For those who have cruises booked in 2008 or 2009, there’s a chance your fuel supplement charge might be refunded as well. Basically, if the price of oil is at $70 or below for 25 days prior to 5 days before you sail, your fuel supplement will be refunded in some form of an onboard credit. If you booked a 2010 cruise already, you will follow these conditions as well.

The current surcharge is $9 per person per day (max $126) and $4 per person per day for third and fourth guests.

This is being done so guests won’t have to unnecessarily pay for fuel when oil prices are low. This seems like a good move by Carnival. It seems pretty fair to me. If prices are low, you get your charge “refunded” (in the form of an OBC). If they’re high, you pay. This is much better than making the surcharge permanent. Of course, if oil prices never drop to $70/barrel, the charges will be “permanent.” I’m guessing once 2010 rolls around, there will be no fuel surcharges, just higher base fares. Is this correct? If so, it seems like a better method of charging passengers in my opinion.

I was sitting on the sofa watching Family Guy when I got hungry. So I went to the kitchen and made myself a soft pretzel. As I’m eating the pretzel, a thought about cruising popped into my head. To be honest, I don’t even remember what that thought was. But something clicked and I thought to myself, “do they sell soft pretzels on cruises?” On all the cruises I’ve been on, I’ve never once seen soft pretzels given out.

So this led me to think, wouldn’t it be great if they had a pretzel stand on the cruise ships? It would be like Carnival’s pizza station. They give out pretzels all day, fresh and hot. Wouldn’t that be great? I know I’d love it. If you’d wait for them to cook, you could even order specialty pretzels like cinnamon/sugar pretzels, cheese-filled pretzels, etc.

Isn’t this a good idea? Please someone tell me this is already happening in the cruise world and I’m just completely oblivious to it!

Being on this same cruise and ship just a couple weeks ago, I find it just a bit easier to relate to the people in this story. My view is pretty split on this. I do understand their concerns and anger. You pay to go on a cruise to the Caribbean and you end up going to Rhode Island. And that’s after your itinerary has been changed several times on you. For a lot of people, their vacations only come once a year. This is a huge disappointment understandably. We probably would have been quite upset if our July 4 sailing went to RI instead of the Caribbean.

On the other hand, Carnival’s policy does state that they can change the itinerary at any time without notice. Also, Carnival’s Vacation Guarantee plan states that if they weren’t happy with the changes they could leave at the first port and receive a refund. So while I do understand their gripes, they had the chance to back out and receive money back. Not to mention that sailing during hurricane season is always risky, and Carnival is only doing what’s safest for the passsengers, ship, and crew. Sailing through hurricane waters is not fun, and those people probably would have been much worse off had they kept their original itinerary. While I’d probably be upset as well, I’d rather go to Rhode Island than be sick.

It’s easy for me to say that though since I wasn’t on the cruise. What would other people have done in this situation?

This is just my opinion, but I don’t think Disney should cruise from anywhere other than Florida or California, since that’s where Disney World and Land are. I mean, as of right now they shouldn’t. They only have two ships in their fleet so there isn’t a whole lot to work with. I always thought that a lot of Disney’s cruisers went to a Disney park either before or after the cruise as part of the vacation. Obviously I’m wrong, but that was always my conception. Now, if Disney were to expand their fleet, adding a few more ships, then I could see them sailing from non-Disney areas. Until then though, it just seems silly to me for them to sail away from their land-based areas. I know that might sound crazy or stupid, but that’s just my opinion (at least for now).

So what are these new classifications? From what I gathered, they’re more specific than before. Previously, categories were based on cabin type and deck (6A, 8B, etc.). With the new system, there will be more defined cabin classifications. Instead of just cabin type and deck, there will also be classifications based on location within the deck (aft, forward, mid-ship) as well as “proximity to key public areas.” That most likely means how close you are to places such as the Lido area, the showroom, dining room, etc.

The purpose of these changes is to give guests the ability to better select a cabin based on their needs. You can expect these changes to be implemented fleet-wide by the end of the year (2008).

