IPlayWithString

I seriously hope they don't end up cancelling cruises all the way through August. I really, really hope they don't. We have two cruises booked this summer (one in June and one in July) and I just..I can't deal with the fact that they might end up cancelling more cruises through the summer right now.

I'm finishing up packing now and I bought a cute sign from the Dollar Tree for our door. They're magnetic so I can take a magnetic hook, right? Because tape won't hold this (I don't think).

you think the Vista is going to get stuck at sea during the final cruise before it goes into dry dock for the propulsion issues it's been having?

😄😂🤣

We had a stellar wait staff also, when we were there on Spring Break. Of course, that MAY have been due to the fact that our head waitress was somebody we'd had before on the Triumph out of NOLA. 🙂 I spotted her on the Lido on embarkation day and was like, "OMG DUDE I KNOW YOU!" Took her a minute but she remembered my son and was so happy to see us.

On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 5:18 PM, bobbyandali said:

 

I've stood for comedy shows on various sizes of Carnival ships. I really wish they would move them to the theater, or do a ticket system, or clear out the lounge between shows, something. 

When we were on the Vista in March, they were clearing out the lounge after each show. I don't like the idea of the ticket system. It just seems..IDK..icky. YMMV.

We got lucky in that DH's boss allowed him to adjust his vacation time. So instead of being off from Fri till the following Sunday (I think that's when we were supposed to originally come in), he's off from Sunday through that Tuesday when we get back.

I know others aren't so lucky. 😞 One person in my FB cruise group had their wedding cancelled because of this. 😞

The thing he (and tbh, me too) have a thing about not splitting up in foreign countries. I'm too much of a chicken (even if I would be on a group excursion and not on my own) to go somewhere without him because if it's GOING to happen, it probably WILL happen and it usually happens to ME.

School is FINALLY out and this trip cannot come SOON enough for me. I've been having a ROUGH time lately with the world's worst side dude--Depression. His bestie who's always hanging out the passenger side of his best friend's ride trying to holla at me, Anxiety, has been hanging around too and making things more difficult. Add on top of that my having to go find a rheumatologist (I have fibromyalgia and my current dr is fed the eff up with it, which I don't blame her at all so I have to find a specialist) AND having to probably look for an endocrinologist (my thyroid is acting all crappy. Because of course it is), I can't wait to just get away and forget all this stuff is going on though of course I KNOW it's going to be waiting for me when I get back.

All I know is that the sites for muster are determined when the ship is constructed. And yes, we've done muster outside in 100+ degree heat on the Triumph (when it was in Galveston) and it sucked greatly. I smelled things I've never smelled before or since. After a couple of times of THAT though, we decided to start requesting to attend the special needs muster drill because my son (who is autistic) couldn't handle it. It was a combination of being squashed into a group of 200 people in a tight space (not fun for anyone, but really not fun for somebody with sensory issues), boredom and the heat.

We went there one time...not on purpose either. 

We'd arrived in Cozumel only to discover that because of wind conditions all the beach-based excursions (including ours...we were going to Passion Island) were canceled. Fine. We were told to find the Shore Ex members near the ship (we found them easily...right outside of one of the shops) and they would offer us either a refund or an exchange for a different excursion. We'd never been to Chankanaab so we thought, what the heck. 

Holy hotdogs, Batman. The ride over and back was fine..no problems there. But I guess because of all the cancelled excursions, they shuttled everybody (or a lot more than they'd planned on, for certain) to Chankanaab. The only beach that was open was a small, rocky beach that let onto a secluded cove area. You couldn't get to the water without having to walk (and slip and fall on your tuchus) across large rocks and the water was pretty shallow. 😞 The lines for the buffets were ridiculously long..I ended up standing in line for 45 minutes for mediocre food that wasn't even remotely Mexican except the chips and salsa. It was all burgers and hot dogs and fries and stuff like that. We'd been given wristbands for unlimited drinks...only to find out that they only worked at ONE bar in the entire resort and the line was (because everybody who'd had a cancelled excursion had one of those wristbands I guess) ridiculously long. 

