Pellaz

I was about to post this, too. So many people have tried to game the system with "emotional support animals" (including snakes, pigs and, reportedly, a miniature horse 😮 ) that the airlines and cruise lines have had to adopt stricter policies. It's a darned shame, since trained service dogs are really amazing at what they do...and what they don't do.

Much depends on the time of the year (high season, low season) and the prices of the hotel room-night + per-person additional fees vs. the price of an Atlantis day-pass or a cruise-line excursion. It's also possible that either of the latter could be sold out. For that matter, the hotel was near capacity when I stayed there recently..... Comfort Suites Paradise Island charged $40 per-person as an additional fee when adding guests, when I last visited a month ago. (For reference, I paid about $1350 for 4 nights and roundtrip airfare from Atlanta via a certain "warm cable" booking site.) Coming up with a firm amount for the hotel room-charge is tricky, but I generally assume $200/night or so as their baseline charge. So, call it around $240 for two people, $280 for three, and $320 for four (which is the max per room). This can make it "iffy" for two people, but a real deal for 3 or 4. I just contacted the hotel directly and yes indeed, the "hack" still works. Room must be booked in advance (as late as the day before, but I'd book it sooner) and it is up to 4 people per room, at $40 per person extra. You'd get your printed guest cards at hotel check-in, then proceed over to the Royal Towers lobby (past the casino) and downstairs to the Aquaventure desk to get your wristbands. You'll need to show the cards at the security checkpoint past the casino and the Crystal Shops to gain access to the lobby. If you need any advice or "best practices" tips for navigating Atlantis and Aquaventure, tag me in a post on the appropriate CruiseCritic "port" board and ask; I was just there a month ago. Your time over at Atlantis will be limited and you definitely don't want to waste any of it trying to figure out how to ride certain rides, where to go, etc.

Gods, yes. I don't know what it is about Royal's beds (or maybe the bedding), but I almost always have trouble falling asleep. Maybe the mattress is too firm, as others have mentioned? I'd also love the option of getting firmer pillows instead of really soft fluffy ones; those tend to feel warmer to me. Absolutely! That's not just on Royal, but other lines too. It's maddening. So: "Umm, I've had good service from you, but this is the third time you've mentioned giving you a 10 on the post-cruise survey. For every reminder after tonight, my score drops by one point." I wasn't really sure what "shawarma" was...until I sailed on Carnival's Mardi Gras. Tried some from the shawarma station in the Lido...and loved it. I also discovered what "bulgogi beef" is, on the same ship (it was offered at one of their "Street Eats" kiosks.) I'd love to see more "free"/included dining options for lunch on the smaller ships...and by smaller I mean anything Freedom-class or smaller. After cruising on Carnival I was shocked at the paucity of included venues on the Indy and the Freedom -- although El Loco Fresh was a welcome addition on the latter. Still nowhere near as good as Blue Iguana Cantina, but I respect Royal's effort. Also, unless they've already adopted this fleet-wide, PLEASE issue sail-and-sign cards with a pre-punched hole for a lanyard. I hated having to wait in line at Guest Services just to get my lanyard punched.

Things unique to Carnival: -- having many of the crew remember you by name. From room-stewards to Havana Area deck crew to bartenders, it's always a nice feeling. I know other cruise line employees probably do this, but they consistently try on Carnival (and it's a focus for guest-facing crew training), and on my last few Royal cruises it has been nonexistent. -- Towel animals. These are also not technically unique to Carnival but I seldom get more than one or two on Royal, if at all. And of course the Towel Animal Invasion on the pool-deck one morning toward the end of the cruise. ❤️ -- "Sssssshowtime!" And also sometimes having crew members sing during dinner. One of the female crew singers in the MDR on the Mardi Gras was absolutely amazing. -- Mongolian Wok or JiJi's Asian for stir-fry on embark day. I make a beeline for those, on ships so equipped.

The same is true for Grand Turk. While missing the point is rare, it CAN happen due to high winds because the dredged approach (the "fairway"?) is quite narrow. The Captain told us during the Behind the Fun tour that the max sustained wind speed there to dock safely was 35 mph (I think; it might have been 35 knots), and on that cruise, we JUST barely made it. There were one to two-foot waves between the ship and the shore...which at Grand Turk is pretty startling...and every water excursion including my snuba trip was cancelled.

