Thebosn1

Just off the Glory on 3 Feb. They had the old menu for both Steakhouse and Chef's table. On one of our three Steakhouse visits we were told you can only get one side. Didn't push it as we had a large group. They did mention the new menu was coming but I don't remember if they had a date. The new deli menu was out but my wife and I were not impressed. The chicken sandwich was sad, nugget sized chicken on a large roll. It was tasty and I had it twice. My wife didn't like what she got once which was a ham and cheese.

What is the "New Menu"? Sail on her next month and have 2 steakhouse reservations.

These stories are very under-reported. Now, if a toilet backs up, it's the lead on the national news...

I know I am going to get the book thrown at me but I think the problem is the kids but adults who are intolerant of kids. Back in the day, everyone was expected to have kids. Nowadays, lots of people choose to remain child free.

That's wonderful but you can't expect the rest of the world to be that way.

Also back in the day, kids were actually worse behaved. Bullying was actually accepted and if you said anything you were a tattletale. The difference is airfare was much more expensive, cruises only left from Florida, and people had larger families. Cruising also was more costly. My parents never took me cruising when I was a kid. However, my 16 year old son has been multiple cruises. Kids aren't worse at all but they travel much more today and are surrounded by intolerant adults.

So the things I see that I am concerned about are just me being intolerant? You are just rephrasing the "kids being kids" argument and I don't buy that at all. I DO believe the root of the problem is the adults, but it is the unwillingness of the adults to actually control their kids. I disagree that kids behaved worse years ago. If they tried, they were STOPPED by the adults. They are able to behave MUCH WORSE now because there is no boundary they can't cross. Do you really think the kid on the Spirit's first act of disruptive behavior was chucking a glass bottle at someone's head from a hundred feet above?

You make a really interesting point about kids traveling now. I think you are right. I never got on a plane until I got married, didn't even take my own daughter on my first cruise because it was an anniversary celebration. The combination of cheaper air and the cruise prices themselves allow entire families to cruise. I think that is fantastic, but I think that on a cruise it is a bit different than being on a beach or going to Disney. We are all piled into some of those areas together. More seasoned cruisers know this, and most try to show a little more respect for each other's space through their actions. Maybe newer, or first time cruisers with multiple kids don't understand this? I don't have a problem speaking to people about their kids behavior, but I think the ship's staff should help them to set boundaries as well.

Thanks again.

Thank you, that clears it up for us!

Thank you.

We are in the process of planning my son's graduation cruise. We will have our 12 year old daughter, 18 year old son, and his friend. Since this cruise is all about the kids, which ship will have more to do? We took the Freedom 2 months ago with no kids and we loved it but I'm worried it won't have as much to do.

 

Anyone been on both? Pros and cons? TIA!

I have been on both. I didn't find any real problems with either ship. Both have a LOT of things to do, great food. One thing about Vista, when we sailed on her she was fully booked, but so BIG that did not seem crowded at all. If I HAD to give a nod to one over the other, I would say Vista. But both are great.

I guess I'll be the little boy who tells the emperor he has no clothes on. I don't by this at all. Yes it's a different world today than it was when I was raised in the 60's, but I think kids and parents take a bad wrap because it's different.

 

My mother, and my friends parents, all believed in the belt and disciplined us. We were also told children were to be seen and not heard from. Despite this level of discipline and expectation, we still got in plenty of trouble and did a lot of stupid things. Sometimes people were injured, most often us. We were kids. We weren't bad kids just kids. When my parents went to a party we were left alone (unsupervised as you now put it) and chaos ensued. When we all went together to places, the adults congregated and the kids went off on our own. If we did something that got back to our parents we were punished. When the next opportunity came up, we did the same thing. Before you ask, I had my first job at 12 cleaning offices after school, so I was not running with a bunch of privileged brats. Again we were kids. The biggest difference was, if an adult saw us they stopped us, whether we were their kids or not. They didn't judge our parents for not following us all day in the car, they didn't judge us as bad, they yelled "What the hell are you doing? Get down from that." and we did. I guess I was not the angel that many of you (and evidently your children) were, who never broke a rule, ran into someone, or blocked the stairs by sitting on it. In fact if you asked my mother, she would probably tell you that it would have been a prayer answered to get a call telling her that my fiends and I were sitting on the step blocking the way. Then she would have said "Well tell them to get the hell up, your the adult."

