GaHawkeye

Enjoying your review. We were with you on the Sunshine in Sept. We are on the the Conquest in Sept of this year. Ours is the Southern route, so I'm paying close attention to anything about the ship. Would really enjoy having Josh as CD but not sure if he'll still be on. Thanks again.

Hank

Great review Teresa. Glad you enjoyed the smaller ship. Your pics of HMC were great. Water looked much calmer than when we were there last Sept. Looking forward to planning for the Magic in 2017.

Hank

I just told my husband about this for our upcoming cruise and he is stoked.

 

I wonder why they didn't just "add" it during dry dock when the other changes were made. Or did they? Last thread I read about the Magic and any bbq was whether or not Fat Jimmy's would be on board.

I read a press release about this that stated it was added during dry dock. It also said that a "traditional smoker" was added and all rubs and sauces were Guy's recipes.

I'll have to wait until Sept of 2017, but I'll be watching here for reviews.

Hank

GaHawkeye was that the LaQuinta inn at 1275 N Atlantic or the LaQuinta inn & suites on hendry ave?

It was 1275 N Atlantic.

GaHawkeye I was looking at La Quinta Inn but when I checked trip advisor I saw a few reviews about bedbugs.I never know if I can trust those reviews thats why I go to cruise critic for input

All I can say is the 2 times we stayed there, we had no issues with the room.

As stated above, there are other hotels that offer the voucher. I will likely stay in one that does as it suites my needs of reduced parking and no shuttles.

I had checked go port canaveral,but I was hoping for some feed back from what others had thought of the hotel they had stayed in & what they had done when it came to parking.I was looking at reviews of hotels & really cant tell if they are honest.I trust reviews of fellow cruisers.So if anyone has any info it would help

We have stayed at LaQuinta Inn twice in the last year. Most recently in Sept of 2015. We used the parking voucher both times and I am sold on it. The hotel is perfectly fine for an overnight stay. Nothing fancy, but the rooms were clean and the breakfast was fine.

You will get the voucher upon checkout.

Present the voucher to the parking attendant at the port and he will input the discount. Very simple process and well worth it. I'm not a fan of the shuttles, particularly after the cruise. So much easier to load luggage and hit the road.

Hope this was helpful. Enjoy your cruise.

Hank

I did it in Sept. It was $95. I thought it was well worth it.

Thanks for the input cruiseonthebrain! I had read about the Bacardi factory too, so I could always see what we could do there. Saving money is nice too!

 

If the excursion isn't offered, that makes this option way more possible.

Just wanted to chime in to say congratulations on your upcoming wedding and GO HAWKS!!!

We have done interiors with our 9 yr old twins. It was tight then, but we made do because finances allowed only one room. Our last cruise with them was in 2013. They were 17 at the time and we did two cabins.

I would suggest two cabins is your finances allow it.

Wow cruisecritic has everything! I sure hope they haven't rolled it out further so I can at least try the old menu once. Thanks for the help locating the info. If anyone else who's sailed recently can confirm or deny that'd be awesome. :)

We were on Sunshine on 9-27-15 cruise. I can confirm that they did have old free room service menu. We used it a couple of times. Although there is no charge, it is customary to tip server a buck or two.

Enjoy your cruise. We had a great time on this ship.

We are a family of 5 as well. The past 2 cruises we have also had 2 cabins which were linked. We were seated at a table for 6, but it was just the 5 of us. I think this would be the standard arrangement, however, if you wanted to sit with others at a larger table, you might need to request that.

Hope this helps. Happy cruising.

DW and I just got back from 5 days on Sunshine. We were making a list of these types of things. What we came up with are our Red Frog/Blue Iguana tervis cups, binoculars and lanyards. When we checked in at Port Canaveral, Our sail and sign cards were pre punched. I appreciated that.

My cruise has also changed. I am booked on an 8 day on Conquest in Sept. 2016.

We were going to St. Maarten, St. Kitts, San Juan and Grand Turk.

Received letter on Tuesday indicating new ports are Grand Turk, LaRomana, Bonaire and Aruba. No reason was offered.

I'm not complaining. Checked prices for new cruise and it is now $320 more.

