DMac1983

1 hour ago, Carnevale said:

 

 Plus the pkg means we don't have to try to follow a long list of drinks charged to our account daily and we have the freedom to try things and move on to something else if we don't like them.

This is the main point in drinks packages for me. Piece of mind. I already paid for it so I am free to not consider price on the menu. 
 

My wife always says we don’t “need” the drink package. She is correct. But it’s nice to have. We will, however, most likely at least break even if not, more realistically, go over every day. 

Going on the QM2 for our first Cunard experience on the Canada Day/July 4th jaunt up the east coast. My wife enjoys a good coffee with some of that coconut flavor pumps they have in the shops. Would these types of flavors be available at any of the venues listed above? I haven't been able to find that uniquely specific information anywhere. 

I called MSC yesterday to pull something off a saved booking, and was dreading it after reading horror stories about customer service.

Absolutely no concern. Called and was directly connected to an operator with no issues or wait. Perfectly easy conversation with everything panning out as planned. 
 

Makes me excited for my cruise in June 2023. I’m fairly easy going in general, but I think the “people only leave reviews to complain” is fairly accurate. 
 

To be honest, I was half reading this thread as I watched TV and thought I saw someone write about customer service. If I’m way off course on the topic here, my apologies. It still rings true.

Got off the Magic two days ago on Thursday. Wok and Pizza typically had longer waits. Even if the Burger line was to the elevators the wait is about 4 1/2 minutes, no issue. You can catch pizza right for no line. If you go to BBQ at noon when it opens, there is a line. If you go at 12:07… no line. Staff are great.

Issues would be with other passengers. My solution: don’t interact with other passengers. I’m not rude or antisocial, but generally I don’t interact with other passengers for a long period of time. Yes, there are chair reservers. Yes, line cutters. Yes, it was a disaster to get tender tickets but most of this is caused by other people’s decisions to be asshats. Ryan Rose, the cruise Director, got on the PA a bunch reminding people to be good people. It didn’t work, but hey, he was trying. He’s a great CD and great for the company. He’s got a vision for progression in the future, I hope they let me give it a shot.

If you went solely on the cruise FB group you would think it was the worst cruise ever. Mine was quite the opposite. No true complaints. Yes, there were asshats. I just didn’t interact with said asshats or let them ruin my day if something went slightly off because of said asshattedness. 

1 minute ago, evandbob said:

One shot glass of booze usually holds 1 and 1/2 oz of liquor. 

 

15 drinks with 15 shots of booze each equals 22 and 1/2 ozs. of liquor.

 

A fifth bottle of booze equals 25 and 1/2 ozs.

 

So anyone hitting the 15 drink limit may be close to imbibing a fifth bottle of booze a day. 

 

If someone does that daily for a week long cruise, I'll guess that their liver enzymes would be out of whack and they would be feeling back and side pain from the overuse of their digestive organs, like stomach, kidney, pancreas and liver.

Challenge accepted! Take that, liver!

I hit it once last cruise. Started with an Irish Coffee at 0930. Generally just bouncing through the day. Wife and kids go to bed, I go back out to the casino at 9pm, go to Alchemy and told “that’s number 14.”

I didn’t even plan to have another drink at that point, but once I heard #14, I knew I had to hit the limit. For pride alone.

”and that’s number 15!” I said to the bartender ordering my next drink. He was not as impressed with my accomplishment as I was.

I didn’t waste anytime. I was going to get Cheers anyway for July. Simply didn’t yet because of procrastination. Definitely went on today and secured the $51/day. 
 

If nothing happens between now and July so be it. Like I said, I was going to book it anyway.

9 hours ago, Saab4444 said:

If you did the Lift and Shift in March 21 haven’t you checked your updated invoice and account before?

The online portal never had the “pay remaining balance” highlighted to be selected until yesterday. There was no indication anything was wrong until I got the email. 

Just a head’s up to anyone else experiencing a similar situation.

Back on March 2021, I did a Lift & Shift from our fully-paid May 2021 cruise to May 2022. Simple phone call. Perfectly easy. Later that day, the cruise planner showed up with the new 2022 date.

Flash forward to this morning, I get an email “Pay your remaining balance.” Receipt in the email said I owed $643. When I logged into the system, it said I owed $1,439. 

It wasn’t a huge deal to fix, but a little anxiety when I first for the email. I called RCL and explained the situation. After about 20 minutes while the “escalation team” were on my reservation, I got my zero balance receipt without having to pay anything else.

UPDATE: I ruined my own surprise.

Tried calling Carnival a few times but long wait times caused me to give up. Eventually, last night, I told my wife “I had this surprise planned for the family but Carnival cancelled it. It’s not on the planner any more. AND I haven’t gotten a refund. Argh!”

I called this morning right at 0900 and got a very nice operator that informed me that I selected “Gift” when I made the purchase so it doesn’t show up on the cruise planner but it is still reserved.

Ya know, like if you were planning a surprise for your wife and purchased a bungalow, but she also had access to the cruise planner. You would want her to be able she wouldn’t to see your purchase, so your awesome surprise moment would still be intact when you board.

I am an idiot.

