Will never go Carnival again!
 

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 :-)

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.

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.

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.

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! :)

Chilepepper - I highly recommend that you go and just spend a week on Grand Caymen. I've been there on a cruise ship and have also gone and spent a week there, and it is such a wonderful, relaxing place - with such beautiful beaches, and great snorkeling/diving - it is definitely worth a vacation there alone. One of my favorite Caribbean islands... AND they speak English!! :)

Actually it is politically affiliated with Great Britain in some manner or another. The beaches are great and its a very beautiful island to be sure. Be prepared for some of the highest prices in the Carribean however, esp. for dining.

Debi and jacketwatch, that is exactly what my husband and I want to do. We fell in love with the place on our short stays. On this last cruise we did manage to hit the 7 mile beach, and brought our own snorkeling gear. We swam pretty far out and found the most amazing reef! We were completely surrounded by very curious, beautiful fish!!! Loved it.

I have traveled on 9 Carnival cruises, The Paradise (when it was non smoking), the Jubilee (now retired), twice on the Victory, twice on the Legend, the Sensation and twice on the Inspiration. Does that add up to 9?? The Victory and the Legend are newer balcony ships and are very nice. The Paradise, Inspiration and Sensation are all older (I think about 10 years) sister ships. Except for the lack of baloneys, I don't see that major of a difference. Sure the ships look a little more worn, but not that bad. In 9 cruises the worst that has ever happened was one piece of luggage was 24 hours late because the tag had came off. I'll be leaving 10/8/07 on the Inspiration and 12/8/07 on the Liberty. I will continue to sail Carnival. They are the fun ships.

Actually Carnival has a pretty loyal fan base it seems. Our Carnival cruise, albeit just one, on the Destiny was fine. No issues. I'd go again.

Most international flight crews can pick out a Carnival (Med.) cruise person on a flight-they are the ones who have no idea where they are going on the cruise or what they are planning on seeing. Very sad!

Have you researched that with a survey of intl. flight crews? :S-

Somebody mentioned that Carnival's tenders were slow and the ship was late in port.
FYI, tender service is provided by contractors hired by port authority and have nothing to do with Carnival or any other cruise line. Any ship can be late or even miss ports for various reasons. If you "will never go Carnival again" because of that and other issues that happen with any cruise line, you may as well abandon cruising all together.

I would sail with the Sapphire Princess again in a heartbeat but we had a fiasco of a time tendering into Juneau. Clearly the staff was ill prepared to tender in so many passengers when we arrived in Juneau to find all the dock slots taken. Things happen sometimes no matter what ship you are on.

I HAVE READ WITH GREAT INTEREST THE COMMENTS ON CCL - WE TRAVEL A GREAT DISTANCE TO JOIN CRUISES IN THE U.S. WITH CCL - IN AUGUST OUR FIRST CLOSER TO HOME CRUISE -WE BOARD THE CARNIVAL FREEDOM FOR TWO 12 DAY CRUISES OF THE MED.
THIS BEING CRUISE 9 AND 10.
THE EXPERIENCES FOR US HAS BEEN NOTHING BUT POSITIVE. THAT'S WHY WE KEEP GOING BACK FOR MORE! I CANNOT COMPARE CCL TO OTHER CRUISE COMPANIES AS WE HAVE BEEN HAPPY WITH EVERY HOLIDAY EXPERIENCE SO WE HAVE CONTINUED TO CRUISE WITH THEM.
YES-SOME FOLK (ESPECIALLY THE YOUNG ONES)CAN BE BOISTEROUS - BUT THERE IS ALWAYS A QUIET SPOT TO BE FOUND IF WE WANT-
OUR VERANDAH CABINS HAVE BEEN CLEAN AND SPACIOUS- THE SERVICE AND FRIENDLIENESS OF THE CREW HAS BEEN EXCELLENT - AND WE CERTAINLY HAVE NEVER HAD A PROBLEM WITH THE STANDARD OF FOOD, EXCEPT THAT THERE IS FAR TOO MUCH.
THEREFORE I AM SOMEWHAT SURPRISED AT THE OVERALL NEGATIVE COMMENTS - HOWEVER TO EACH THEIR OWN - SOME FOLK WILL NEVER BE SATISFIED - NO MATTER WHAT - PERSONALLY WE CANT WAIT TO CRUISE ON CARNIVAL AGAIN....AND NO WE ARE IN NO WAY CONNECTED TO CARNIVAL -WE ARE JUST FOLK WHO ENJOY A HAPPY FUN ENVIRONMENT FOR A HOLIDAY.

I can't even begin to read a post that is written in all cap letters. Mcfam, you lost your audience.

With all due respect emd please speak for yourself only. You are not the entire audience. I see his point despite the caps though I wish it wasn't in caps as well.

mcfam,
I am disappointed that you posted "some people just can't be pleased". From the hundreds of Fodorite posts I have read, it seems to me as if we are in general very adventurous people who are looking for a great vacation to get away from the stresses in our lives.
Are you implying that we should not expect good service for our PAID vacations? My husband and I are SO laid back and happy go luck and easy to please, that your post made me laugh. Maybe I expected more from Carnival after having had a great experience on the Miracle. Silly me. I must be high maintenance . .