 

I think the problem is, we get on forums like this and hide behind anonymity, and become way over the top in rhetoric because it's easy. If you don't want to deal with kids and their behavior, I get that. As others have mentioned, find an adult oriented cruise or vacation. But what is the necessity to condemn kids and parents in general. It's funny how so many people will go here blame others for ruining a vacation, but WON'T simply tell a 12 year old "Hey stop throwing stuff all over, and pick that up." The vast majority of kids are good kids (just like yours) and they will do what you ask if you are calm and reasonable in your instruction. Try putting your hands up and saying "Hey slow down, its to crowded to run". I have never had a kid curse me out for saying this. Yes, sometimes they don't hear it, but curse me out. Never happened. I have never had a parent come after me for talking to their kid, other than to apologize. Maybe its that when these things happen I'm calm, not mad. I'm not thinking less of anyone, I simply want them to stop. When the parents approach, I tell them the truth, "He/she was just being a kid, it's no big deal. I did worse when I was their age." Same goes for the kids. I don't think whats wrong with your parents, why are you so rude. I think and say "Hey stop throwing the popcorn please". I'm sure somewhere out there are these unruly kids and defensive parents, but they are not the majority.

 

There is a big difference in the world I see today is that people want to fix blame not problems. As ma23peas eluded to, why are you all so afraid to step up and ask a kid to stop? My first thought is, God I hope someone would tell my kid to knock it off.

 

Thebosn1

if you don't want to deal with kids, I don't think you should have to qualify it by saying "I don't hate kids". I get how someone can reach the point where they just don't want to deal with it. I do think you'll have a a hard time finding a cruise on Royal without kids who are acting like kids.

Are you speaking of the same anonymity that makes you think you can come on here and preach to everyone about how off base they are? First of all, I don't think I said I don't hate kids, and if I did it wasn't to "qualify my remarks". Second, do you honestly think I have never stopped a kid from acting up, or spoken to a parent? You feel you are somehow the only person that has the magic do that? Lastly, I asked a pretty simple question. You finally answered it in the last line of your dissertation. The instances I gave were true, not rhetoric. They were not exaggerations. Thank you for answering my question. I didn't need the term paper on how to be an adult.

I have boarded at Long Beach before, but they were not using check in times then. I have a cruise coming up in October and I have priority boarding, but I also have an assigned check in time. Am I still required to show up at the assigned time?

Thanks.

DW & I are Australians. We’ve mostly cruised on Royal Caribbean and mostly out of Sydney.

 

Last year we did a B2B on Carnival Spirit Out of Sydney. We felt there were more similarities between the two lines than differences but what we did notice was that the passengers were almost exclusively Australians and New Zealanders. There were hardly and North American passengers on board.

 

It would appear that Carnival has made a choice to market to Australians when homeporting in Australia. The Spirit went through an "Australianisation" process which included installing Australian power outlets and Aussie Dollars are the onboard currency. And the Aussie website will only allow you to book on Aussie cruises. I think that the VIFP program is slightly different down here. Oh, and the drinks packages could be different, I think. (DW & I are teetotallers so not 100% sure on that).

 

It would be interesting to hear from peopl who have sailed on Carnival in both the USA and Australia.

 

BTW, it’s Single Digit Day! :D

We board Carnival Spirit next Monday for 10 nights.

I did 2 repositioning cruises in Carnival Legend. One from Long Beach and one that I joined in Hawaii. only a handful of Australians on the Long beach cruise, and only a handful of north Americans on the Hawaii cruise. I also think it was spring vacation in Australia when I went so TONS of kids. Completely blew that one.

