I'm one of the party of 14 cruising on Conquest 6/8-15 with CrusinwithJen, and I was wondering if anyone had some guidance on this one:
Our mom, a former travel agent, worked with a Carnival rep directly to get us all booked. They came up with a rooming scheme for booking that spread military veterans (for discount purposes) across as many of our 5 cabins as possible. Three of the cabins (with veterans booked in them) were directly assigned; the other two were the "no worse than class X" bookings. The directly assigned cabins are on Deck 6, and at least one of the other 2 is on Deck 1.
We are going to reshuffle a lot of our party with the purser once onboard, to reunite families in cabins. However, as things currently stand, my daughter and her friend, both 18, are assigned to the cabin on Deck 1 with most of the rest of our party on Deck 6.
The Carnival Rep has assured my mom that we won't run into any problems getting onto the ship, but I've seen postings here or somewhere else that indicates we might, since 18-year olds are supposed to be in cabins with someone over 23, or at least in adjoining cabins with a party member over 23.
Are we in for some interesting discussions at embarcation, or with the Purser during the reshuffling? Any suggestions to make sure we all get to go?
I just want to make sure I am understanding this correctly. There was a "scheme" to spread the Veteran's bookings out to get the discount. Now after you board, you want to "re-shuffle" the cabin occupants, and keep the discount?
Now, if this is the case, and those Veterans are not in the cabins they booked, this would be a gross abuse of the system, and dishonest in my opinion.
Carnival has one of the best, if not the best Veteran discount cruise offering programs in the industry. I would hate to see it rolled back by any degree because of people cheating the system. I certainly do not condone it, if this is the case.
And yes, it is against Carnival's Policy to have two 18 year olds occupying a cabin without a parent or guardian of at least 25 years of age, not 23, with few exceptions.
I have no idea if you will have interesting discussions at the Purser's desk or not, I don't have any experience with booking schemes. I don't understand if everything is on the up and up, why there would be a need for any changes. I sure hope I miss-understood this post. If not, I am pretty disgusted by it.
Your mom and a Carnival rep came up with a scheme? I find it hard to believe an agent from any cruise line would risk their job by doing something that's against company rules. I don't know how your daughter and her friend were assigned a cabin being under the age restriction for occupancy. My suggestion is to be honest and up-front…that way you'll never have to worry.
Let me be clear - to the best of my knowledge, this idea (booking and reshuffling) was from the Carnival booking rep. My mom questioned him several times, at least once on my urging, about putting the 2 girls in a room together alone, and he has repeatedly assured her that "it will be fine". We have been very up front with them throughout this process; I just don't trust what he's telling us, so I wanted to get some advice from experienced cruisers.
Kbarratt, let me be the first to welcome you to Cruise Chat. We, as a group are always excited about someone's upcoming cruising experience. We are thrilled to help anyone with just about any type of travel related problem. One thing that we are adamant about is the following of rules and guidelines set forth by maritime law as well as the policies of each individual cruise line. We get asked some questions that fringe on going against the rules (i.e. liquor policies, duty-free shopping allowances, taking food off the ship in Mexico, etc.) and we always ask for clarification before offering advice. Unfortunately, a couple of your questions involve situations that are strictly forbidden by Carnival (and most other cruise lines for that matter). Please understand that we are not attacking you and we don't want you to feel that you are not welcome. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The term "scheme" automatically puts our skepticism sensor on full alert. The situation of spreading the veterans around to take advantage of a generous Carnival discount throws up a large red flag. This is against the rules and I am afraid that you might have problems re-allocating the guests of each stateroom when you get on board. They are also most unlikely to assign a stateroom solely to a couple of 18 year olds. They will not do this for rooms that are adjoining the parents so they definitely won't do it for a stateroom on another deck. We want you to get the most out of your cruising experience but if everyone takes advantage of a system put in place to reward our veterans, then Carnival will likely repeal the discount and all future-cruising veterans will suffer. I can't make decisions for you, Kbarratt, and I am not questioning your character or integrity, but I am urging you to follow the rules and guidelines set forth by Carnival.
If I were you, I would avoid a potentially negative situation on embarkation day. I would suggest that YOU (not your mom or any other family representative) call Carnival and explain the situation to them. I am not going to lie to you, KBarratt. My suggestion might cost the family more money but the peace of mind that it offers is priceless. All of us cruise to reduce our levels of stress and anxiety and we want the same benefits to apply to you as well. We do wish you a great vacation and like I said in my previous post, we would be more than happy to help you with any other aspect of your voyage.
We wish you the best, KBarratt. If we didn't offer you honest advice, we would be doing you a grave disservice. We appreciate that you came to us and we hope that you seek our advice again. Just remember, you have a great cruise ahead of you!!!
Kbarratt, Yes, Welcome to Cruise-Chat, and good luck. And thanks drlivingston for the great and well worded reply. Actually, Carnival just started a new promotion yesterday that offers Active and Retired Military the opportunity to book up to three staterooms at special rates for the month of May.
Linear Mode
