Carnival bar menus with prices

Carnival bar menus always have a wide range of drinks covered by the drinks package. Pictured here is a martini at the Alchemy Bar on the Carnival Vista.

When deciding whether to get the drinks package (which Carnival calls Cheers), one of the questions is how much individual drinks cost. It isn’t that simple, of course. There is also the convenience of budgeting and paying in advance, and drinks packages typically include non-alcoholic specialty drinks as well. However, cost is obviously one of the considerations. In addition, it is good to start the cruise knowing where to find your favorite drinks. Happily, we have several Carnival bar menus from our July 2022 cruise on the Vista.

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Carnival MDR Menus 2022

We sailed on the Vista out of Galveston in July 2022. The Carnival MDR menus weren’t usually exciting, but we always found something we enjoyed eating. The no-extra charge steak was a particularly nice find.

We sailed on a 7 night cruise on the Carnival Vista in July 2022. We were a party of 9, and we wanted to be together for dinner every night. That made a standing early seating in the main dining room (MDR) a great choice. While the service was fine, it was a bit rushed due to lack of staff. The food seemed pretty ordinary, but there were always 1-2 solid choices every night. In this post, I want to share with you the Carnival MDR menus for each night of our cruise. I will also tell you when formal night was.

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Carnival Onboard Prices are Going Up May 1

Carnival onboard prices are set to increase on May 1

I cannot tell you how excited I am to get on a cruise ship again this Summer. I wrote about the Carnival online check-in process last December, and I had to cancel that cruise when I got sick. We are now in the intense middle of planning for a Summer cruise on the Vista, though. When I cruise, I like to pay for stuff in advance. I love the feeling of getting on the ship and knowing that my onboard expenses are already paid. I *really* love the feeling of not having a huge credit card bill at the end of all of it. Unfortunately, Carnival onboard prices are increasing on May 1. Here are the details, as well as what you can do about it.

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Carnival Online Check-In Process

Bill gives you all the detail on the Carnival online check-in process for his December 2021 sailing on the Carnival Breeze.

I always check in for my cruise as quickly as possible. Even if that check-in happens week before my cruise, it makes me feel like the vacation has started. Traditionally, that has happened many weeks before the cruise actually sailed. Given all of the post-COVID changes, however, Carnival online check-in now happens 14 days before the cruise. There are a couple of key changes since the “before times”– the time before COVID upended our travelling worlds.

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Carnival Dream Free Lunch options

The Main Dining Room (MDR) is one of the best Carnival Dream free lunch options, and they offer a brunch menu.

I wrote before that I was not impressed with the breakfast buffet on the Carnival Dream (text link). Truth be told, I was not particularly impressed with the buffet at any time of day, and I generally preferred the buffet on the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas (opens new tab to a Galveston Cruise Reviews video). However, vacation involves a series of tradeoffs. While I did not enjoy the buffet, on balance the Carnival Dream free lunch options were great. Carnival just sets things up differently. Where Royal had a huge buffet and a couple of other free options, Carnival provided more free options in smaller restaurant spaces.

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