I Wish Someone Had Told Me On My First Carnival Cruise.....

Go to the casino and look for hosts standing around with springy lanyards. They'll punch a little hole in your cards and set you up, for free (if you go later in the cruise, you can get one from the cashier). You can wear the lanyards in a loop around your neck or clip them to a belt loop, and because they're plastic springs, you can open your door without taking them off!

If you put your stuff on a chair on the Lido and walk away for half a day, your teeth will fall out, your children will hate you, and you will get a rash that the doctor won't know how to cure. AND then you'll burst into flames. After a skunk sprays you.

Oh, one more thing: If you like the Chocolate Melting Cake but wish it wasn't quite so runny, or if you like it to be pretty much a pot of chocolate with a wisp of a crust, you can actually order it the way you want it. Tell your wait staff you how you like it. The kitchen has a system of varying amounts of doneness, and sets out the cakes that way, and the wait staff knows which ones are which.

I'll have to check out the wind tunnel! Lol! Love the sunrises:) My next cruises isn't until April 2018. :')

Wind tunnel??? Lol are these on all ships? We are on carnival sensation in about 23 days

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Some of the tables for 2 in anytime dining are extremely close to each other. To avoid these tables ask for a booth for 2.

Great tip! I definitely would've loved to have known this but I'll be doing that from now on

Oh, one more thing: If you like the Chocolate Melting Cake but wish it wasn't quite so runny, or if you like it to be pretty much a pot of chocolate with a wisp of a crust, you can actually order it the way you want it. Tell your wait staff you how you like it. The kitchen has a system of varying amounts of doneness, and sets out the cakes that way, and the wait staff knows which ones are which.

I tried ordering it this way on my first Alaska cruise, and the waiter (older, who said he had been wait staff with carnival 25 years) got kind of twitty & said he had never heard of it, request did not go over well. But I did get a medium done WCMC, so maybe he just didn't know?

And remember the basics:

Your Cabin is on a Deck on the Ship. Promise, someone who has been on either one 3-day cruise or will gladly tell you it's their 4865th will loudly correct you in public.😃 Happy Sailing

I tried ordering it this way on my first Alaska cruise, and the waiter (older, who said he had been wait staff with carnival 25 years) got kind of twitty & said he had never heard of it, request did not go over well. But I did get a medium done WCMC, so maybe he just didn't know?

Well, the head chef told us all that when we did the chef's table on the Dream. I usually order mine medium well. Maybe my waiters were just good guessers.

YIKES!!!!!!! So they don't have signs when you get off with buses to know where you are going? Our trip last year we only did one excursion and it was in Labadee Haiti which was so small there was no cars or buses. All was walking distance and you followed the signs. This time around, we have excursions at every stop, we have kids (didn't bring them last year), AND all excursions include a bus ride.......now I'm worried!

You don't get dumped at any port the shore excursions are clearly marked and yes you usually make your way to the meeting point. But it is known ahead of time.

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:)Before I cruised on Carnival I had heard how loud and rowdy it is.

 

I have never experienced that.

 

I still meet people who have never been on Carnival and still think it's true..

This ^^ drives me nuts! I love how I can have 2000 friends after a Carnival cruise! On Princess we didn't meet anyone :(

It was sad, as we cruise to meet people from all over!

On Carnival, we do!

Can you use a pre paid visa card or visa gift card for your S&S, so that you can set it up online before your cruise?

You might meet plenty of queue jumpers, who are not in the holiday spirit, and will jump to the front of a queue even if you have been waiting there patiently!

Take half as many clothes. Take more money than you think you will need. Spend $20 in the casino to remind yourself why you dont gamble. Join in a Lido game, join a line dance. Get up early and watch a sunrise. Find the "wind tunnel" door at the front of the ship and take silly pictures! (Our 1st cruise on the Paradise we spent probably 20 min every morning doing dumb stuff at those doors!) And HAVE FUN and TRY NEW THINGS! :cool:

I love this!! How fun! Makes you remember all the fun stuff about why we all enjoy vacationing instead of focusing on the little annoyances that may occur. Thanks!