I reserved a Bungalow on Princess Cays on 9/18/21 for my 11/21/21 cruise out of Baltimore. I have the receipt email and I have previously seen it in my Cruise Planner. I log in today and my reservation is gone. Coincidentally, Bungalows are now sold out and priced $20 more than what I had paid. I also never got a refund on my credit card. Currently on hold with Carnival (going on 45 minutes) so I'll follow up when I speak with someone. Annoyed at the moment. It was going to be a surprise for the wife and kids so I can't even complain to my wife!

I know I'll get the refund eventually, but I feel like there were some shenanigan's with bungalow reservations and they cancelled mine on me. No notice. No anything. 

Crystal Cruise Lines (small luxury operation) just announced they're starting up from Boston and New York in August. If the small cruise lines are going there, you would assume the bigger ones have something brewing as well.

Jameson and Ginger Ale. Mojitos, though I feel bad for bartenders because they’re annoying to make. One day it will be Stella Day. Fits nicely in the cup holder of a stroller. 
 

Kids are old enough we don’t need to take a stroller, but then I’d need to carry my own drink around. That just won’t do…

07/25/2021 Pride out of Baltimore cancelled. I went to the website and did the "Check to see if my sailing is cancelled" and it said yes and gave me the usual options for rebooking/refund.

This was the first time Carnival commented officially on the cruises being removed from the website. The other times they pulled them off and two days later the "I'm sorry your cruise has been cancelled" notice came out. I want to actually believe them this time when they say no official decision has been made on the cruises except to limit further booking, and here's why...

Perhaps Carnival is working to get these three ships ready to go, if they can make them operational then they'll figure out which other ships/homeports they can get back running before the time runs out. Work in smaller milestones. Example: Galveston/Miami is done. It took 15 days. Next is Tampa/Baltimore. Projection 12 days. Next is Mobile/New York. Projection 10 days. Carnival will probably get more efficient as time goes on as well. 

We have two little ones that are now 6 and 3. The 6 year old has been on 5 cruises and the 3 year old has been on 3, so they've got experience.

1. Drink Package - Helps calm the day. No need to drink excessively, but I would suggest early and keeping a nice flow through the day. Then when 8pm bedtime comes, everyone goes to sleep together. If they wake up early at 6 or so, you've already had 10 hours of sleep.

2. Portable DVD player or Tablet with shows. For when you're getting dressed for dinner or generally doing things around the room. There's not much screen time for us on vacation, so when they get it they're pretty content. We do the MDR with the kids.

3. Stroller for nap time and do laps around a promenade deck outside or in. Normally its pretty noisy on the outer decks so I'd do laps on an internal deck. Brought an ipod with some podcasts and took a stroller. Passed by the bar and would order a drink on my way around, picked it up on my way back without breaking stride like I'm a marathon runner grabbing a cup of water from a spectator. It's fun for everyone involved.

4. Coloring books, activity books, legos, other small activities you can do in an empty lounge during the day. We would grab a cluster of chairs in a bar and make a little baby pen so they couldn't escape and wander away. Now that they're older they wouldn't wander, but its nice to be able to not have to constantly chase after them when they're that certain age where they're prone to wander off into the duty free shop without containment.

5. Bring snacks. Salty snacks aren't really available on a ship. There's normally french fries at any given moment, but we bring a bunch of Cheez-Its, Veggie Straws, Goldfish, and they each have a Munchie Mug-esq container so they can snack on the go.

Yep. The bars are still open. There's also the one bar that opens up around 0900 so if you have a 3 and 5 yr old you're about to take off the ship for a day you can stop by for a quick shot of Jameson to ease into the morning.

And the bartenders are so nice not to judge even though I always start off with "look... I don't WANT to start drinking this early but I've got a long day ahead of me..."

1 hour ago, cruiseguy1016 said:

 

There are 39 Fridays left in 2021. I wonder which one they'll pick.

 I got a good chuckle off this line. Bravo.

There was a news article from the Bahamas that talked about opening up the private leased islands first before Nassau to keep the cruise lines happy and with a place to go. 
 

I could see them going Cococay, out to sea for a day, then Cococay again only for the reason that there’s a two ship limit in docking and other ships may be scheduled to come in between.

Every November cruise except for sailings out of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, or Los Angeles went away. I'm booked on a Baltimore trip Nov 22 that disappeared. Looks like Carnival may be starting with 3-4 days sailings like John Heald hinted at.

On my last cruise on the Anthem someone asked if they were going to change the show from Rock of Ages and the captain said in order to change sets they have to cut a hole in the side of the ship... so probably not anytime soon. 

I thought that was an interesting tidbit.

Usual Early Seating 5:30 or late 8:30 which are setup in two of the main dining rooms. The other dining rooms are used for My Time where people either make reservations before the cruise or line up on the 4th floor come dinner time.

There's also the steakhouse Chops, Jamie Italian (which I've never seen packed my two times on the Anthem), and Isumi the sushi place. They also have the usual pizza place, coffee shop, a hotdog stand by the sport deck, and the Windjammer. 

The only two options left for the Pride out of Baltimore in Nov and Dec are the holiday weeks. It will be interesting to see the next week to see what announcement comes out.

You absolutely do NOT have to use a TA if you originally used one. The FCC is attached to your account, not the TA. 
 

I originally booked with a TA, had cruise in May cancelled, and rebooked through Carnival for November.

For the first time ever, I booked through a large Warehouse Type Store's Travel Unit instead of through the cruise line itself. Should I wait and have the Travel Unit do the FCC form or can I do it myself? I don't plan on using a travel agency again.