Chilepepper

Traveled for the second time on Carnival in Feb. We were on the Inspiration, and it was bad from the beginning.
Previously traveled on Miracle and loved it.
Inspiration is older, which did not really bother us. What bothered us was the fact that our room was flooded (the wall was leaking) and we had to wait until 8PM the first night (with no luggage) to find out if we even had a different room to go to. Sure enough, they moved us 4 floors down.
They did not give us the early seating for dinner we requested. When they got into port they were over 1 hour late in both ports (Cozumel and Grand Cayman) and then the boats taking us to dock were late and slow! By the time we got on dry land we were on an average of 2 hours later than they had listed on itinerary. We were 15 min late for our Snuba adventure in Cozumel (thank god we booked through Carnival - they waited for us!) After that we literally ran through the downtown area to do our shopping b/c we were so rushed!
They cut Grand Cayman short by 1 hour with no explanation.
There were so many elderly people with walkers on this cruise, I can't tell you how many times I was almost run over by walkers.
We purchased some special alcohol you can't get in the states at the Carnival gift shop. On the last night they never delivered it so we had to stand in line for an hour with the 5 other people who never received theirs. One gentleman had purchased several liquors in Cayman that were over 100 years old, and very expensive. They could not find it (I'm sure it was somewhere on the ship -- probably crew quarters) so all they could do was try to give him some liquor from the gift shop onboard that did not even compare.
NOT A GOOD EXPERIENCE!!! We did make the best of it, however, and made some great friends. We also had excellent serving staff all over the ship. Sorry, Carnival -- we won't take a chance on spending money with you again.
Chilepepper

clarasong

Carnival's reputation has always been 'sketchy' and is going 'down hill' for some time. That is, it is known as a 'party' boat, with cheap fares and everything 'cheap to go with it.' I maintain, after several cruise and tours, that you get 'exactly' what you pay for in this industry, and it is good to research before you go.

ROSWALT

Most of your complaints have nothing to do with Carnival. Flooding happens on all older ships. Any ship no matter what line it is can not only be late in port, but miss it completely for different reasons. Once on Carnival I didn't get my liquors either and got my money back, but didn't stop cruising with Carnival and have no regrets. What clarasong is saying about Carnival reputation is an old cliche. Their new ships are very much comparable with Royal Caribbean and Princess.

chepar

I don't think you can excuse flooding as something that happens on "all" older ships.

Chilepepper

Well, I think I agree with clarasong, because I did choose Carnival based solely on price. I will not do that again.
Carnival Maintenance told me we were "located under the pool" and they fixed the problem. I asked them why my bed was soaked? They didn't even know about that. Not good when you are SO excited to get to your room and you find 2 huge fans blowing to try to "dry things up".
My main reason for choosing that ship was that it was going to Cozumel and Grand Cayman. I still have no idea why they shortened each port stay by several hours, but to me that is inexcusable. That was to be our favorite part of the cruise.
Next time I will not be a budget traveler, but then I should just stay away from cruises and fly directly to Grany Cayman or Cozumel.
My kids, who went on the Miracle cruise by Carnival in 2005, are still begging us to take them on another one! They absolutely LOVED it, and we travel somewhere fun every summer with them. That was their favorite trip ever. The oldest graduates in 2 years from HS and we are planning on taking them to Europe for 2 weeks within the next 2 years! I'm sure that will then become the new favorite trip!
Thank you for your comments!!
Chilepepper

jacketwatch

Sorry to hear about your bad experiences. I do agree w/ Roswalt about the "labeling" CCL has. They have come a very long way and in fact own Princess, Cunard, HAL and a few more so they must be doing something right.

swaymock

I don't see much of anything in Chile's report that isn't the fault of Carnival.

The room is flooded, their tenders are slow, they arrived late in port, they changed the schedule, they misplaced their liquor.

Okay, all the seniors with walkers weren't Carnival's fault.

Looks to me like Roswalt's in charge of PR for Carnival.

I'm a longtime Princess sailor. I sailed Carnival once to give it a try as I've heard many good things about it --- and some negative things too. I will file my experience under "you get what you pay for". It was a lot cheaper and a lot less classy than Princess (nevermind that they are owned by the same company - that makes no difference). I disliked the experience enought that I'm not going to do it again.

kfusto

HAL might be owned by Carnival Corp but IME the experience is apples to oranges.

