When Ship Happens

Carnival - Norwegain Cruise Comparison

For the past 12 years my family has only cruised Carnival. Everyone always asked me why we did not try other lines and my answer was always, they have never given me a reason too. Over the past couple of years we have talked about venturing elsewhere, just to see how it was. This Spring Break I found myself with a dilemma. Norwegian was offering a great deal! One we could not turn down.

I searched high and low looking for a good comparison between the 2 lines and did not really find much. So here are the differences I noticed.

 

Booking the cruise:

When I went online to book our cruise the first thing I noticed upon choosing a Balcony room option was I was given the opportunity to choose family connecting balconies. When booking on Carnival I have always had to have a deck plan pulled up and searched for connecting rooms… often times 1 of the 2 connecting rooms are occupied. It was nice that these room were marketed in this manner. It made it super easy.

I also noticed there were a lot more suite options. They had mini suites, suites with just windows and no balcony on up to several balcony suites with 2 and even 3 bedrooms. The newer Carnival ships are offering more options like this, but the majority of the fleet does not. Now… I will say I was booking this cruise over spring break so the prices were inflated. However, for giggles I plugged us into a couple of those rooms. We could have had a 2 bedroom suite (couch makes the 3^rd bed) for about $5000 more than what we paid for our 2 balcony rooms. Or we could have booked the Garden Villa 3 bedroom suite that comes with its own hot tub for $20,000 total for the 4 of us. I decided to pass.

It seems like booking suites on Norwegian is more of an experience within itself. Suites come with their own butler and concierge as well as your cabin steward. It is my understanding the butler will bring you snacks and treats throughout the day. If you are craving gummy bears and KitKat bars, they will magically appear. The concierge will book anything you want for you so you do not have to mess with it. You can also eat lunch in any of the specialty dining options for free. So there are many perks that come with what you are paying for.

When it comes to scoring an upgrade on NCL there is not “fairy” that calls. You will receive an email or a message on your account that is like a bidding system. Not everyone receives an offer, but if you get one, you submit the price you are willing to pay and they can either accept or reject your offer.

I did receive an email offering us to upgrade to any number of suites for $750 more per person. I wasn’t up for paying another $3000 more for a suite so I declined. It appears the options that come with the suites are pretty nice because a number of the people from our online cruise group were jumping all over that.

The deal we booked allowed us to choose from 2 of the 4 amenities for booking a balcony. Our choices were Free Ultimate Beverage Package, Free Specialty Dining Package (3 meals), Free Unlimited Internet, or an excursion credit at each port. I believe when you book a suite or above, you are able to take advantage of all 4 of these deals…. So, like I said you are receiving some nice perks for the price.

ONLINE CHECK IN

The online check in was easy. You choose your boarding time just like Carnival. No major changes. The main difference I noticed was you could not set up your “on board account” online. This is only done at the port upon embarkation.

The other thing I noticed was on Carnival, I can add Trenton’s cabin to My Cruises and manage his account, check in, print boarding pass, luggage tags, etc. On NCL I have no access to his booking. I cannot add him to My Cruises because I am not in his cabin. I even tried to create him his own account and their system will not allow a minor to have their own account. Sooo… anything I need to do on his account has to either be done by my Mom or I have to physically call in and have someone do it for me. That’s a hassle.

(More on this dysfunctionality later….)

You cannot bring bottled water on NCL either. I went online to order water and almost had a stroke when I saw the prices. To NCL’s credit, they did lower their water prices about a month before we sailed so I was able to cancel my original order and re-order at the cheaper price. It was still expensive. I will say they only offer 1 liter bottles of water… not the small ones.

For a good comparison: Carnival offers an 8pk of 1 Liter water for $20 ($2.50 per bottle). We purchased the 24 pk of 1 Liter water on NCL for $53.04 ($2.21 per bottle). When you look at it this way it isn’t such a bad deal, it was just a huge shock from paying $4.99 to paying $53!

Another thing I noticed while pre purchasing items for our cruise online was they give you the option to purchase diapers and wipes to have delivered to your room… Not that we have a need for this type of thing, but I can see if you are traveling with young children how this could be a helpful option.

I did not bring any wine on board because we had the free beverage package, but where NCL is drastically different is your “corkage fee” is charged upon embarkation. When you go through security and they check out your wine, the fee is immediately charged to your sign and sail account. No bringing it on board and drinking it for free in your cabin. Fees are determined per bottle size. $15 for a 750 mL bottle and $30 for a 1,500 mL bottle.

THE ROOM

Saying their rooms really aren’t smaller than Carnival’s is kind of like Carnival saying they haven’t changed their type of mattresses. I am calling BS. Our cabin definitely felt smaller on NCL than Carnival. Matter of fact, my entire family went “Whoa it’s so small!” when they walked in. When I looked at the actual square footage it didn’t seem so, but it was. The bathroom is also not very functional. I am not a large person and I found it cramped, so the normal sized people of the world might find it rather claustrophobic. I hit my knee on the towel rank attached to the sink trying to put my shorts on. I hit my elbow on the shower door trying to put my shirt on. Every. Day. I have NO CLUE how Mark managed to get dressed in there… I would pay good money to have seen it though!

