gtonda

Thanks for the info, j&t, I was specifically wondering if we had to purchase it on the first day. For the first time every, we won't be able to get to the ship right when boarding starts, so it's kind of a bummer. Oh well, I still think we might do it for our upcoming 3-night trip to Ensenada. It will save us some $$ too. I won't bring the two bottles of wine we carry on board, so that saves $20 in corkage. I'll skip the winery tour that we were going to do in Ensenada, as we have already done it once before. Since they raised the pirce for that excursion, it's going to save $100 for the two of us. Hubby always orders a bottle of sparkling water each night at dinner, so we'll save 25% on that. I can retire the rum runners, and not worry about being called to the naughty room, that calls for a drink right there!

 

Even at the highest daily rate, I don't think it's going to be hard to justify the cost: 1-2 mimosa's in the morning, a couple of 'boat drinks' by the pool, a pre-dinner cocktail at the bar, a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, maybe a spiked coffee for dessert, and a couple of drinks during the show or at the casino. The rest of the time will be spent in the gym working off all the extra calories!

You can get a corkscrew from your steward and open your bottles yourself. And even bring them to dinner with you, saving the cork fees.

Just got off the phone with Carnival. Poor thing didn't really know what she was talking about, but I think we may have come to an understanding...:rolleyes:

 

If you fully fund your account with the Gift Cards, and have a balance left over at the end of the sailing, you will receive a refund to the Gift Card, NOT via cash/check. ie, Fund your account with $600 worth of Gift Cards, spend $475, get $125 back on Gift Card.

 

She also seemed to have some confusion over whether or not you needed to put down a credit card/cash for deposit when using GC - I don't think you do if you're funding an amount that meets Carnival's reocmmendation for your sailing length, but there may be some question on that.

 

So since I was planning on funding my account with $300, but not planning on spending that much, I think I'll go ahead and only buy 2 $100 GCs. That way I'm not left with money left over on a GC at the end - I want cold hard cash on anything left over :p

Just cash out any leftovers the last night of the cruise, via the slots in the casino.

Have her take away any credit cards he may have, before the cruise, then set up their sign and sail account with cash, and only put a few dollars in there each day to cover whatever expenses they might have. This will leave him no way to procure funds to gamble with. A lot of babysitting, but at least they can cruise without the worry of incurring a gambling debt.

Yes, it was due to Early Saver because I cancelled between 75 and 56 days from departure.

Then forfeiting your deposit had nothing to do with booking Early Saver. Any fare booked would have resulted in loss of deposit when canceling that close in. The only time Early Saver conditions come into play would be before the "loss of deposit" phase kicks in. Then you have a $50/pp cancel/change fee, and the rest of the deposit funds are held for use on a future booking up to 24 months from original cruise date.

National will provide you shuttle service from their airport location to/from the cruise terminal.

Was booking Early Saver the reason you lost your deposit? wasn't that actually do to being so close to cruise date? Early Saver only costs you $50/pp to reschedule/cancel, with the rest of the funds held for future use for 24 months.

Curious as to what they will do with tips. Especially those who have pre-paid already. We did not pre pay. I would assume Cheers is what it is, 6 days or bust. (If you buy it day 1 of course.) Can Cheers be pre purchased?

PDF version of letter.

12653428.pdf

Sorry, forgot to mention sail date. Our sail date is March 9th, 2015.

For those that said they wish they could see the letter, is it not pulling up?

Just an FYI, the system is still allowing you to book the original 5 day itinerary online, so they haven't even switched it over in the rez system yet.

Woke up to use the rest room a few minutes ago (TMI, I know) and decided to check my email. Noticed an email from Carnival with only an attachment labeled "important information". Anytime I have ever gotten one of these it's always been less than stellar news. This time it's great news, for me at least. Apparently Magic is taking over 5 day cruises for the Triumph in 2015 so Triumph can take on new itineraries. I hope it's staying in Galveston. Anyway, we are now on the Magic, which rocks! On top of that, they are turning our 5 day into a 6 day, with a stop in Costa Maya. I'll take it! I'm going to attempt to attach picture of the letter.

I think the smokers pay enough, you MUST be joking!

The next thing all the non-smoking do gooders will be whining about, when smokers all quit, is how much their taxes are!

Smokers pay a ABSOLUTELY HUGE amount of tax for all you non-smoker vipers!

 

Having 1 side smoking and one non-smoking is the BEST SOLUTION.

However, it makes sense and that's missing in most instances these days.

Carnival will lose business if they go non-smoking....no doubt about it.

The puny spots they have for smoking now are a complete joke.

Open wide NCL and HAL.

 

 

Ummmm, and I don't smoke cigs anymore so that argument is invalid.

Never smelled anything on our balconies besides weed once or twice.

I AGREE with those wondering about the exaggerated reports of balcony smoke everywhere choking them and round the clock smokers.

Have not had that at all in 4 cruises.

Our cabin or our friends cabins. Hmmmmmmm.........

 

Raise gratuity? Not much. Who cares. But, there seem to be a lot of people complaining about the food & shows & music being cheapened.

So yeah, sure, raise the costs after cheapening the experience.

Corporate greed anyone?

You do realize that the VAST MAJORITY of those taxes are necessary due to the ridiculous amount of extra costs smokers create in regards to healthcare? It's not like all those taxes are just a surplus to the economy.

She could up grade, just not upgrade using the pack and go rate she wants to. The pack and go rate is only good for new bookings. That keeps people from using it for early saver.

