ship, as you walk off the pier, the bottom becomes just sand. 

Grank Turk is famous for "the wall". You can Google it. It's a 6,000 foot drop straight down, about a quarter mile off the cruise ship beach. Just before the wall drop, the water is about 25 feet deep with coral and lots of fish. 

Don't be crazy and try to swim out that far, first you're liable to drown, and second, there's a lot of small boat traffic taking snorkelers and divers to the wall, and you could accidentally be run down swimming out there by yourself. 

We took a boat that left right off the cruise ship beach to the wall and my kids had a great time. We were walking down the beach and the guy was standing there with his boat and I made a deal to go out to the wall. I suspect if you keep your eyes open, you could ckeck-in with those boat operators working in the surf of the beach, about the possibility of any open slots they may have left during the day, and if it's slow for them, maybe negotiating a discount for empty space. 

It'll probably depend on the season, having just one ship at the pier couldn't hurt your chances of finding empty space.

The beach and the convenience of it to ship, make Grand Turk wonderful no matter what. but also having "the wall" just offshore is a great bonus. As far as I'm concerned, getting off the ship as soon as possible and even grabbing a boat for a single hour to run out the quarter mile to the wall would be well worth it, if the opportunity presents itself. I usually travel with four or five of my children, so that does make it easier for me to justify a higher dollar amount to the boat owner, as opposed to a couple who don't have the multiplier I do. 

For fun, open Google Maps and type in Grand Turk. Make sure you have the satellite photo mode on. You'll see the cruise ship pier in the lower left corner of the small island of Grand Turk. You'll notice the reason the pier is where it is, is because the wall (deep water) is closest to land at that place. You'll also see Margaritaville and its huge pool.

Booking an excursion with the ship is always easiest of course and guarantees you'll have the activity, but if you don't come off the ship with a plan, you might also find a nice opportunity to still snorkel the reef and "wall" just off the beach.

Ideally, sales is the art of meeting someone's needs and solving a problem for a customer. Someone's in a spa for treatments, someone's on a car lot to get a car, someones at an open house because they need a new home.

So it isn't a surprise the spa tries to sell spa services. 

Successful salespeople probe to look for an opportunity to sell their products. If a customer is not clear and firm with what they desire, they are going to get a hard pitch, and many times, during the encounter. In most sales situations the average customer says no five times, and the average salesperson asks for the sale four times. That's why most salespeople aren't effective. There's a golden rule that applies to all sales, whether encyclopedias or real estate, that 20 percent of salespeople always make 80 percent of the sales. So training tells us we must ask for the sale at least six times.

The reason some posters here are saying they don't get a sales pitch is they are clearly communicating they don't want anything besides what they signed up for. They've made it clear that they will not only not buy any additional services, but will be offended if the services are even offered. These are no-nonsense people and the spa people recognize that, respect it, and don't even try a sales pitch on them. 

It's the people who come across as open to hearing about more services that are going to get the full-blown pitch because there's actually a chance to make the sales pitch pay.

Being clear that's the only service you're interested in, will serve you well in getting a pitch free spa service. However, many if not most people, will not risk coming across as rude or very hard-nosed. For them, there are techniques that will remove the pressure from them and place it on someone else. 

You can use the good-cop, bad-cop technique if you want to wear the white hat (be the good guy). Then you let someone else wear the black hat (the bad guy). Tell them you'd love to have the other stuff but your significant other would kill you if you did, so please don't mention any other services during this service. Or the old, this treatment is such a splurge for me already, I can't possibly afford any other treatments, so please don't offer any.

We all have different personality types, and different techniques are available for whatever makes you most comfortable in refusing service. 

The bottom line is though, I agree your relaxing experience that your paying hard earned money for, should not be ruined by a sales pitch, unless you truly want to know more about other services. 

Scubagirrl, your point is well taken. Alcohol and nighttime multiply the odds of a crime happening. But this thread made me do a little Googling, and you're right, there are reports of sexual assaults on Cabbage Beach and Cable Beach, some perpetrated by jetski operators in daylight. That would never even have occurred to me. Here's the link.

https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2019/03/articles/caribbean-islands/u-s-and-bahamas-battle-over-crime-statistics/

I've also read Jim Walker the maritime lawyer out of Miami who works with that website, has said his firm gets more than half their complaints from clients affected by crime in the Bahamas. 

