[quote shipdogred]Any cvc members sailed on ship without the cvc service onboard?
Were you given the priority debarkation? Any upgrades?[/quote]
Hi shipdogred,
We have sailed on ships (2 of them now, including the Legend and the Inspiration) that have not had the service onboard... Our first encounter wasn't too good with it and it made my boyfriend not want to come back to Carnival once we were out of points... Unfortuanlely, I think that a lot of what happened to us was due to the fact that we were on the Inspiration in July of 2005 during Hurricane Dennis and were given the opportunity to get off the ship or stay on for "credit" ... First let me state, that we did get to use the Skippers Club while in Tampa and did get on the ship in a very timely manner, they were already boarding so we "weren't one of the firsts..." but it only took about 30 min. total to get on once we got to the Skipper's Club... When they sent out a letter saying that we could get off the ship and get our monies back or stay on and get credit towards another cruise, we went to the purser's desk where we REPEATEDLY asked the purser if we were going to be able to use points and get the xx% off of our next cruise, since we after all had paid for this cruise with points... She went behind the desk, supposedly, called "Miami" and came back to us stately a positive yes that we would be able to use our points and get the xx% off of our next cruise... And of course nothing was open cause it was a Sunday and so we couldn't call CVC to verify that this was going to be the case, so we had to go on her words... Once getting back to the states after the cruise, we eventually after many emails back and forth were basically told NO, you're not going to be able to use points, you have to use cash.. That's just a side note to what you are really asking and I just want people to be aware that what you pay with for one cruise and if something happens you may not be able to pay the same for the next cruise....
As far as your question goes.. When we were on the Inspiration and the Legend we did get "strawberries" as an Bon Voyage gift in our room .. We were also given the opportunity to get off the ship early at the debarkation time, however, both times we opted out of it only because our flights home weren't for HOURS... So, we just stayed on the ship as long as possible... But as far as any of the "other perks" including, Mexican Parties, CVC cocktail party in addition to the Captains cocktail party, the tag on the door, and VIP tags for our luggage, we didn't get any of that..
I will say too that on the Legend we booked a 4A guarentee and whether we got upgraded because we are in the CVC membership or not, I don't know, but we did end up with a 4E category (the highest category 4 that we could get on the highest deck, the panorama!!!) We thought that that was pretty cool...
