BeachChik

Your own list has Florida as number 17 out of 50. So you think that is middle of the road. Okay sure.

Doubtful. Florida is one of the least affordable places to live when you compare costs vs income. But regardless, I doubt you are spending the cost of a three day cruise for two on a single night out. Maybe back when you could book a 3-4 day cruise for $150. But those prices, even sales, don’t exist anymore.

That logic is mind blowing. I see it all the time on another board regarding hotels. People will pay $250 a night for a room but refuse to book the hotel that charges $200 a night plus a $50 a night resort fee.

I don’t know if the condescending comment was to me or not. But I wasn’t being condescending at all. I was simply stating that it’s weird to me. You are free to do what you want. But I personally have no loyalty to any brand in any area of my life. I love Disney and we go often because we live right there. But I am under no illusion that Disney would prefer I don’t go. I don’t buy souvenirs, we often get in for free because I know a cast member, we don’t spend a lot eating but we add to the crowds. Disney gets no value out of my being there. Cruises are the same. They don’t want the person that has cruised 27 times and stays in a lower tier cabin, doesn’t book cruise shore excursions, doesn’t spend a fortune on pictures. They want the new cruiser that will drop tons of money because it’s new to them. They will buy the photo package, booked the cruise line excursions, buy all the onboard souvenirs, eat all the for fee foods. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t cruise with them but it does mean you shouldn’t expect anything regarding loyalty to the brand. I totally get why they have to keep changing the rules. How many people are hitting these milestones? Even doing cheap stuff it probably still costs the line quite a bit of money given the numbers of people.

Loyalty to a cruise line just to have a certain status and a few “perks” that aren’t worth much is so bizarre to me. Especially when you read something like what was posted above where they say other lines go to ports they prefer.

Is there a different schedule for the daily activities in the kids clubs? The last time we sailed on carnival we didn’t have kids so I didn’t pay attention to how that worked.

Not really. A frequent cruiser spend bare minimum. They don’t buy souvenirs, pictures, ship sponsored shore excursions etc. All those things that are pure profit for the cruise line. Plus they want freebies. I don’t know why anyone would be shocked by this. It’s the same with Disney. They don’t want the local, the annual pass holder, the person using comp tickets. They want the overseas visitor that will stay three weeks and never leave property. New visitors/cruisers will always be the people that bring in the most revenue.

I guess I’m confused. You state in this post the refund wasn’t even through carnival, it was a company unaffiliated with them. why would carnival issue a refund for flights that weren’t booked through them? And who was the issuer of the check you tried to deposit? Was there a letter with it or just a check? I feel like information is missing.

We haven’t cruised in a few years so I haven’t been around. But it’s good to see that nothing has changed and tipping debates are still here 😆

So I booked the Family Harbor Suite on the Horizon. It’s room 2404. Now I’m reading that the noise from above is so bad people can’t sleep at all. We are two adults and two kids. We all sleep with ambient noise so silence isn’t needed to sleep. Switching rooms doesn’t seem to be an option since all the balcony rooms appear to be under the galley. We would have to switch to a regular suite. can someone give me a real idea of the noise in these rooms?

So our last two cruises were on Royal, the Freedom and Harmony. Prior to those we sailed the Carnival Legend and one of the Disney ships. Our kids were with us on the Harmony cruise, the others were just two adults. I primarily pick the cruise based on the ports and price. I always do searches on Carnival, Royal and NCL to find what fits us. This time I impulsively booked on the Carnival Horizon for an ABC cruise. These ports really appealed to us since they would all be brand new. I ended up going with a Family Harbor Suite. My kids will be 8 and 11 and when we cruise. On the Harmony, honestly we spent a lot of time in our room relaxing and swimming. We only saw one show, ate at one specialty restaurant. It was a great vacation for us. Obviously the Horizon is a smaller ship vs Harmony. Those that have sailed on bigger and smaller ships with younger kids, how did your kids enjoy it? Opinions on the Horizon with younger kids?