Moonarino

Yeah we did. Not impressed at all, actually worse than "not impressed" with the MDR and Cucino del Capitano. One of the better edibles we found was the Seafood shack, which is on a whole bunch of Carnival ships now. It's high on the list for us. I cruise for the sake of cruising, but dining (including coffee/snacks) is a several-times-a-day thing. Definitely important.

I'm just gonna throw in here, since our Mardi Gras (Carnival) cruise was such a major letdown this past fall, I've seen that fares on both Mardi Gras and sister ship Celebration have been almost dirt-cheap over the past several weeks - often $200-400 less than other 7-day cruises in the same period and similar itineraries. I have also certainly noticed over the years that older, smaller ships are among the cheapest out there. Not that they all are, because it seems that some of the oldest ships on the water seem to be extremely popular. Like Mariner OTS? But I'm on the verge of pointlessly rambling now (if I didn't already cross that line).

Ah yeah, thanks! IF we were that adventurous, and at least 10 years younger 🙄

That looked like such a nightmare - trying to get back in line for parking after dropping off bags in stop-and-creep traffic- that we stayed in line and drove on past. But IF it doesn't look terrible as it did for us, I would agree with you. So we then had to handle our bags into and out of the elevators. But the elevators are BIG and people were extremely nice, accommodating as they could. It took us about 5 minutes to get down to level 1 from WAY up above.

It is a walk, especially if you have to go all the way to the ground floor of the garage, and then up several levels of wide concrete gangway and into the main terminal area. IIRC, that gangway shown in the pic above is for Priority only. Everybody else has to go down to level 1.

Since the OP was asking about "the garage" we're assuming the big one right next to the terminal. Yes. This was what we experienced in November.

Getting our wind back from dragging luggage around will probably eat up a good part of that time🙄. Hoping for a nice shady spot to park it for a while.

That would be very nice, since terminal A is at the other end of the port.

Not necessarily smaller or older. Some of the bigger and newer ships are the cheapest I could find in recent "shopping". - - - - - On all of our last several cruises (Royal, Celebrity and Carnival) the food was a letdown overall. Been cruising since 2008. Food is a major issue with my wife, who loves to eat but who very much enjoys a long break from the kitchen. For us, our most enjoyable dining has been at the more basic venues like seafood shack, burgers and (on Royal) the free hot dog stand. Less expectation = less disappointment if it's not great. (Sad I know, but that has increasingly been our baseline post-covid.) Playmakers on Oasis wasn't bad last year, we ate there twice, but the Park Cafe (deli) was mostly lousy. Nothing like it used to be (it was our 3rd sailing on Oasis). I won't be paying more than 10-20 bucks for "specialty" dining any more, on any cruise line.

I figured as much, but thought "B2B" was the best way to advertise my question. Thanks for your input.

Never done a B2B of any kind before, so this is a big question in my mind... We're currently booked for a 5-day on Independence OTS in November, but then decided we need at least a 7-day. But there's nothing else suitable for us around that period. So I started thinking B2B, turnaround the day we return to Miami. Long story short, a 4-day on Carnival Sunrise is the best choice I can find for us. So we would have to debark at Royal Terminal A(?) and presumably taxi down to Terminal F(?) to board Carnival Sunrise. Is this kind of "B2B" on 2 different cruise lines possible without harrying us to death? Any reason why we couldn't do that? TIA.

Yes you can still do that. AFAIK, every ship still has that option. On our cruise 2 weeks ago the self-carry pax went first, earliest, starting at 7:30. They started calling the zones at 8-ish.

I'll definitely keep this in mind, thanks for expanding. Too much is changing way too fast.....