When using the toilet area it’s probably best just to back yourself in. There really aren’t many options for turning around in there if you shut the door.

I loved that the balcony doors/wall were full paned glass. It does make the room more open and allows for a much better view. The balcony doors also slide so they will stay open and do not slam. It was so nice not listening to doors slam and shake your entire cabin all cruise.

The bed I thought was a little more comfortable than Carnival. I didn’t fall in a hole all night so that was a plus. There was actually a little pillow top on the mattresses and they did zip together to form the 2 beds into one which reduced the separation that happens on Carnival. One of us is forever crawling out of the hole that forms in the middle.

The couch was also more of a “loveseat” size. There was no coffee table and no real chair. Just a small stool with no back.

The clothes storage was much less. I found myself not having enough drawer space to put all my things away. We only had 1 closet for hanging clothes. I made it work, but not as well as I liked. There were shelves in the closet, but they were not very functional. I also found there was much less counter space. The bathroom had essentially none. Just one small shelf. Anything else you have to store under the sink. The trash can was white and built into the bottom shelf... It initially freaked me out because it looked like one of those inserts that goes in a bedside potty chair.  I'm weird, I know.  But then I couldn't get the potty chair out of my head so I had a hard time putting my things down there.  I didn’t like that. In the cabin itself there were 2 small built in tables. One they have all their magazines and books on with your hairdryer. The other had the coffee pot on it. While I love having the coffee pot in the room, day 1 Trenton tripped over the step up coming in from the balcony, bumped the table and knocked a coffee cup off that broke. So not the best placement. I can see where that might happen often.

We did have an ice bucket that they put ice in every day in the room and did not have to ask for it. It was tucked away on the shelf under the refrigerator… I kid you not, it was 3 days into the cruise before I realized our room steward had been filling it with ice.

We only had 1 room steward and this seems to be the norm. While our steward was very nice, there were many times our room was not serviced. We got off the ship in Cozumel at 9am, came back around 1:30pm and our room still had not been cleaned. It wasn’t a huge deal. It was just a difference we noticed.

FOOD

I would say the food in the Specialty dining areas was better than what is served on Carnival…with the exception of Cagney’s Steakhouse. The food was good, but the overall experience and atmosphere from Carnival’s Steakhouse was better.  

Los Lobos was fantastic. Everything was extremely fresh. We didn’t care too much for the desserts. The flan was a little over cooked for us, but we are flan snobs… lol. The Tres leches cake was good and don’t fall for the avocado coconut ice cream! While the consistency is nice, it really doesn’t taste good! The rest of the food here is Fantastic! Tableside guacamole was fantastic! I would pay to eat here again. I would say it was the best dinner of the entire cruise.

There were 2 main dining rooms. They said 1 had a “dress code” meaning no shorts and collared shirts for men. They did not adhere to this as I saw people in board shorts and tank tops coming in and being seated every night we were there. The other main dining room served the exact same menu, but was supposed to have been a more casual dress. There are no set dining times… everything is basically Your Time Dining. It is recommended you make reservations for the specialty restaurants, especially on the larger ships as they tend to fill up fast.

The first night we ate in the Main Dining Room the menu seemed fine, the other nights Trenton and I couldn’t find anything we really wanted to eat…. Our old standby ended up being Spaghetti Bolognese and salad off their everyday menu. I missed Carnival’s port of call menu options. Getting down to the nitty gritty…there were table cloths each night, in terms of table “presentation” they were just plain table settings (nothing pretty or decorative). There was a bread basket on the table each night, but the bread was never hot.

There was no 24 hour pizza. Your 24 hour food option was O’Sheehan’s and it was pretty darn good. The thai chicken wings were the bomb! They also served burgers, nachos, and fajitas. So a nice option for anytime you were hungry.

Room Service has a $7.95 delivery charge. It doesn’t matter if you order 1 thing or everything on the menu… $7.95. I will say there were not dishes lining the hallways like there are on Carnival… I would imagine it was because no one was ordering room service!

The Garden Café (buffet on Lido) was typical buffet quality. I would not say it was any better or worse than Carnival. Chocolate milk in the morning was hard to come by. It was never sitting out. You had to physically ask someone and they would bring it to you. They were always nice and quick about it. They also had large dispensers for milk by the coffee and juice machines. Those seemed popular. I also found out the hard way the silverware is on the table. I couldn’t find any…. Spotted a worker carrying silverware… asked him for one and not sure what went wrong, but he dropped several rolls (knives and forks went scattering across the floor), I ended up dumping my plate. It really was a mess. I finally cleaned up my stuff, got a new plate, sat down at the table and saw all the silverware in the little basket. Oops. It is a nice addition not to try to carry your plate and juggle a drink and silverware.

CASINO

The casino was nice. It did not seem as “smoky” as Carnival’s, but it could have just been the cruise. Main difference I noticed was it was not free to charge money to your Sign and Sail card. If you put your card in a slot machine and wanted to charge money, there was a 3% fee. When you cash out you also get an actual “ticket” to take the casino cage and cash out. I actually liked this because I had a problem on Carnival once where my winnings did not transfer to my card. I ended up having them pull the records from the machine and they finally agreed to pay me. This ticket thing would prevent that.

