Booked this as it was super cheap. (Yeah March isn't the best time to cruise to these islands, but its still cheap!)
We got an 'upgrade' to deck 8 instead of what I was expecting in the way lower levels. But your mileage will vary as they just pick whichever is available.
DURATION
8 Nights
SHIP
Carnival Splendor
DATE
11 - 19 Mar 2020
DEPARTS
Sydney
PORTS
Sydney, Noumea, Mare, Isle Of Pines, Sydney
I've heard there is more chance of getting it from shopping at Coles :P
Trapped inside Coles for 8 nights…. that must be a new horror genre
I wouldn't mind getting stuck at coles for 8 nights
I've never been on a cruise before, Is this price all inclusive or is good and stuff additional?
Food and stuff is included, just not soft drink or alchohol, or fancy food.
Their website lists all the free stuff :)
Fine dining is included. We went on this cruise in December. The food is very good
The fare would usually include access to all you can eat food in a main dining area, free tv, live entertainment and gym. There will be an on ship casino, restaurants and merchandise shops for people who have extra cash to splash. It's a great value for money if you want to get away without really going overseas as you'll spend most of the time on the ocean.
How can you go on a cruise ship without going over seas?
Because you are on the seas, not over them ;)
What I meant by "really" is that you spend less than a day in any destination, so for me it's a very different experience than staying in the country.
Cruised with Carnival 2 years ago to the Pacific. Could easily have spent $0 on the entire trip and been very happy, however I would budget for:
I don't think the speciality restaurants are worth the extra premium when you already have free food.
Went on a Carnival Cruise a couple of months ago. I was actually blown away by what I received for the money. The food is top tier (dining in the restaurant or bistro are both great options), the entertainment is amazing, the atmosphere was incredible and I just had such a good cruise.
One of the few cruises where everything* is included. Sushi, Soft Drink, Alcohol and "Duty Free" not included but tea/coffee/water/lemon drink (have no idea what this was?) were examples of included drinks.
$799PP* for a family of 4…unlucky :(
So they have interconnecting rooms ? Get 2 rooms 2 ppl each ?
We ordered two rooms and because they pick the cabins we have seperate floors on opposite ends of the ship, not a big issue for us tho but for some that would be painful.
Interesting, that kinda sucks you'd think having 2 rooms on the same booking they would at least try give you rooms next to each other or close.
@lynx: I rang and asked nicely and they said they could only adjust the rooms if we paid them an extra $750 :o
@NickFritz: That's a dog's act. It's possible or not… And we know it IS possible. That, let's call it an admin, fee makes the banks look like angels.
@Ulysses31: Their justification was that we couldn't have the pack and go price, we had to pick the more expensive "choose your room" price to have cabins next to each other.
Might try another agent tommorow, see if I can get lucky :)
@NickFritz: That's what all cruise companies do. If you book "guaranteed" cabin, it means that you can't select the cabins you want.
And they do cabin allocation not long before the cruise. And the agents have no say in it.
Unfortunately they don't even look after their past passengers who cruised with them many times.
This is not specific to Carnival but to all cruise companies.
So it's very unlikely they will do it for you.
@lynx: Most rooms don't have a connecting door to the next room.
At this point for this price they are selling "leftovers".
If you book a year or two in advance you will have more rooms to choose from.
Probably… I am guessing here… Probably that $750 extra is someones "free" upgrade to the next category so they can free up connected room for you. :)
@Ulysses31: I don't have insider info. But based on my observations…
I can see if I am booking in advance I can pick the exact room.
Closer to the departure date (my impression 3 months or so - the date when you have to pay the balance or cancel without any cancellation fees) they are trying to sell the rest - more deals pop up and when there is a deal there are two options - exact room for a bit more money (but the choice is very limited) or "guaranteed" room class for a bit less money.
My point is - I believe a lot of exact rooms are allocated to people long time ago.
