twangster

8 minutes ago, Geezer Of The Seas said:

I noticed the Cruishive story mentioned Carnival's plan is contingent on obtaining favorable financing for the new ships.

I recall reading Carnival was the most leveraged of the 3 major cruise lines. Their shareholder equity is quite diluted. Where does a company go for a favorable loan? Traditional lender? Private equity? On the street?

The new ship class needs a name.

Carnival Sardines?

This announcement may be part of the fishing for a creditor process.  

Granted I haven't flown SWA this year but I don't think they had a lot of issues related to the open seating.  Many flights were full so saving an empty seat was pointless - those in C group are gonna sit somewhere.  With dozens of flights on SWA I never saw any truly outrageous conflict, fights or issues stemming from open seating.  

I believe this is entirely a cash grab.  Like Air Canada most fares won't include the ability to pick a seat.  Want to pick a seat?  Which credit card do you want to use? 

The old trick of buying one EBCI seat to secure space for two or more isn't going to work anymore.  Now, you wanna sit together?  The whole group has to pay to pick a seat.  

I also read they are implementing their version of premium economy likely with another 3 to 4 inches of pitch.  Another money grab.  

SWA has watched other legacy carrier cash in on premium upgrades while offering no frills fares with no perks which is what SWA was... Wanna Get Away? 

The airline industry has made air travel so miserable they can now charge for upgrades to make it even just a little bit better.   On the legacy carriers that starts with paying to pick a seat, grows into pay for a few inches more legroom and culminates with forget your travel blues and splurge for first class. SWA is simply playing catch up on the fees game.  

22 hours ago, Jamesszy94 said:

I was actually reading up on Carnival Cruise Lines earlier today and how many ships they had in their fleet, then came across the three ships they're expected to build in 2029-2031 at 230,000 gross tonnes..... The thing is...that's still 5 years away... who knows how big Royal's ships will get by then... maybe 275,000 gross tonnes (that is when they're done with the Icon class)

They're supposed to have a maximum capacity of 8,000.... 8,000 people on a Carnival ship... sounds like a nightmare.... 

Sounds about right.

Carnival Mardi Gras sails with the nearly the equivalent of an Oasis Class ship but with 80% of the volume. 

Mardi Gras - 5,282 at double and 6,500 at max capacity in 181k GT.

Oasis of the Seas 5,606 at double and 6,699 at max capacity in 227k GT.

The passenger space ratio is wildly different between the two.  

I had no doubt Carnival planned to squeeze them onto this next class.  

Just now, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Landed! Phew!

Get ready for the sauna...

A Long Island Iced Tea sounds like it's in order.  

8 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Yay!

Is that the Gordie Howe?

My recent SNAFU with Delta had me change flights and connecting cities four times after checking my bag.  Despite that my checked luggage made it.

I looked out and saw my bag on a cart.  They scanned it and didn't like what they saw so it stayed on the cart.  Away it went.  A few minutes later the cart came back with a few more last minute bags including mine back from it's airport tour.  This time they scanned it and liked what they saw.  

Delta's online bagger tracker stopped working.  My airtag told me where my bag was.  My luggage made it going west to get east and to a different final airport.  

So while I still hate Delta now, I do have to give the luggage process kudus for working quite well. 

Last plan I saw was a September 23 LA to Tokyo cruise for Ovation getting out town just in time for Quantum to come home.

I would still take any comment by any Captain with a massive dose of sea salt on the side.  

Captain's routinely sit on conference calls and hear things the company is doing, or looking at doing, or might be doing and in between nodding off and waking back up it's easy to blend all of nuances.  Royal also likes to leak things that are just not going to happen to get the competition spun up.  

Until it's officially announced Captain announcements are just slightly more valuable than FB posts and almost as easy to come by.

I'll never forget the Anthem Captain that boldly announced Symphony would be a stretched Oasis class ship and much larger. 

