Joanne G.

When I booked my September Equinox cruise about a year ago, the total cruise fare with the refundable deposit was much higher than the total cruise fare with a nonrefundable deposit. I chose the nonrefundable, accepting the risk in exchange for a lower total cruise fare. My question about the above statement in bold is this - If I had originally booked the refundable, higher fare rate and was allowed to later change it to the nonrefundable lower fare rate, would that mean I could have the benefit of a refundable deposit when booking far in advance but then make the switch to the lower fare nonrefundable rate when closer to final payment date? That does not seem to be in Celebrity's interest. Am I missing something?

I’m on a cruise this summer from Barcelona to Rome. I’m traveling solo, and the City Stay packages for Barcelona are ridiculously expensive, for example currently over $5,000 for 3 nights or about $2700 per person for double occupancy for 3 nights. Periodically they are reduced maybe 30%-40% during Celebrity’s “flash sales”, but it’s still a lot of money compared to making similar arrangements on your own. Prices are a little more reasonable for Rome. You should be able to see the prices and options when looking at shore excursions for your cruise. One, two, and three night packages are available for my cruise. If they appeal to you, keep watching for one of the flash sales.

When is your cruise? If it is, say, next year, maybe Royal just hasn't finalized such a tour with the local operator. Keep checking. A friend and I are booked on a disembarkation day tour with Royal out of Southampton, so they do know people like these options. Good luck and have a great trip.

Actually, Celebrity offers just such a post-cruise tour in Rome for my September cruise. Separate options are offered for ending the tour, after visiting the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel, at the Ostiense train station, the airport, or a particular hotel if the passenger booked that hotel through Celebrity. Granted, Celebrity options don't help the OP if he is sailing on Royal Caribbean, but clearly this type of tour does exist for some cruisers. I assume the OP has checked what Royal offers, and if nothing like this is available, then the advice to arrange transfer only to their hotel, drop off baggage, and then start sightseeing on their own sounds like a good choice.

I've done them a couple of times, though not on Carnival and not in Miami. I enjoyed them. It certainly beat sitting around an airport for hours with my big bag until the time the airline would accept it for checking. And it was a lot easier to arrange than renting a car for a few hours or booking a day pass at a hotel, which are other options. In one of my disembarkation day tours the luggage was with us under the bus, and on the other the luggage was transferred separately, and we retrieved it at the airport. The excursion details will specify that it is only suitable for flights is after a certain time. I would confirm with the excursion staff on board that the arrival time at the airport allows for 3 hours before your international flight. The Everglades are a unique environment. It's a good choice for a tour.

I also booked mine at different times. My travel agent assured me that Carnival knew I was on B2B cruises, and Carnival did give me all the appropriate information for B2B cruisers towards the end of the first cruise. But I didn't get any of the platinum benefits on the first cruise. Perhaps I should have pursued the issue at the time. Maybe my travel agent missed a step somewhere. Not a big deal - the only perk that really mattered to me was the laundry benefit, and I didn't need that until the 2nd cruise anyway.

Celebrity has run several “flash sales” on excursions recently that are real sales, meaning price reductions up to 50% for a limited amount of time. I saved a lot by booking excursions during those flash sales, and now I’m having the heart failure looking at prices for excursions on my 2025 Princess cruise! Based on the information here, no sales on Princess and they only get more expensive closer to the cruise. We better start planning . . .

I hope you have the same experience as @SunriseCoffee . I turned platinum on the 2nd leg of a B2B last summer but not get the platinum card until the 2nd leg. And I had to go ask for it at guest services, as initially I was issued a gold card! Good luck and enjoy your cruises.

