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I went on a Carnival cruise in September and had a blast. They do allow you to bring one bottle of wine per person on board, but make sure you take your own opener because there's a ten dollar fee if they do it. I dressed up for dinner each night, but needed a wrap, cardigan, or jacket for the dining room. Make sure you order the chocolate melting cake with an extra serving of ice cream - it's amazing. Have fun.
We went on the Carnival Fascination in Feb. We needed nothing more than capris, shorts and casual shirts/ blouses. Maybe a light jacket.
I like dressing for dinner. On regular nights I brought two sundress type and just changed up the accessories. Formal night I brought a black cocktail dress and blinged it out. DH wore reg jeans or nice shorts for regular dinner and did wear a suit for the formal night.
Try to plan this way. If you're into the beach/swimming....you'll need your swimsuit, flops and what have you. clothes to eat in....most of the sit down places don't allow swimwear...ie: shorts t-shirts. Shorts and t-shirts for the ports also....wear comfy shoes for walking. We planned out three outfits a day.
Our bar bill was $350....but we had "supplies" in the room. Think.. rum runners dot com.
Carnival will allow a 12 pack of soda person and one bottle of wine per person....in your carry on. Don't check the wine. Do take a wine opener and bottle topper. We did take our own cups.
Another cool thing we took was a popup hamper. It really takes no room in our luggage, pop it open and place it in the closet for your dirty clothes. Keep one suitcase just for the dirty, dump the dirty clothes in the suitcase, fold up the hamper and you're good to go.
You might want to go over to cruisecritic.com for other helpful hints.
I have been Cruising for 20+ years and PACKING is STILL the one aspect of which I am no expert.
That being said, I do have a few tricks I have learned over the years.
One, many cruise ships have a laundry room, so in an emergency, wash. Take about $4 in quarters to wash and dry one load.
Second, I travel with kids, so packing light is not an option because they ALWAYS run out of clothes.
However, a few things I have learned, one is take only what you need. I take one suit, two slacks and a sportcoat, three shirts and three ties. I keep shoes to a minimum, talking walking shoes and dress shoes and on occasion sandals or crocs for the beach. I make good use of TShirts, but I only take a few, because along the way, I am going to be buying TShirts as souveniers in all the ports. That is one of my thankgs to do, so I wear the shirts as I buy them. I also take a swimsuit and three pairs of shorts. I use the long pants for dinner, the suit and sportcoat for the two formal nights, and if possible, rewear.
IF space is limited, the thing I learned with overseas travel (Where they weigh your luggage) is to run out to goodwill or some other cheapo place and buy TShirts, socks, undies, slacks, polo shirts, then when they get too dirty, tooss thenm in the garbage. Some people say "uh uh uh that is wasteful" but it keeps your suitcase empty and the weight down. Unless you are going to Monocco, so the people of Swaziland really care how you dress ?
I went on a Carnival cruise in September and had a blast. They do allow you to bring one bottle of wine per person on board, but make sure you take your own opener because there's a ten dollar fee if they do it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Granny Sue
Do take a wine opener and bottle topper. We did take our own cups.
Yes, there is a charge if you ask them to open the wine for you. However, the housekeeping department will bring up a corkscrew to your room free of charge (but no wine stopper.) We asked for a corkscrew in every cruise with Carnival, NCL, and Royal Caribbean.
Wine glasses are also provided and replaced every day without charge.
You cannot bring your own wine into a sit down restaurant if you don't want to pay corkage fee, but you can consume it everywhere else on board. I know cruisecritic blog stated that NCL charges for taking wine on board (actually, the statement in the article was ambivalent and the meaning can be interpreted in different ways), and a reader affirmed it, but it had never happened to us in the dozen of cruises we took with NCL between 2008-2011. Perhaps the policy has changed since then?
Last edited by Ol' Wanderer; 01-19-2013 at 03:37 PM..
Yes, there is a charge if you ask them to open the wine for you. However, the housekeeping department will bring up a corkscrew to your room free of charge (but no wine stopper.) We asked for a corkscrew in every cruise with Carnival, NCL, and Royal Caribbean.
Wine glasses are also provided and replaced every day without charge.
You cannot bring your own wine into a sit down restaurant if you don't want to pay corkage fee, but you can consume it everywhere else on board. I know cruisecritic blog stated that NCL charges for taking wine on board (actually, the statement in the article was ambivalent and the meaning can be interpreted in different ways), and a reader affirmed it, but it had never happened to us in the dozen of cruises we took with NCL between 2008-2011. Perhaps the policy has changed since then?
We have been charged a corkage fee on every NCL cruise we have taken since 2005 or maybe 2006. The only exception was taking a 5 liter box, in our luggage that was not detected. The bottle have always been charged. A few weeks ago we were charged the $15 corkage fee for a basic bottl and $30 for a 1.5 liter. That was the first even though they have had the policy for years. We don't really mind paying, we enjoy the availabity of the wine in our cabin..I do think next cruise we are going to buy the wine package instead. It is just easier than lugging the wine onto the ship. BTW, RCI only allows 1 bottle per person to be brought on and they are cracking down...
I bring sundresses and swim suits-that's it as far as clothes. The cool thing about today's sundresses is that they can look really dressy if you look in the right places.
I bring sundresses and swim suits-that's it as far as clothes. The cool thing about today's sundresses is that they can look really dressy if you look in the right places.
It depends on teh cruise line. Sundresses wouldn't cut it on a luxury line.
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. I gotta start looking into Mouse cruises now