I believe this was clarified (on CruiseCritic's port board) to say "Same-day bookings no longer qualify." @jaredgold33 I'd suggest calling Comfort Suites directly and asking. No need for any hesitation or potential embarrassment; they likely get questions like this often and they're pretty nice folks.

Heck, for all I know, they might have! 😄

No way of knowing how "deep" they go behind the doors, but yes, they seem small. I remember thinking the door to the brig was surprisingly narrow, too, at least on Horizon. As a fluffy cruiser, maybe I wouldn't fit through the doorway, so....wheee! I can act with carefree abandon onboard! 😄 (Nahh, I'd just be confined to quarters for the duration.)

Oh, absolutely. My mom and her hubby presumably got many years of enjoyment out of the artwork because they were hanging on the walls of the "great room," and the family-room downstairs. I doubt they were looking into them as an investment, either...and yes, calling those purchsers "suckers" is indeed a bit too harsh. I think the main focus here is not the quality or resale value, but the fact that Park West probably inflates the perceived value of the artwork.

No, but typically you walk by the two doors, unsurprisingly labeled "Brig" and "Morgue." On the Horizon BtF tour a few weeks ago, our tour guide prefaced the walk-through by telling us that we would be passing by a few places that were too small for our group to stop near. The crew laundry, crew gym, the morgue and the brig.

Against the dark background of soot-spill, I thought this was pretty nifty. I would never have expected slot machines to fare so well after a power outage.

On Horizon two weeks ago, the Serenity hot-tubs were kinda lukewarm (but the weather was HOT so we didn't mind too much), but the aft hot-tubs were quite warm-to-hot. --And I think those are the only two hot-tub areas on the Vista-class. There are none in the "main" Lido pool area.

Hmm, nope. OP, check your Hub app each day -- the "Captain's Pasta Bar" (Cucina at lunchtime) has generally been open every day in my experience, but it could vary by ship and staffing level. It's very similar on the Excel-class ships for lunch, except that we were heartbroken to find that, at least on the Mardi Gras in 2021, the Cucina was NOT open for lunch on embark day; I don't think Chibang! was either. 😞

They seem to be right next to echother on many ship classes. Vista class for sure, and also Dream and Conquest-class, as I hazily recall from Behind the Fun tours.

My mom and her husband were included in those "suckers." They bought a lot of art pieces aboard various cruise ships and lines. Personally, I thought most of them were garish and kinda jarring, but I don't collect "fine art," just fantasy and sci-fi prints and artist-proofs. Came time for the estate sale. The artwork was discounted pretty heavily...and still, NOT ONE piece sold. 😮

Seaday Brunch, anyone? Y'know, that thing that sounds like "lunch" because it includes lunch?

Oh, it was still pretty cool. Feel special! That machine surely isn't programmed to allow a winner in anything less than 5,000 tries, so the odds against you were at least 5,000 to 1. 🙂

As previously mentioned, the Serenity area on Fantasy-class ships is nice and quiet. Since it's located aft, it is blocked from all the noise on Lido Deck, and it's also nowhere near as windy as the forward-located Serenity areas on newer ships. AND you get a great view of the ship's wake. The Serenity areas on the older ships DO lack their own bar, but there is a bar right up the stairs on Lido Deck, next to those awesome outside "wing" seating areas above Serenity. OP, that was an emergency call and those are normally directed to the shipwide all-call system, including inside staterooms. 😮 Routine announcements are seldom directed to the all-call system, although after a certain hour on debark day they will do so, on the assumption that passengers REALLY need to be awake and preparing to vacate their staterooms. 🙂

I was able to swim underwater laps in Horizon's aft pool in the evenings after most of the folks had cleared out. It was deeper than 4 feet, close to 5 in fact. I really wish the pools onboard (but not the hot-tubs) were saline pools, instead of chlorinated, or full-content seawater. Saline pools DO have some salt content, but not as much as seawater. It's not as bad on your eyes (although I wear a mask or goggles) and not as injurious to swimsuits or swim jammers.

