Loft 19 Access for Guests of Excel Suite

[hmsvictory777]

Hi, we have multiple people and room types on our Mardi Gras Jan 2023 trip.  We have an Excel Suite.  Can we bring guests from our party from other room categories (such as balcony) to Loft 19 or would they incur a charge to gain access?

[I Luv Crusin]

What is Loft 19?  Can you buy passes to it?

[hmsvictory777]

Yes, if you are not in Excel Class you can buy a week or day pass.  It's available on Mardi Gras and Celebration, basically an upgraded version of the Serenity Area with private cabanas.  

[klfrodo]

2 hours ago, hmsvictory777 said:

Hi, we have multiple people and room types on our Mardi Gras Jan 2023 trip.  We have an Excel Suite.  Can we bring guests from our party from other room categories (such as balcony) to Loft 19 or would they incur a charge to gain access?

Of course they should incur a charge to gain access.

[I Luv Crusin]

24 minutes ago, hmsvictory777 said:

Yes, if you are not in Excel Class you can buy a week or day pass.  It's available on Mardi Gras and Celebration, basically an upgraded version of the Serenity Area with private cabanas.  

Any idea how you can buy a pass and the cost?

[lazydayz]

My understanding is if you want to bring others who are not in a qualifying suite, you will need to buy a cabana, which provides up to six wristbands.  They want to keep this area exclusive, quiet, and private, so I don't think you could just show up with four extra people everyday without a cabana.  And you cannot pack more than six in a cabana.  Someone next to us tried that, and staff quickly shut it down.  

[lazydayz]

2 minutes ago, I Luv Crusin said:

Any idea how you can buy a pass and the cost?

 

I don't know that you can buy a pass to Loft 19, but you could ask at the check-in desk.  Rack rate for the Loft 19 cabanas were $2,000 per week, plus 18% back in May.  If you want to rent a cabana by the day, it was $500 plus tip.  But on our week, the cabanas were sold out the entire week. 

 

They offered them to some cruisers not in a qualifying suite about 2 weeks before our May cruise at $1,500 plus and we took it.  Still pricy but in our opinion, worth it as we are not early to rise people and enjoyed having a space reserved just for us.    

[mondello]

11 hours ago, I Luv Crusin said:

Any idea how you can buy a pass and the cost?

Excel Suites have priority for booking the Loft 19 Cabanas. They have access to the exclusive Loft 19 area, chairs and spa pool, even without a Cabana. 
 

All other guests can only gain access to the exclusive Loft 19 area by renting a Cabana. Posted rate since Mardi Gras debuted was $500/day and $2000/week. This was available upon embarkation, choosing any remaining Cabanas not taken by Excel Suites guests. As lazydayz posted above, they apparently may open Cabana bookings shortly before each cruise. First post I’ve seen saying they offered a reduced price to encourage last minute Cabana bookings.

 

 

[mondello]

We got a free interior cabin for our 8 day Celebration Christmas cruise so, I’ll be very interested in booking a Cabana for the 4 of us, even if just for a sea day. 

[lazydayz]

So we are exactly two weeks out from our Mardi Gras sailing and they opened up the Loft 19 cabanas today.  We grabbed our favorite, number 12, for the reduced rate of $1750 for the week, plus 18% gratuity.  

[Thenagers]

On 9/3/2022 at 11:29 AM, lazydayz said:

So we are exactly two weeks out from our Mardi Gras sailing and they opened up the Loft 19 cabanas today.  We grabbed our favorite, number 12, for the reduced rate of $1750 for the week, plus 18% gratuity.  

I definitely want to do this for our Spring Break cruise.  I plan on stalking the website to get one as soon as they come available to non excell suite guests.  Personlly, I would not bother with the upcharge to a Cabana if I had one of the Exel suites and already had the area included.  I think it would be worth the elbow room on sea days!

[Thenagers]

On 9/1/2022 at 2:49 AM, mondello said:

We got a free interior cabin for our 8 day Celebration Christmas cruise so, I’ll be very interested in booking a Cabana for the 4 of us, even if just for a sea day. 

I am using my Casino offer for an Ocean Suite.  Excel suites were not available with a reduced rate.  It will be worth the 2000 for the week.  It was 6500 for 2 people in an forward excell the week I booked.  I am still paying thousands less to do an Ocean Suite and a Cabana.  That is if they are still available!

