Booking

I have been wanting to book a Transatlantic cruise on a new ship. Two weeks is about as long as I can do. Jubilee was going to be too long. Celebration would’ve been just about right. But I really don’t like that they keep launching these new ships during football season. I don’t want to commit to spending 2-3 football weekends on a ship two years in advance.

When I heard the timeline on Venezia my ears perked up. It’s not a new ship.  But it is a fairly new ship in a class of ship I like and it’s going to have concepts that are new to Carnival. It’s not a new ship, but it’s the next best thing to a new ship.

And cruises are starting from New York in June? That means a Transatlantic to New York in May-June. If I can thread the needle between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, it would be absolutely perfect for me.

I don’t have to book it two years in advance. I don’t have to worry about shipyard delays canceling the cruise. As soon as it went public, I booked this cruise.

I booked a cabin I’m very familiar with. An interior on lido deck near the “secret deck.” Bonus: the Javablue coffee shop is going to be on lido deck. I’m going to love that.

I had been sitting on a 100,000+ Fun Points on my Carnival Mastercard since before the pandemic. I ended using them to pay for most of this cruise. In the end I paid $187 out of my pocket for the initial booking.

Upgrade

While I was on Carnival Magic in February, I noticed an opportunity to upgrade my room. It would’ve been $318 to upgrade to a cove balcony or $348 to upgrade to a regular balcony. The price went up on the balcony as you got to the higher decks. This sounded like a good deal to me.

They usually want $700-1000 for me upgrade to a balcony on 7-day cruise. This is a 15-day cruise with a lot of sea days. I decided to book a balcony on deck 6 forward. This takes me away from lido but puts me just one deck above the promenade. It also puts me closer to the water which I think may be good on sea days.

I kept my room very close to the front of the ship so I will still have easy access to the “secret deck” if I want to see something on the other side of the ship. The one drawback to booking this location is it’s above or close to being above the theater. I did that once on Elation back in the day and I remember how loud that was. But I’m never in my room when things are going on in the theater so it should not bother me.

I went back and checked the first week of March and my deck was sold out and the cheapest balcony would’ve been $500 more than I paid so I think I came out pretty good.

Flight

I’m not able to add days onto the front of this trip so I really want to get into Barcelona early so I have the entire day there. Flights were looking like they were going to be generally around $1,000 to start. The best combination I found of price and flights was going to be Air Portugal. It was going to be $900 and get me in around 11:30am the day before the cruise with two stops along the way.

I decided to check out Carnival’s Fly2Fun. That changed my world. I was able to get a United flight operated by Air Canada with one connection in Montreal and a two hour layover that arrives in Barcelona at 9am for $579 total. That includes a checked bag up to 50lbs.

I checked the United website for that flight and it was like $1,200 for the cheapest ticket. It took almost a month for the flight to be confirmed on my account. That caused me and my TA a lot of stress. But the Tuesday before Christmas, it popped up.

After the holidays I tried to select my seats for my flights and ran into problems. United said I had to talk to Air Canada. Air Canada said I had to talk to my Travel Agent. My travel agent said it was on Carnival. It turns out that even though I had a reservation, Carnival had not completed my booking. My TA said they don’t ticket the reservations until 60 days prior. That conflicted with what I had heard from other people on my cruise with Fly2Fun. But none of them were on Air Canada. I told my TA I would check back in April.

April comes around. I’m still not ticketed. I got a tip from social media to email travelops@carnival.com. That created a case and the next morning I was ticketed.

Being ticketed allowed me to pick my seats. I was able to get an exit row aisle seat with additional legroom in a two seat row on my flight to Montreal. That was a $45 upgrade. A standard seat selection would’ve been $23.

For my flight to Barcelona I picked an aisle seat on one of those rows in the middle of the plane with four seats. But there are no seats in front of us so I’ll have additional legroom. That was a $119 upgrade. A standard seat selection would’ve been $50. 

In total my flights to Barcelona cost $744 with upgraded seats and that includes a checked bag up to 50lbs. I did a mock booking and this would’ve cost $1,400 for me to book it on my own.

When I was looking at Fly2Fun prices, the New York to Dallas leg was around the same price for me to book it myself. For that reason I left it out of F2F. I ended up booking my preferred airline Spirit out of Newark for $110. It came to $214 after I added on my checked bag and upgraded my seat to the big front seat I love. 

Flight Change

Later in April I noticed my flight times were different. I was initially leaving DFW around 11am and arriving in Barcelona at 9am with a 2-hour layover in Montreal. Now I’m leaving DFW at 9am with a 6-hour layover in Montreal and arriving in Barcelona at 9:40am. I’m not thrilled about the earlier departure time and the longer layover, but at least I only lost 40 minutes in Barcelona.

