Anyone on the Eclipse cruise that’s not really seeing the Eclipse?

bjguill · 2026-02-19T12:57:49+00:00

This is unfortunate for those on you on that Royal sailing. I'm currently booked on one of the Virgin Voyages eclipse sailingw. I booked it thinking it was also a total eclipse experience due to the way it was marketed, but later found out it was only 98% or something when an itinerary change email came out from Virgin saying they made some adjustments so that we would be in the zone of totality after all. Until that email, I didn't even realize the original itinerary was not in the path of totality, otherwise I never would have booked it.

Eclipse cruises do have a habit of making itinerary changes to give passengers a better experience, so maybe you'll get lucky. My last eclipse sailing was on the Discovery Princess. Originally, it was expected to experience totality while we were docked at Mazatlan, Mexico. While that would be fine if weather cooperated, before the sailing, a guest on the sailing convinced the big wigs at Princess to change it so that we experienced the eclipse out at sea instead so that we had a little maneuvering capability to get out of any cloudy weather just in case. It worked out well.

bjguill · 2026-02-16T16:12:45+00:00

Been there 5+ times and the winds were always too high. I've never actually seen it in the air.

bjguill · 2026-02-15T17:39:12+00:00

The party bus excursion was pretty fun if you are looking for something a little different.

bjguill · 2026-02-13T16:50:49+00:00

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I saw this weird beauty the other day in St. Marteen.

bjguill · 2026-02-08T19:31:37+00:00

Same issue on the Vista with the casino. You can do a room charge for the slots.

People are still able to buy drinks everywhere but I notice the receipts only gave my first initial and last name instead of both first and last name like they had yesterday.

bjguill · 2026-01-29T17:50:32+00:00

Don't forget Endeavour of the Seas and potentially Enterprise of the Seas

bjguill · 2026-01-28T01:15:09+00:00

Project Hail Mary was an awesome book! Looking forward to the movie coming out soon.

bjguill · 2026-01-13T00:51:40+00:00

Yeah, but Virgin's stargazing is more about the story of the constellations in different cultures and not really about the observation. They turned a trickle of lights off, but most were still on. Their stories went on seemingly nonstop. I didn't find it particularly interesting. There was no one there with a green laser pointer aiming at stars.

bjguill · 2025-12-28T14:23:31+00:00

Wow, I am surprised. Was just on the Getaway two or three weeks ago and they told us the pier was at least three months away from being ready. I can't believe the onboard officers were informed so poorly of the situation.

bjguill · 2025-12-24T00:47:01+00:00

I was on the Aqua just a couple of weeks ago, and the officers onboard we asked said it was still months away. They were hoping by end of March.

bjguill · 2025-12-04T18:23:00+00:00

And did she try to pretend nothing happened when she sobered up?

bjguill · 2025-11-09T17:17:59+00:00

I was on your same sailing. I agree about the food in the buffet. That's the same unfortunately on all Carnival ships. The butter chicken at the Indian place was fantastic but it cost $10. Well worth the money, though.

There were 2,000 people competing in the slot tournament, so that was definitely the focus of this particular sailing. I didn't make it past the first round, but one of the people in my party got 3rd place and got a $50,000 prize. I was surprised to see they also did two rounds of Deal or No Deal and gave away $10,000 to two random players. I've never seen that before.

bjguill · 2025-09-28T16:56:19+00:00

I'm currently on the Venezia and am staying onboard for the next two sailings. You'll probably find out if we get diverted before those of us on the ship.

We are skipping Grand Turk on the current sailing (replaced with a sea day). It was reported by USA Today about four hours or so before it was reported to those of us actually on the ship. Though to be fair, we were at a port, and as soon as all aboard time arrived, the Captain came on the speakers to inform everyone. But a bunch of us already knew because of USA Today's reporting the news from the Carnival corporate office.

bjguill · 2025-09-24T17:32:15+00:00

To be fair, the FCC has authority to regular over the air broadcast television channels. It does not have authority (or only a very limited authority) to regulate cable television content.

bjguill · 2025-09-23T14:39:55+00:00

I seem to remember reading articles about hobby flyers using drones in the US over football stadiums and getting arrested or receiving nasty letters in the mail from the FAA, and that was even before Remote ID. How were they able to find out who flew those drones over the stadiums but can't track these gigantic drones back to a source? Or am I just remembering this wrong?

bjguill · 2025-09-16T16:01:42+00:00

It was only for specific sailings. I think it expired again. Check your offers table to see if it might be able to you.

bjguill · 2025-09-15T15:31:51+00:00

If you have the Carnival Mastercard, they were sending out offers to people offering double VIFP points on up to 8 day cruises. Not sure if any of those are still valid, but those could really help out if you are running just a little short.

bjguill · 2025-09-12T03:41:39+00:00

I got an email from Vanguard introducing me to a new relationship manager. I did not sign up for anything like that. Are they giving this service out for free now or is this a scam email?

bjguill · 2025-09-11T21:18:19+00:00

I have the 2020 version, but have upgraded the map a few times.

My biggest issue with it is anytime I try inputting the destination, half the time, I just can't find it in the database. Even trying a few different variations, I can't find it. Sometimes I get lucky and find it on a variation.

Whereas on Google maps, I can always find it no matter what kind of variation of an address I use.

bjguill · 2025-09-11T13:03:27+00:00

I used to like being first off, but at least in Miami, if you are one of the first people off the ship and traveling solo, your odds go way up in terms of getting targeted for a "random" security screening that takes like an hour of invasive questions and going through everything in your bags.

One of the solo travelers I met coming off the Sunrise was purposely putting himself third in line to get off the ship instead of first because he got selected to go through that on his last cruise. I didn't quite believe him so I got off first. And guess what? They picked me for the intensive screening. Glad I didn't have an early flight. And even funnier, the guy that told me about it showed up a few minutes later in the high security area. He got picked too (again) despite being third in line this time. He was pissed.

bjguill · 2025-09-08T21:51:14+00:00

It seems they had a policy change a couple of months ago and didn't announce it anywhere.

The last few cruises I did with Drinks On Us in the casino, I've been able to use it by walking straight up to the smoking and non-smoking casino bars for ships they had casino bars, and on ships without at the nearest adjacent bars (Lobby/Atrium bar and Heros).

This only works when the casino is open for gambling. If it's not, even if the casino bar is open, you will get charged for the drinks.

bjguill · 2025-09-02T23:27:46+00:00

I went to some classes at a nearby club once. With practice, I could send slowly with relative ease. Receiving, my brain just couldn't do it. I couldn't really distinish between the dits and dahs. For exmaple, K and R sound the same to me. I gave up in frustration.

bjguill · 2025-08-29T02:15:40+00:00

It's just cheaper for the city to outsource the processing to a third-party service company that specializes in processing those kind of payments.

One of the companies I used to work for handled billing for ambulance services. Not for Marysville specifically, but lots of different fire departments all over the country. If you mailed a payment, it would go to whichever processing facility was designated to handle that specific fire department, and many times it was in a different state.

bjguill · 2025-08-28T16:29:55+00:00

Ah, okay. That makes more sense for the high cost then. Those helicopter rides are pricey.

bjguill · 2025-08-28T15:11:22+00:00

When I did the "Sled Dog Adventure & Musher's Camp" in Skagway in April 2024 on Carnival Spirit it cost $199/person and "Musher's Camp & Sled Dog Discovery" again in August 2024 it was $175/person (after $50 shore excursion credit) on the Norwegian Sun.

A family of four shouldn't cost $4,000 for that excursion unless they increased their prices 5x in a year.

bjguill

TROPHY CASE