Even my sister on her honeymoon in Nassau almost 40 years ago, had a guy on a moped grab her purse one evening, near the straw market. Her husband knocked the guy off the moped, got the purse back, but then the crowd that drew, started to get ugly, and they had to high tail it out of there.

Despite all this, the risk of crime is low, if someone does everything they can to lower the risk by staying with other people, not getting impaired through alcohol, and not going to high risk areas or doing high risk activities like being out at night, alone, with strangers, or some new friend you just met, or messing with drugs or alcohol.

We get off the ship, head to a beach during the day, enjoy a few hours, then get back on the ship. That's maximizing the experience of the island and what it has to offer, while minimizing the risk of something bad ruining our visit. 

There're lots of adventuresome people though, who don't use these limits. They want to immerse themselves in the island, which is nice, but it also comes with additional risks. We each get to decide what we want, and how much extra risk we're willing to bear to get it. 

I don't want to be negative here, we've got to realize over 20 million people a year cruise. The odds of a problem are incredibly small if someone uses common sense. 

It is interesting to note though, that even Jim Walker says the odds of a sexual assault are actually higher on the ship itself than in Nassau. 

I always stress to my daughters that they need to stick together, especially at night on the ship. Never, ever let yourself be in a situation where you're alone with a crewmember or passenger. That if you get drunk, you're very vulnerable to bad actors, whether they be crew or other passengers. And if you do much reading, you'll know most of the domestic abuse horror stories you read about ships sometimes, is almost always going to be alcohol-fueled. 

Obviously, lots of people like and use the spa. Personally, the spa just makes me nervous because of what happened to me.

About 15 years ago, I told my ex-wife to go get a massage as a little gift on a cruise, she did and said she enjoyed it. On the morning of debarkation a few days later, they slipped the final statement under the door for the cruise. On the bill was a $1,000 charge for the spa. It suddenly dawned on me there was this little basket of creams and oils that had been sitting on a table in our cabin ever since my wife had gotten the massage. I asked her about it, and sure enough, she had been given the hard sell during the whole massage about this cream and that oil, and she had simply allowed all that stuff to be pushed off on herself because she didn't want to say no.

I took my little basket of goodies to the spa to return them, but naturally, the spa was closed since the ship was being debarked. I ate that $1,000, but to this day, no one who sails under my credit card ever has charging privileges on their room key.

The spa easily has the potential to suck thousands of dollars in charges out of someone who doesn't know how to say no. I'm sure my wife's masseuse won the sales prize that week!

Schoifmom makes a great point. It's very likely dropping a 3rd or 4th person from a room will leave you with a much smaller loss, than dropping the second person in a cabin with just two people booked. 

Of course it depends on the fare structure of the particular cruise you've picked, but on our last cruise, my 3rd and fourth in our cabin were actually free (aside from the $150 in port taxes), which taxes I've read on here can't be charged if someone doesn't sail, so depending on the fare structure, dropping a 3rd or 4th could actually be free. Based on that scenario, a 3rd or 4th could actually just not show up at embarkation and would still be free because even the port fees have to refunded.

I've got six children, and like you, I try very hard to make it so as many of my kids can be included in the cruise as possible, but they've grown up now, and especially with young people just starting out, you just never know what their life is going to demand from them on short notice. Being able to include them, with the flexibility of dropping them if necessary at the last minute at little to no cost, is a huge win for you.

Third and fourth passengers free in a cabin is obviously a promotion, usually, it's going to be on an off-peak time cruise, or a longer cruise that's having trouble booking up. We've done many 10+ day cruises on Holland America that had the third and fourth free. 

So that's the next issue. I use the cruises to escape cold weather and hit warm sunny beaches. HAL is fine for that, but teenagers and young people are not going to be nearly as impressed with a HAL ship and it's predominantly older crowd.

Our last 11-day cruise on HAL was actually cheaper than a 7-day carnival cruise. However, my next cruise is going to be with Carnival, even though it's much more expensive than HAL because my kids like it better. 

But still, even on my next cruise my 3rd and 4th are less than half what the 1st and second are per person, so canceling a third or fourth is still much less expensive. 

If I were you, I'd shop for your next cruise paying very close attention to how much you're being charged for the third and fourth passenger in the cabin. You might be able to find a cruise you like, that has little to no cost, to cancel or no-show the third and fourth passenger right up to the day of embarkation. 

We've been to Cabbage Beach and my children liked it. That day it had good surf, which the kids wanted. 

