N
nieciez
Guest
WOO HOOO! Carnival has just offered us an upgrade from a Cat 8 extended balcony to a Cat 11 suite with wrap around balcony for our upcoming Spirit cruise on March 16th! Well the fairy had a little help.
We booked this cruise shortly after our return from sailing the Carnival Spirit Hawaii-Ensenada taking advantage of a great "Past Cruiser's Special" that gave us about a $200 savings over the prevailing rate for the same 8E cabin. Since final payment the price has gone down $100 pp less then we booked on the Carnival booking engine. The past-cruiser's special is now costing me more then Joe Blow off the street can get the cruise for!
I called my TA, to see if we could receive a further price reduction or an upgrade. The Carnival rep told my TA that nothing could be done except the 8I upgrade which is no upgrade since we have one of those 3x larger 8E’s. In fact 8Is is a less desirable cabin due to the noise on the Lido deck. The next day I noticed on the CruiseCritic’s Carnival board that a number of folks sailing the same week as us on other ships got upgrades and/or shipboard credits under the same circumstances(as special thanks to Kelly!). I was so mad that I e-mailed Bob Dickinson and Vicky Freed, Director of Marketing (cced Nancy my TA) and asked: “What advantage is there booking in advance or taking advantage of "Past Cruiser's Specials"? When Nancy got my e-mail seeing that other’s were getting consideration she called Carnival again and got them to agree to a $200 shipboard credit. Later in the day I get a response from Bob Dickinson’s assistant Suzanne Torres that they would forward my e-mail to the Director of Reservations. Well, since Nancy was eventually able to get them to give me a shipboard credit I figured that was the best that could be done.
Well, today the reservations department called Nancy with an upgrade offer. If I was willing to give up the shipboard credit they will upgrade us to a category 11 suite. And they had two aft suites with wrap-around balconies available. We booked 5266! Am I excited? Excited is an understatement!.
We booked this cruise shortly after our return from sailing the Carnival Spirit Hawaii-Ensenada taking advantage of a great "Past Cruiser's Special" that gave us about a $200 savings over the prevailing rate for the same 8E cabin. Since final payment the price has gone down $100 pp less then we booked on the Carnival booking engine. The past-cruiser's special is now costing me more then Joe Blow off the street can get the cruise for!
I called my TA, to see if we could receive a further price reduction or an upgrade. The Carnival rep told my TA that nothing could be done except the 8I upgrade which is no upgrade since we have one of those 3x larger 8E’s. In fact 8Is is a less desirable cabin due to the noise on the Lido deck. The next day I noticed on the CruiseCritic’s Carnival board that a number of folks sailing the same week as us on other ships got upgrades and/or shipboard credits under the same circumstances(as special thanks to Kelly!). I was so mad that I e-mailed Bob Dickinson and Vicky Freed, Director of Marketing (cced Nancy my TA) and asked: “What advantage is there booking in advance or taking advantage of "Past Cruiser's Specials"? When Nancy got my e-mail seeing that other’s were getting consideration she called Carnival again and got them to agree to a $200 shipboard credit. Later in the day I get a response from Bob Dickinson’s assistant Suzanne Torres that they would forward my e-mail to the Director of Reservations. Well, since Nancy was eventually able to get them to give me a shipboard credit I figured that was the best that could be done.
Well, today the reservations department called Nancy with an upgrade offer. If I was willing to give up the shipboard credit they will upgrade us to a category 11 suite. And they had two aft suites with wrap-around balconies available. We booked 5266! Am I excited? Excited is an understatement!.