dltvermont

12 hours ago, tytanbri said:

I always wait until the last night to load my gift cards because that way I know exactly how much I spent. I also don't have to worry about getting anything back.

That makes perfect sense. Why didnt I think of that!!

Thank you.

As of right now, we are sailing on 4/11. We will do a final re-assessment before 3/31. If things havent gotten worse with quarantines and actual cases, we will sail as planned.

If you load your gift cards on your account when you board and end up not using it all up, what happens to the leftover money on your account?

I have a partial card that I didnt use up when paying off our balance and then thought of buying another 500 card at a discount for our on board account. Before I do that, I just want to make sure I can use them on board if I have guest services apply them to my account??

I dont remember the numbers, but on our Fascination cruise a few years back I wanted to book a catamaran tour to swim with turtles etc, believe it was Tamiami. We dont generally do ship excursions but when I contacted the company, they were booked and had no openings. I looked and Carnival's tour looked the same so booked that one and filed for the price match and received it for all 6 of us.

On 2/4/2020 at 7:08 PM, fendersrule said:

Hey now, I make beer...lots of beer. I definitely am I drinker. 

 

There's probably others who have tallied this up for themselves. I'm curious to hear others that may have done this.

 

The BIGGEST problem with Cheers however, is that you're forced to place it on everyone in the room. My GF is a very light drinker. So that's actually one of the reasons why I should probably decline the Cheers this time. 

 

I forgot about that restriction. 

Exactly why we dont get it. We had it as a perk on NCL cruise and we both drank when we wanted to but dont believe in the end we would have broken even. If only one person could get it, Im sure I could probably put a good dent in the numbers but I find for us, we will put the money aside and then just pay our tab at the end.

13 hours ago, NCTribeFan said:

As I say in every thread where people are complaining about Fantasy-class ships, I probably have about 75 nights on the various ships (5 out of 8, I think) and it's been my personal feelings that the food and service are actually better on these ships.  I just think that you get more personalized service, which is why I prefer smaller ships.

 

I recently sailed 3 consecutive MSC cruises - Divina, then Armonia and Armonia a 2nd time.  Divina is a large, beautiful ship, but i actually preferred Armonia (old and small).  I love when you see the same people (well, usually love it!), and the same crew members.  My last HAL sailing was on Koningsdam when she first came to the Caribbean.  Again, a beautiful ship and large by HAL's standards.  But I'm sailing again in April on Zaandam (again, old and small), which was my first on HAL (14 nights round-trip to Hawaii).  I loved the ship and the service was fantastic.

 

There are plenty of cruisers who don't feel they need the biggest, newest, most-bells-and-whistles ships.  I don't need to pay extra for specialty restaurants.  I've certainly never gone hungry on a Fantasy-class ship!  And, again, with port-intensive cruises, you don't have the time (or energy) do spend running around a large ship trying to do it all, imho.

 

Anyway, to those wanting tours in Dominica, I can highly recommend Levi Baron.  Go to the Dominica port-of-call board and read about the tours.  You most definitely don't need ship tours in any of the ports.

As I said above, We prefer small to mid sized ships overall. In fact, as you say the personalized service seems better on the smaller ships. When we sailed the Fascination with our kids (teens to 20s) and grandson, our waiter in the dining room was fantastic. As they always do, he remembered everyones name and preferences at dinner and had my grandson's mac n cheese and drink waiting when he arrived so he didnt have to wait. When we got off the ship we were walking the very crowded streets of Old San Juan and heard someone yelling my sons name. Turned around to see our waiter, King, in plain clothes coming up behind us. He stopped and chatted for awhile then went about his way on his shore leave. We thought that was amazing first to recognize and remember names then to make contact like that

31 minutes ago, Joebucks said:

 

What people will post on a forum vs what they purchase are two different things. I agree, I loved it. It seems like they could never get enough people and/or command a high enough price. May have something to do with the flight to PR.

True. I loved it as PR seemed just like another part of the vacation to us. We went in a day early and stayed a couple days after so added an island! I thought the smaller ship was always full, didnt realize they had trouble. NCL has one of their larger ships there and seem to do ok.

4 hours ago, purplephenom said:

 

I know people complain about this ship, but an old ship is better than no ship at all.  Hopefully Carnival does eventually put another ship there. 

We sailed on her and had a great time. I actually prefer smaller ships. It is arguably one of their most liked itineraries. Cant believe they would drop it. 

Just saw a note from JH that the Fascination is moving to Mobile in 2022

2 hours ago, Aplmac said:

 

Fascination entered service waay back  in 1994

but quite honestly I don't think Carnival is even listening to us!!