Edited September 20, 2022 by Thenagers

[mondello]

12 hours ago, Thenagers said:

I am using my Casino offer for an Ocean Suite.  Excel suites were not available with a reduced rate.  It will be worth the 2000 for the week.  It was 6500 for 2 people in an forward excell the week I booked.  I am still paying thousands less to do an Ocean Suite and a Cabana.  That is if they are still available!

Yeah, it’s more of a bargain with the casino comp. I haven’t been on Mardi Gras and I’m seriously thinking about staying on Celebration in all the ports. Lots of food venues to try and a Loft 19 Cabana could see a lot of use.

[jimbo5544]

The area is a home run as are the Aft Excel suites/

[nycny]

This message is for Mondello - we are also on the Celebration over Christmas and want to rent a cabana.  We are two and would love to join with another two/three to share.  Interested? Would also love to figure out how to reserve in advance but having trouble with that one.  There is a Facebook group with for the cruise with 685 members but I could not find you there so I am resorting to this method.

[ColeThornton]

21 minutes ago, nycny said:

This message is for Mondello - we are also on the Celebration over Christmas and want to rent a cabana.  We are two and would love to join with another two/three to share.  Interested? Would also love to figure out how to reserve in advance but having trouble with that one.  There is a Facebook group with for the cruise with 685 members but I could not find you there so I am resorting to this method.

 

Suggestion:  You may want to quote Mondello or tag his/her name so that he gets a notification, otherwise they might not be back in this thread to see your post.   🙂

[nycny]

Fair point ColeThornton but unclear how to do that so doing the best that I can.

[ColeThornton]

59 minutes ago, nycny said:

Fair point ColeThornton but unclear how to do that so doing the best that I can.

 

Very simple.  Go back up to Mondello's post.  At the bottom of it simply hit "quote" at the bottom of it then put whatever text you want to below what you are quoting.  Mondello will get a notification.

[Schoifmom]

2 hours ago, nycny said:

This message is for Mondello - we are also on the Celebration over Christmas and want to rent a cabana.  We are two and would love to join with another two/three to share.  Interested? Would also love to figure out how to reserve in advance but having trouble with that one.  There is a Facebook group with for the cruise with 685 members but I could not find you there so I am resorting to this method.

 

On 9/20/2022 at 11:24 PM, mondello said:

Yeah, it’s more of a bargain with the casino comp. I haven’t been on Mardi Gras and I’m seriously thinking about staying on Celebration in all the ports. Lots of food venues to try and a Loft 19 Cabana could see a lot of use.

 

@nycny, this should do it for you.  @mondello

[mondello]

2 hours ago, nycny said:

This message is for Mondello - we are also on the Celebration over Christmas and want to rent a cabana.  We are two and would love to join with another two/three to share.  Interested? Would also love to figure out how to reserve in advance but having trouble with that one.  There is a Facebook group with for the cruise with 685 members but I could not find you there so I am resorting to this method.

Sorry, I’m old school, rooted in the 20th century and don’t do fbook. Loft 19 will not open up for non-Excel Suites until the last minute since they have priority booking rights. The discounts they have been offering on Mardi Gras, $1750 and even $1500, may not be available when we desire. I’m not sure if a shared booking would be permitted as they can limit access to only guests from whichever cabin books a Cabana.

 

I am always interested in saving money but, the devil is in the details. Would need to know the capacity of Cabana, number of chairs and how the split would work. 8 day cruise, we could each use it every other day, 4 days each? Truthfully, I’d expect a problem with getting access beyond the velvet rope for those guests not named on the booking. The other problem is getting money from strangers as no good deed goes unpunished. Lots of stories about friends/family that don’t cough up the cash.

 

Guess I’ll have a gander on the book site, under wife’s account to explore this further. Preferably someone could chime in here if Carnival even allows cabins to share a cabana? I’d feel a heck of a lot better if I had some confirmation from Carnival that my money is going towards a valid Loft 19 Cabana.

[mondello]

@nycny We’ve already spent several Christmas seasons together. We made an annual Christmas trip to NYC and Boston 3 Christmas in a row. We were in NYC when it was 65 degrees on Christmas Eve. We booked Horizon last Christmas and got bumped to Sunshine.