It's my experience on most of the major cruise lines that the tour operators on ship-sponsored excursions make every effort to keep to the pre-arranged schedule. A friend and I decided to take a similar risk as the OP by booking morning and afternoon excursions on the same day on a European cruise on NCL this coming May. On paper, there is enough time to grab a quick lunch, but we are going to pack snacks just in case. These are ports we may never get back to, and we want to see as much as possible. We will hope for the best, but we accept the small risk that we might miss the afternoon excursion and not be eligible for a refund. We would be more disappointed if the morning excursion returned at the scheduled time (the most likely outcome), but we had missed the opportunity to book the afternoon tour before it filled up. To the OP, that's how I suggest you make your decision. How badly to you want the 2nd excursion, how much does it cost, is any part of that cost refundable, and how disappointed would you be if circumstances cause you to miss it without any refund. Have a great cruise, whatever you decide. Edited to add: I have experienced start times changing on ship-sponsored excursions, usually with no notice other than seeing it on the ticket once I am onboard. So anyone booking multiple activities during a port stop should be sure to double check the start time of any ship excursions as soon as they get their tickets.

Last month online, I booked an April, 2025 Mediterranean cruise during the promotion with the refundable $100 deposit per person. We wouldn't have booked so far out without that flexibility. After reading this thread, I took a look at my invoice, and it is like the one above. Our final payment is due January 11, 2025. The cancellation schedule starts with "January 12 - $100 per person". I don't see any wording specifically about the $200 deposit ("payment received") being refundable. But if the cancellation penalties start on January 12, that implies that prior to that date, there are no penalties, which would mean the deposit would be returned. It's confusing, as it does seem that the invoice should include a clear statement that the deposit is refundable. Apparently, it's confusing to the call center staff, too, based on the OP's experience.

I get notifications about "flash sales" on my phone from the app. Items on my particular cruise may not have big discounts on every sale, or the discounts may be on items I am not interested in. But I always check, and I have saved a lot on excursions, a post-cruise tour-and-hotel package, bottles of wine and water for the cabin, Wi-Fi, and laundry service. Sales come and go quickly. When they say "limited time only", they mean it. So don't delay if you see a good discount on something you are interested in. I was able to cancel all my previously booked excursions and rebook at much lower prices during last year's Labor Day sale. (That's late August/early September for those not in the U.S.)

Since booking my September 2024 cruise about a year ago, I have seen major sales (40%-50%) on excursions, including pre-and post-cruise tour-and-hotel packages (my cruise is in Europe), around Labor Day and again around Black Friday. Wi-Fi was also discounted significantly. I don't buy drink or dining packages, so I didn't pay attention to sales for them. The water package appears to be a new thing on Celebrity, and I purchased one a couple days ago at 20% discount. This is my first Celebrity cruise since 2012, so I have no idea what the pattern is with sales on these items. The sales I took advantage of were both around holidays, which may or may not be significant. I get a notification of the sales by an alert from the app. So besides checking online regularly, get the app to improve the chances of hearing about what Celebrity calls a "flash sale." They come and go quickly, and it seems random which items will be discounted by what percentage. Like the poster above, I had excursions booked at 10% discount when the Labor Day sale went into effect. I canceled all of them and re-booked for considerable savings. It was a painless process, and the OBC I had used was immediately available for the re-booking at the lower price. Good luck catching the sales and have a great cruise.

There is no “best” excursion in any port. We all have different interests, budgets, and energy levels. But I’ll share what a friend and I did in some of the ports you’ll be visiting. We were on Celebrity, but it’s likely NCL will offer similar excursions. We explored Mykonos without an excursion. We just walked around the main town, shopped, had lunch in a waterfront restaurant, and had wine later in another waterfront restaurant. A relaxing day. But if I visit again, I think I would take an excursion to Delos. For Naples, our travel agent told us not to miss the Amalfi coast, and my friend wanted to see Pompeii. So we picked a long, full day excursion that went to both places. It was a memorable, if somewhat tiring, day. Lunch at a lovely restaurant on the coast was included. Santorini can be challenging, due to the tendering and the potential overcrowding if several ships are in port. We took an enjoyable excursion to Oia and a winery, and it ended in Fira with time on our own before returning to the ship, taking the cable car down to the tender dock. We had no problem as our ship was the only one in port that day. Based on recent reports with multiple ships in port, the wait for the cable cars can be very long. Read up a lot on this port before deciding on what to do. From Messina, we took an excursion to Taormina that was transportation only, and we had several hours on our own to walk around the very picturesque town. Check out the ports of call boards and ask questions there. Do some research beyond Cruise Critic, such as the Rick Steves Guide to Mediterranean ports. He usually promotes making individual plans rather than ship excursions, but his guidebooks have useful information about the main attractions that can help you decide what looks most interesting to you. NCL likely offers excursions to the most popular sites in all the ports. General guidebooks, meaning not cruise related, can also provide good information. I check out everything my local library has on places I plan to visit. I can’t help with the other ports. Have a great cruise, and do plan on some time in Rome before or after.

