What Carnival did for us!

I just had to take the time to relate to you what Carnival did for us.
This was our (myself, wife (DW), and daughter (DD) -7) third cruise—two on Disney, fist time on Carnival. We were on the October 10th sailing of the Conquest out of New Orleans. DW had booked this cruise through Expedia almost a year prior and reserved an 8A guarantee balcony cabin.
The documents arrived about a month before the cruise and indicated our cabin was still TBD. Printed on the documents, however, was “Check in at Skippers Club”. Having no idea what this was I check on carnival.com and noticed is was for guests in deluxe accommodations. I thought, “Hmmm, that’s nice” but we didn’t really think about it anymore.
We arrived at the port just as tropical storm Mathew was moving out (lots of rain in NO on Friday and Saturday). We were early (about 10:30 AM), and walked up to the Fun Pass check-in line. After looking at our documents the agent said “Follow me. You get to check in over there.” Sure enough, there was a sign that said “Skippers Club” pointing to a separate room. We were still thinking “This is pretty nice. We are really being treated special.” They checked us in and gave us our cabin number (7294) at that time, but I didn’t have a deck layout so I still had no idea what type of cabin this was.
Well, it wasn’t a cabin, but a Penthouse Suite (cat. 12). What an upgrade! We still don’t know how or why we got this, but we are forever spoiled now. Thank you Carnival!
The rest of the cruise was just icing on the cake. The weather was perfect the whole way and the seas were calm.
DD hooked up with another 7-year old and had a great time. We just did a little shopping and sightseeing in Jamaica courtesy of our nice minivan driver who only took us only to the good spots. A little disappointed that Grand Cayman is still closed, but the weather was perfect for our extra day at sea (will catch GC on a future Carnival cruise).
Took in the art auctions, which were made quite fun by the free champagne. We even picked up a couple of pieces.
In Cozumel, we did the Xcaret park excursion and Dolphin Swim. DD loved swimming with the Dolphins. The park is great, but there is not enough time to experience the whole thing. Some people got rained on in Cozumel, but we didn’t have a drop at the park.
Well, we had such a great time; we even joined the Carnival Vacation Club as we fully expect to do more Carnival cruises over the next five years.
Thank you for reading.

Question?

When you booked your cruise what kind of room did you originally have? That is amazing and wonderful for you and your family.....never in my wildest dreams could this happen to me.

It was an 8A balcony (guarantee). I believe that was the lowest price balcony available.

[Thomas]

Wow, that's incredible. So glad for the upgrade.

We've been upgraded on about 1/2 of our Carnival cruises but usually just one category.

Way to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regards,
Thomas

Glad you had a great time We are sailing on the Conquest in April. I can't wait! We are still figuring out on what tours to do yet?

[Dorothy]

Sailed Carnival twice and have been upgraded...twice!

It's a story like yours that keeps me booking a gty! Our last cruise we were upgraded from an oceanview (6A) to a balcony (8A), but to the penthouse!!! Glad you had a great cruise and I suspect that upgrade will keep you coming back to Carnival again.

dorothy

[befus]

way to go!!!!!!!!!!

[Cruznut2]

Wow!! What a wonderful treat. My last cruise I was upgraded from an 8A to 8F and thought that was wonderful. What a great thing to get a Category 12 . I am so glad you enjoyed your cruise.

Cruznut2

we also were upgraded to a penthouse on our 8/03 Glory cruise. We had booked an extended oceanview on the Pride and didnt even know that the ship we were going to be on was now the "glory". No one told us they changed ships, so Carnival upgraded us to a penthouse. This year though we had booked an inside gty 4a, and was upgraded to a 4b, not a very good upgrade. Carnival probably figured they upgraded us last year to a penthouse. Oh well we had a good time on the Destiny anyways despite all the Hurricanes.

Wow! You were so lucky! My husband and I went on the same cruise you went on. It was our first cruise - ever. We were in Heaven! We had a room with a balcony which we enjoyed. We booked our cruise through a travel agency where we live. It is interesting to hear you compare Disney and Carnival. I think Disney is about twice what Carnival costs - is this true? hb

[JeanS]

That's great, Bremal! My husband & I were also lucky when we booked 2 catagory 6D cabins almost a year in advance....then one evening, the phone rang and it was our travel agent's neice....she had to tell us that BOTH cabins got upgraded to catagory 12! She was so excited for us, she couldn't leave the office until she called us...it was for our son's graduation celebration, so you KNOW he and his friend were VERY happy to have a suite w/private balcony to themselves!

It will probably never happen again (what?? Never say never!) but we certainly enjoyed it even more...sitting out and watching the moon with a glass of wine and cheese plate from room service was heaven........

[Brenda in Canada]

Wow! That was great and glad you had a super time!

[GummyBear]

WOW......and I thought we had a good upgrade. We booked 2 CAT BL (BA gty) on Conquest for Jan 2nd and were upgraded to 2 CAT BD balconies on Lido.



Post Edited (10-27-04 14:59)