allison0523

John Heald wrote: "its not so mate - please post this on the cruise critic site because I spoke to the VP of Bars and he confimed that we serve and will continue to two spiced rums, Bacardi Oakheart and Captain Morgan. Whoever said we are not is wrong. The end. cheers"

There is a big difference in taste between captain morgan and bacardi. I have not tried the oak barrel but I am sure it's not the same. Sailor jerry tastes similar but I doubt they have that either. I am solely a Morgan drinker and don't drink beer. Guess I would save a lot of money by not buying drinks on the ship! So, thank you Carnival for that. But getting rid of Captain Morgan when you carry all sorts of other obscure liquors is silly in my opinion. Maybe they have a contract with the other liquor?

Refrigerators in the junior suites of the Fantasy?

Yes, but don't expect them to work really well. On the 2 carnival cruises I have been on, it took a full day for the stuff in the fridge to get cold.

My wife (Alisha) and I (Joe) would be interested. We have two boys who would be four and six, but Camp Carnival will help out with that :).

Glad to see someone else with young children. We are interested too. Mike and Allison with 5 year old Nick.

Of course one would be hired in a land facility, but never turned to work on their own with no experience in the real world. They need guidance.

On a ship scenario, where there's 1 or 2 nurses only, out to sea etc, would a ship want to hire a person who needs to pull out a textbook to find out what they need to do?

Ahhh. You must have been one of those negative people I was talking about. And I wasn't talked about the OP being hired on a ship with no experience. I was talking about her wanting to get hired in an ICU or ER after nursing school.

Thank you everyone for all the information! I figured you would need at least a few years of experience, but I was worried it would be closer to 10 years. I have an internship set up for this summer with a guaranteed hiring in the department I intern in. This will be a big help when I choose which department I want. Looks like ER or ICU!! Hopefully after a few years of working and living with my parents I'll be ready to attempt a contract or two on a ship :) My BF is about to start his Masters in engineering so maybe I can convince him to study Naval engineering and join me!

Good luck! I am also a nurse and a paramedic. I was hired into an ER in a level 1 trauma center right after I graduated from college. It was a huge learning curve but I had already worked as a basic EMT for 5 years. Some of the people on here have been a little negative in my mind. Check into job opportunities in the areas you are interested in. Don't let someone on here tell you that they won't hire you. Find out for yourself. And once you get your experience, you can try cruise ship nursing for 6 months and see if you like it. If nothing else, it will be a good experience. But it sounds like you have a great attitude. Hope everything works out for you and you get your dream job! :)

Congrats but just make sure that this is legit. There are so many scams going on.

I have booked a suite on a Fantasy class ship, but I knew exactly what I was paying for. The room is no bigger than a balcony room on any other class of ship, and the balcony is very tiny, but you are paying for a "suite."

 

IMHO, Carnival is being a little disingenuous by calling these cabins "suites". Unless the room is larger than a standard room, it should be referred to as a balcony cabin and priced as such.

Well said! That was the point I was trying to get across. And I also agree it's a personal thing as to your likes and dislikes and what you are willing to pay extra for. We got a good deal as I think we paid less than what the list/regular price for a balcony was. However, I feel carnival did misrepresent the room on their website. I was merely trying to give other people a heads up to what you are actually getting.

On a side note, I don't know about the Inspiration, but on the Sensation, there was a pretty remote balcony all the way forward that anyone could go to but we rarely saw anyone there. So, I don't know what the prices of the inside rooms on the verandah deck are. But I assume they are less and that might be a better option to just buy an inside room there and walk out the front door to that balcony area. Only bad thing is that there aren't any chairs out there. But, we really couldn't sit on the chairs on our balcony without turning them sideways, then they were in the way of the door.

Also, because of this, we upgraded to an extended balcony on our next cruise because we like to be able to sit comfortably on the balcony facing forward while being able to get into and out of the door. Not a huge deal, just something for people to know when they book these rooms.

We have a Junior Suite and this is how I think about this issue:

 

My other half booked up the Grand suite and I told him to spend $700 more is ridicious its not that we using the room and balcony much, maybe if we went to Alaska then it be useful but not for this cruise but to worry about less than 200 is ridicious.

 

Privacy? No cruise that I been on is actually totally private. On many RCI ships the balconies face one another depending upon the build of the ship, many promenade cabins on RCI also look onto eachother. Ever notice when you have a balcony or outside cabin you still get to see the inside of the cabin next door via glare? I not care whether people look in because if I am sleeping the curtains are closed I not keep them open or do I want to keep the balcony door open what for humidity to get into the room? We like people watching so to see people is not a big deal to me, I not care if I am only dressed in my nighty and they see me, I still have something on and not ashamed. I also have a little bit of a problem with heights and going to the ledge so having the lido deck right below me is perfect I won't have that fear with this room.