4 hours ago, Rackham said:

I'm now wondering if corporate is going to make an official announcement during the call about the project with these results. Between hitting the trifecta, reinstating the dividend, and this line, "The further increase in yield expectations for the year is the result of higher pricing and onboard revenue expectations across key products, with particular strength in European and Alaskan itineraries," this could be an ideal environment to make an announcement about spending that sort of money on something that's not Icon or Oasis. 

The investor call is for RCG - the parent company. 

They tend not to delve deep into one brand's potential new ship projects on such a call.  Instead they would make general announcements that are non-committal and apply across the brands such as "more new ships are being considered for the future" 

3 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

I know azipods are higher maintenance than fixed props, but jeez, sure seems the benefits outweigh that.

Early azipods were new technology in their day.  Carnival must have been bitten early on or simply decided the innovation wasn't worth it.  Just like the decision to cancel Project Pinnacle, more of the same, no change, low risk seems to be Carnival's approach.  Why change?  We are making lots of money...  

High demand means higher prices are coming.  

48 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

He said the way they decided to handle the rotations is by grouping the cabins where it makes sense location wise. 

They're going to have only 3 Genies so one will have 4 rooms on each rotation.  They're grouping it Royal Loft, UFS, and Solarium suites with one genie and then the starboard aquatheater suites with one and port aquatheater suites with the other. 

That's a lot of walking for the ATS Genies.  

9 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I knew about the design FUBAR but I guess I never realized that Carnival didn't use azipods.  Interesting

To be fair they tried them on a small ship in the 90's but didn't adopt them for Conquest class which are the Voyager and Freedom class era of ships.  They used them on their Spirit class but refrained from using them on the Dream class relegating azipods to smaller ships only until Vista in 2016.

15 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

Funny that when lots of attention is on RC to see when they build smaller ships, Carnival is jumping into the mega ship market with 3 ships similar to  Oasis class.

 

https://www.cruisehive.com/carnival-orders-three-new-class-ships-at-almost-230000-gross-tons/140033

Carnival must be absolutely kicking themselves.  It's only taken ~20 years for them to acknowledge their mistake.  

Back around the turn of the century they decided mega ships would never work.  Around the same time Royal created the concept of Project Genesis now known as Oasis class and then Royal actually built it.  Meanwhile Carnival kept on building medium sized ships and avoided azipods for decades more.

Carnival had a mega ship concept, then cancelled it.  Cute name don't you think?

As an example I booked Wonder for my Prime cruise.  The cost to upgrade a cabin depends on ship and sail date.  It isn't a fixed rate across the entire fleet.

Everyone pays port fees and taxes for the Prime cruise.  The casino Prime cert does not include port fees and taxes or daily service charges (gratuity).  It also does not include insurance or transfers to the port. 

My port fees and taxes are ~$155 and gratuity for the week is $126.  Those remain the same for an interior, ocean view or balcony cabin. 

In my case I paid around $600 to upgrade to an ocean view balcony (4D category). My sail date is a seven night cruise.  For seven nights ~$600 to have a balcony on Wonder was within my realm of a great deal so I gladly paid the additional fee to upgrade from an interior to a balcony.

A different ship or a different sail date would yield different upgrade costs.

Keep in mind that Jay Schneider has indicated more themes are coming to the Railway venue.  The lack of reservations beyond August could be related to an additional theme becoming available.  They don't want to sell three nightly sessions of the Wild West theme only to introduce a Silk Road theme and then having to cancel or change one session's worth of reservations to the new theme. 

Will they alternate themes to give the cast members for each a break?  Do the same cast perform in each theme? Can one cast perform three or four sessions per night?

There is probably a lot of decision making going on so until they figure it all out reservations beyond August are being withheld.  

Back on the 10th when Jay Schneider announced reservations would open over the next few days he also stated it would be done in phases.  Phase one was through the end of August.  No word when they'll open up reservations beyond August.  