One thing I will say about Fly2Fun. I’m also doing NCL’s version of Fly2Fun for an Alaska cruise in August. With Carnival I got to pick my flights before committing to it. With NCL I just had to blindly sign up for it. They say I’ll be able to work with their travel team 75 days out so that will be something I do as soon as I get back from New York. Then I’ll be able to do a full comparison between Carnival’s Fly2Fun and NCL’s (not free) Air. But at this point in time I was much more comfortable with Carnival.

Barcelona Hotel

I started out by reading an article on historic hotels in Barcelona. I checked into those first. They were all either more than I wanted to pay or they required a minimum stay of two nights. But I think they were all more than I wanted to pay. I really wanted to be around $200-300. Anything over $300 I didn’t even look at.

Next I went to an article with the 30 best rooftop bars in Barcelona. I looked at the ones that were in hotels. There are a lot of expensive hotels in Barcelona. Most of them are starting at $400-600. I came across one that started at $900. Finally I came to #17 on the rooftop bar list: Sercotel Rosellon. This was where view met the wallet.

When I saw that rooftop view I knew that was going to be the place if it was under $300. It turns out as a registered member you could get a room as low as $170. I registered and upgraded to the superior room with a view of Sagrada Familia for $208 total. I believe they are going to add on a local tax when I get there. I believe it was about 4.15%.

The hotel actually charged my card on February 24th. The total was $209.95.

This isn’t going to be the best location for cheap public transportation from the airport. For that I think you would be better off booked near the city center. To get to my hotel I will either have to take two buses, two subways, or spring for a taxi/uber.

Barcelona

Since I’m only in Barcelona for a little over a day I’m going to use a Hop On Hop Off bus to maximize my time. I figured booking a hotel next to the biggest tourist attraction would be a safe bet to have a stop close to the hotel. There are two HOHO buses in Barcelona: Barcelona Bus Turistic and Barcelona City Tour. Both offer 24 and 48 hour ticket options. Both 24 hour tickets cost 30 Euros. I couldn’t find a reason to book one over the other. I ended up going with Turistic because it is the original and official HOHO bus of Barcelona and I read a good review on it.

Malaga

Malaga is our longest port. We are there from 8am until 9pm. Since we are there for so long, I decided to do this one on my own. This port was a pit stop on The Amazing Race last season. It was a heavy Picaso pit stop. There are actually a couple of Picaso museums in Malaga. Both of which will be on my list.

Lisbon

Lisbon is the port I’m most excited about. There are a lot of sites, food, and alcohol I want to try in Lisbon. I really wish I could switch this with Malaga and stay in Lisbon until 9pm. But we are leaving at 5pm on Lisbon day. This is another port I want to do on my own due to the variety of places I want to stop at and the fact that they seem to have a good public transportation system with buses, subways, and streetcars. 

Gibraltar

The big thing to do in Gibraltar is the WWII tunnels, the Great Siege tunnels, and the cable car to the top of The Rock of Gibraltar. I bought one of the tunnel tours that includes a cable car ride but I’ve been on the fence about whether or not to keep the tour. I have heard on prior cruises you could take a bus from the port and just purchase your own tickets. Then you could visit both sets of tunnels, the cable car, the botanic gardens, and walk around town before returning to the ship.

Ponta Delgado

I didn’t start booking my excursions for this cruise until after I got back from Magic in February. By then all of the Carnival excursions for this port were sold out. I have heard that this port is not used to such a large ship.

It sounds like you can go to town without an excursion but most of the sites you want to see here are nature sites that you need an excursion for. We have a full day at this port so I want to do an excursion and check out the town as well.

I went to all of the big excursion websites I know about. Those were either geared towards people who were staying on the island in hotels or they required you to book for two or more people. 

Finally I came across a local tour company Gary Travasos Azorean Tours. They have a lot of options, better prices than the cruise line, and they seem to be scheduled around my ship’s schedule. About a week after booking I received an email from Gary confirming my tour and telling me he will email me again a month out from the cruise with arrival and meeting point details.

Halifax

For Halifax I plan to do one of the city tours. I have not booked that yet. I have used up all my OBC and I know I’m going to have cruise cash waiting for me when I get on the ship from my Travel Agent. The Halifax tours seem to be plentiful so I shouldn’t have a problem booking one once I’m onboard.

Onboard Purchases

This is where the Carnival Shareholder benefit really pays off because I got $250 OBC for a cruise of this length. I also got $50 from Carnival and I’m getting $125 in Cruise Cash from my Travel Agent. I immediately bought the WiFi package because I need that. The tough one to swallow is Cheers at $1,061. Supposedly in Europe you can bring liquor on the ship. But there are new bars and drinks on this ship I’m going to want to try. I bought the gift cards in December but held onto them for months. In the end I went through all of my old gift cards that had money leftover on them since the pandemic and I came up with enough scraps to pay for my cheers package. Then I used the gift cards I bought for Cheers on a Jubilee cruise next summer. I also booked two nights in the new specialty restaurant and one night at the Chef’s Table. 