I have tried Carnival 3 times, always on new ships and in 3 different classes. I would not want to repeat any of the three and would not sail Carnival again.

HAL gives me what I want in a cruise and that is my preference. No shades of Carnival.

FainaAgain

I felt sympathetic reading Chile's post until I got to this phrase: "There were so many elderly people with walkers on this cruise, I can't tell you how many times I was almost run over by walkers."

So what do you suggest disabled people do? Stay at home in beds? Or maybe somebody should shoot them so they won't ruin your next vacation?

I wonder why only walkers were a problem, were there no wheelchairs like on any other cruise? Or where people with walkers stalking you?

jacketwatch

Good point. Makes you wonder about the rest of it with a prespective like that. JM2C.

jacketwatch

Hi K. Just to clarify I'm not comparing HAL to CCL. My point is that to have arrived at where they are now from where they began necessitates good planning and marketing. I agree about how diverse they are. Cheers, Larry.

jlillberto

As to the statement all old ships have flooding, we were on both the Inspiration and Celebrity's Mecury. There was no comparison (and I wasn't too thrilled with the Mecury either). The Inspiration's ONE bathroom with ONE toilet was stopped up and overflowing by midmorning every, single day. While our cabin was very clean, the walls were very thin and we had a very loud group that partied every night till 3-4, sometimes 5am. We would call about them, told security would take care of it, and it never stopped. None of the rather rumpled officers ever smiled and said hello. The life jacket drill was pure torture...unorganized, crammed in a very hot theatre with the damned life jacket on for an hour. The whole process took several hours.

I've heard Carnival's newer ships are fairly nice but I'm sure not going to take a chance with them.

Chilepepper

Okay, I have to apologize. I came off sounding crass and crude about the walkers. Please let me explain. I was told by the Maitre'D that I could not have my early dining option, because the "elderly people generally prefer to eat early". I felt that we got bumped down to the 8:30 time because of that.
Also, when it came to getting in line to get off the ship at both ports, no matter how long or politely I stood in line, I was cut off by elderly people and run into with walkers -- all with no apologies. I was brought up with a lot of respect for the elderly, and I ALWAYS hold doors for them and go out of my way to assist, as does my husband. We just never heard a Thank you or I'm Sorry from any of them. On top of everything else, it made me cranky. On the other hand, I really met a lot of nice people who were very entertaining while waiting in those long lines.
I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I'm not used to being treated that rudely, but I ended up being the rude one. I did not meean to offend.

jacketwatch

OK. Apology accepted. However I have a question. When did you request your dining preference? This is usually done when booking and for us all of our dining preferences have been granted requesting this way. Did you wait until you got onboard? If so then for any cruise line it would be difficult. Most people request a preference w/ their booking. Request early, that is when you book and you should be fine, unless your booking is very close to the departure date.

Chilepepper

Actually, I booked the Feb trip in October and requested the early booking at that time. I learned my lesson after cruising the first time, when we requested the 8:00 PM seating. That was the only negative about that entire cruise -- it was just too late to eat so much rich food! So, when I booked this last cruise, the most important thing (other than ports of call) was dining early.

jacketwatch

Sorry to hear that. When we book its usually at least 6 mos. in advance so perhaps that is why we have gotten our preferences. Cheers, Larry

EugeneNY

On one of my prior cruises (Sea Princess, I think) we had a professional cruise reviewer dinner companion as a dinner table mate. By the way, if anyone is looking for a career change, this is IT - you get to travel for free, plus you get paid for writing cruise reviews (which a lot of travelers do for free anyway). Anyhow, in his own words, Carnival is for people "who can just afford a cruise." Carnival's prices are lower, which means (1) younger and less affluent (ok, poorer) clientelle and (2) lower level services. You get what you pay for.

surfingmomma

we've been on 9 cruises, the most recent being in May, 2007.
Carnival is on the "bottom" of my list.

Ditto for all those that say you get what you pay for, in my opinion.

FainaAgain

Oh, dining time is a problem, I can relate. When I do a search (cruised only once on RCCL) most of the time I don't have a choice!

Going with RCCL, I was assigned the late seating while I preferred the early one! But in that case, I was able to switch after the first dinner.

Chilepepper

I am ashamed to say that by the time dinner ended (about 9'ish) on both cruises, we were so full that we still have NO IDEA what the Midnight Buffets looked like!