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My DH tells me all the time .. NO MORE until we sail a few. Until the next deal comes through and I'm booking away! Such is life!

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Thought this only happened in my house!! Lol! I'm constantly on the hunt for good travel deals and planning/rearranging our travel calendar to maximize family travel time. [emoji6]

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Wish I knew about FTTF before they sell out.

What is FTTF?

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I tried ordering it this way on my first Alaska cruise, and the waiter (older, who said he had been wait staff with carnival 25 years) got kind of twitty & said he had never heard of it, request did not go over well. But I did get a medium done WCMC, so maybe he just didn't know?

What's WCMC? And while I'm at it what's DH? I see people use it to seemingly describe significant others. I jokingly suggested to hubby it stood for "damn husband" but he side eyed me. LOL [emoji23] He wasn't nearly as amused as I was. [emoji6]

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FTTF= Faster to the fun. It is a pass Carnival offers that allows you to get on the ship quicker(wedding parties, platinum members etc get on first). Once on the ship, your room will be ready. There is also a dedicated line at the pursers desk. Then if you tender to ports, you have a different line for the tender and get on quicker.

WCMC- Warm chocolate melting cake- delicious. I believe only in the main dinning room (MDR)???- not sure---if not...I am missing out!!!!

DH- this one I looked into because I did not know. I read it stands for Dear Husband. DW= dear Wife DD= dear daughter. But personally I like what you said :)

If I have anything wrong, please correct...I am still learning

FTTF= Faster to the fun. It is a pass Carnival offers that allows you to get on the ship quicker(wedding parties, platinum members etc get on first). Once on the ship, your room will be ready. There is also a dedicated line at the pursers desk. Then if you tender to ports, you have a different line for the tender and get on quicker.

 

WCMC- Warm chocolate melting cake- delicious. I believe only in the main dinning room (MDR)???- not sure---if not...I am missing out!!!!

 

DH- this one I looked into because I did not know. I read it stands for Dear Husband. DW= dear Wife DD= dear daughter. But personally I like what you said :)

 

If I have anything wrong, please correct...I am still learning

Thanks! This is perfect! I've been meaning to search the forum to see if there was an abbreviation dictionary/decoder somewhere. I'll share the correct meaning of DH with hubby. I'm SURE he will like this better! [emoji38][emoji23]

We've cruised Carnival three times total. Our first two were Carnival (the very first is where DH and I met ❤️), then we cruised several other lines (RCCL, HAL & Peter Deilmann - a river cruise line company that has closed down) before coming back to Carnival 14 years later with two small kids in tow. Carnival was their first cruise and they LOVED it. Me, not so much. After having done different travels and different cruises through the years I wasn't as pleased with them for little things that in hindsight seem kinda snooty [emoji87]. We took them on a RC cruise a couple of months ago and they kept comparing it to the Carnival cruise. My daughter even gasped excitedly at dinner one night when she saw another ship out of the window saying "Mommy look! I think it's Carnival!" At one point the other family at our dinner table expressed that their son (same age as my daughter) wouldn't go to the kids room. My son leaned over and loudly whispered "ask your parents to take you on a Carnival cruise next time" to which my daughter eagerly nodded. Lol. Needless to say between RC & Carnival my kids prefer Carnival. They're getting so big so fast (currently 7 and 10) and I haven't quite perfected my time freezing device [emoji6]. As such I'm running out of time for them to still be interested in an Uber expensive Disney cruise so looks like I'll be making my way back to Carnival through the years. We've got a NCL booked later this year (& DH and I have a Celebrity on the books) so the verdicts still out which line will be the favorite. Thanks for the tips!! The FTTF pass along with my growing curiosity about this WCMC I see everyone posting about may have me booking another Carnival cruise sooner rather than later. Lol [emoji1]

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I wish I had known that I could ask for a small dish of peanut butter to go with my chocolate melting cake. Didn't find out until right before my 3rd Carnival cruise. Heaven!!! :D

We tried that but our asst waiter didn't understand and brought us peanut butter and jelly. Lol

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Bring a light cardigan or sweater for night time...the dining room and theatre are FREEZING

 

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Agreed!