The VIFP points from the Hawaii cruise, which was BOOKED under Carnival AU were applied to my Carnival U.S. account, which was nice. The exchange rate was not bad so the use of AU$ was no biggie.

Need help from past cruisers who have done this cruise. I am thinking about booking this cruise thru a travel agent but have some concerns. We are platinum members of Carnival. First off we need to use a completely different carnival website. The payment needs to be in Australian currency which our card will convert but the cruise line is going to charge me an additional 1.12 % doesn't make sense. Also because we are from the US we were told that we can't pre book our shore excursions. Any help from past cruisers on this Australian itinerary would be greatly appreciated.

Also, the conversion to payment in $AU is really no big deal. The small fee is hardly noticeable compared to the main payment. The ATM on the ship dispensed $AU as well.

Need help from past cruisers who have done this cruise. I am thinking about booking this cruise thru a travel agent but have some concerns. We are platinum members of Carnival. First off we need to use a completely different carnival website. The payment needs to be in Australian currency which our card will convert but the cruise line is going to charge me an additional 1.12 % doesn't make sense. Also because we are from the US we were told that we can't pre book our shore excursions. Any help from past cruisers on this Australian itinerary would be greatly appreciated.

I am also from the states and I hate to tell you this, but Carnival AU, both the web page and the customer service are NOT good. There are a lot of things you can do on the regular Carnival page that you can't ever do on the AU page.

I recommend a TA for help, and Australian TA would be best. If you have a group page for your cruise, there may be someone on there that knows someone, if you know what I mean mate.

I am familiar with the process on other cruise lines that have a very similar method of debarkation tags and there is line to pick up tags. You just pick up what you need and go

 

 

The only line there might be is due to clueless people who are undecided on what number tags they want and just stand in front of the tags like they are frozen in time

HAHAHA that's exactly what I was thinking! Unfortunately, I can see that being the actual situation and spending time waiting behind people when I would rather be enjoying myself.

I noticed more adults acting like spoiled unsupervised kids on Carnival than I ever saw Kids in NcL. To be fair, we have only sailed NCL to Alaska And Hawaii so far, but no issues. On Carnival W Car, I saw adults vomiting in the halls and drinking to excess everywhere. I won’t take my teens on Carnival even if it were free.

The "what about the drunk adults" answer is what I get from most of the people who swear THEIR kids are not misbehaving.

EXACTLY!!! If you sail when kids are out of school you will find the ships on ALL cruise lines filled with kids......if you want lesser amounts of kids, choose times when they are in school (of course, some pax take kids out of school to cruise too...LOL). We always cruise when the chances of ships being over run with kids is slim to none and have never had a problem on CCL with problematic kids that are unsupervised in masses!! And I don't think that unsupervised kids during school holidays is specific to ONLY CCL....it is the same on all the mass cruise line (NCL, RCI in particular)......not much difference in the demographics of the passengers in general! (only the NCL and RCI pax will beg to differ on that!!)

As I said above, I don't.

I've cruised Carnival twice - I'll likely never cruise that line again for the same reason I don't stay at Circus Circus or Treasure Island when I'm in Vegas: I don't want to deal with kids/teenagers and I'll pay more and schedule appropriately to minimize the number of < 21 year olds on a boat with me.

 

I've chosen longer cruises and/or cruise during school months. I've raised three kids and I'm under 50 - so I don't consider myself an old curmudgeon. I'm sure there are loads of well-behaved kids who are cruise veterans... I just haven't run into many. :)

So which cruise line did you switch to, and how are the kids?

We just got off an Alaska cruise and I was surprised at the lack of children even though it was summertime. Maybe it's the more expensive itinerary?

 

Even my children will tell you that unruly children can ruin your time.

Yes, I have seen other children complain about the out of control ones as well. As far as the price of the cruises, I have been on very long, expensive cruises during the school year and still had problems.