• Bungee cord - if you have a balcony stateroom, you can use this to keep the balcony door open at night to get a nice breeze. This obviously depends on the type of door your room has.
• Power strip - it doesn’t necessarily have to be a surge protector. Just a strip for extra outlets. A lot of ships only have one standard and one foreign outlet. So by bringing some extra outlets of your own, you can keep the clock (see below) plugged in while you charge your iPod or charge your phone.
• Water bottles - some cruise lines allow you to bring water on board. We’re fine with the tap water available on board, but for excursions or walking around off the ship, it’s a lot cheaper than buying the $5 bottles of water they sell on the ship. Alternatively, if you’re flying or don’t feel like carrying the extra weight, you can just bring an empty water/sports bottle that you’ll fill before you get off the ship.
• Shampoo - if you don’t want to use the ship’s shampoo, bring your own.
• Clock - as I mentioned earlier, bring your own clock. For some reason, none of the ships (at least that I’ve been on) have clocks in the staterooms. This certainly puzzles me. It seems like something that would be essential. Whatever the reasoning though, there are no clocks in the staterooms, so if you want to know what time it is when you wake up in the morning, bring your own clock.
• Laptop - I would only recommend this if you plan on sending a lot of e-mails throughout the cruise. The reason I recommend this is because the Internet is always very slow on the ship, so if at all possible, you should type of up your e-mail prior to connecting to the Internet. So when you do sign on, all you have to do is paste your e-mail and send it and not waste your time typing. You could consider this a bit cheap or something, but at 75 cents a minute, I think it’s wise to do this.

That is what I can think of off the top of my head. If I think of more, I’ll add them next time. If anyone has any more hints, add them too.

But whichever usage you use it for, this is something I have always wanted to try since I got into cruising. The italicized usage of “back-to-back” is what I want to try most though. At the end of the week, I always think to myself, “just a few more days.” Take a B2B would accomplish this. Another great thing about B2B cruising, I’m assuming, would be having the same waiters all over again. I assumed this because I’m not entirely sure how this would work. Anyone else know? If I were to go on a B2B cruise (on the same ship of course), would I get to keep my cabin and/or wait staff? If the answer is yes, then this would be awesome, especially if you have a great staff. If no, it would still be great to get to know a new set of waiters, while still seeing your old ones onboard.

Enough rambling. I don’t really have much more to say about this. It just popped into my head and I thought it would be interesting to mention, and hopefully get some feedback on . This is something I have added to my lifelong to-do list. Hopefully I will get to it some day.

Well you can imagine how disappointed I felt at this point. All the pins I saved up, gone. Now I either had two options: attempt to sail on all those ships again, something that would take years and lots of money; or I could ask Carnival to send me replacements. So I contacted them online, and within a couple days I received a response saying that my request would be fulfilled, and as soon as the pins came in they’d ship them to me, at no charge!

Yesterday, they came! I received pins for every Carnival ship I’ve been on, except the Sensation, which doesn’t have pins for some reason (or so I was told). So that made me happy. I certainly wasn’t expecting Carnival to send me all those pins. I’m sure other cruise lines might do something similar if the situation arose, but as of right now I’d have no way of knowing. What I do know though, is that Carnival has once again gone above and beyond what I expected! Yet another reason why I love Carnival.

This tip for new cruisers deals with the aspect of choosing the right cruise line. All too often, I read about people who had a lousy cruise because the environment was right for them. I don’t necessarily blame them for this problem, but like any other vacation, you should do your research prior to booking.

Sometimes it’s obvious. Disney Cruise Line is geared toward families; the kids specifically. While I’m sure it happens, you probably won’t find an eldery couple taking a retirement vacation onboard the Disney Magic. Other times it’s not quite as obvious. If you’ve never been on a cruise before, and having done no research whatsoever, you just might not know what kind of cruises “Cunard” has to offer.

One of the best ways, in my opinion, to get a good idea of a cruise line’s target audience is to go to their website. Of course, this would be my first choice since I pretty much live on the Internet. But if you’re not quite as net-savvy, calling the cruise line and getting a brochure will do the trick as well. (Another quick tip: the brochures are usually free. I order them every year at no cost to me, not even shipping.) By doing either of the two methods above, you will probably get a good idea of what the cruise will be like. If every other page shows adults in fancy clothing, it’s probably not the ideal line for your family. On the other hand, if you’re an older couple, if the first picture you see on the brochure/website is a kid going down a water slide, that might not be the best line for you either.

Another great indicator, although not nearly as foolproof, is price. The typical rule of thumb is: the more expensive the cruise line, the more adult-oriented. Again, this is not always true. Disney is very expensive, but is geared toward young families. But this is certainly something to keep in mind as well.

Bottom line: do your research. Find out more about the cruise line you’re interested in prior to sailing. This will help assure you have a good time on your vacation.

Now, here’s a short list of a handful of cruise lines, in order from most kid-friendly to most adult-oriented. (Based on my own opinion.) If you click on the line you’re interested, you’ll be redirected to their website so you can begin your research.

• Disney Cruise Line
• Carnival Cruise Line
• Royal Caribbean International
• Celebrity Cruises
• Princess Cruise Line
• Cunard
• Crystal Cruises