So last minute deals are just filling "gaps" :)
Also last minute deals are the best value for money - when they have 1 or 2 weeks before departure they can either leave rooms empty or sell them cheap and get at least something. :)
My impression summer is more popular and they have less rooms for last minute sale - sometimes none.
Winter - that's where I saw the lowest prices.
1 March has a deal on 4 person rooms Oceanview for $674pp
https://www.carnival.com.au/find-a-cruise/details?voyage=D01…
Does this cruise include Christmas Island?
You need to be brown for that inclusion.
Unlikely, but it depends on the number of guests who've visited China recently.
Australians at risk of coronavirus in China's Hubei province to be evacuated to Christmas Island.
Why is March no good ?
The last two big cyclones to hit that area were in March :)
I've never been on a cruise before..Can you tip vodka into an empty bottle of listerine to save money on the drinks package?
They check your bags for alcohol and confiscate whatever they find for the whole trip. Pretty sure they would know more tricks than most people, but you never know.
There is also staff just about everywhere so it may be difficult to actually get it into a mixer (outside of your cabin).
i'm pretty sure people do this..so i guess they would check it..
Listerine is alcohol,he.
Doesn't stop navy folk… Just drink aftershave. Win!
You can bring 12 non alchoholic cans per person, so you could possibly get the fake coca cola can covers:
Buy a 10 pack from Coles, sleeve the drinks and superglue the seal back up
One can sleeve costs $14.95. Will be cheaper to buy beer on the ship :)
True, alcohol is cheaper than cans of soft drink on board the ship.
Last I remember at the Empire dining room 1 can of Sprite cost $9 lol :)
Can you straight up bring 2L bottles of coke? Or can you only bring the equivalent of 12 cans? (12 x .375 = 4.5L)
They say and prefer cans only,
due to people refiling bottles with alcohol and cans can not be refilled nor resealed…
Check out Shampbooze bottles, worked for me on more than one occasion.
That's not to say that they'll work every time though.
I took some kava on with me in a bag last time - very chilled cruise
Only cans allowed on board. They took away our bottles of water and some drinks that were sealed
I've been on three, and even though they say no booze they don't check too hard. I taken a bottle of vodka in my pants each time and no-one checked. My wife took a bottle of wine in her bag and they found it when it went through the xray. Next time she just poured the wine into her drink bottle that she was holding as she boarded and no-one checked.
Hidden in your prison wallet, no doubt?
That was lucky, as they now always check all drinking bottles and request to empty them.
Due to demand and availability the prices (pack and go prices have been removed for interior) have been updated to:
Interior
From
$886PP*
Per Triple room
Ocean View
From
$783PP*
Per Triple room
I just went in and its still showing the price listed here.
I think it holds rooms when people fill in the form, and then they free up again.
How did you get an "upgrade" to deck 8? It seems like they don't allocate decks at the time of booking. I went through all the way to the booking summary and the deck is blank.
An Interior room that can be situated on deck 1, 2, 6, 7, 8 or 9. The room will not be assigned at the time of booking and will be allocated at Carnival's discretion within 30 days of sailing.
Well its not an upgrade per say, they allocate rooms, its just for that price you'd assume you'd get the lower decks, but because its pack and go you get allocated whatever rooms are left, so you can luck out and get a higher deck allocated (which they do the day or so after you book)
You can't pick a room for this price.
Just returned from this exact cruise yesterday. For my first cruise it wasn’t bad. Activities were ok. We stopped at Mystery Island, Mare and Noumea. Definitely get the shuttle to Yejele Beach at Mare.
Not worth getting the Cheers alcohol package (unless you drink all day every day during the cruise) coz every adult in your room has to get it too. Alcohol drinks range from $6 (beers) to $13 (cocktails).
I recommend the deli for lunch. Pizza is ok. Guy Fieri’s burger joint isn’t all that.
Did you have internet access or Wi-Fi Can you potentially work if you ever need to
yeah you have to pay to access internet
how much for internet access? maybe do a complete black out for 7 days?
@shortgum: The internet speed was fine. I bought the lowest tier package which lets you use only social media - that was $80 or so. You can access internet on one device only so you can definitely share your password with others if needed.