 

So for under 200 more why not get a junior suite I say. To each their own.

You make my point for me by saying that it would be ridiculous to pay $700 more for a grand suite because you aren't in the room or balcony that much. I looked up a cruise for the end of next month and the price difference for a balcony vs a JS is $500 for 3 people (the number of people we had). I personally would be very mad if I paid $500 to "upgrade" from a regular balcony to a Jr. Suite only to find out it really wasn't much different. If you like the Jr. Suite, that's great. But I would think that most people do not feel like it's a good deal to spend $300-$500 more for a room that's essentially the same. Also, here's the picture that carnival has on their booking site of a Junior Suite below. THIS IS NOT THE ROOM WE GOT. So, isn't a bit of false advertising on their part? Picturing a different room? Just FYI for those out there to be informed. That's all.

The Balconies are only 3 feet deep on the Verandah deck Fantasy class. Its hard to sit on the chair & face the ocean. I agree with the OP. Not worth the money.

 

The rooms are bigger than standard balconies but not layed out as well as on the newer ships.

Our only comparison was a balcony on the Freedom of the Seas 2 years ago and the room and balcony were bigger than this supposed "suite". Anyways, if they would just put smaller chairs on there, it would be better for you to sit facing forward. I just don't get why they put a narrow balcony with big chairs.

As far as disembarking the ship, we tried to go to guest services a couple times but the line was long so we just said forget it. But I was determined to get off of that ship asap no matter what so we could make our 1110 flight! My husband went and asked someone if we could get off with the first group and he told him no. So, I went and asked someone that looked like they were in charge and she said, come on through. There were no issues with that. But since it was our first time on Carnival, I didn't want to take the chance. We had a great time on the cruise. We are the go with the flow type people and don't let things get to us.

The interesting thing is that I just pulled up a junior suite on the Sensation and the picture it shows is not the room we stayed in. From what I can tell, it looks like a grand suite with a larger sitting area. I just feel like carnival is somewhat misleading with this whole "suite" thing on that ship. Maybe it's different on the newer ones. We should have stayed with our inside guarantee.... lol. The extra we paid for the JS would have paid for our bar bill! But, being on the verandah deck was nice because our son frequented the kids club on that floor and the lido deck was only 1 deck down.

Ok. So I want to post this so other people don't spend the extra money for a "Suite" like we did and end up getting nothing different than a balcony with "priority" boarding, which by the way, didn't really matter anyways. We were booked on the Sensation earlier this month for a guaranteed inside stateroom for a little over $200 total per person. There were 2 adults and a child. Then, the upsell/upgrade fairy calls us trying to upgrade us to the Owner's suite or a Junior Suite. We had booked our flight pretty tight going home and I didn't realize MCO was 40 miles from the pier. So, now I am starting to get a little nervous that we might miss our flight and priority boarding/disembarking sounds pretty good. I am not platinum, so that means we need a suite. I compare the price of the "suite" with what they are going for on similar sailings and feel it is a good deal. Plus, how much would it cost us if we miss our flight? So, we book a junior suite. I look up some information online and now I am wondering if this was the right thing. But, hey, let's just roll with it. We board the ship fast, but seeing as there was no line anyways, the priority boarding didn't really matter. Oh well, our room is ready. We go to our room, which is conveniently located on the verandah deck. When we entered our room, I was disappointed about the size of the room, the size of the bathroom, the width of the balcony, the fact that the balcony overlooked a walkway and the fact that the couch needed to be replaced because the pleather (or whatever it was) was cracked and damaged. I did not think this room resembled a Suite in any way. We were in V6. Thankfully, we did not pay the $1000 more that I have seen them listed for. Still, why call this a suite? I am pretty sure this room was the same size or smaller than their regular balcony cabins. The only difference was the deck (ok, so charge a little more) and the priority boarding. Oh yeah, and some bathrooms that we didn't use anyways. You don't even have a private balcony in these rooms. There is a walkway below. People can stare up at you when you are out there. Besides, there is a open front deck out the exit door that you can go to. And as far as disembarking the ship, we weren't even given priority information or tags. We just packed our stuff up and when people starting exiting the boat, we told the lady we were supposed to be in this group (which we were) and left. We were out front by 0730 and made our flight no problem. We had a great time on this cruise, despite the disappointment in the room. I just don't think it's right that Carnival sells these as Suites when they are no different (or maybe worse) than a regular balcony room. Save your money for something like drinks or excursions.