The poker table was also a “real” poker table with a “real” dealer. People still complained about the “rake” they take on each hand so that was the same.

On this particular ship all the other table games were not elevated. So not “standing height.” Dealers were sitting in chairs… guests could sit in a real chair too and not have to climb up in the tall ones. Perhaps no one else has an issue, but as a “vertically challenged” person, I appreciated it!

PHOTO GALLERY

The photo set up was sooo much better. Every time someone takes your photo they ask you what cabin you are in and they type it in on their camera. On your sign and sail card you will have a bookcase and folder number. When you go to the photo gallery you go to your bookcase and pull out your folder. Inside you will find all your photos. If you want to purchase one, you go to one of the computers and you have the option to edit and crop photos as you want. No digging through tons of strangers or crowding around wall after wall searching for your pictures. Soooo nice!

SIGN AND SAIL CARD

Also printed on your sign and sail card will be the UBP (Ultimate Beverage Package) or UDP (Ultimate Dining Package) if you purchase them so you don't have to worry about stickers on your cards or how they will know you have an all-inclusive package.

NCL cards do not come with a pre-punched hole. You will have to have them punched on board if you are using that type of lanyard.

TOWELS

Your cabin steward does not exchange your beach towels. You will find some in your cabin when you board, but it is up to you to exchange them on the pool deck for clean ones. When you are returning from excursions there will be someone outside the ship with big buckets of towels where you can exchange for fresh ones. If you leave your dirty beach towel on the floor of your cabin, they will remove it, but not replace it.

HAND SANITATION

Every time you enter the ship or entered the Garden Café, there was a worker standing there with a spray bottle saying “Washy Washy”. They wanted you to hold out your hand and they would squirt some sanitizer for you. Great idea. Some of them make a pretty fun time of their job. “Washy Washy” is catching. I sure wish I had known about this prior to embarkation because when I walked on the ship and some chick tried to spray me, I dodged out of the way and looked at her like she had lost her ever loving mind. Should have a label on that bottle that says “Say No to Noro Virus” or something!

ENTERTAINMENT

As usual, we did not participate in this much. They did have a “white hot party” that seemed to be really popular. We went to the magic show one night and there was basically no seating so we ended up sitting on the stairs off to the side. The last night we went to some acrobatic show. That was actually really cool! I don’t think there was as much “night life” as there is on Carnival, so if that is your thing you might miss it. There were Bingo, Trivia and such games during the day. No actual comedy club, though they did have comedy shows in the main theatre.

SERVICE

I inquired about the number of crew members on NCL compared to Carnival because it seemed like there was a lot less crew. Apparently, they have the same crew to guest ratio, but they are organized differently which was something we noticed.

The amount of crew servicing rooms and in the dining venues was noticeably less. I mentioned earlier there was only 1 cabin steward. The same was in the dining rooms. Many nights we only had 1 waiter. Occasionally someone different would ask for our desert order, but that was rare. I think there are fewer waiter teams due to all the specialty restaurants. They are spread out to cover everything.

It seemed to me the areas where Carnival has teams are the areas where you feel you are really being waited on and tended too. It makes you feel special. I can also say we were RARELY addressed by our names on NCL, something we have grown accustomed to on Carnival. You don’t notice it, until you are missing it.

Now for the dysfunctionality I mentioned earlier. This is what did it in for us. Due to the layout of the port of New Orleans and the parking situation… Mom and Trenton boarded after us, therefore I was not there to give my credit card when Trenton’s sign and sail account was set up, so essentially he didn’t have one. It took us 3 trips to guest services to get this solved. I have no idea why this was so difficult. After the 2^nd trip they got Trenton’s card working fine, but shut mine and Mark’s off…. And I mean shut off to the point where we were even declined when ordering our FREE drinks. On my 3^rd trip I politely asked to speak to a manager and that request was ignored… I was told to stand in line. When I reached the counter I again politely asked to speak to a manager, and that request was ignored. After listening for 10 minutes to the girl call someone to ask if our credit card was any good and then saying “are you sure?” to whomever was on the phone, I demanded to speak to a manager and that request was ignored. My next course of action reached raising my voice and hitting my hand on the counter saying “Get. Me. A. Manager. Now.” …. And that request was ignored. Dear Lord in Heaven… I had nothing left to do but pray. I rarely get mad and I was reaching the point of no return.

Mark headed over to the shore excursion desk, cut in line and told the poor guy working there he better get a manager over there… NOW. He came running around the corner, ran into the back of guest services and came out with a manager. Good Grief. So finally, they got our account straight. However, we never got a follow up call. Not a “just wanted to make sure everything was taken care of.” Never got an “Our bad… Sorry, we f’ed up back there.” Nothing. Oh… she did say she would make sure she “wrote up the incident and forward it on.” To who? The Tooth Fairy?