1 hour ago, Rfk said:

NCL has already announced 2H 2026 Philly to Bermuda. Might RC announce Bayonne to Bermuda before Northeast (likely) in Feb 2025?

Royal won't change a bit due to the NCL sailing from Philly.  They'll likely open up 2026 bookings on their standard schedule.

42 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

Oh boy...we are in for a treat.

One of the skaters who has been on three OA class says it's her favorite parade, as a cast member.

1 hour ago, Cruising Dawn said:

"To change categories to something that is not obstructed requires paying the difference in fares at the prevailing rate the day you call."

Thanks for the info, I think I get what you are saying.  That is what I was trying to do, pay the difference for a non obstructed Oceanview Balcony.  Using your example I wanted to pay to move from 1E or 2E to 4D or 2D.  I was told that was a downgrade and I could not do that after final pay date.  I figured that would be an upgrade, so that confused me.  

I wonder if since I don't "officially" have a category 1E or 2E room, they just won't allow that.  I figured they would just give the price for different between the obstructed and non obstructed but not yet it seems.

Also possibly part of the issue, when I checked and did a mock booking at around 3:30 am this morning, there were quite a few Oceanview Balcony's you could assign, I would say 15 to 20 at least, but when I did one just now, there were none!

Sounds like a phone agent who didn't want to help.

Call back and try again, assuming there is an unobstructed cabin available.

16 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

We lounged around..lots of people apparently have never been to Nassau before. The ship is empty.

The nice thing about a mostly new to cruise voyage.

As an example here on July 23rd at 1:45pm I can still book Grandeur or Vision for their July 25th sailing. 

That's under 48 hours.

There is only one cabin left on Grandeur so as people click on it it comes and goes from inventory.  Since its the last cabin, Grandeur comes and goes from the website today.  If someone actually books that last cabin then Grandeur will stop appearing on the website.  

38 minutes ago, Cruising Dawn said:

Have been reading all your posts for a while, thanks for the great info, now I have a question. I reserved 2 staterooms,  a guarantee ocean view balcony and an Guarantee interior, stateroom.  This is my second Alaskan cruise with royal, I booked guarantee balcony last time as well and it was a great one so I felt ok doing it again, knowing the risks etc.  Check in was today and I used the trick with the barcode to find out the rooms.  We are fine with the Interior location but the balcony is Ovation of the Seas 6220 obstructed.  I called and asked about paying to get an assigned cabin. I was told that because it was after the sailing closed, after the final due date, that I could not downgrade, only upgrade.  I explained I did not want to downgrade, just asked if I was able to pay a fee to choose my Oceanview Balcony cabin instead, one that I knew did not have an obstruction.  

I guess really I want to upgrade my sub category within the category of cabin I reserved.  She said once my cabin was assigned (I played dumb and did not tell her I knew the tentative cabin number) I could call back and see about switching within the same category based on what was available but currently could only go up in category, which was Oceanview with a large balcony for an additional $2981.

I know I should have just chose to pick my cabin initially and I can live with the one we have if I can't pay for a different one, I just found her reasoning odd.  Anyone else ever do this successfully or get this explanation?

Balcony is not a category and there is no concept of subcategory.

The type of cabin you booked as a guarantee was a balcony.  The 1E or 2E deck 6 obstructed balcony is the category you were assigned.

Once your cabin number is officially assigned you can inquire to see if there is a different cabin within the same category available, but that means staying within the 1E or 2E obstructed balcony category.  It does NOT mean switching to a different balcony category such as a 4D or 2D balcony that is not obstructed.

To change categories to something that is not obstructed requires paying the difference in fares at the prevailing rate the day you call.    

12 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

Who passed out hard after Izumi last night

The late nights and early mornings finally caught up with me.

At least I was up early enough for Coastal Kitchen breakfast this morning.

I always get the Baja Eggs.  They are always different on each ship/sailing.  It's a surprise what comes every time

 

More like Eggs BenaBaja