90 minutes is NOT exaggerated at all. We started out with about a 50-minute wait (according to the app), which changed to 30-40 minutes and then stayed there for more than 30-40 minutes, and we ended up being seated an hour and a half later. We talked to a guy using a walker for most of that time. He'd gotten on the waitlist a little earlier. (This was for Cucino del Capitano.) And a 120-minute wait for the Palm dining room (our assigned DR) is no exaggeration either. You weren't there. I guess I should've taken a couple of screenshots. Again part of the problem is no human interaction at all until we're notified of a table. Then if we didn't lilke that table, we had to cancel and go back to the bottom of the waitlist. Literally. NO options, no consideration at all on that level. I do not mind using my phone when it's worth something. I'm forced to use it all the time in daily life. The first time we used an app for dining was on Conquest several years ago and that worked fine, maybe 15 minutes waiting, cute little pop-up and we could speak to a hostess before being led into the DR. There was no hostess or maitre'd on Mardi Gras, for all practical purposes, no welcome desk/podium, zero. There was a cluster of 3-4 people in the entrance doing essentially nothing except helping people with the app, early in the cruise. I don't know about days later because we gave up after the second night.

Comparing the New Orleans parking garage (10 year ago) to Port Canaveral (very recently), New Orleans was a breeze to get into, and then to get an elevator down to the terminal entrance - which was RIGHT THERE when we stepped out of the garage. The convenience costs more of course, and I've used plenty of off-port parking lots. But I would do PONO again in a heartbeat.

You can do it. But (see my above warning) your bags might not be in the terminal when you get there. They unload bags by zone, earliest zones (time slots) first, etc. (This was on Mardi Gras just last week.)

I'm sure if you don't "enroll" in digital debark you'll be assumed as Express. If you select digital you'll be sent the tags and you'll have to pick a time window. You can't do it in advance of your cruise, if that's what you're asking. I don't remember how far into the cruise before the prompt for digital debark started showing, but there was plenty of time to get it done. After you click to sign up and select all in your party, you'll be offered a list of time windows. WARNING: If you wait too long, ALL the earlier slots will likely be gone. Also a warning, experienced on Mardi Gras last week: They were very slow getting bags into the terminal. We got off ahead of our window (for health reasons) but still had to wait 40-45 minutes for our "Zone" of luggage to be unloaded and stacked in all those long aisles. They wouldn't let us into that area till all bags were set out. But also note, Mardi Gras holds 5200 passengers. Other ships probably won't have that problem.

Thanks hcat, and that's exactly why I asked. As mentioned, we sailed Silhouette 18 months ago and there was barely a mention of the app (relatively speaking). Two years later, who knows what might have changed.

Thanks for that. I should've added, my #1 reason for posting this is to avoid the same problems on our next cruise. I figured some detail would help.

Yep. I had also booked Enchanted back in 2022, but decided against it partly because the medallion seemed to be a bit much (from what I'd read in these boards). Good to know it's avoidable.

"Come at certain times" would've been workable for us, if not the fact that the longer one waited, the longer the wait time got. 100% truth, we saw wait times up to 120+ minutes on the app for our assigned dining room. And then get a bad table.....

My 10-day on Celebrity November 2022 didn't cost a lot more. It seems the trick is to book far ahead, a year or better if possible. I saw how much higher the prices got over the months after my booking. Yeah Guy's Burgers was one of our more enjoyable meals. Good shrimp at the Seafood Shack too. We ended up eating there 3-4 times after giving up on the sit-down restaurants.

Thanks, love that last. I'm an old IT pro and appreciate tech, but definitely NOT when it gets in the way of relaxation.

Thanks. I generally like to connect with others - at times - but not have it forced on me, and my lady is even more that way. (Edit to clarify because I initially misread that part of your comment.) I do remember on Silhouette in November 2022 that many tables were closer together. But when it was too squeezed in, we were able to ask for a different table and got it. When the app assigns tables, there's no help at all beyond "canceling" the table and going back to the end of the line.

Too much for you I guess. "Drama" after laying out $3k in total for our worst cruise ever, where dining should've been our most enjoyable aspect. I don't feel the tinest bit guilty.