Wow, you must have been in the hillside cabana right next to ours (we would have been to your left from this view). We really liked the hillside cabanas -- cheaper than the others, with your own hot-tub, a really nice view, closer to the included zipline and body slide, and further away from the noisy pool-bar. Close to the Sky Bar and those restrooms, too. We felt those two mains should be on separate nights, not on the same night. 🙂 They served (softly) frozen fruit twice a day on the pool-deck back there, or at least they did last October. We had a Havana cabana room then, but had to settle for a regular balcony in 2023.

I was on this sailing also. Overall we had a good time, but for the first time in a while, we never had "outstanding" service in the MDR causing us to ask for a particular crew again. OTOH, we never had a bad experience there either. 🙂 After this incident, they should simply have the room stewards place extra name-cards in the slot permanently. Cardboard business cards work as well as credit cards. It's not as if power is THAT much of a problem onboard; the ship's diesel generators produce upward of 70 megawatts of power. Carnival REALLY should make the "tutorial" video available to everyone before the cruise, maybe in an email. The system works well, EXCEPT when people don't follow directions and overload a car with a large group that the system isn't "expecting." Yep! I did the catamaran snorkeling in Aruba -- second time -- and it was fine. The cat is surprisingly well-equipped; it even had a soda gun at the bar. We all did the Private Van With Driver for Bonaire and it was the highlight of the entire cruise. Great driver/guide and we saw a huge part of the island, which was great since it was our first time there! We six rented a Hillside Cabana -- it was the LAST cabana of any kind available when I snagged it -- and we were very happy with it. Our own hot-tub, A/C, close proximity to the Sky Bar, slide and zipline (those were included free), and gorgeous views. We paid less for it since the hilltops are regarded as the least desirable of the three cabana-types, but we thought it was great. Oh, it was a mess. It didn't help that the escalator failed at one point, clogging up the gangway. Our hot water never went out, but our friend Jay's did. Our other cruise-friends had no issues. We felt the same way. We really enjoyed the cruise, even though there were a few bumps and hiccups here and there, and we're looking forward to next year on the Celebration.

Same here; my $35 cruise on the Sunrise just after COVID was fine, A/C-wise. Not so on the Liberty about ten years ago; our oceanview wasn't being "conditioned" (i.e., it was moist air, not dry). Only after invoking the Carnival Vacation Guarantee (r.i.p.) did we get moved to a balcony that had opened up due to folks who'd missed the sailing. On our just-completed Horizon cruise, we thought the room started out fine but began getting moist and stuffy. A guest services officer came up with a digital thermometer, shrogged and said, "well, it's showing 71 degrees" and we thought that'd be the end of it..but we noticed that the problem went away and the room seemed "fresher" afterward. Maybe Engineering reset a damper elsewhere or something.

As a followup, I can now confirm that the more limited menu is now in effect aboard the Horizon at Jiji's, with certain preselected ingredients for each choice of bowl or broth. I'll append a photo of the menu below. I liked both the beef and the chicken options (I don't care for shrimp); I thought the beef bowl was slightly better. I was leery of it at first because of the Sichuan peppercorns ("Sichuan" means "hot and spicy" to me, and I prefer milder food), but the server said it wasn't TOO spicy and she was correct. 🙂

Regarding getting a burger without the bun and potentially extra messiness, I noticed on the Horizon this last cruise that they were no longer providing utensils at Guy's Burgers. Previously they'd have silverware wrapped in those red "washcloth" towels, but not any more. They likely dropped the silverware because very few people actually used or needed them for handling burgers or fries. When I asked a Guy's employee out at the condiments bar, he kindly dashed across to Blue Iguana and got me a "standard" set wrapped in the usual blue cloth napkin.

As a followup, we departed on Horizon from Terminal F...but we returned to Terminal D eight days later. 😮 Embarkation was delayed because even at 10:30 am or so, there were still 800 people from the prior sailing still on board due to only one gangway being available. Debarkation was also a cluster due to a few factors, including failure of the down-escalator from the gangway level. "The escalator is out of service and has become...stairs." 🙂 (In fact, they were closed off due to repairs in-progress.)