Cabbage Beach is also on Paradise Island which is only accessible to Nassau by a toll bridge. As we all know, Nassau can have its issues with crime, so locals always told me things were nicer on Paradise Island because the tolls made it cost something to get over there, but the bridge also limits the access to a single point, which makes it easier to identify criminals, which they naturally don't like.

The short distance to the ships and the low cost of a cab from the ships, and the toll bridge, makes me want to always go to Cabbage Beach when in Nassau.

We mostly cruise for the beautiful beaches, warm weather, and warm water, so we always look for a nice beach on port days.

Obviously, it's much, much better to come in the day before the cruise and get on the ship rested, feeling better, and eliminating the risk that an airline IT failure, mechanical failure, or a weather glitch could make you miss your ship.

However, if you can't do that, and you can sleep on the plane, and feel up to it on the morning of the cruise, here's something we love.

Just a ten-minute cab ride from the Miami cruise terminal is South Beach. You can have the cab cross over from downtown Miami to South Beach on the McArthur Causeway, and on the right, you'll see your ship, and all the other ships at the cruise terminal, and on the left, you'll see Star Island and some of the most expensive waterfront mansions in Miami. It's a very beautiful sight. You might even see a seaplane land or take off in the canal next to the cruise ships, as the plane comes or goes from the Bahamas. 

It's a little pricey, and I'm biased because it's sentimental to me, but go to the Loews Miami Beach. It's right on the beach in South Beach. They have a beautiful outdoor terrace that overlooks their pool complex and the beach. Last time we were there you could order ala carte or they had a buffet. If the weather is nice, nothing will get you in the mood for your cruise better than a leisurely breakfast on that terrace. 

As a bonus, walk out the back of the hotel, turn left, and you'll be on the boardwalk that goes along the back of the all the hotels along the beach for a couple of miles for a pretty walk. If you turn right going out the back of the Loews, and go about 500 feet, you'll be in Lummus Park overlooking the ocean and beach. Lummus Park faces all the famous 1930's art deco hotels that make South Beach so unique and beautiful. 

Then when you're ready, take a cab back to the cruise terminal which is only a few minutes away. 

If you're whipped, maybe instead you'll want to try to find a day room at a hotel, but I don't know anything about that. 

SwordBlazer you make a good point, we all know people do show up earlier than they're supposed to, it happens every single cruise. Carnival has learned to build that non-compliance into its system and usually, their embarkations are fine.

My point is they also need to start using all this great technology to forecast and warn passengers when a normal turnaround isn't possible, like say, the Tom Joyner charter with Janet Jackson and a complete rock and roll experience, with all the extra equipment that entails. 

But in this particular case from what I've read, the boarding didn't even start until 4pm, which means every single passenger and their luggage for the April 14 sailing was on the pier before the boarding even started. 

I can't emphasize enough that if this happened because the ship was delayed by a storm or mechanical failure, whatever, I agree that's not Carnivals fault. My contention is they knew or should have known months in advance based on experience and the extra work, that embarkation was going to be hours late. 

Again, I don't hate Carnival, but I do think they should learn from this situation and make sure it doesn't happen with this charter next year, or other charters before that.

This HAS happened before and Carnival did not learn from that experience. It's not unreasonable for us, their customers, to hold them accountable, so they won't just keep doing this over and over.

It's reasonable and even in Carnival's best interest to not let a boarding disaster like April 14, just keep recurring every year, when it's entirely avoidable. 

Shaded Lady, if you have time to read through the post (you're right, very long) you'll see there's a history of cruises after the Tom Joyner Charter being hours late with starting their embarking process. I can't speak to the exact reason for this, but from what I've read, most people attribute it to the stages, electronics, lights, and sound equipment from all the musical acts Tom Joyner has, which of course Carnival helped plan getting all that equipment on and off the ship. 

sfaaa makes an excellent point, and what I've been saying all along. 

All Carnival has to do is have a booking note on the April 5, 2020 sailing that embarkation will be delayed until 4pm and that all bookings will receive a $50 OBC.

That's a win-win for everyone. Thousands don't stand on the pier for hours, Carnival is honest with their customers, and the cruise sells out. 

Why some folks on here think it's perfectly fine for all those people to stand on the pier for hours when Carnival knows this happens with this particular charter, is something I don't understand.

Sorry Jimbo, I think we've covered this pretty good by now. I know you're looking for some action but I think most of the fun is over now. At this point, the only way this moves forward is if someone on the April 14th sailing makes an issue out of it because they're the ones who experienced it. 