Mom’s fan was also confiscated upon embarkation. They refused to give it back even though she showed them it was not a banned item on their website. She was upset, but rolled with the flow. However, on the last day she went to guest services and they told her they did not have her fan. She would get it back AFTER she got off the ship. This sounded strange to her so as we were in line to get off the ship she asked another worker where she was supposed to go to get her fan back and they told her it would be given back AFTER she got off the ship. She then saw the cruise director and asked him and he said again, those are given back in the port. As we had exited the ship and were walking up the gangway back into the port to go to customs we looked back at the ship and on the other side of the line we were in was a table sitting there with everyone’s confiscated fans…. ON THE SHIP. There was no way to turn around and get back on the ship. So yeah…. Between the fewer staff available for your room and dining and the stellar customer service provided at guest services….We had a pretty poor opinion of the service.

To recap…. The ship itself was BEAUTIFUL! Hands down better than any Carnival ship we have ever been on. The photo gallery… awesome. Specialty restaurants are not to be missed. Shows… are probably better. Beds and balcony doors… better.

Main Dining Room food, not as good. Beach towel setup not as convenient. Bathroom should just be scrapped and start over. You will be nickel and dimed everywhere you turn. “Personal connection” not as good. Service not as good.

We have one more NCL cruise planned for this summer. We have a dear friend getting married on St. Thomas so we will be on a wedding cruise aboard the Norwegian Escape.  Hopefully the customer service will be better and turn things around for us.  I know there are things I have forgotten to mention in here.  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask below and I will do my best to answer.  I will be composing a blog on the ship itself (Norwegian Dawn) in the near future.

What to tip on a cruise

Yep... That's right. I am going to talk about tipping.... And none of that "Tip what you think is best crap." I am going to tell you what I tip... when I tip... when I don't tip and why. This isn't the golden rule. I am sure there are people out there who tip much more, people who just SAY they tip more, people who tip less and people who don't tip and all. To be honest... they are all right, because it is their choice. Tipping above and beyond for a service is totally at your discretion.

BUT....Nothing pisses me off more than to legitimately want to know what most people tip.... and can't find anyone to give me a straight answer. I don't want to offend anyone. I want to tip what most people do ... and sometimes I flat ass don't know what is best.

So here goes.

Porters. We have been cruising for the better part of 15 years. I was always told it was customary to tip the porters that take your luggage $1 per bag. I used to tip exactly that amount. Over the years, I have found myself tipping $1-2 per bag or rounding to the nearest "bill" amount. It usually depends on what change I have on me. If we have 5 bags... I might hand them a $5 or I might hand them a $10. When the whole family is going we usually have 7 bags. I will usually give $10, sometimes $15.

Only once have I refused to tip a porter taking my luggage. We were in Miami and as we got out of our cab I saw a porter with a luggage rack. I waived to him and he said he wasn't taking luggage that we needed to go around the corner. (We did a back to back cruise out of Miami with 1 day in between... I dropped my luggage off at the same place the week before and the porter happily took it.) So we wheeled our luggage around the corner. There was another porter sitting on his luggage rack. He motioned for us to stand in the long line and said we should give it to the lady at the front of the line. So we stood in line. The lady didn't even actually take the luggage... she just stickered the ones that were Priority and then told you what pile to push your own luggage in to. I saw no reason to tip as my luggage was already marked Priority from the cruise we just returned from... so essentially all she did was point in the direction for me to take my own luggage. As I deposited my luggage and began to walk away the lady yelled after me that I had better tip for my luggage if I wanted it to make it on the ship. Ummm...No Ma'am. That's not how this works. First of all... she had no way of knowing which luggage was mine. There were piles of it everywhere and she didn't physically touch one piece. Second of all... it's rude to ask for a tip. What happens when you ask for tips and try to guilt people into giving you money is you get reported to the Port Authority and to the Cruise Line. Don't let people guilt you into tipping. It is their job to get the luggage on the ship. You tip for the service and convenience they provide you.

Drinks. Any drink you purchase on the ship automatically has gratuity added to it. You do not have to tip above and beyond. If I just order one drink at a bar and I stand there to retrieve it ... I might not tip more. If we are going to have several drinks... I will usually tip an extra $1 per drink. Will the servers give you better service if you tip extra ... Yes. It's a fact. Sorry. If you want them to keep coming back to you in a timely manner ... tip an extra $1. If you don’t want to tip extra, you certainly don’t have to and you will still be waited on. It’s just my personal experience if we tipped extra, we received faster service.

Wait Staff in Main Dining Room. Back when we ate at an assigned dining time, we always tipped our wait staff at the end of the cruise. We have tipped anywhere from $20-40. That was for them to share... not per person. Having Your Time Dining we have not always tipped at the end of the cruise. Sometimes we get set with several different servers throughout the cruise. Usually if we find a serving crew we really like we will request them and continue to sit in their section. If we have ended up having the same staff the majority of the cruise we have tipped them $20 the last night. Some people have asked if you just leave the money on the table like you would at a restaurant at home and the answer is no. We have always handed it to the head waiter and told him thank you. If you want to bring little envelopes from home... do it. Sometimes guest services has some they will give you as well. We just fold the money up and hand it to them.

Room Service: It used to be that room service was free, but now I see they are charging for some items. I have not experienced this yet. When we have ordered the free room service I usually tip $1 per meal. For example, if we order 2 sandwiches and a plate of cookies I will tip $2-3 dollars. If Trenton just orders 1 peanut butter and jelly sandwich… we tip $1.

