From one extreme to the other, it was time to leave a Royal Caribbean cruise with my Dad on a large ship with a Star Class suite and the need to travel for a pre-cruise stay behind and switch gears to a Carnival cruise with my high school friend Joni on a smaller ship in a balcony cabin where we live 20 minutes from the port. As much as I'd love to say cruising two weeks after a previous cruise is my norm, this was simply a unique scheduling fluke. This cruise on the Carnival Pride had been scheduled since last year.
I will include a little backstory as to how this was to be a cruise for 3 but ended up being a cruise for 2. Another high school friend of both Joni and I had already sailed with me on the Carnival Pride a while back (before the Funship 2.0 upgrades) so we were now on the lookout for an opportunity to sail all together. I priced out both RCL's balcony cabins for 3 and Carnival focusing on just the Grandeur and the Pride to save money on airfare, transfers, and hotel as this was going to be split evenly cost wise and we needed to pinch pennies wherever possible. Carnival won out but I still kept a close eye on sale offers. Carnival offered one of their reduced deposit sales and I proposed to everyone that we book while this sale was on. They were both all for it. I then compared a balcony cabin price to the lowest category ocean suite price thinking that with 3 grown women, we'd need a little more room. I proposed the suite price to the group and everyone was willing. An official deposit was placed on an ocean suite cabin for the week of May 6th. I paid the deposit for all and soon Joni paid me back. Due to life circumstances and after a lot of extra time given, our other friend was unable to pay me back. Once it became within a few months of final payment, we had to make the decision to alter our plans and made this a cruise for two this time. Hopefully in the future circumstances will be better and we can all cruise together soon.
When our budget turned from splitting everything by thirds into splitting everything in half, a suite was soon not in the cards and frankly not even necessary. My only real criteria (other than having a balcony) back when we had 3 was that one of the beds not be a Pullman bed out of the wall so a balcony cabin that had a couch for the 3rd person would have been fine. Fluffy women plus arthritis plus one with a fear of heights might make for a good sitcom but not good for a comfortable cruise. I reached out to our travel agent who said that while there was balcony cabins available and it would be cheaper, the only way we could use our already paid deposit would be to convert it to being a Future Cruise Credit (FCC). She tried applying it to the new booking for this same May 6th sailing and Carnival said it can't be used unless the cruise is a totally different date than the one we'd earned the credit from. Knowing back when we priced out cruises that the week before would be higher priced because of a convention on board, Joni and I agreed that even though the next Sunday after our original sailing was Mother's Day, it would be okay to choose this date. Joni joked that it could be like her kids' present to her - getting away from them for a week.
I sent off an email to our travel agent and she set things in motion for the May 13th sailing in perhaps ironically the last balcony cabin in the aft that was right before the suite we would have had for all 3 of us, Cabin 6323. I thought all was well until a short while later, our travel agent reaches out to tell me that she booked the initial May 6th deposit under Dad's name (why when he wasn't even going on this cruise I'll never understand) and so the FCC went to him. He had to sign a form and send it back to the travel agent who then sent it in to Carnival to have the credit transferred to my name in order to be used on the booking. Once that was applied, we did the new math that would map out how much we each had to pay to split the cost halfway and forked over a new deposit. Thankfully Joni had already put aside the funds she planned to use on the first booking so when final payment date rolled around, it was solely a matter of confirmation and paperwork. Unfortunately, we also lost a small amount of on board credit (OBC) by having to rebook during a different sales offer.
As soon as I had a new booking confirmation number, I went in and reserved a cabana on Half Moon Cay to be sure we still got one before they sold out. I had already reserved one for the May 6th cruise which got refunded to my credit card when the cruise booking was cancelled. One bright spot was that by now, there was a 10% off excursions sale code being offered for the holidays so I saved a little more this time off the price of the cabana. Unlike RCL who didn't add my cabana charge to my account until the night after we used it in Labadee, I had to pay upfront for this cabana on Half Moon Cay.
After lots of nervous questions from Joni since this would be her first full 7 day cruise, it was soon embarkation day. Hope you enjoy this new tale of two 30 something ladies, one of which was experiencing Carnival for the first time, as we set out on a 7 day Caribbean, err, Bahamas cruise!
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