www.carnival.com - Fare Viewer
Check to see if your cruise rate has gone down! If it has, you can complete the Price Protection Claim Form to get refunded, or shipboard credit for the difference in cost! For more information about the "Early Saver" rate you have, and it's benefits, visit Carnival's Early Saver program. When checking your price, be sure to note what "Category" your room is. Your room category is listed on the "Guest List" page of our website next to your room number.

www.carnival.com
Carnival Cruise Lines' website. A lot of great information about their ships, what they offer, and where they go.

www.carnival.com - A Beginner's Guide To Carnival
The Beginner's Guide To Carnival that was mentioned on the "What's Included" page of this website. Just in case you missed it, or forgot to check it out.

www.carnival.com - Shareholder Benefit
As mentioned on the "Cost" page of our website. Information on how to get $100 shipboard credit for your cruise. Ignore the dates mentioned on this page as they update them every year.

www.cruisemates.com
Cruisemates website. A lot of great information about cruising in general and things to see and do in the various ports of call.

www.cruisemates.com - Carnival Discussion Forum
The cruisemates website also has a great discussion forum for Carnival. It's unbiased and filled with fellow cruisers. A lot of great information about cruising in general, things to see and do in the various ports of call and some pretty great "Tips & Tricks".

www.cruisecritic.com
Cruise Critic website. A lot of great information about cruising in general and things to see and do in the various ports of call.

www.cruisecritic.com - Carnival Discussion Forum
The Cruise Critic website also has a great discussion forum for Carnival. It's unbiased and filled with fellow cruisers. A lot of great information about cruising in general, things to see and do in the various ports of call and some pretty great "Tips & Tricks".

www.expedia.ca
Expedia seems to be a popular website for booking hotels. While we have never personally had any success with it, we will post it and you can be the judge.

www.hotwire.com
Many people have heard of Hotwire. Hotwire is a site that we have had great success with when booking hotel rooms for the night before our cruise. We have often gotten 4-Star hotels for under $100. Hotwire allows you to search hotels in a particular area and shows currently offered prices based on the "Star Rating" of the hotel. If you use Hotwire, you will not know the actual name of the hotel you are booking until you have commited to your reservation and paid for it.

www.priceline.com
Priceline is similar to Hotwire, but different. They post what they "Claim" to be the best rate, but sometimes the rates on the same hotel can be better on Hotwire. Priceline however has the ability for you to place a "Bid" on a particular hotel. There have been stories of people getting VERY low rates on hotel rooms on Priceline. The disadvantage of this "Bidding" process however is if you bid too low, and the hotel you are bidding on declines your offer, you have to increase your bid by "X" amount of dollars and / or wait 24 hours before you can "Bid" on this particular hotel again. depending on how much time you have to play, this could waste valuable time and reduce your chances of even getting a hotel room.

www.betterbidding.com
betterbidding.com is also and interesting tool for looking for a great hotel, at a great price. This website is essentially a way to "Cheat" the Hotwire and Priceline websites. This website is compiled of data from users of Hotwire and Priceline who have identified the hotels (Hotwire), and winning bids (Priceline) that they obtained themselves. This information, while not a guarantee, is a very educated guess of what hotel you may be booking based on its star rating and location (Hotwire) or what bid gives you the best chance of being accepted (Priceline).

maps.google.ca
Have a look at Port Canaveral from Google Maps! At the bottom of the picture you see cars parked in the parking lot. How's that for scale? It's not hard to tell a Carnival ship from the air, just look for the red, blue, and while fin on the top deck.

View Full Map In Larger Window

Potential Hotels
As mentioned previously, right now we believe the best area to aim to get a hotel in, is the Port Canaveral area itself. This allows the least amount of travel time from a hotel, to the cruise ship, on the morning of the cruise. It also increases the chance of a hotel shuttle service to the cruise port (sometimes free). You are welcome to stay at whatever hotel you like, in whatever area you like, this is just what we are recomending, and are planning to do ourselves.

To get an idea of the area in Florida we are dealing with, in the first map, we have highlighted Orlando, and Cape Canaveral. As mentioned before, from the airport in Orlando, to the Cape Canaveral area is a little less than an hour drive.

The second map shows the Cape Canaveral area, with some potential hotels flagged. If you look in the top left corner of this map you'll see a small piece of grey. This small piece of grey is the south west corner of the actual cruise port you will be travelling to the next morning. As you can see by the scale in the lower left corner of this map, you can potentially be only a couple of kilometers away from the actual cruise port. So, if your hotel has no free cruise port shuttle, a cab ride would be relatively cheap.

To see this map in Google, with some potential hotels to consider, click the link below the second map.

Click here to view this map in Google and review potential hotels

If you have any suggestions, tips and tricks, etc. that you think could help our guests when planning this vacation, please pop us an email and tell us about them. We will post them up here for everyone else to check out.