sushitex

Hello from Texas!

My husband (who is the gambler) and I recently went on our first RCCL cruise out of Galveston, and we were thrilled because he earned enough casino points to receive the free cruise certificate (on the evening of our last night onboard!) Imagine our surprise when we called to book that cruise the following week, only to discover that we also earned another cruise because he made PRIME tier! We still are rather dumbstruck, and naturally enough, I turned to Cruise Critic for information and advice.

My question today is: I have been reading over and over, again, on this thread, that in order to ensure that casino members receive the coveted offers from Casino Royale, we should check our settings to make sure that we are allowing emails from RCCL. My husband and I have both done this on the regular RCCL account, and we have been receiving normal RCCL emails offering their latest cruise sales, etc. Is this the proper place we should be checking our email settings, or is there another one (maybe from Casino Royale?) I have also entered spouse's Crown and Anchor # and last name in the casino's offering webpage, and it says that he has no offers (well, maybe the free cruise certificate was there for a day or two, but we redeemed it almost immediately.)

Any ideas or suggestions?  

Thanks, and I have enjoyed reading through this thread, scouring it for any possible details to help us further understand the casino program and RCCL in general. I have to say this, also: we have paid for several Carnival and NCL cruises in the past. If this program is as good as we hope it is, RCCL may have just caused to no longer sail with the other two cruise lines. Sorry, Carnival was never as upfront as to how or when one earns the perks inside their casinos. Our RCCL host gave us their neat little brochure, and BOOM, hey, there it was (in plain English...)  

Thank you so much for posting the review and the photos! My husband and I -  fellow Texans - will be sailing with Royal Caribbean for the first time 

on the Liberty of the Seas in 4 days! We are not new to cruising ( we have sailed several times with Carnival and 3 times with NCL) but it is exciting to try a new cruise line, as well as  to see Cayman Island and Jamaica, two islands that we somehow have missed on previous cruises. 

Anyway, I am getting rather excited because  of 1. Great reviews like yours, and 2.  We will be boarding this ship in less than 96 hours! 

😁

I replied elsewhere a little while ago, but just read the questions above about the food. While on our March 11-16, 2019 cruise, we attended an afternoon tea in one of the main dining rooms. I normally go alone to the teas, but I convinced hubby to go with me because Carnival now offers a Veterans’ Table at these affairs ( or at least, Glory did.) Anyway, the food was much the same as the other Carnival teas that I have attended, but now, they no longer offer the premium teas for free. One can still drink a house brand of orange pekoe, with possibly a few other varieties. They will also sell you the premium tea bags for a nominal charge. Gone is my favorite, the Lipton Darjeeling, and I have never found it anywhere else than on a Carnival cruise. 😢 

As I mentioned in the other post, we discovered the BBQ place above the buffet during our first meal onboard, and we enjoyed it so much that we ate almost every lunch there.  

I read through the cruiser’s review (May 19-26 ) and smiled to myself when I saw their cabin number and who their room steward was. My husband and I sailed on a a 5-day cruise on the Glory, from March 11-16 of this year, and we stayed in cabin #2216, with the same layout and beds, and the same room steward! Neither hubby or I  had any problems with the beds - they were quite comfortable for us. This was our first time booking a room with porthole windows (we usually have at least 1 of our children with us) but our youngest is away at college, so I jumped at the chance to get a cabin with portholes! We both enjoyed the windows (same price as an inside cabin) and the room seemed to be spacious enough for us. 

Our ports of call were only Progreso and Cozumel, but we enjoyed the Mayan Ball game excursion in Cozumel very much. Our Progreso excursion was cancelled by Carnival due to insufficient sign-ups, so we just did some souvenir hunting downtown for a bit, then went back to the ship. 

We don’t remember our cruise director’s name, but we don’t think that it was Dustin. Whoever he was, he wasn’t afraid to sing, be crazy, and dance for all he was worth, especially during the last show in the big theater. 

One  “rose” that we had on this ship was that we found a great place to eat, beginning with our first meal. I had read about the BBQ place on the Glory, and when we sailed, it was still a largely undiscovered venue. We ate lunch there ( not open for dinner, I think ) almost every day, and we honestly thought it was much better than the regular buffet, which is down one flight of stairs. However, by Friday, more and more people were showing up, so it wasn’t a secret anymore, lol. It was rather strange though, on that first day, only a few passengers and some ship officers were sitting up there enjoying the food ( and the solace!) 

