Carnival Sailabration: Planning
Booking
This cruise was booked two years ago when the Sailabration cruises were first announced. I definitely wanted this one to be a cruise I could drive to and the Galveston cruises were considerably more expensive than New Orleans. The 5-day Breeze at the time was almost as much as I paid for this 8-day Glory cruise.
Hotel
When I first started looking at New Orleans Hotels for this trip I noticed prices were slightly higher than I expected. This was likely due to this stay is just a couple days after Mardi Gras. The last time I was in New Orleans for a Carnival Glory cruise, I stayed one night at the Hilton Garden Inn – Convention Center and one night at the Sheraton Four Points on Bourbon Street. I covered the National World War II Museum in the Warehouse District, a City Tour, a French Quarter Barhop, and an evening on Frenchman Street.
The one area I wanted to cover but was unable to was the Garden District. Hotel prices in the Garden District are generally slightly lower and unlike downtown and the French Quarter, parking is usually included in the hotel price.
I quickly found a hotel I liked for a decent price at the Magnolia Mansion. I booked a basic courtyard room for $157 after taxes. I later decided to add a second night. The room I had booked for Friday was unavailable for Thursday. A room switch with an additional night was going to be an average of $171 after taxes for the cheapest available room. I did have an option of picking from three of their fancier rooms for an average of $186 per night. I decided to upgrade to the Moulin Rouge room.
Pre-Cruise Activites
The main reason I wanted to add an additional night is on Thursday nights they have live jazz in the hotel. At 6:30 they have a famous trumpet player Kermit Ruffins. Then at 8pm they have Cyril Neville and Irvin Mayfield. Cyril Neville is the youngest of the Neville Brothers and Irvin Mayfield is a Grammy Award winning trumpet player. If you look at “The Sound of New Orleans” playlist on Amazon Prime Music, three of their twenty-two songs in the playlist are by these musicians. Kermit was the co-founder of the Rebirth Brass Band which also has a song on the list.
The plan for Friday will be a walking tour of the Garden District with stops at various bars and restaurants. Since it is crawfish season I will try to find a boil and some more live music.
Parking
I have all of your parking options covered at New Orleans Parking. I am sticking Fulton Garage rooftop parking. I’ve used it in the past and always been happy with it. I feel like the pricing is about the same as it was pre-covid. I paid about $85 for 7 days in 2019 and I’m paying about $95 for 8 days this time.
Onboard Credit
I am going to have $900 to spend onboard. I used one of my future cruise credits with $600 onboard credit from my cancellations during the shutdown on this cruise. I also receiving $100 onboard credit from my travel agent and $100 onboard credit for my stockholder benefit. Early on during the shutdown, Carnival offered discounted Cheers and Cruise Cash. I purchased $100 cruise cash for all of my cruises–Most of which were canceled. This one survived so I have that $100 brining my onboard credit to $900.
Specialty Dining
There aren’t many specialty dining options on Carnival Glory. I definitely plan to use a portion of my onboard credit on a couple of steakhouse dinners. I may wait until the actual day of to book the steakhouse to make sure I don’t miss out on any special sailabration dinners in the dining room.
Excursions
Excursions for this cruise have been tricky. With Grand Cayman not allowing cruise ships but Carnival waiting until the last minute to make port changes, in no way did I believe we were going to Grand Cayman or Montego Bay.
They just announced the port change this afternoon. We are going to Cozumel, Costa Maya, and Belize.
I will use onboard credit for any excursions I do book I Cozumel has one that includes San Geriveso Mayan Ruins for $79. In Belize I will book Altun Ha. I will book another Mayan Ruins excursion in Costa Maya. I have not decided which one yet.