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Not true! After 14 cruises, we've never had an issue with no signage or directions to access excursions. Most times, the people they to guide you are relentless in making sure you get where you need to be.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, we do not have 14 cruises but we are up to 5. We have never had an issue with this, well I never have the DW panics. She always knows we are going to miss the excursions "I just know it"...LoL, but we have never missed one, nor have we ever missed the ship. When you disembark the ship there will be people on the pier with signs, and if you go to the wrong person they will know which line you need to be in. However sometimes you may have to walk off the pier first, but nevertheless you just follow the crowd and you will find the excursion people. Finally, everybody just relax, your on vacation. The worst thing that can happen is you return to the pier to find your ship a mile of shore:eek:. Oh! wait it's a tender port whew!:D

What is FTTF?

I'm always surprised to see it represented this way here in the forum ... a few other groups I've been in refer to it as F2F ... which is also how Carnival prints it on the boarding passes and luggage tags. I do it that way out of habit.

My DH tells me all the time .. NO MORE until we sail a few. Until the next deal comes through and I'm booking away! Such is life!

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Thought this only happened in my house!! Lol! I'm constantly on the hunt for good travel deals and planning/rearranging our travel calendar to maximize family travel time. [emoji6]

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Happens in my house too! I have two cruises booked for the same date in 2018 because I couldn't decide which one I wanted! Ugh... #addictedtocruising

Wish we knew - That there is food on the Lido deck - now! Our first cruise was a 3 day that we fit into our Florida Disney/Universal/Sea World vacation schedule. In Iowa your drivers license is still good up to 30 days after the expiration date. If you are renting a car in Florida, they don't go by those same rules. Because my husband's drivers license was "expired", I was driving an unfamiliar rental car from Orlando to the port and it was almost an adventure in itself. When we finally arrived, there was no line at all - probably because we were among the last ones to board. We found our way to our interior cabin and were relaxing while splitting a granola bar 3 ways before exploring the ship. Our room steward stopped by and saved our lives by letting us know we could find plenty of nourishment on the Lido deck. Being newbies - we took a little bit of money but didn't want to spend to much on the food as we had early dining for dinner. I think every cruise since then, the welcome staff are telling guests to go up to the Lido deck for lunch. Not sure if we just did not hear them on our first cruise or if we were so late that the welcome staff was gone,,,,

Take half as many clothes. Take more money than you think you will need. Spend $20 in the casino to remind yourself why you dont gamble. Join in a Lido game, join a line dance. Get up early and watch a sunrise. Find the "wind tunnel" door at the front of the ship and take silly pictures! (Our 1st cruise on the Paradise we spent probably 20 min every morning doing dumb stuff at those doors!) And HAVE FUN and TRY NEW THINGS! :cool:

AWESOME ADVISE!!!! Taking my first cruise ever. I'm over the moon!

Cruise Critic (and other blog sites) drove me nuts in the beginning with all the acronyms, so I started a list as I figured these things out... here you go and feel free to add to it!

· DH – Dear Hubby (alternately DW)

· TA – Travel Agent

· PVP – Personal Vacation Planner (CarnivalTA!)

· CC – Cruise Critic; CC’er- fellow CCmember

· FTTF – Faster To The Fun

· OBC – On Board Credit

· OCD – Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (notreally cruise-specific unless you’re referencing my packing list!)

· OV- Ocean view cabin

· M&G – Meet & Greet (also known asMeet & Mingle- M&M)

· DoD – Drink Of the Day

· DD – Dear Daughter

· GS – Grandson

· GS – Guest Services (pretty sure you canfigure out the difference from the post)

· IMHO- In My Humble Opinion

· YMMV- Your Mileage May Vary (obviouslymeans your experience may be different)