We enjoyed the Glory, but hubby really wanted our next cruise to depart from Galveston (which it does not, of course.) At the time that I was looking at cruises, however, RCCL actually had a better price on one of their ships than on the Vista. So we booked with RCCL (for the first time!) and we sail in 5 days! Meanwhile, we have been receiving offers from Carnival to come sail with them again. The latest one is a fantastic casino rate for the July 1st Vista sailing, but of course, we had already booked another cruise for the same week. But...$99 per person for an inside cabin, plus port charges and taxes?! Wow, not bad for 7 days, even if 5 are sea days.

Oh, well, now I can finally compare Carnival with RCCL. 

On 1/14/2019 at 11:29 AM, ProgRockCruiser said:

 

OK, so I checked out the reviews, as have others above.

 

it looks like debarkation at ports and especially the return to Jacksonville were issues that would have affected everyone.  I can only say that CBP was slow for us in Dec in Canaveral, so maybe the issue with Elation in JAX is on CBP too.  And as for the fog delaying a return...well...no, "hurrying back to JAX" would not have avoided that issue, as one review complained.  Fog is a risk in JAX (and Tampa and Galveston) in Dec through Feb - usually late-Dec though, not right after Thanksgiving.

 

It also appears that several elevators were offline at times - I don't recall seeing anything about that on the main Carnival forum, but yeah, that must have been frustrating.  Though it was "a total of four" reported by that one reviewer, not sure if all at one time, and since there are 12 elevators on board, it probably wasn't a huge inconvenience.

 

Some of the other complaints are "personal experiences", like the one reviewer who seemingly didn't really like any of the food ("the food that didnt taste like fish was okay").

 

On the other hand, there are more positive reviews from the same time frame, so...?

My family (husband is retired navy) was stationed in Jacksonville in the early 90's, and yes, I do recall thick, heavy fog in the "country" roads right outside of the city (we lived in Orange Park, a nearby suburb.) It would have been great to have had a cruise port in Jacksonville back then, but we did take our first cruise out of Port Canaveral (back in September 1993.) It was a 4-day cruise on the OLD Mardi Gras, Carnival's very first cruise ship. Small, but I thought it was a pretty ship, and hubby and I had the time of our lives!

Our family sailed on the Elation in November 2012, so it was definitely before any recent make-overs. However, I kinda enjoyed hanging out in the Romeo and Juliet Lounge, and other venues, for trivia or watching other people sink karaoke songs. It wasn't the biggest, fanciest ship...

 and the itinerary was Cozumel (again!) and Progreso but but there was just something about the ship that I found charming. 

We almost scored a free cruise  on the Elation (spouse and myself, anyway, not our son)  a few years later when the Casino Club offered my husband a free cruise the morning we were disembarking from our Carnival Dream cruise. Alas, my husband suffered a heart attack about  2 1/2 weeks prior to the freebie cruise (he is fine now, thank heavens) so that second Elation cruise never happened. 

However, if Elation were sailing out of Galveston or New Orleans nowadays, I would definitely be tempted to sail on her again.

BTW, our first Carnival cruise, way back in Sept. 1993, was on the OLD Mardi Gras. We even had the time of our lives on that ole ship, tiny by today's standards.  Now Carnival has come full circle, with the recent announcement that the next mega-ship will be another Mardi Gras! 

Sailing in less than 2 months on the Carnival Glory, getting more excited every day!

Our family of three stayed at the Days Inn last year (we were going on Carnival Magic's New Year's week cruise , ending in Jan. 2015.) It was a little tricky to find the parking entrance and lot (it is behind another hotel) but once we found it, the hotel was fine.

We had a room on one of the upper floors. While the furniture was rather spartan, the room itself was huge and very long, and yes, I remember it being very clean. I don't recall seeing any bugs, either. The continental breakfast was nothing elaborate, but it was fine, too. The usual elements - Belgian waffles, pastries, cereal, etc.

I would stay there again if we were leaving on a cruise out of Galveston, but our last cruise and our next cruise are both out of New Orleans, so it is not an issue for us any time soon.

I have enjoyed reading your review of the Magic. We will be sailing on her this coming New Year's Eve/Day week and I was hoping that there is some kind of burrito station or bar there.

Last July, we were on a 7-day cruise on the Liberty and thoroughly enjoyed the Blue Iguana Cantina. I loved the fresh, hot homemade flour tortillas (and I live in South Texas, so that's sayin' somethin'...) that the cooks at the Blue Iguana were happy to provide. Yes, they gave me a quick "funny" look when I asked for the tortilla plain (I like it simple, just buttered or with jelly and/or peanut butter or peanut butter and honey) but they were good and a nice reminder of my hometown. However, I understand that the Magic doesn't have the Blue Iguana Cantina :(

So, do you know if the Burrito Bar has freshly-made flour tortillas? Also, where exactly is the burrito bar?

Thanks!