Then there was the sea lion show...people were leaving in droves after about 5-10 min because it was boring as heck. My son wanted to stay so we stayed till the end and had our picture taken with the sea lion (we didn't not purchase..it wasn't something we'd planned on so we didn't have the $$$ for it).

I wouldn't send my worst enemy there. The staff we encountered were rude and it just wasn't any fun for us.

Same here..thought I'd throw it out anyway. Just in case.

3 hours ago, Trinity4evr said:

I tried to figure out how to drop you a note on your blog but couldn't figure out how...lol

I had a question did you issues with carnival camp ocean. we cruise in a few weeks and I am really nervous on how they will handle our son. I just want to be sure they aren't calling us every five seconds. this is our little break from the world. any advice or assurance will be good.

We've actually never used camp on Carnival because the first time we sailed, he was 9 and we questioned them on embark day about how they'd handle certain situations. We weren't satisfied with their answers so we've never chosen to utilize that particular option.

One of the reasons we have always found cruising to be a good option for us is that if one of us wants to take a break for a little while, we can. So like Hubs and Son will go play trivia and I'll go to tea, so I have an hour or so of grownup time to have actual grown up food and grown up conversation. 

I think if the child is very young (like a toddler), they'll handle it better than they would have an older child like mine was the first time we sailed.

Also..I know that you said you sail soon but maybe file this thought away for future vacations, but check out Autism On the Seas. This is their bread and butter and they'll send what is essentially a nanny/babysitter with you, so that you can have respite throughout the cruise instead of having to always be with your child. We've never used them, because we've never felt the need honestly (we're pretty good about handling stuff ourselves for the most part) but I think if maybe they'd be of use to you or you want to use that kind of service, absolutely go ahead and do it! Our lives as special needs parents are hard enough as it is! 

3 hours ago, Shaded Lady said:

I have yet to experience this new luggage tag process, but I find it extremely difficult to imagine how Carnival could benefit monetarily from this. Perhaps it's just a quality initiative, or a way to please some of the guests, by allowing THEM to choose when they debark, as opposed to the luck of the draw based on what their cabin steward leaves for them.

We experienced it one time (we turned Platinum on the next cruise after that, so it didn't matter anymore) and it was hellish. We didn't KNOW you were supposed to go to a certain place (in that case, the Red Frog pub) at a certain time to get your zone tags for debark. We ended up getting some high number we didn't like and fortunately for us, Carnival hasn't changed their debark zone tags in god knows how long. We had found some zone 1 tags left from a previous cruise in one our suitcases and decided to use those instead.

Also....OP, when is your cruise? Your kid could grow a half inch in between now and the time y'all cruise. Kids grow ALL the time. 😄

Also...IIRC, you're not allowed to wear water shoes or any kind of shoe for that matter on the water slides. The explanation given to my husband was that the sole of the shoe (being grippy and all) could grab onto the side of the slide accidentally and rip your leg out of the socket. 

That's a good idea...I'll have to ask Hubs what he thinks about it even though Son is technically too old for a wristband. 

We've had SUCH a good experience so far (15 cruises and counting!) with CCL and how they've handled every request (special needs or not) that we've thrown at them. 

1 hour ago, Vitamin Sea Addict said:

 

 

I also feel that for children of ANY special needs, a different/additional bracelet than the green muster station bracelet could be given so that staff (especially with some language barriers) could realize that the child has a disability that may not be visibly apparent. I think it helps EVERYONE interact better when they know other factors are in play.

Same here. Because my son is now too old for a green wristband (he's 15) and while he IS usually with us, having a wrist band of some kind would make me feel better about them knowing he needs to be told where to go since in a crisis situation he might melt down and go non-verbal because he's overwhelmed. 