[lazydayz]

1 hour ago, mondello said:

Sorry, I’m old school, rooted in the 20th century and don’t do fbook. Loft 19 will not open up for non-Excel Suites until the last minute since they have priority booking rights. The discounts they have been offering on Mardi Gras, $1750 and even $1500, may not be available when we desire. I’m not sure if a shared booking would be permitted as they can limit access to only guests from whichever cabin books a Cabana.

 

I am always interested in saving money but, the devil is in the details. Would need to know the capacity of Cabana, number of chairs and how the split would work. 8 day cruise, we could each use it every other day, 4 days each? Truthfully, I’d expect a problem with getting access beyond the velvet rope for those guests not named on the booking. The other problem is getting money from strangers as no good deed goes unpunished. Lots of stories about friends/family that don’t cough up the cash.

 

Guess I’ll have a gander on the book site, under wife’s account to explore this further. Preferably someone could chime in here if Carnival even allows cabins to share a cabana? I’d feel a heck of a lot better if I had some confirmation from Carnival that my money is going towards a valid Loft 19 Cabana.

 

We just returned from the MG on Saturday, and had the Loft 19 Cabana booked in our name (none of us were in a suite).  On the first day, the four of us went to Loft 19, they checked us in and asked how many wristbands?   We said four, and they gave us four.  Never asked for the others' cabin number.  No issues all week.  In fact, it was the highlight of our cruise.  

[nycny]

21 hours ago, mondello said:

Sorry, I’m old school, rooted in the 20th century and don’t do fbook. Loft 19 will not open up for non-Excel Suites until the last minute since they have priority booking rights. The discounts they have been offering on Mardi Gras, $1750 and even $1500, may not be available when we desire. I’m not sure if a shared booking would be permitted as they can limit access to only guests from whichever cabin books a Cabana.

 

I am always interested in saving money but, the devil is in the details. Would need to know the capacity of Cabana, number of chairs and how the split would work. 8 day cruise, we could each use it every other day, 4 days each? Truthfully, I’d expect a problem with getting access beyond the velvet rope for those guests not named on the booking. The other problem is getting money from strangers as no good deed goes unpunished. Lots of stories about friends/family that don’t cough up the cash.

 

Guess I’ll have a gander on the book site, under wife’s account to explore this further. Preferably someone could chime in here if Carnival even allows cabins to share a cabana? I’d feel a heck of a lot better if I had some confirmation from Carnival that my money is going towards a valid Loft 19 Cabana.

I am on the phone with the Echo desk and will ask all of your questions.  It was just a thought as I do not see us using it every day all day.

[Thenagers]

20 hours ago, lazydayz said:

 

We just returned from the MG on Saturday, and had the Loft 19 Cabana booked in our name (none of us were in a suite).  On the first day, the four of us went to Loft 19, they checked us in and asked how many wristbands?   We said four, and they gave us four.  Never asked for the others' cabin number.  No issues all week.  In fact, it was the highlight of our cruise.  

Curious if you think we could rotate the wristbands?  We have 3 couples going so 6 instead of 5.  We would like to rotate use over the course of the week.  We would probably do girls time/ guys time or rotate days?  Do they care as long as not over 5? 6 would make more sense.

[mondello]

3 hours ago, nycny said:

I am on the phone with the Echo desk and will ask all of your questions.  It was just a thought as I do not see us using it every day all day.

I’m definitely leaning towards booking one, if available as we do have to wait for suites and it is Christmas. $2000 is bad enough but, the $360/gratuity is steep, too.

 

I looked online for pictures and video. Looks like 2 padded loungers per cabana with comfy daybed/couch area inside shady part. I think this would work if I book it and get the maximum of five (5) wristbands. There are 3 of us w/son, age 14. 2 extra for you if your booking is 2 guests?

 

Would be great if carnival had a method for us to book and pay online. However, I’d expect they don’t. I don’t have a problem booking and paying upfront but, I would need cash payment when we board and exchange wristbands. Sorry but, I couldn’t take a chance with a potentially bad check. Like I said, great if Carnival has a method to handle this. Just off the top of my head, maybe I could book and pay in full and they can accept your half to credit my account online and both bookings would show use of five (5) wristbands?

 

Another thing I thought of is, we can both access the Loft 19 area with our wristbands. We can alternate use of the Cabana every other day but still have daily access to the Loft 19 area. Who knows, we may become fast friends?