Carnival increasing gratuity rates and prices of onboard services

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

7 hours ago, SNJCruisers said:

... and a S2S booked.  

 

What's a "S2S" -- is that getting off one ship and onto another the same day?

 

Tom

[pe4all]

3 minutes ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

What's a "S2S" -- is that getting off one ship and onto another the same day?

 

Tom

Yes  Back to back is on and off same ship.  Side to side is off one ship and onto another.

[csoud68]

1 hour ago, pe4all said:

Yes  Back to back is on and off same ship.  Side to side is off one ship and onto another.

No way I would do a s2s...if I do a b2b I know my ship is there...whsts to say I drag all my stuff off and the other ship is delayed?

[SNJCruisers]

22 minutes ago, csoud68 said:

No way I would do a s2s...if I do a b2b I know my ship is there...whsts to say I drag all my stuff off and the other ship is delayed?

Did it once a few years ago in Fort Lauderdale, coming off the Celebrity Eclipse for 7 days and then hopped on the Indy of the Seas for 6.  No problem with the transfer, just had to generously tip the cabbie for the short ride.

Have two more planned.  In November I'll be coming off 11 days on the new NCL Prima and then doing a 3 day on the Freedom of the Seas.  The other is 5 days on the Celebration with 7 on the NCL Encore.

[Eli_6]

20 hours ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

Interesting. The last two (March) sailings we had on the Liberty were promo deals ($65 pp for the balcony with the old "free drinks while playing in the casino" kicker) and we managed to get the $50 OBC on both of those short sailings. I just submitted for our May and Sept sailings a few days ago - now I'm wondering what their reply might be!

 

Darn - this used to be a slam dunk.

 

Tom

Tom, 

 

Did you apply via email or via mail? Or via a travel agent?  I know several people with stories like yours (getting approved even on a deeply discounted rate) so I have to believe that it comes down to who happens to look at your OBC request.  I am wondering if there is a way to make it more likely mine is approved in the future because (obviously) I am always sailing on some sort of a VIFP rate.

 

Thanks!

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

1 hour ago, Eli_6 said:

Tom, 

 

Did you apply via email or via mail? Or via a travel agent?  I know several people with stories like yours (getting approved even on a deeply discounted rate) so I have to believe that it comes down to who happens to look at your OBC request.  I am wondering if there is a way to make it more likely mine is approved in the future because (obviously) I am always sailing on some sort of a VIFP rate.

 

Thanks!

 

I have always went the email route (and book direct).

 

Tom

[pe4all]

35 minutes ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

I have always went the email route (and book direct).

 

Tom

I just emailed in my  stock info for my May and January cruises.  I was turned down when I had applied for my past January and past Feb. cruises.  The rejection email I received said it was because it was a casino rate.  Yet I know others on here that got their casino rates cruises approved for stock obc.  Will be interesting to see what this answer is.

[csoud68]

ok, back on topic. I wish they would just add it to the cost of the cruise. It would literally solve all issues. 

[bucfan2]

19 minutes ago, csoud68 said:

ok, back on topic. I wish they would just add it to the cost of the cruise. It would literally solve all issues. 

Thank you.  Ok, back off topic again.  

Edited April 7, 2022 by bucfan2

[cruises42]

On 4/6/2022 at 3:32 PM, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

Interesting. The last two (March) sailings we had on the Liberty were promo deals ($65 pp for the balcony with the old "free drinks while playing in the casino" kicker) and we managed to get the $50 OBC on both of those short sailings. I just submitted for our May and Sept sailings a few days ago - now I'm wondering what their reply might be!

 

Darn - this used to be a slam dunk.

 

Tom

Do you know where on our booking we can find the stockholder OBC added? I know they should send an e-mail, but I used to be able to find it online.

[Joehult]

The internet really pisses me off. No excuse for charging that much for something that barely, if ever works. Royal’s works just fine and they even bundle it with soft drinks. And you don’t have to go through a damn bar tender just to get barely 6 ounces of flat coke. I don’t know, the nickel and diming carnival does to lower their teaser rate versus royal, puts me in a sour mood. Like the last carnival cruise I was on this spring, they now block Wi-Fi calling. So that’s another $100 just to make a damn phone call on the ship. 

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

13 hours ago, cruises42 said:

Do you know where on our booking we can find the stockholder OBC added? I know they should send an e-mail, but I used to be able to find it online.

 

Go to:

 

1> BOOKING ORDER & DETAILS

 

2> In the lower section of your stateroom info (right below the guest names) select VIEW BALANCE DETAILS

 

 There I can see $50 OBC listed there for our upcoming Liberty sailing.

 

Tom

[13cheermom]

11 hours ago, Joehult said:

The internet really pisses me off. No excuse for charging that much for something that barely, if ever works. Royal’s works just fine and they even bundle it with soft drinks. And you don’t have to go through a damn bar tender just to get barely 6 ounces of flat coke. I don’t know, the nickel and diming carnival does to lower their teaser rate versus royal, puts me in a sour mood. Like the last carnival cruise I was on this spring, they now block Wi-Fi calling. So that’s another $100 just to make a damn phone call on the ship. 

Just curious what type of internet plan did you purchase that blocked wi-fi calls and which ship you were on?  We do rely on wi-fi calling using WhatsApp for emergencies back home. Thanks for any additional information!

[Joehult]

41 minutes ago, 13cheermom said:

Just curious what type of internet plan did you purchase that blocked wi-fi calls and which ship you were on?  We do rely on wi-fi calling using WhatsApp for emergencies back home. Thanks for any additional information!