I found an interior with a picture window, walkway view on the Sunshine. At least I wouldn't feel like I was in a closet. I put a courtesy hold on it while we decide because they only had a couple of those rooms left. It says it's modified so we could get bumped. Does that mean they could bump us to an inside with no window?

If you do get bumped, they will not downgrade to interior. They will do equal category or higher.

I'm going on the Sunshine for 1st time as well in Sept. Really looking forward to it.

For the 1st time ever, I have 2 cruises booked at same time. 73 days till the Sunshine and 440 or so till the Conquest.

I also travel with the Belkin model pictured in an earlier post. We last cruised on the Liberty in Feb of this year. Our room steward did unplug it from the receptacle during the day. He did not say anything about it, just left on the counter. I guess it just depends.

Happy cruisin to all.

We just booked our second Carnival cruise for next year to celebrate our daughter's 21st birthday. I can't believe we have to wait 340 days. :p

Teresa,

I booked the Conquest for twins 21st birthdays. Only 542 days to go. Just wow. Long time to go.

Hope you y'all have a great cruise.

Hank

Booked yesterday on the Conquest

Only 543 days to go

We were on the Liberty last month. They have the American Table/Feast menus.

When I asked for a kids menu for my 6yo,

They replied that they didn't have kid menus any longer. They also were not very helpful in what she could get.

Hopefully, this will work itself out after the menus have been rolled out to the rest of the fleet.

Yes.

nothing finite yet, but john heald's reply to a post on facebook seems to insinuate that we could see some changes in NY for 2016:

 

Q: Any idea what dip will be in New York in the coming years?? I feel like no one at Carnival cares about NY...

 

John Heald: we cerratinly do which is why we are showcasing our newest ship there next year and lets see what else will happen in 2016 - cheers

 

Asked my PVP yesterday about cruises out of Port Canaveral in Sept of 2016. In particular, the Sunshine. He said he didn't see any cruises from there, but said the Sunshine had cruises from NYC doing the northeast itinerary.

I don't normally speculate on these matters but have no reason to question the accuracy of the info he gave me. Just saying.

We did this on the Liberty a couple of weeks ago.

There was a table set up on lido deck on sail away day that we signed up at.

We had ours on the last sea day.

They did a really nice job of decorating the dining room. The Suess characters will be there for photo ops. The food is your standard breakfast fare. They do have some food geared towards the kids.

For us, it was worth the $5 fee.

How was this rate compared to rack rates at the time you booked; cheaper or higher? Just checking to see if that's a "true" 40% discount at the parking facility since $72 implies you would Still have paid $120 without the coupon for a 7 day cruise (8 days parking) and I thought I read that rates were going up at certain terminals.

I'll be honest with you, I don't remember the rack rate at the time I booked. I did the math at the time and it made sense to me. I was happy with it. As I said, I was avoiding the shuttles.

How was the hotel itself......?

The hotel was good for one night for us. We had three adults and a six year old in the room. Queen beds were firm. Good for me. So many things are subjective. The pool was heated, though we did not use, cool temps and breezy. Breakfast was your standard continental spread, they did have scrambled eggs and sausage patties, mini belgian waffle maker, cereals, assorted danish/muffins. The rate, I believe, was slightly higher, but I was more interested in the parking coupon than anything else. Wanted to avoid the shuttles.

Hope this helped.

Thank you GaHawkeye, I look forward to your update after your cruise. Do you mind if I ask what rate you have for La Quinta and did you call them to confirm if they have the coupons?

I'm back and happy to confirm that the coupon is legit.

We arrived at the hotel at about 2pm. Called ahead to make sure room was ready. I asked front desk the procedure for the coupon and she said we would receive it upon check out, which we did, stapled to the hotel folio or receipt. We left hotel at 10:10 and arrived at port at 10:30. We had FTTF on Carnival Liberty. I dropped luggage and family at terminal 10. Then drove around to the parking entrance. Attendant took the coupon and I paid 72.00.

It was a very simple process.

Debarkation was just as simple.

I am leary of the park and cruise deals with shuttles. I have heard that sometimes the waits can be excessive, especially on the return. I just budget the extra money to park at the port.

We were on the road home at 8:15.

Would recommend this coupon to anyone who wanted to park at port.

Hope this helps anyone considering using this hotel coupon.