Room Steward. I would say the majority of our cruises we tip the room steward extra at the end. I have read that several people say they tip $20 at the beginning of the cruise and then $20 at the end. Not me. In my opinion.... tipping for a service prior to it being performed is a bribe. I'm not out to bribe anyone for good service. If I ask for extra things throughout my cruise like fresh ice in the ice bucket each night and extra towels... and those requests are met, I will tip extra. Thank you for going above and beyond. There have been cruises where I rarely saw my room steward and he just simply met the bare minimum expectations. I did not tip extra. I don't always ask for additional things, but greeting me in the hallway and showing a genuine interest in my experience will get you an extra tip.

I cruised with a person once and it was his daughter's birthday. When they came back from dinner this is what they found in their room. That my friends is over any beyond my expectations and certainly would have earned the steward team an extra tip.

 

 

Sometimes we have left extra things like cigars or drinks and we told the room steward they could have them. I have never been treated so poorly that I thought removing my automatic gratuities was warranted. For the most part, we have always been taken care of. Our expectations were met. The room was cleaned and we had fresh towels. They did their job. For those room stewards (and they are in the majority) that go above and beyond to ensure our trip was wonderful and all our needs were met (sometimes before WE even knew we would need it).... I tip extra and thank them for going above and beyond.

Excursions: We do a healthy mix of Carnival and Private Excursions. We do usually tip extra at the end of the tour. Again for the 3 of us, we usually tip $20-40 dollars. It depends on the size of the crew helping us, how well they do, and the cost of the excursion to begin with. I have found we usually tip more when it was a private excursion than with the Carnival ones because I feel we have received more personal service as the groups are usually smaller. We have tipped less… just depends on the circumstance.

Also worth special mention... things like tipping extra on your bar tab or for room service can be added to your sign and sail card.  You don't need to carry around cash to do this.  You can just add an extra tip onto the reciept like you would if you were paying for dinner at home with a credit card.

So there you have it … my deep dark personal tipping secrets. I hope they help. I understand the frustration of wanting to know and not getting a straight answer. This isn’t a golden rule … just my personal opinion. Always tip what you feel is best or what you are comfortable giving.

 

Ft Lauderdale, Florida

Well here goes a new blog series…

 

I got a wild hair and I mean WILD hair.  I had talked Mark into cruising out of Florida again and we (… and by we I always mean I) had decided on the Carnival Breeze for 8 days to Grand Turk, Domincan Republic, Curacao and Aruba. Here is where it got a little complicated.  I noticed we were just a few days away from becoming Platinum with Carnival so I did the most logical thing I could think of and decided to book a back to back cruise.  Problem was…. We didn’t have enough vacation days to stay on the Breeze twice so I ended up booking us 4 days on the Ecstasy to Key West and Cozumel with a 1 night layover in Miami and then on to the Breeze. 

This wasn’t the easiest trip to plan because I also decided we would fly into Ft. Lauderdale because we had never been there.  We were flying into and out of separate airports, hotel rooms in different cities, booking shuttles, transfers and excursions… not to mention my husband and mother are horrible with lines and waiting and nothing ever goes as planned… or else, I would have no reason to have this blog :)

 

Traveling to Ft. Lauderdale.

 

We left out on a Sunday.  The airport lines seemed crazy when we arrived, thankfully Mark is now a “frequent flyer” so we all had priority boarding.  That line was much better and somehow Trenton and I got to skip the body scanner and were just waived through… clearly they had no knowledge of the positive for explosive’s test we both had in Puerto Rico… LOL  I guess we were only labeled as national threats there. 

We had about an hour until boarding so we stopped at TGIF for breakfast. Tried to order mimosa’s, but they couldn’t serve alcohol until 10am … ?  Orange Juice it is.  We also had priority boarding so we got to get on peacefully and sit down instead of having to squeeze in.  This whole process went really well.    

Here is where it went wrong.  Whoever decided it was a good idea to board the plane from the front to the back was deranged.  I had the aisle seat.  Someone in the back of the plane was inquiring on an open seat in first class… so here was the flight attendant on her walky talky phone… people and their luggage walking towards the back of the plane and now some chick trying to get to the front of the plane.  So the dude standing beside my chair, wearing a multi colored shirt… Like he just couldn’t decide what color to wear that day so he wore them all... turns sideways to let the chick go by and he literally shoves his “junk” right in my face.  I was so shocked…  I practically plastered myself next to Mark who for once was speechless with his mouth hanging open and the poor flight attendant looked like her eyes were going to pop out of her head. 

Really dude?  You couldn’t have shoved yourself into the side of the seat?  Or turned the other way?  I would much rather he rested his butt on my shoulder than his “personal business”.  So there I was … assaulted on a plane.  That was a first.

Apparently there were many storms on our way to Florida.  The seat belt signs were finally turned off.  Mark and Trenton decided it was a safe time to head to the restroom.  Mark went to the front of the plane and T headed to the back.  Out of no where we hit some really rough turbulence.  I turned around and looked to the back of the plane as the captain came over the speaker apologizing and turned on the seat belt signs to see Trenton’s legs kicking out in the aisle.  He had been pitched into someone’s lap.  Mark had already made it to the bathroom so I thought he was good… however, we he came out it was obvious it wasn’t.  He apparently peed all over the bathroom.   Said it looked like a crime scene!  Oops.  He cleaned it up the best he could. 