 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Forums mobile app

You cannot submit an Early Saver Price Match Form on a P&G rate!?

Will they continue to lower your cruise price even if you are matching a rate that doesn't have price protection? For example I book the Early Saver but the Happy New Year sale price is $ 50 cheaper so I get that $ 50 back but then in March they have another sale that would drop my price again, I can lower the price again even though the Happy New Years price wasn't Price Protected?

Yes

Keep in mind to that not all fare codes can be matched.

I believe any published fare that one would be eligible for can be matched. So if person was not eligible for military rate, they could not ask for rate match to the Military fare.

Our March cruise has had several price drops since we booked last July. Price for party of 4 has dropped $750 since original booking. We have matched several different fares over that time, including most recently the Resident Rate.

This is my first time booking early saver and have a question about cancellation policy. Our cruise is in September and we may have to cancel but wasnt sure of the policy if we have to cancel. Could anyone please help me with this matter......

 

 

Denise

$50 cancel/change fee, rest of deposit is held and can be used on a future cruise in next 24 months.

Is it possible that they have come of each? I swear I just saw a thread about safes in which someone said the Liberty had the PIN code style. Pasted below.

Old Yesterday, 07:44 AM

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golfadj golfadj is offline

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On the Dream in Dec and Liberty in Oct we just used a password we set to open the safe.

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I think you can find it on Carnival.com.

I believe the most you can do there is pull up each ship separately and comb through it's amenities. I'm looking for a 1 stop shop that in one view you can easily see what each ship offers.

Does anyone know if there may be a list (possibly on CC here, somewhere) that lists all the amenities on each ship. Things like Cucina Del Capitano, rotisserie, serenity deck, Mini Golf, Waterpark, Ropes Course, Guy's, Blue Iguana, the $$ Asian restaurant, Sport Court, Taste Bar, etc. Basically all the things that can vary from ship to ship.

It would make it easy for someone to find a ship with a particular feature/amenity that they may be interested in.

Thanks.

Go here to order:

http://www.carnival.com/FunShops/food-and-desserts/cakes

 

You pay for it now, advise where and what day you want it delivered-easy peasy!

 

Happy Sailing!!!

Very convenient, and not too bad of a price. Bummer that it looks like it's not customizable at all. Just the standard Happy B-day message. Oh well, we would be ordering it for our son who turns 3.

Wondering if these GC's differ from the Carnival ones I got from the Citibank Thank You Rewards program? Those specifically state they can only be used for new bookings. They don't really specify if you have to use them within a certain amount of time of the booking to be considered a new booking still.

We had to book online due to booking the ES rate, then called in to have the gift certs applied. We then had to mail in the GC's to have the amount actually deducted from our balance due.

Can anyone tell me the process with FTTF in MIA Port? I think I have seen somewhere about a door on the side of the building for VIP and FTTF. Is this the place to go when arriving at the port to check in?

Sounds like it can work great unless there is a dreaded delay at the MIA port, then it sounds like you can get stuck sitting outside for a period of time. Does this only apply if there are no more seats in the VIP seating area?

We are looking at getting to the pier about 10-10:30am.

Thanks.

Looking for some tips/advice. We are flying into FLL and spending the night. I rented a large passenger van from National that we will drive to Miami the next day, and drop of at MIA airport.

We have purchased FTTF and I am wondering which scenario would be best?

1. Take everyone to airport with me, return car, check-in at Carnival desk (Don't know how far of a trek across the airport this may be), take National shuttle to pier.

2. Drop everyone else off at pier, take van back to National, take National shuttle (alone) back to pier, meet the rest of the family and check in at the pier.

We rented a van because I want to get us to the pier early, and since we have FTTF is there any advantage to checking in at the airport? It would probably have to be a BIG advantage since we would have 10 people lugging suitcases from rental return to Carnival desk.

Thank you

Thank you for the advice everyone. I priced out a 15 passenger rental van from National and it came out to be less than the shared shuttle price. This will also give us all the flexibility we could want. Especially on debarkation day as our flight isn't until 5:30pm. Now we can spend the day out and about before heading to the airport.

We are staying in Fort Lauderdale the evening before our cruise and have booked transfers to Miami port the morning of our cruise with MJS Transportation.

We like to arrive early at the port and in fact, we just purchased FTTF. MJS's first email confirmation stated he would pick us up at 11am. I emailed Michael from MJS requesting to be picked up at the hotel at 9:45am to arrive at port around 10:30am.

Michael replied saying the earliest he could pick up is 10:30am, but cannot guarantee anything. He is also stating that due to budget cuts, customs at the terminal is delayed. I will paste his reply below. My questions are, #1) Is this accurate? #2) Does anyone have advice on another transportation company that will accommodate my request?

For the record, we will have at least 8 people in our group. Don't know if their vans carry more than that or not.

I feel like his real reason is that he needs his vans to bring people from Miami to Fort Lauderdale first, before he heads back south.

"Hi Gtonda, As you must know, due to recent budget cuts customs is quite delayed and there is no where to sit or escape the heat at the port. We are a shared ride service which allows us to offer efficient, economical, intelligent transportation.From our years of dealing with this situation we try and share our knowledge with our passengers to help them have a GREAT trip. I can offer you to go on the first van going south (usually around 10:30), but will not guarantee anything that we can not do. Hope this works for you. Please advise as to status of reservation. Thanks, Michael"