We were on the Freedom with you in August of 2007 for our 30th anniversary and we brought you Cannoli’s from Taormina. Anyway – we will be taking our 18th Carnival Cruise on The Splendor beginning in Buenos Aires on February 17th 2009. I was VERY disappointed earlier last year to find you were on a Blogger’s Cruise the week before the Splendor sails from Buenos Aires and I thought that maybe you’d get off that cruise, fly to Buenos Aires and pick up the Splendor. Now I see that you will be on the Valor on Feb. 15th. Oh My Goodness ! We’re so terribly disappointed that we won’t cruising with you on this trip! I have also contacted Ken Byrnes of the Dining Room and he will be on vacation. Boo hoo! Between the 2 of you, the trip on the Freedom was beyond a normal cruise. We will miss you much. But my sadness will be better once I spend money in the shops! We always get T-Shirts with the ship’s name on it and sometimes they just don’t have a wide variety of sizes. I think we also need some paperback books and magazines. I’m soooo done with the Art Auctions – at least the Peter Max and the other stuff they are selling. It would be very nice to see a different variety, as you previously suggested with autographed photos, memorbilia, etc. Just something DIFFERENT would be nice! Love the poolside games, the trivia contests, the scavenger hunts, the towel folding demo’s and of course, the dance instruction! We’ve sailed (sadly) with RCCL and NCL and (ugh) NCLA and hands down, Carnival just ROCKS ! Carnival is definitely where the Fun is ! Can you post your Cruise Schedule? We aren’t done with cruising in 2009 and if we know where you’ll be, we just might be on that ship ! Cathy H.

Basically, the only thing I buy in the gift shops are Carnival memorobilia for myself and all the suckers, er, friends back at home. I’m not a big shopper, so really all I need are souveniers of the ship. Now, if Carnival wanted to sell me various t-shirts from each of the ports we visit too, that would be nice.

As far as on board shopping is concerned for me and the wife we always like to purchase something that is specific to the ports we are visiting. Our favorite purchase for every port is a christmas ornament.
We appreciate the jewelry, as I oftentimes purchase a gold charm for the wife’s bracelet to remember the cruise. There is always a load of candy, enough tobacco, and too much booze.

Hugs,
Lori

On each cruise the only things we buy are christmas ornaments, cartons of cigarettes, alcohol and cruise ship named apparel. We are not into the jewelry and perfume stuff. I know there are many people interested in that but we are not them.

We cruise in 60 days and I cannot wait. Make sure the Miracle has plenty of named items available for the 3/13/09 sailing. Gotta go the Eagles are getting ready to score.

Thanks for asking.
Roger T

Here is my experience with Carnival’s gift shop. A few years ago we sailed the Liberty and my husband forgot my luggage home. I tried to get something wear in the gift shop. Problem is I am not a small woman and the clothes are for the smaller ones. I did manage to get a pair or shorts and a t-shirt that fit. My suggestion is to carry larger sizes. I did finally manage to get clothes in the ports, but I don’t think my husband will ever forget my luggage again.

We also purchase the pewter thimbles. Please don’t discontinue them. My goal is to have one from each of the Carnival ships.

Say Hi to Heidi.

Tom & Michelle

Well I’ve been lucky in that Harold has purchased some beautiful jewellery from the Gift shop for me and I agree with a former blogger who said her appraisal was more than what the purchase price was. The pieces offered are unique and of good quality.

My suggestion would be to have more books and magazines (gossip rags) to read by the pool. More candy (chocolates) for those afternoon munchies while reading!!! Make soda pop more reasonably priced.

One concern I would like to bring to your attention is something that happened on my last voyage in November last year on the Liberty.

There was a sale on boxed watches at $20, it had been well advertised and there had been quite a crowd. It was very badly organized and dangerous in the way it was handled. People were already in the gift store and when the time came for the “sale” to start it was a mad rush (and you think the Pinata commerial would have been a crush) this was terrible. People were shoving and pushing and boxes being grabbed. It was very disturbing and alot of people just left while others just pushed and grabbed armloads of boxes to take to the cashier. Besides it being a dangerous situation it left a very bad taste on anyone who was better mannered and tried to wait to get to the counter (and never got anything for it). If there is something like this then they should either allow only so many people in the gift shop at a time or find another way to have this type of sale. Maybe ensuring that there is enough inventory for cruise duration might help in not having a repetition of such madness?

Well that’s my two cents worth!! Thanks John for the great job you’re doing for us cruisers.

Eva