The landing was some risky business too.  You know the little TV screens that come down and say “Thanks for flying American?”  Well, I was positive the oxygen masks were dropping down too.  Regardless, we landed with lightening flashing outside the windows.  Then they were so kind to unload our luggage off the plane right as they closed the entire tar mac and evacuated all the workers…. Who left the luggage outside on the tar mac.  So day 1 in Ft Lauderdale left us with a 45 minute bag delay and dripping bags. :(

We waited a bit for a taxi van since there were 4 of us plus luggage.  We had booked the Ft Lauderdale Hilton Beach Resort.  Taxi cost us around $40 including the tip.  The hotel was nice.  There are no hotels ON the beach in Ft Lauderdale.  It’s kind of like Galveston where you have to cross the road to get to it.  I had made the reservations months ago for a 2 bedroom ocean view suite.  Here is my first attempt at making a video...

 

Price was $460 including taxes and the resort fee.  It was more expensive if I booked 2 separate rooms so that’s what we went with.  The room was awesome.  Had a full kitchen and living room with a pull out couch.  2 bedrooms with King size beds that each had their own bathrooms.  Both had large double closets with a safe, iron and ironing board.  We had a huge wrap around balcony and 1 bedroom had a smaller private balcony.  Talking to people at the bar there, word on the street, is this is one of the nicer hotels to stay in on the strip.  There are some that are more expensive, but the pricing at the Hilton is more reasonable and the service is way above the pricier ones.  The service was great. We never passed an employee that did not smile, greet us and engage in conversation… right down to the guy cleaning tables at the Starbucks located on the first floor.  Which, by the way, Mom is gluten free and they had a whole section of gluten free snacks, including oatmeal which the Starbuck’s staff prepared for her the next morning,

That night, Mark had 2 mojitos and decided he wanted to try out the casino J  We called a taxi and set off for the Hard Rock Casino.  Taxi ride was $40 each way… it wasn’t close.  The Hard Rock was nice.  Looks like a good and fun place to stay as well.  We donated some money, played some poker, blackjack and slots, had a great time and headed back to the hotel.

Next morning I had arranged for QLS Shuttle to pick us up.  There are several highly recommended shuttle services from Ft Lauderdale to Miami that you can find on Facebook or Cruise Critic.  I called them all and none of them would pick up outside of the airport area.  QLS was the first one that said “Sure we’ll come get you.”  The ride was $75 for all of us and our luggage.  Most of the other shuttle services quoted $15pp, so it was really only an extra $15 to come get us….  The driver was great.  Our instructions said to be in the lobby between 0900 and 0930.  That made me a little nervous, but he showed up on time (about 0910).  Was nice to talk too during the ride.  I would certainly recommend and use them again. 

We arrived at the port early (around 10am).  Most people were still getting off the boat.  We handed all our luggage over to the porter, walked right through security and up the escalators to get our cards.  There were a few other people in the terminal, but we certainly had our pick of seats.  We found some comfy ones and settled in to wait for boarding.

Stay tuned… My thoughts on the Carnival Ecstasy are coming up next!

Theft on Cruise Ships

Warning…. Not a funny post.  Informative… Perhaps.  I am sure some will find a smidge of humor in it somewhere… but enough time has not passed for me to find it funny.  So let’s get on with it shall we?

 

I have touched on “Are cruise ships safe?” and what it actually takes to hurl yourself over the balcony railing…. And the last dude in the news who says “a big wave” caused him to go over board had me in stitches!  A wave… really? That’s like one of those ridiculous lies your kids tell you … “Hey Mom… sorry my glasses are in 4 pieces, I tripped over a rock”  umm hmmm Tripped over a rock or fell off a cliff?!  That was a good try.  Let’s here the real story now.  SO really… a wave was the best lie you could come up with?  A tsunami maybe.  That would have gotten him bonus points for creativity.

SO here is the next part to “Are cruise ships safe”?  I have always read topics regarding “theft” on cruise ships.  Either someone claims some priceless heirloom was stolen from their room.  Or they claim they left $72,000 cash in the safe and forgot to take it with them when they debarked.  Whatever.  There are lots of scenarios.  There are in fact 2 outcomes.  Either people swear up and down their cabin steward who was a saint the whole time of their cruise made off with their goods…. Or a couple of months later a package comes in the mail from Carnival in Miami and it is their property they forgot to take with them or lost.

Well here we were … 10 cruises in.  You know how many things have come up missing?  Zero.  We aren’t the paranoid passengers either.  Meaning, we don’t cram everything we own of any value in the safe every time we leave the room.  Actually about the only thing we put in the safe is our wallets and our car keys... and that’s mainly to protect us from ourselves.  Otherwise, not using them for several days… Lord only knows where they would end up.  Cell phones, Ipad, Camera, casino chips, jewelry, cash… it’s all there.  All over the cabin.  Out in the open. 