New York Hotel

New York hotels are up there for June. Most decent places are running $400+/night. Last time I had a premier king room at the Warwick and paid about $300/night after taxes and fees. The basic room is starting at $370 this time. That’s before taxes and fees. I started reading recent reviews on all hotels with an overall rating at or above 4 out of 5 stars and a price of $300 or lower. Most of them have serious problems recently despite the good overall rating. Finally I found one that has good recent reviews and an overall rating of 4.2 out of 5. Booking.com had sent me a 10% off reward. I’m wondering if they did this because my Little Havana last minute cancellation was booked through them. My preference was to book through Booking.com so I could use that discount. I did use it to book the Holiday Inn Financial District. I got it for a total price of $571 for the two nights. Then after the stay I’m supposed to get 10% back from Booking.com. After that it should be about $250/night after taxes and fees.

That hotel is fully refundable into June so if a better deal comes up, I could switch. It is very possible that Warwick has another Easter sale or Birthday month sale like they sent me last year. But I’m thinking I might be better off staying in the Financial District. Most of the activities I have planned are much closer to the Financial District than the area the Warwick is in.

On February 4th I received two messages informing me my room had been canceled. The second of the two made it sound as if the hotel was permanently closing. This is not something I needed to deal with a week prior boarding Carnival Magic. I took a quick look at other options but ultimately decided to wait until after my Magic cruise to make a decision. When I returned I narrowed my options down to two more Holiday Inns. For some reason Holiday Inn seems to have the best prices for reputable places my week in New York. The first I was considering is Holiday Inn Manhattan West which is close to the cruise port. The other is Holiday Inn Express Wall Street which is close to where I was originally booked. West would be convenient for getting my luggage from the ship to the room. Wall Street would be more convenient for most of the places I plan to visit during my stay. Ultimately I decided on Holiday Inn Express Wall Street which came in at $261/night after taxes and is fully refundable until June 11th. 

I did get a Spring Sale email from The Warwick. I booked under their spring sale last year then got a better offer for a birthday month deal from them. I’m not sure I would want to switch because the location I have now is better for what I’m doing but I am keeping an open mind in case I do get a good deal. The Spring Sale was not as good for me as it was last year. It would’ve cost me an additional $100 per night for a basic room at The Warwick. The birthday month sale was about the same. I decided to stick with my Holiday Inn Express in the Financial District which is a better price and location for my plans this trip.

Statue of Liberty

Last year I really wanted to go to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. The crown was COVID closed at the time. I decided not to go at all. That way if I came back I could do the crown and the first time wouldn’t have been a wasted trip. I’m happy the way things turned out. Last time I got a great view of the Statue from the Staten Island Ferry and this year I’m going to actually visit it because the crown is back open! I heard you needed to purchase a ticket a couple months in advance. I bought mine on April 10th. I checked back on May 15th and they are sold out through the summer!

They had a couple of time slots for the crown. I picked 11am because I’m going to the Mets-Yankess game in Queens that night. After purchasing the ticket I got a notice saying I need to be there an hour early to clear security. That pushes it to 10am. I really need to get off of the ship early.

Mets-Yankees

Like I’ve said the timing on this cruise was perfect. Debarkation day is the start of the Mets-Yankees series. And I got a ticket. I’m going to be three sections over from where I was last year. Instead of being behind the dugout on row 12, I’m going to be just behind the first baseman on row 34. But that’s what I had to do to get the single aisle seat. There were only 24 single aisle seats available from the team when I bought mine. This was the best of available single aisle seat available from the team. Buying a ticket from the secondary market would’ve cost an additional $100+. I figured when is the next time the stars are going to align where I’m in New York during a Mets-Yankees series? It may never happen again. I’ll be there this time.

Hamilton

On my second day in New York I was keeping my eye open for an afternoon Broadway show I wanted to go to. When I first started looking Hamilton wasn’t listed. I learned a lesson from last year when I booked up my shows before they listed Hamilton. I waited a couple months and in March, Hamilton was available with a 2pm option on my second day. 

When researching seats I used Seat Plan and A View from My Seat just as I did last year. They were helpful in letting me know that a seat on the end would be obstructed to the point where they called it a “partial view seat.” That seat was going to cost $193. I ended up paying $263 to be on the aisle of the right orchestra section instead. Another lesson I learned from last year was don’t purchase your tickets on Broadway.com. The selection and prices are much better on ticketmaster. The seat next to mine is listed for $311 on Broadway.com.

Brooklyn Bridge/DUMBO

Another major item on my list I didn’t get to last year was to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Preferably timing it right to catch the sunset view from DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). Last year I tied up all of my evenings with the Mets game and Broadway shows. That’s why I wanted to get the afternoon show in this time.