Sunrise, premium plan. Both T-Mobile and AT&T Wi-Fi calling were blocked. FaceTime sort of worked. iMessages were 50/50. By the second day I caved and bought AT&T’s $100 cruise package. Had too many important calls that couldn’t wait for the two island stops.

[13cheermom]

12 minutes ago, Joehult said:

Sunrise, premium plan. Both T-Mobile and AT&T Wi-Fi calling were blocked. FaceTime sort of worked. iMessages were 50/50. By the second day I caved and bought AT&T’s $100 cruise package. Had too many important calls that couldn’t wait for the two island stops.

That kinda sucks!  We just got off a Princess cruise with their premium wi-fi (which was included, lol) but had no problems at all.  Even did video calls with great service.  Why does Carnival want to be so difficult??

[jetsfan58]

No different than gasoline prices being raised strangely right before each major US Holiday. Hmm!!

[CruisingFromLA]

2 hours ago, 13cheermom said:

That kinda sucks!  We just got off a Princess cruise with their premium wi-fi (which was included, lol) but had no problems at all.  Even did video calls with great service.  Why does Carnival want to be so difficult??

 

Did you happen to do a speed test? I am curious what the speeds are for Princess. Recently on the Carnival Sunrise and the Carnival Panorama, I was averaging 0.15 Mbps download speeds. In addition, there were times that the internet completely stopped working and this was with the premium plan for both ships. It is pretty much unusable. 

[13cheermom]

18 minutes ago, CruisingFromLA said:

 

Did you happen to do a speed test? I am curious what the speeds are for Princess. Recently on the Carnival Sunrise and the Carnival Panorama, I was averaging 0.15 Mbps download speeds. In addition, there were times that the internet completely stopped working and this was with the premium plan for both ships. It is pretty much unusable. 

Sorry I didn't.  Never thought about it since it worked so well for our 10-days Panama Canal transit on Emerald Princess.  But we used WhatsApp to video chat with my daughters do a live video tour of our room.  Like I said we were spoiled having it with our plus package and my husband and I both had service. I just want to have capability to contact home if needed or vice versa.  We stayed on our balcony a lot and played Spotify with no interruptions.  I read that Carnival is blocking some of these sites and I just can't understand why, when we are overpaying for the service anyway.  I understand inflation but if your going to raise the price, don't limit the service at the same time.  I went ahead and pre-purchased internet for an upcoming cruise because we have so much OBC, but it made me check the box that I fully understood it's limitations before I could purchase. 😂

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

On our last two Liberty sailings (premium plan) I was getting between .75 and 2 Mbps. I had to run speed tests through Google vs. the ones I'd normally use (Speedtest app or Speedtest.net) because Carnival was effectively blocking those. It was certainly ample to stream Pandora or Sirius - even though Carnival indicates you can't stream music using their service.

 

Carnival Liberty:

 

The prior month we were on the Reflection. All guests receive some tier of internet service with their bookings at no extra charge. Since we were in a suite, we had the "Streaming" plan and consistently had a decent connection (~ 4.5M).

 

Celebrity Reflection:

 

 

I suppose it didn't hurt that we had an access point in our living room!

 

 

 

Tom

[cruises42]

9 hours ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

Go to:

 

1> BOOKING ORDER & DETAILS

 

2> In the lower section of your stateroom info (right below the guest names) select VIEW BALANCE DETAILS

 

 There I can see $50 OBC listed there for our upcoming Liberty sailing.

 

Tom

Thanks so much!

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

I was assuming that the prices would increase today (for booking future WiFI, dining, etc). Perhaps that will drop tomorrow.

 

Tom

[rs45thompson]

On 4/10/2022 at 12:57 AM, Joehult said:

The internet really pisses me off. No excuse for charging that much for something that barely, if ever works. Royal’s works just fine and they even bundle it with soft drinks. And you don’t have to go through a damn bar tender just to get barely 6 ounces of flat coke. I don’t know, the nickel and diming carnival does to lower their teaser rate versus royal, puts me in a sour mood. Like the last carnival cruise I was on this spring, they now block Wi-Fi calling. So that’s another $100 just to make a damn phone call on the ship. 

If you just wanted to vent, I apologize for responding.  

 

We were on the Symphony in November and we had soda plus voom one device and we were charged $128.07.  On my upcoming cruise on Carnival Horizon Bottomless Bubbles is $68 for one adult and wifi is $86.40 for a total of $154.40.  Symphony was 7 days and Horizon is 8 days.  I think they are comparable and the wifi on both lines suck.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

41 minutes ago, rs45thompson said:

If you just wanted to vent, I apologize for responding.  

 

We were on the Symphony in November and we had soda plus voom one device and we were charged $128.07.  On my upcoming cruise on Carnival Horizon Bottomless Bubbles is $68 for one adult and wifi is $86.40 for a total of $154.40.  Symphony was 7 days and Horizon is 8 days.  I think they are comparable and the wifi on both lines suck.

 

My experience with Voom (Oasis and Allure) was amazing - something like 30-40Mbps, way faster than I've ever experienced on Carnival. Having said that, it was a few years ago - likely before a lot of people starting getting it in packages such as yours. So I assume many more are now sharing the same bandwidth, and slowing things down for all.

 

 

 

 

Tom

[Illbcruzn4life]

On 4/7/2022 at 7:37 AM, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

What's a "S2S" -- is that getting off one ship and onto another the same day?

 

Tom

It's something the CruiseCritic family invented a few years back. Just have to go with it. lol

 

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

On 5/1/2022 at 6:51 PM, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

I was assuming that the prices would increase today (for booking future WiFI, dining, etc). Perhaps that will drop tomorrow.

 

Tom

 

ok ... it's "official" -- Steakhouse shows as $42 on upcoming cruise.

 

Tom