If you have been loyal to Carnival, I’m surprised you don’t try one of their sister cruise lines like Princess or Holland.

 

 

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I just heard that the ships now want passengers to go and pick up their own tags for the luggage prior to debarkation. On my last cruise they dropped off the tags at our cabin the night before debarkation. Some folks are saying it is no big deal, others are talking about standing in line for extended time to pick them up.

Anyone had to do this recently? I also heard that they still bring the tags to the cabins for platinum and diamond, and others say that is only on some ships.

Next cruise is on Splendor in October. Anyone familiar with the process on her recently?

Just curious, thanks.

We usually cruise in October/November and May when school is back in session. At these times there are no more than a handful of children onboard. Also we try and cruise for at least 10 or more days which tends to have an older crowd onboard, 50+.

People keep saying that. I have said above, I NEVER cruise when school is out, ever. And all all of my cruises are longer ones. People take their kids out of school to cruise now I guess.

I love RCCL but honestly my last two cruises; one in March on the Grandeur and ince in June on the Radiance the packs of kids running and screaming and carrying on around the ship was out of control! The parents no where to be found and many of these packs had children as young as 4 or 5 included! In the past, and i have been on many cruises, it has never been so bad!

Thanks for the reply. Sounds like exactly the same thing I am seeing on Carnival. I will try another line. Thanks again.

Yikes!

 

I have about 15 or 16 cruises on Carnival, but I haven't sailed them since 2015 mainly due to declining food quality and lack of sit-down restaurant choices.

 

We've been sailing NCL mostly now (with a few Princess and Celebrity).

 

I have not seen the likes of what you describe on any line--including Carnival.

 

If I may be frank, may I ask--just to be 100% clear--are the behaviors you're describing (knocking elderly persons down, throwing condiment bottles down over the atrium) actual things personally witnessed?

Yes, they are with the exception of the bottle throw. That happened on the sister ship of the one we were on at the time. It was reported to the ship and they removed the whole family. At the same time, the ship I was on was where I saw the old man knocked down and the kids laughed and ran away. It's also where I saw VERY young kids making out at 2 AM on the serenity deck lounge chairs, and where groups of them kept flooding into the serenity area and refusing to leave. Also saw parents giving their kids alcohol. I wouldn't consider changing cruise lines based on hearsay.

Don't sail during school holidays.....

 

I can't think of any situation like that, having sailed on a trans-Atlantic and there were about 10 kids total on board. I don't know how it is on the big ships, but there are so many things to keep kids occupied, ropes course, climbing walls and now go-karts....

I never sail while school is out. Ever. And most of my cruises are the longer ones.

I have only sailed on Carnival, and been loyal to them for over 13 years. Maybe its me getting older, but it seems that the unsupervised children running around and doing really disruptive and even dangerous stuff is just gotten completely out of control. The staff absolutely refuses to do anything about it. So I am thinking of changing lines and have been looking at NCL.

Can anyone that has sailed on both Carnival and NCL give me a comparison between the two when it comes to people keeping their kids under control? I'm not talking about kids just acting like kids and being loud or a little rammy I'm talking about completely unsupervised "packs" of young teens knocking elderly people down, throwing condiment bottles down ten decks in the atrium, invading the adults only area and refusing to leave. Are the kids allowed to run wild like this on NLC as well? Are there as MANY kids on NCL? Does the staff hold the adults accountable for the actions of the kids? Is there a curfew? Is there an adults only area like the serenity area on Carnival?

I don't really want to switch to new line just to come up against the same situation I see on Carnival now. Thanks.

I think that’s the right answer. RCI is built for active families with kids (we sailed HOtS this summer). We have young adult daughters and Royal was not anyone’s favorite. Honestly, i do not think we are the target audience for RCI and that is fine. NCL fits much better. They have many more activities geared toward adults late night. RCI was overly kid oriented for us. Now we know... the great part is we have many choices!

 

 

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Thank you.