The Mister

I see three roll calls for the Carnival Vista August 24, 2019 sailing. I created one, and then two others created others a bit later. Would someone please merge them? I reported one of the duplicates a month or so ago, but it seems no action was taken. It's a rather quiet roll call as it is, but maybe if there were a single thread others might not be so hesitant.

Thank you. 

36 minutes ago, The Mister said:

You know what?

 

I've decided the extra $40 is worth avoiding the $200 penalty up to t-minus 75 days. And at the bargain available for this particular date, I think we can spare it. 🙂 

Booked. 🙂

21 hours ago, The Mister said:

Thanks. That makes sense. A small premium for full refundability up to a certain point.

 

And what @Earthworm Jim said about upgrades for room types that actually *have* upgrades, that makes sense as well.

 

I'm not quite as worried about refundability, TBH.

You know what?

I've decided the extra $40 is worth avoiding the $200 penalty up to t-minus 75 days. And at the bargain available for this particular date, I think we can spare it. 🙂 

38 minutes ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

As @Earthworm Jim stated, the price difference covers the cancelling and getting full refund "insurance".

 

It is possible the one room appeared in one of your mock bookings and not the other because someone else had it "in their cart" then released it.

 

Or not - might just be the weird way the booking engine grabs "applicable" cabins.

Hey, ProgRockCruiser. I'm a big prog-rock fan myself. I'm currently in my home office and can see a big CD shelf full of the stuff.

It's possible we interacted way back the last time the fam and I were planning a cruise. 🙂

Thanks. That makes sense. A small premium for full refundability up to a certain point.

And what @Earthworm Jim said about upgrades for room types that actually *have* upgrades, that makes sense as well.

I'm not quite as worried about refundability, TBH.

I attempted two separate kinds of bookings on the Vista - same date, same room type, the first being Early Saver, the other being Past Guest. I chose a cove balcony, and here is a list of rooms offered for each booking:

Early Saver:

2281, 2286, 2289, 2322, 2374

Past Guest Offer With 2-Category Upgrade ($10pp more than ES with 4 passengers):

2278, 2281, 2286, 2289, 2322, 2374

Exactly the same rooms, plus one more. And the additional room (2278) is identical to the one across from it (2281), just port instead of starboard. I understand that a 2-Cat upgrade is supposed to allow one to move up a couple of categories, but it doesn't seem like this option actually works here. It's basically giving me exactly the kind of room I asked for but with the opportunity to pay another $40 ... just for the heck of it? That's no upgrade.

So what exactly is the 2-cat upgrade good for if the booking engine doesn't even show me the upgraded rooms? Is my issue that there are only a couple of categories of cove balconies? Would it work differently if I were to book another room type?

Thanks in advance. :-)

What is AAT?

AAT is the initials of the special-needs travel agency that they used, which we are technically not allowed to name on the forum. However, you may be able to track down one or two mentions that slipped through by clicking on his username and selecting "Find all posts by Texas4808".

Looks like his recent (Jan 26) post mentions them by name.

We personally didn't like the Jewel. Ship itself is fine, but camp was not as accommodating as we were expecting. A more specific and weird explanation is in my review thread - the one I never got around to finishing. :)

Thank you for the kinds words.

Hey, Tex. I see that you went on the Jewel just a few weeks after we did. From an autism-family perspective, what thoughts do you have about the Jewel?

BTW, how would someone go about finding out about Autism group cruises? That sounds like a wonderful way to meet other families and exchange ideas.

Glad to hear that your Carnival cruise went so well!

The best way to find out about group cruises is to contact each of the agencies that organizes them. I encourage you to call both (the OP mentions the name of the one they used), since each has different group sail dates.

Depending on your schedule, as you're in Alabama, it wouldn't be too far for you to drive to Galveston and join Texas4808 on the next Blue Skyes cruise. :)

Blue Skyes over Autism is proud to announce the date for the 2016 Cruise. We will be departing on April 10th, 2016 on a week long cruise headed to Cozumel Mexico, Roatan Honduras and Belize City, Belize.

 

We are budgeted for our largest number of families (30) on what will be the largest cruise ship to sail from Galveston. We are sailing on a Royal Caribbean Freedom Class vessel, the Liberty of the Seas.

Despite being a RC cruise rather than Carnival, being in the group with additional, agency-provided staff means you're much more likely to be taken care of well. Also, the ship itself is pretty darn awesome, from what I've read. :)

I thought the staff rotates ships every so often? If that's the case, I'm pretty sure the Dream staff at the kids club probably isn't on that same ship as they were back then right? That was my fear...having them rotate and end up on the ship I was on. :eek:

Many do, probably. But I think the directors don't rotate as often, and frequently the director's attitude influences that of her staff. (Of course, I've found that's true of any job.) If we ever consider a Dream cruise (New Orleans isn't too much further than Galveston), I'll have to check recent reviews to see if anything has changed.

I am happy to see that the staff of the Rhapsody were so dedicated to making sure you and your son were cared for, and are living up to the AOTS certification standard as intended.