Yes, I had that problem on the app on both my phone and iPad. I logged into my account on my desktop computer and was able to order it. Oddly, the price went from 20% discount on the order page to 10% off in my cart. I backed out a couple times, hit "refresh" a couple times, and eventually the 20% discounted price showed up in my cart. I entered credit card info, and I got an emailed confirmation a few minutes later.

I hadn’t seen this before and was wondering if Celebrity offered a pre-cruise purchase of water bottles. I got a notification from the app this morning of a “flash sale”, and it was an option. I immediately bought it - $34 plus 20% gratuity. A bit overpriced? Yeah, like booze, wine, fancy coffees, and soda onboard. I don’t drink enough of any of those to make a drink package worthwhile. But the convenience of water bottles in the cabin, for taking ashore in the hot Mediterranean and for enjoying on board, is worth it to me.

I, too, get a kick out of the over-the-top negative reviews. I missed this particular one, but I cannot comprehend how anyone could find nothing to eat on a cruise. What on earth does eat at home? Another food-related favorite of mine that comes up periodically is the statement that the food was like dog food. Have they sampled dog food in order to make the comparison? 🤔😂 On the assumption that reviews should provide useful information for others, these ridiculous statements help no one.

Agreed! And in my opinion, since paying attention to cruise ships starting in 1997, the most attractive is the dearly departed SS Norway.

I did Carnival excursions in Cobh (Countryside & Kinsale), Holyhead (Caernarfon Castle), and Belfast (Belfast City & Hillsborough). I wrote reviews on Carnival's site as Nan S if you want to check them out. I visited Titanic Belfast as a day trip on my Dublin vacation. It is very well done, and I recommend it for anyone with an interest in the Titanic. There are no artifacts, but there is one of its tenders at the site, the one that was used in the port of Cherbourg. It is much bigger than what we think of as a tender, with multiple decks. You can board it; I found it fascinating to walk in the steps of Titanic passengers. There is also a small Titanic exhibit in Cobh. I went there on my own in the morning before my afternoon tour. We docked right in the village of Cobh. I could just walk off and explore the village, with the ship pretty much always in sight. I understand there is another potential location to dock in the area, which I found is common on European itineraries, make sure you know where you will be docked before making independent plans. I hope to do another British Isles cruise, to see the Scotland ports that were missed on my cruise and because every port offers multiple things to enjoy.

Wow! That's incredible. True they couldn't kick you off, but I would have been wondering if the captain's quarters had a couch!

Perhaps what @mz-smeant was that it is unacceptable that Carnival didn't complete the process of assigning guarantee cabins until hours after boarding started. To me, that's a big screw-up that shouldn't be a normal risk of booking a guaranteed cabin. @PayneAS, did you get your cabin before or after sailing?

Have a great cruise! I don’t know anything about the Isle of Man, but I’ve been to Dublin on a land vacation, and you can find a lot to do there. Sounds like a good itinerary.