It's very expensive and slow.
Is the internet as bad as on P&O?
We struggled opening websites on P&O.
Yeah that's just part and parcel of 2000 people trying to use the same satellite.
Messaging apps were OK, but anything more and you are better off just putting the device down and disconnect and enjoy.
Noumea has free WiFi in their gardens, or if you still want a decent connection just pick up a sim card while ashore.
I was on Spirit in December with the premium internet packages. Latency was consistently 550 ms (little to no gitter) and throughput was generally about 3-6Mbps Down / 5-20Mbps up. It was very very usable, pretty good actually.
I used teh GL.iNet GL-AR750S-Ext travel router and had 5 devices connected at one without noticeable slowdowns. Kids even youtubed on their tablet with no impact.
Rough seas might change the performance though - seas were pretty smooth on our cruise.
I paid $230 for 9 days, but the price has gone up since.
How did it manage to connect to the wifi? Does it have the ability to login via their website?
@NickFritz: yes, forget exactly, but either captive portal site which you sign in with your cruise ID, or you can also manage it via the carnival app once onboard. By default you can only have one device connected at once, but you can kick other device off when you need to go to sign on to the captive portal.
Using the travel router, I just setup the wifi access point, when onboard you connect to the travel router wifi, access the routers management webui and use wifi repeater mode and scan for the ships wifi and select it. Boom, online on all devices connected to the travel router can access the internet.
I did have to disable the feature "DNS Rebinding Attack Protection" for it to work, but it does.
I didnt use VPN as I didnt get it setup in time, but didnt need it. All sites and services worked including ssh, Disney+
Did your ship have a gym? If so, is it just full of cardio equipment as the pictures seem to indicate?
Good question, anyone know the answer here? Is it like a hotel gym?
Lots of different weight machines, free weights as well in addition to cardio equipment.
Every ship I've been on had full gyms
I just returned yesterday was a good cruise the pizza dough is way too thin. The chicken wings on hawian night were fantastic.
Internet is a pay for and it's expensive
Cost of that super long Ethernet cable… Lol
Is it just me or is the website pretty weird?
I clicked on the link, went to a landing page, and then clicked on 'Last Minute Cruises' and it just takes me around in circles. Which is exactly what you don't want a cruise ship to do
Hey @NickFritz, the lower level rooms are actually the more comfortable rooms. Think of everything as a lever, in particular vibration from the propeller. The further away from it, the more everything rattles.
Ah, oh well :)
Deck 8 is fine mate. Around deck 11 and towards the front the vibrations can feel like someone is shaking you to wake you up in your sleep.
Front of the ship is always brutal…
Feels like being inside a washing machine and not on a bed lol :)
Mid ship and far back is better
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R2vXbFp5C9o
Just for those wondering about how food is prepared on cruises. Alot of people have this perception that you get always sick from cruise food, but it's more about the hygiene of others on board who don't wash their hands etc.
Impressive.
yep It will be a cesspool of germs along with some Corona included.
Thanks OP. Purchased 3 for my family. Turned out that the fare fare has turned out to be full price at $566 for my kid (who is under 12) though the fare breakdown indicate that the kids fare is cheaper and adult fate is more.
Never understood cruises, you're on a huge ship that rocks back and forth and it's like you're stuck in a never-ending buffet of mediocre food.
Not for someone that doesn't like to be confined, and they are absolutely horrible for the environment. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/15/18096925/cruise-env…
Not refuting your claim, but Vox isn't a valid news source.
Not keen to cruise around March because Corona virus (n-COV) will be in full bloom. Otherwise good deal.
You'll get an extra 2 weeks on-board if they quarantine the ship on return.
Or maybe a holiday on Christmas island.
Email from carnival today - A bonus $300 on board credit per cabin (or the option to postpone) for anyone that took up the deal. I'm still in! :)
How was your cruise? Do you have to self quarantine?
Bonus gastroenteritis included?