So here we were … cruise number 10 and we were heading to the arcade on the last sea day.  Trenton had plans to meet some kids to go swimming in 1 hour, so as we were standing at the elevator I said “Why didn’t you put on your swimming trunks?  That way you wouldn’t have to come all the way back to the cabin.”  He says… “Good Idea” and sprints back to the cabin to change.  He comes back… we went to the arcade… and then realized … the Cowboys game was on.  Total wife fail... I told Mark the game started at 3pm.  Apparently it really started at Noon.  Oops!   So we headed back to the cabin to order room service and watch the game.  As we are climbing onto the bed… Trenton says… “Hey, where is my phone?”

This phone…. Please Mom and Dad… I want an Iphone 6 for my birthday…. Please… I had my Ipod for 2 years and never lost it.  I had my Iphone 4 for a whole year and haven’t lost it.  I won’t lose this one…I will take good care of it…

I am sure you have all heard it before.  Some kids, I would have said “No way, Jose” … “When pigs fly”… “Get a job you bum!”  … but, he is rather responsible for his age.  AND he’s an only child and doesn’t tear his stuff up.  So for his birthday… 2 months before this cruise… he got an Iphone 6 …. Damn It

 

So as you can imagine…. This led to “What do you mean… Where is your phone?!!!”  He says he came back to the room and changed into his swimsuit, didn’t want to take his phone up and risk it getting wet, so he tossed in on the bed and he went back out the door.

~ During this time our cabin was cleaned and the bed was made ~

We were with him the entire time outside of the cabin and he in fact did not have his phone.  There is no pocket in his swimming trunks and he had nothing in his hands when he returned to us.  He 100% had his phone in the cabin before we left to go to the arcade. 

Well, it has to be in here somewhere.  We searched all over the cabin and could not find it.  I called our cabin steward (he was off duty now).  He promptly came to the room.  I was afraid he had changed the linens on the bed and perhaps the phone had been wrapped up in them.  He assured us he did not change the linens and in fact never saw a phone on the bed when he was making it.  He then proceeded to strip both the beds in the cabin down to the mattresses, looking for the phone.  He then asked if he could help us look through the room and when the phone still wasn’t found he suggested we go to Guest Services and fill out a report immediately.  He waited in the cabin with Mark while Trenton and I headed to Guest Services.

We were helped immediately.  The girl at the counter was very nice.  She looked through all the items that had been turned in (there were several phones… FYI) unfortunately, none were Trenton’s.  She then took all the details down very thoroughly and asked us to please have a seat while she called Security to come meet us.

By this time, reality of the situation was starting to sink in for Trenton and slowly the tears began to fall.  He really isn’t an irresponsible child.  When the Security officer approached us, he noticed Trenton with tears in his eyes and suggested we move over to the corner of the room to be somewhat out of sight.  He listened with the upmost attention, took notes and asked very detailed questions for Trenton.  He was very good at speaking to Trenton and didn’t belittle him or make him feel like a silly child at all. 

After he had all the details for his report he explained to us the next steps.  They were pulling the key card report of who all had entered our room.  He would go up to our cabin and our room would be officially searched…. As would the cabin steward’s rooms would be searched in the same manner.  He also explained, should the cabin steward… or any other Carnival employee be found liable for the missing item they would be put off at the next port and officially handed over to the authorities there.  It wasn’t a matter of just losing their job… they would be prosecuted.  It is their policy on Carnival that not even a piece of paper can be removed from a cabin unless it is in the trash can. 

I must say, I was impressed with the details and explanations we were given.  Another security officer joined us and we all headed back to our cabin.  I believe a housekeeping supervisor was there as well.  Our room at this point was a disaster… it had completely been turned upside down.  As they were waiting for more staff to come, the security officer was explaining the whole process to Mark and I was aimlessly walking around the room… looking in lamps and just any odd place I could think of that perhaps hadn’t been turned upside down.   This is when Trenton opens up the cabinet to the REFIRDGERATOR and there sitting on top of the fridge was his phone.  I COULD HAVE KILLED HIM…. The security officer picked up on this as well… stepped in between us and went into “diffuse the bomb… I mean Mom mode”.  If I could have reached him I would have strangled him!

So…. Lessons learned here.

1.  Carnival Security on the Triumph was very detailed, personable, and thorough

2.  After the phone was found… and I was subdued… the officer talked to Trenton calmly and gave him a “pep talk” of sorts.  He certainly didn’t have to do it, but it was very nice.

3.  I feel better and safer cruising Carnival after this little ordeal.

4.  Our cabin steward received a hefty tip and Trenton had to personally apologize to all parties involved.

The Importance of Travel Insurance… Hell, just the importance of insurance period.

I have always purchased travel insurance.  There have been many vacations where we had to save every last penny we had just to pay for it…. I still found the extra money for insurance.  More than once I tried to talk myself out of it.  We are young.  We are healthy.  We have approved vacations.  Deep down, I always felt some sense of guilt if I didn’t do it.  Like, how mad am I going to be if the unimaginable happens and I’m not covered?  Not to mention, if I had to scrounge up the money just to pay for the insurance… I dang sure didn’t have the resources to cover an emergency.

This year all my obsessive insurance tendencies paid off.