For what it's worth, I did not find that my fellow passengers on Carnival dressed nicer than on cruises out of the U.S, as @Iamthesea observed on her non-Carnival cruises. Most people dressed casually and comfortably, as in the Caribbean but for a cooler climate. There were elegant nights, which many people participated in, but many did not. I sailed Princess in 2019 from Southampton to Scandanavian ports, and I would agree with her for that cruise. We had crispy bacon on the Pride - but only every other day, which seems to be fleet-wide based on discussions on these boards. And American-style sausage. On that Princess cruise, we had those plus the type of bacon and sausages and other breakfast foods that are common in England. My speculation is that Princess and other lines have a much bigger presence in Europe, and thus they attract more European passengers. Carnival recently has had only one ship in Europe, and on my 3 Carnival European itineraries last summer (the B2B I mentioned and another one from Dover to Rome), my unscientific analysis was that the majority of the passengers were American. I felt there were ample choices for shore excursions, probably because Carnival can benefit from the experience of its sister lines. But it's always a good idea to check the other lines. I've noticed, for example, that Princess and NCL have more options for longer cruises around Great Britain that include more ports in Scotland and may also include Le Havre in France, Zeebrugge in Belgium and/or Amsterdam.

I was on the Pride last summer back-to-back with a Baltic cruise first and then a British Isles cruise. Unfortunately, we missed one port on the first cruise and three ports on the 2nd cruise due to a maintenance issue that required a few days in Germany for repairs. But that's another story, well documented here LOL. My experience was that the food and activities were pretty much the same as my Carnival Caribbean cruises. The cruise director and his Fun Squad were as busy as ever planning and organizing activities, and the onboard entertainment was similar to my Caribbean cruises. The only significant difference I remember is that it was too cool for me to use the pool. The Pride has a retractable cover over one of the pools, so probably the Miracle does, also, as it's the same class. But even with that almost completely closed, it just wasn't pool weather for me. But it was for others! The sunny days were pleasantly warm. The rainy days - almost inevitable over 9 days in the UK and Ireland were . . .rainy! Be prepared for rain. I highly recommend spending extra time in London before your cruise - partly to adjust to the time change but mostly to enjoy a great city. Carnival offers bus transportation between central London and the port (which I used) and between the airport and the port. There are also other public and private transportation options. I chose Carnival excursions in all the ports due to the convenience. You can check out likely excursions even before committing to the cruise on Carnival's site - "Explore/Shore Excursions" and then pick the port. The times and some details may not be exactly what will be offered on your cruise, but that should give you a idea of what likely will be offered. Sometimes there are passengers' reviews. I enjoyed all my Carnival excursions, but I will say that they typically had an early start. If you like to sleep in on vacation, then you might be better off planning independent excursions. The Cruise Critic ports of call board for the British Isles is a good source of information. If you are interested in Carnival excursions, I recommend booking them early. On my cruises, the prices went up significantly the closer to sailing date. If you change your mind, you can cancel for a refund. On my cruises, most passengers appeared to be Americans, Canadians, or Brits. There were more kids than I expected but a lot fewer than on a summer Caribbean cruise. Congratulations on your anniversary! Celebrating with a big cruise is a great idea. 😃

That has been my experience as well. I have done a lot of research on European cruises on all the major lines except Disney over the last years, and Carnival almost always comes out as the best value. But they just don't have the number and variety of itineraries. I do keep the cost of my NCL cruises down somewhat by eliminating the "free" drink package, as I don't drink enough to make even the cost of the gratuities on it to be worth it, and I eliminate any air fare promotion as there is no cost savings that is worth not making my own airline reservations for Europe.

I did 3 Carnival cruises in Europe last summer, and enjoyed them all - not counting a mechanical breakdown in Germany LOL. But with only one ship in Europe, Carnival's itineraries are limited, so I look at all the other major lines. And I agree that Carnival's non-refundable or otherwise restricted deposits are unappealing. I am also doing an NCL cruise in Europe (Scandinavia and other northern ports) this spring, which I booked a long time ago with a refundable $125 deposit. I pass on the drink package and the air fare benefit, but the $50 credit for excursions is appealing, as I tend to take ship sponsored excursions. And I was pleased to discover that my seven long ago cruises on NCL gives me enough status for 10% discount on excursions. I am Platinum on Carnival and that doesn't give me any excursion discounts. The marketing interests me - currently, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Celebrity have refundable or restricted deposits, unless you want to pay A LOT more for your cruise fare in order to have a refundable deposit. NCL and Princess currently have refundable deposits, sometimes as low as $100. I like to book far in advance, and while the amount of the deposit isn't a major factor, whether or not it's refundable is.