Carnival Vista in Bermuda
While on the Vista transatlantic cruise we had the opportunity to interview Carnival spokesperson John Heald, who was also on that cruise. John has been with Carnival for many years, initially as a bar tender and for quite some time as a cruise director before becoming the face of Carnival he is now.
yak photo courtesy of DK findout!
On John Heald’s facebook page he often mentions yaks, so we asked him if he had ever met a yak. Watch the video for the answer.
John often has quick fire questions on his facebook page where he asks readers their opinons of things. We turned the tables on him for this interview and asked questions suggested by people we talked to on the ship.
Some of the questions involve Carnival’s loyalty program, and things given to passengers. All the major cruise lines have loyalty programs because once you cruise with any particular line they would you to come back. These do work because some people will only sail with one line so they can build their status up.
We sail for the experience and destination and usually look for the best deals we can find on whatever line we can find them on rather than for any perks we might get for sailing with a particular line. It is nice to get things like free laundry service though once you get to a high enough level on lines that offer that as a perk.
In the video John hints that changes may be in the works for Carnival’s loyalty program. He didn’t say what or when, but since it is due to the number of people at the higher levels overwhelming the program it is likely to mean cuts to the benefits. It boggles my mind that people are always clamoring for Carnival Corp to combine benefits on all their lines when adding so many new people at every level would mean the points required to receive anything good would be tremendously high. Most don’t look beyond thinking that they would get exactly what they do now on every single line without considering how adding that many new people at every level all at once would affect the program since Carnival Corp owns so many cruise lines. One of those watch what you wish for things.
croc hats and a towel bear
A gift is a gift. It doesn’t cost the person receiving it anything and if they don’t like it they can always return it or just not take it with them when they disembark. Unfortunately in our it’s-all-about-me society of entitled people some are bound to loudly complain and expect something else. When the gift was a croc hat that nobody liked, we didn’t want them either, but rather than making an issue of it we just asked our steward to return them. Mainly because we didn’t want to waste space in either the room our our suitcases on something we’d never use.
ship-on-a-stick
We don’t cruise for the gifts and did not expect anything else in return for them, but the next time we came back to the cabin the hats were gone and we had ships on a stick in their place. (I had to borrow someone else’s hat for the video since ours were long gone by then.)
platinum gift – night light
On our last cruise the gift was a night light, which came in quite handy since we were cruising with kids. Loyalty programs are important to the cruise line because they are important to some of the passengers and if they can inspire loyalty among some guests they can insure themselves of returning cruisers, which makes up a good portion of their revenue.
Carnival Spokesperson, John Heald
More Interviews with John Heald
Best Places on Carnival Breeze
Life on a Cruise Ship and Funships 2.0
Carnival Breeze Things to Do and Best Kept Secrets
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