Why listen when this ship is full every sailing? I love the current itinerary and wanted to do it again. Will miss at least St Lucia with the change

On 1/30/2020 at 9:59 AM, LPYRCRUISER said:

As a person who grew up on a farm and then was a farm wife, I get how life gets busy.  But please, continue your great review! We sail Feb 23rd and reviews keep me going in our cold Vermont winter!

Hi fellow VTer. Dont want to hijack the review, just saw where you were from. We are on the Magic in April. Cant wait!

Yeah Ive always wondered why they need to know my specific flight plans. They were made separate from the cruise line. NCL didnt ask for my flight info.

Down to 73....going fast now!

On 1/26/2020 at 6:56 AM, Bostwick girl said:

In 31 cruises my pvp has never called me to ask if I was ready to book!  I am usually looking every day or so, and have never been called by anyone after looking.

 

I think my PVP finally gave up. Every single time I got onto the website, Id get home and have a message on my phone from him about booking.

29 minutes ago, kids1stcruise said:

I’m trying everything...I see shop with rewards but where do go to earn rewards 

thanks

Do a google search for Allstate Rewards. Go to that page and there will be a Log In link there. If you dont already have an acct you will have to create one. After that, once you log in, at the top of the page is a slot for Promo Codes. There is another topic in here about Allstate Rewards and there are a ton of codes there to enter in and get your points, which then can be used to get discounted CCL gift Cards.

16 hours ago, EasyPeasy said:

I really miss Gambee's reviews!  His and yours are my absolute favorite.  Since he started school full time, got married & graduated, we don't hear much from him anymore.  A real bummer. 

I havent seen him here in quite some time but he does have a website too. Maybe putting his time and effort there instead?

14 hours ago, jbethel11 said:

1,000 points for a $100 Carnival Gift Card.

5,000 points for a $500 Carnival Gift Card.

10,000 points for a $1000 Carnival Gift Card.

Its so easy to get points that its hardly an issue. I got 50K in two days and used some to get cards to pay off our April cruise. Now Im back up to almost 70k again.

99 days till the Magic!

1 hour ago, Galatz said:

Thanks to this thread I just passed 100,000 points in about 2 weeks...crazy

Total tally is over 100k for me too but used some for cards to pay off my April cruise!

On 12/5/2019 at 7:39 PM, BNBR said:

 

It's all relative I guess.  We found the buffet lines often obnoxious on Magic.  I guess manageable, but annoying.  It's poorly designed and often we were having to wait behind 15+ people.  Comedy on any Carnival ship is obnoxious as well.  Get there early if you want seating.  Magic was no difference. 

 

Alchemy bar was rarely an issue getting a seat.  Only when there was entertainment in the venue really and even then you could generally squeeze in.

 

BBQ has a huge line for the first hour.  After that can walk right up.

 

Pizza sometimes had a line that wrapped around.  A few times we gave up and didn't even bother.

 

Even disembarking had a massive slow moving line.

 

Cruise ruining lines?  No.  But if you are used to other companies that don't have these issues, then it's certainly noticeable and not pleasant.

The worst lines we have had on any cruise was the Breeze, but that was also our biggest ship so Im expecting the same with sister ship Magic in April.

Assuming they still ration out the bacon at the morning buffet, I saw that was an issue people werent impressed with on the Breeze compared to any other ship we have sailed.

Lido deck was always full and pools were disgustingly murky on the Breeze so also thinking this will be the same for us on the Magic as well.

We are doing our cruise for the ports, otherwise we would have chosen a smaller ship.

I dont have all the details but on our Fascination cruise, in Barbados I tried to book a catamaran tour to swim with the turtles. They were "full" but I noted that it was identical to the Carnival one but cheaper. I booked the Carnival one and got OBC for the difference.

On 12/17/2019 at 12:38 PM, Sugar67 said:

where do you buy these gift cards please?

 

I was given a ton of info on a social media group about using Allstate Rewards. I signed up (not an Allstate customer), got up to 50k points in 4 days using promo codes and was able to buy various gift card denominations at a 10% discount which I will use for my payoff as soon as they arrive and the leftover put on my account when I board.

4 minutes ago, FLCruise7 said:

It works very well - just select to make payment & when the options come up, you'll see "credit card" and "gift card" choices.  I've done this many times.  Can also use them to prepay gratuities.

Perfect, thank you so much!

Hi all,

This gift card thing is new for us.  I have the money to pay the balance off, but Id save 10% using cards. Before I use my saved money to buy them, I want to be 100% sure that I can use them to pay the balance.

Thank you!