The year carried on as well and uneventful as any other right up until we hit September.  Somehow, Trenton accidentally kicked me in the mouth.  What became of that little accident was a clogged salivary gland in my lip.  Ever heard of that?  Yeah, me neither.  $900 dollars later… and that was after my insurance paid their part, it was surgically removed.  Take care of your salivary glands peeps…they are expensive!

At the same time, our renter of a year and a half decided she would start moving drug dealers into our rent house and that their “other” activities, including buying a brand new car, were more important than paying rent.  Thus began the eviction process.  Let me just tell you… I don’t belong in court.  Walking the streets of downtown Fort Worth and hanging out in courthouses really isn’t my thing.  I only like walking through metal detectors if it means I am getting on a cruise ship!

Not to mention… I am a dreamer.  I always have vivid dreams and paying the mortgage on a house for a whole pot load of free loaders and drug dealers to live in rent free really set me off!  I kept dreaming I was inviting everyone I knew over to that house and cooking dinner in their kitchen because if I was paying for it…. By George, I was going to use it!  Anyone that knows me knows... I don't cook! ... It was exhausting! 

During this 60 day process they also began destroying our house and there was essentially nothing we could do.  Even after they were officially evicted… they still didn’t leave and I was forced to go back to court again to pay more money to have the Constables forcefully remove them.  Thankfully that worked… only they left half their crap in the house that I had to physically move to the front yard and then pay for someone to haul off before I got a code enforcement ticket.  $8000 in damages later the house was fixed. 

I began to panic because this was seriously starting to cut into my cruise fund money.  Thank goodness during this time Mark received one of the coveted “free cruise certificates” in the mail.  I have no idea why he gets all the good stuff… I plan and book all the cruises… I write the blog… he gets all the perks. 

So I checked out this free cruise flyer and none of the dates matched what we could do with our schedules.  I was booking a cruise for a friend of mine and thought … just for the heck of it I would plug in Mark’s voucher and see if it worked on any other cruises.  The only cruise we could take that fit our schedules was leaving Christmas Eve… and it worked!  We could get an inside cabin for $100 with $100 OBC.  I added Trenton to the room and upgraded us to a balcony.  As so it began :)

We put our newly remodeled rent house up for sale and received a contract for full asking price on day 2.  This seemed perfect… except it was a VA loan and hence the VA Bull$h!t began :)  Such an important organization and it is run in such a horrible manner… so is the VA medical... Don't get me started on that!  I just don’t get it.  Aaanyway…. We are still going round and round and closing dates are still delayed and rescheduled.  I suppose we’ll pick up where we left off when we get back from our cruise.

During this time a girl from our Facebook Cruise Group wrote that the “upgrade fairy” had just called her offering them a suite, but they turned it down.  So I wrote her and said… you don’t happen to have a call back number for them do you?  Well, she did!  So I called the guy back and

said “Hey.. you just offered my friend an upgrade to a Suite and she declined… can I have it?” 

He said… "Well, you aren’t on the list." 

So I replied “OK, what do I need to do for you to put me on the list?”  ha ha 

When it was all said and done, I upgraded our balcony room to our very first Ocean Suite.  All 3 of us are now cruising in a suite for less than what we normally pay for 1 person!!  Score!!

THEN:

16 days before our cruise the heater went out at our house we actually live in.  Just perfect!  Thanks to the 2 companies we dealt with, I am inclined to believe that all Heating/AC people are crooks.  We were convinced we needed a whole new inside unit… which caused thousands of dollars more to flow out of my cruise account and come to find out now… all they really had to do was replace a $25 breaker.  I have tried to take a Christian approach to this and think… perhaps they needed the money more than I did… but clearly they don’t know that some of these cruises are actually a NEED for mental stability and not so much of a WANT.  I have a feeling they are about to find out. 

So before the heater was actually replaced… the first crook that came out to look at our heater would NOT leave our house.  We were going on over 2 hours and the dude was still there… camped out in my living room.  He didn’t fix shit. It was just T and I at home because Mark was working in Arkansas.  He quoted me $9-11,000 to replace my heater and I finally told him to just get the hell out. 

By this time it was late and Trenton was starving.  I had worked all day and I was tired.  So we jumped in the car and drove down the road to Subway to get something to eat.  On our way back home… less than a mile from our house a kid with no driver’s license and no insurance “tried to avoid something in the road”… jerked his wheel too hard to the left which careened his car over 3 lanes of traffic where he took the bumper off of a mini van … which then propelled him across the turn lane and head on directly in front of my car traveling 50 mph.  No chance to swerve… no chance to hit the break.  Just airbags and glass … and Subway sodas flying everywhere.   At some point I opened my eyes and took in a breath and thought “Dear Lord, I am alive.” … which led to frantic screaming for Trenton who was perfectly fine.  I learned that day… I drive with Angels.  How cool is that?  Trenton didn’t have a scratch on him.  He wasn’t even injured from the air bag. At the hospital as I lay on that little table sliding back and forth through the cat scan machine I thought… This is why I purchase travel insurance! 

 

However… the end of this year sucked so bad… I am going on that damn cruise!  I also found out why I have always insisted we have full coverage insurance on our cars… including Un-Insured Motorist and Personal Injury Protection.  Medical bills are paid… Car has been replaced… and you still have a blogger :)

So seriously folks…. Don’t take insurance lightly.