Also, good planning in choosing a sailing with so few children, which certainly played a part in allowing for dedicated caregivers to give you an evening of respite.

When RCI and AOTS can ensure this kind of service across the fleet, and I do hope they can, their certification will truly be deserved.

Your camp carnival experience [all the different venues] may have been because of the number of kids on your trip. My daughter is the same age as yours and only once did we have to go to a different location to get her and that was our fault.

Yes, I can confirm that this occurs (on most ships, I think). They get enough kids signed up, and they start reserving conference rooms and the like to spread the kids out (along with hiring extra staff for the heavy weeks, of course).

On our Jewel sailing last fall, it was the week prior to Thanksgiving. Although there were few kids there (which was why we chose that week), the extra camp staff were already on board and were treating that week as a "drill" in preparation for Thanksgiving mayhem. So they would sometimes be in a location other than the club, even though the space was available at the time.

I get an email notification when someone post and I seen your original post before editing...mitsubishi....hehe. At least you got it right. Most people always ask me what my name on here means and I have to explain short for mitsubishi. :D :p (It's just a name I have used for many years and my husband and I met because of our mitsubishi's back then...it's what brought us together. We are now an Audi family...I wish I could change my name on here now :o) :cool:

Audigirly just wouldn't be right!! :D

Yeah, then everyone would think you're an audiologist instead of an RN. ;)

It honestly takes up too much time and energy to get upset about everything or even the small things. Pout for a moment and then move on. As you said nothing is never perfect, however I like to make it perfect in my own little world and will try to turn most negative things into just another experience. Nothing will bring me down when cruising and I have had some "doozys". All I can say is thank goodness I didn't manage to break any bones on THIS cruise. woo hoo Life is good! :D

Well, apparently Sakari got the (thankfully mild) injury this time around. :( But, like her mother, she dealt with it and had a good time anyway. :)

Sakari said she had a lot of fun and told us all about being up on the deck and playing putt putt and the other activities. I'm so happy she's enjoying the kids club this time.

I'm glad she did! You may have noticed that the Dream does seem to get panned more often for having a bad kids' club (mostly staff to blame) compared to the rest of the Carnival fleet. So I'm glad she was able to have a more positive experience on the Pride.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that didn't care for the burritos. I know everyone raves about them. They just didn't do it for me. :(

I'm incredibly late for the party, I know. But I wanted to mention that one of my favorite places on the Carnival Liberty was the Blue Iguana, but not for the burritos. I didn't have a single burrito the entire time because we have Freebirds and Q'Doba and Chipotle at home, and I just was never in the mood for something that we have a couple of times a month already.

Rather, Blue Iguana was my favorite place ... for BREAKFAST! The breakfast tacos (technically closer to tostadas rancheras) was what I had every morning, and they were always delish. Just the thought of adding a fried egg on top of Mexican beans and cheese makes me salivate. :)

Good luck with RCI. I traveled with my autistic daughter last year and they made promises... but delivered on NONE of them. I was guaranteed priority boarding, but when I got there and tried to get it, I got treated like a leper and was told to go get back in line with everyone else. Even when she started having problems in the terminal, nothing.

 

On the ship... again, issues. I had called and confirmed 3 times in advance that we had the earliest possible dinner seating at 5:30 or 6 (whichever the earliest was, I can't remember) so that we could have an assigned table at an assigned time during a relatively non busy period in the MDR. When I got there, it had been changed to "my time" with no assigned anything. I complained several times and was told to call and make a reservation every day if I wanted to eat early. And then obviously, it was not at the same table every day. Dinners were excessively slow which led to a lot of issues too.

 

As far as the kids club went... that was OK, but their supposedly trained staff had NO IDEA what autism was. This problem was solved, in our case, by just parking her in front of the TV while she was in the kids club.

Because RCI is supposed to be "certified autism friendly" by Autism On the Seas, I would strongly encourage you to contact them (the agency) to let them know about RCI's failure to live up to their certification.

I would also encourage you (all readers of this thread) to read this recent thread as well.

It appears, based on the reviews that I have read thus far, that despite RCI's "certification", Carnival is, in practice, the better option more often than not re: how welcoming and accomodating they are to those with various special needs, children in particular.

As an example we sailed on Allure the week after the 'Atlantis Cruise' (google it!) and it was great! The staff all had awesome fun stories, the kids club people all had the week off, so they were fresh and excited to have kids back.

Hmmm... with our young kids, I may have to start paying more attention to when these "Atlantis" and similar charters are taking place, for just this reason. :)

You will never be allowed to book a cruise when a "group like this" has the ship chartered It's not like most groups, where they share the ship. On "charters", they TAKE OVER the ship, so that no ones sensibilities are offended!!!

Apparently you didn't catch the portion of sharktums post that I quoted and bolded in my post. I have included it here again. Key words: "the week after".

Also, I know what a charter is.