Carnival screwed over the passengers on the April 14th sailing, either intentionally or through sheer "we don't care" enough to warn people about something they knew was going to happen months in advance. 

You don't think Carnival had a duty to warn people or disclose it, I do, that about sums it up.

It was an interesting topic and gave us all something to think about. Maybe the April 14th passengers will take a crack at holding Carnival accountable, I hope so, we'd all benefit if they did.

My 21 year old daughter must be talking to Sailor Sally because we just took an 11-night cruise recently and she brought one backpack. I said Camille is that all you're taking and she said "Dad I bummed around Europe for six weeks with just this" and that was true, so now a 21-year girl is making her old man look like a clothes horse. 

But then again, if you're young and beautiful, you look gorgeous in anything, including a potato sack, so I guess it makes sense. 

I have a big suitcase and I do the old grab your pants and shirts right out of the closet (hangers and all) and fold them straight into the suitcase. That really is a good way to avoid wrinkles and makes unloading a breeze. Just take everything out of the suitcase hang them right into the closet. 

We only do eastern and southern now, I didn't like the humidity we used to run into on some of the western ports, so we stopped doing western several years ago. 

It's hard to beat the low humidity and trade winds of the Eastern and southern routes. 

Either itinerary as we've all said is great, but I agree with the southern route. I'd swap Half Moon Key for San Juan any day of the week. Nothing beats Half Moon. 

That southern has two of the easiest, and best, beach days hands down. We love Grand Turk and we think think Half Moon Cay is the best beach day ever. 

I've got teenagers and we made a deal. If I took them, they agreed to get up every morning and hit the main dining room for breakfast with me at 7:30. That got us on the beaches by 9am insuring a good spot.

Half moon has a beach that goes on forever. We camped out near the lunch place and Captain Morgan's Beach bar. It took several hours, but by noon our area was full, then it started to drop off again as people headed back to the ship. We had two ships in that day with five or six thousand passengers. Further down from us the beach never even filled up. It has perfect sand, plenty of loungers, warm water, free lunch, and no hassle to the ship, in my opinion there's no better beach experience out there, especially considering it's just for our ships. 

Grand Turk is great too for the same reasons. It's just not quite as idyllic as Half Moon Cay, but not having to tender there is nice. 

We also love Aruba, but you've just got to watch the sun there, it's brutal, you're pretty close to the equator. I'd figure out a place to go on the beach with some shade on that beach day. It's a small island and all the beaches are easy to catch a cab to. I like going to nice hotel beaches in those kinds of situations. 

I'm sure I've been to Bonaire some time, but it's been at least 15 years and it's gotten muddled up in my head with all the other places, so sorry I can't tell you anything about that one. 

That's what I love about this site though, getting tips on each port, it really gives us an edge on having a great day based on others experiences. 

You're right Jenny, I agree with you, Carnival should have just made a booking note and that would have been cool.

What's not cool is letting you and your family come expecting to board at 11am. It was fact Carnival didn't disclose the fact it was going to several hours late that was the problem. Put the booking note in there and let the chips fall where they may. Carnival chose to conceal an important fact from the passengers they knew about.

Jenny if you and your family had been on that pier for six hours in the sun, knowing that Carnival knew this was going to happen months in advance, how would you feel?

TNcruising02

That's the whole point, Carnival couldn't disclose the delay because if they did, it proves they knew in advance. Then the delay is not unforeseen, which is the excuse clause in the cruise contract they are trying to hide behind.

The April 14th cruise was a scratch and dent cruise that Carnival wanted to sell at full price. That's what happened here. 

The White Star Line didn't know the Titanic was going to sink (although they were negligent of course) that is labeled an unforeseen accident. But had they known the ship was going to sink, and allowed 1,500 people to buy tickets and drown, that would be murder, a crime. 

Carnival knew there was going to be an hours-long embarkation delay and didn't disclose it. That's fraud, a crime.

Oh we are telling them, right here, but that's probably not good enough. 

What really matters though is that the people who have legal standing (those actually aggrieved, the April 14th passengers) tell them. Only an aggrieved party can bring suit, probably the only thing that would get Carnivals attention anyway, that's why I hope one of them will get the contact information for the other passengers and give it to a lawyer. 

There's no money in this for the passengers, the lawyer would have to get that, but holding them accountable is the only way to stop what is a very bad policy they have adopted, of knowing something is going to be bad and not disclosing it.