So far though, Carnival has done a GREAT job of helping us navigate what we need to make our cruises go smoother than butter off a bald monkey's butt. A lot of times (not always, but I'd say at least half the time) we have our own on-board advocate at Guest Services to go to if anything goes wrong (which it has and they were able to not just make it up to us, but went way overboard in fixing things for us which we were SUPER appreciative of).

For me, if they had camp counselors at both the kids and teen levels that were specifically trained in dealing with kids with Autism spectrum disorders, that would be a plus. Our son has never been to the kids' /teen clubs because we never did feel confident they'd know what to do with him. Which is fine..we're on vacation to do things mostly as a family and we're OK with the fact that he's never been to the club.

We've driven 5-6  hrs on cruise day. We get up at 3 am to drive to the port.

I hope they keep these around until we sail at the end of June. Because I kind of want one. We have a butt ton of lanyards (including a couple of Carnival ones that we bought and one we got free when we were entertainment VIPs for the week) but I could always use another. We have these huge white cards that we have to use for our HOAs pool and I could use it for that.

This has been a rough week for me so far...I have fibromyalgia as well as some other stuff going on that is really just kicking my booty this week. School is ALMOST out...a little over a month left now I think (May 22 is the last day) and I AM SO READY for school to be out.

We're not actually cruising til the last week of June but OMG I am so ready for this. Summer can not get here fast enough.

 He does not hide his feelings at all… as you can see in this picture.   His face gives everything away. 

Hey, no judgement here. We've dragged our son (who is now taller than me and almost as tall as my husband) back to the room a few times for behavior issues. And he's also usually rocking the resting grump face.

5 hours ago, pe4all said:

Same here.  We sat in the same section - literally the same table - each night.  Loved it!

On our last cruise, we happened to run into a waitress we knew from a previous cruise who was working the lido buffet during lunch. She was SO happy to see us and we had a table in her section where she brought us extra entrees and stuff every night she thought we'd like. It was kind of cool. And she had our son's order (which she remembered from our previous cruise which had been like over a year before!!!) because he's autistic and orders the SAME THING every night without fail or change (hot dog, coleslaw and fries with milk).

12 hours ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

 Shows are not enjoyable to watch due to the terrible design of the lounge where they perform all their shows. 

I think if you sit on the floor, then yeah. I'd agree with you. We found ourselves sitting in the upper balcony area, towards the middle if we could manage it (there weren't other people sitting there, that is) every night except for when they did Hasbro the Game Show and it wasn't too bad. Sitting up above is really the best place to see everything anyway, IMO.

I think one of my favorite parts of being on the Vista was the shows, tbh. They were all pretty good (the ones I saw anyway), especially "Flick" which I'd seen before (I forget which ship...Freedom I think? Or maybe the Magic?) and I LOVE.

Yup...this is the experience we've had. If we like our waitstaff the first night, we request to be seated in their section every night and we usually are.

15 hours ago, Elaine5715 said:

When CD Schwartz was on the Horizon in March, it was the single best debark I haven ever seen.  He was in complete control on the order even in the Priority waiting area.  He was physically present, called Diamonds out of their area first, Plats had #1 and #2s and he called by number.  Walked right out, other guests were held, no having to cut into line  and right off the ship.  Grabbed luggage off carousel and right up to Customs. 

He had announced a "secret" meeting place for non priority guests who were hauling all their stuff off.  Crew led that bunch thru the priority waiting area and off the ship.  I was not pleased to see that at all since I figured with that crowd, Customs would be backed right up completely eliminating the  priority debark perk.  To my pleasant surprise, that group cleared Customs before my group arrived.  

We've sailed with Schwartz a couple of times now and he is absolutely FANTASTIC at that kind of thing, tbh. 

One of the times we sailed with him, we were in Grand Cayman and the line to get back on the tenders was very, VERY long. He and the entertainment staff kept everybody from losing their schtiff in the hot sun as we all waited (like two hours, seriously) to get back on the dadgummed tender.