Most off, the customer service provided was inexcusable. This was absolutely the worst traveling experience in my life. We were fearful for our lives and no empathy or reasoning was given. I DO NOT recommend Victor Bodden or his tour company to anyone. I understand that I am in the minority here and that this is apparently unheard of with his group but please be forewarned! DO NOT USE THIS TOUR COMPANY! Their disregard for the safety of their guests, their misrepresentation of the tour itself and their lack of genuine customer service should be enough reason for you to look elsewhere when planning a memorable vacation experience.

That's pretty bad, I agree. I can tell you that, based on his successful business model on Roatan, he will fix this situation for you and do everything he can to fix it going forward. You are right, there is no excuse for the way that his staff treated you, and I am confident that Victor himself will agree.

Hello TheMister - we will be in Trujillo next month and would be interested in the orphanage. Can you give some information on this? (where, going yourselves or tour?) Have you already gone? You can also email me: scubamom4 at gmail dot com.

 

Loads of thanks!

We ended up not making it, due to a combination of miscommunication and a VERY rainy day. However, the website is http://www.farmofthechild.org.

There is contact info there, and depending on what else you are doing in port, they will be happy to arrange a visit. It is a short walk from Tranquility Bay Beach Resort, and the proprietors there are friends of the Farm.

Very Good Review[emoji4]

As for splash, I'm a retired Teacher(26 years) and helped my parents raise an Autistic Brother. They can easily cover half the windows to reduce the issue of Audio process perception in "spectrum" kids. Keep writing. I'm a 5 time Cruiser and two Time NCL, and my next three cruises will be the Pearl for a Music Cruise( Cruise to the Edge out of Miami) and two Jewel( Pacific Mexico and Alaska)out of LA & Seattle.

I officially envy you!!! I am a huge Prog fan and Yes was my gate(ofdelerium)way band. :) I'd be going myself but my wife would be miserable. One of me is enough, I guess. ;)

As for accomodations, no offer was ever made to accomodate him in any way, despite his obvious sensitivity to the noise. It seemed they cared more about making sure the rest of the kids were having enough noisy fun.

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the review. Life is getting in the way. I have some bits written up for Cozumel and just need to upload and organize the pics. Belize is going to be VERY photo-intensive.

Outside of the gates, there were LOTS of locals, both Honduran and ex-pat, who were offering tours of various sorts.... Friends of ours met an American and paid him $150 for their group of 8 (4 adults, 4 kids) to do a driving tour of the city (they said he was very informative) and then they went to his house, which was up on the mountain overlooking the bay for drinks and snacks.

Ericstacie and peak17,

Hopefully you can find out some more information on this tour that TowerOrchard mentioned, or something like it.

What about Bodden? has anyone used them in Trujillo. Do they offer anything other than the snorkel excursion?

Here is Bodden's website for Trujillo; that will tell you what they are offering thus far.

And of course there are several other independent tour companies that are coming to the area.

Splash Academy (cont.)

(2) On the Jewel, unlike the Carnival Liberty, there is no place for children to rest. Any time you are in Splash Academy, you are expected to play, play, play. If you are tired, your parents are contacted.

Many – even most – children adjust to the “cruise ship schedule” just fine. They play with the kids, and the fact that they are on vacation with others having a grand old time keeps them going. Not our son. If anything, he became even MORE of a morning person than usual. There were a couple of mornings when he got up at 5:00am, ready to get ready and do whatever came next. (This was convenient when we wanted to have an early tender, but it didn’t always work out because our daughter is a night-owl and we wanted to give her enough sleep to make it through the day.)

By the time we were done for the day, whether in port or at sea, our son was ready for bed. One night, he even went to sleep around 6:30 he was so exhausted. That was definitely a port day – I think it was Trujillo.

Back to the club – I asked a couple of times about this. The second time, on a sea day, I asked if there is any way they can make some sort of arrangement, as we were hoping to have just ONE date night and actually sit down and get SERVED for dinner without getting interrupted. Jukebox replied, “Sorry, we just don’t have the space for it.”

So I lost my penchant for proper grammar and spelling and wrote a long, rambling and unnecessarily insult-filled complaint to John Heald and then ... Wait, sorry, wrong cruise line. ;)

Anyway, we sucked it up and went to the buffet. Again. And decided that for future cruises, that would be non-negotiable, which means NCL is probably not for us.

And then, 45 minutes later, Jukebox called. The boy was done for the night.

In contrast, on the Liberty, Camp Carnival is arranged with a space in the younger group’s area that, in the evenings, is set up with a TV (the kids remember watching some of the Ice Age movies), mats and pillows for a quiet evening for those who don’t want to PLAY PLAY PLAY. This space is available for those in the older age groups as well. Sometimes our son would make it through the activities until we picked him up; other times we would find him asleep (or nearly so) on a mat.

As I posted above re: the first point, even in the evenings we were NEVER called – not even once – because our son wanted to leave Camp Carnival. We came to get him when we chose, every time.

I imagine the other Conquest-class ships are set up the same way, but you may want to double-check. I am unsure whether this is the case on other Carnival ships, and I am also unsure if it is still the case now that they have rolled out Seuss At Sea.