Carnival Cruise Lines
Horrible Food, lines, not many shows RIPOFF

This is the letter I have sent them:
We recently took a cruise with your cruise line and have mixed feelings about ever using Carnival again.

We booked a 7 day cruise that started on October 9, out of Miami on the Carnival Victory. We typically fly or drive whenever we travel and decided for our honeymoon we would take a cruise. Our friends and family had told us how much of a good time we would have and how great the food was, so we were very excited.

Before we ever booked the cruise, we started having problems with the pushiness of your salespeople. When my fiance mentioned the idea of a cruise, I went on your website to see what kind of cruises you had. I immediately started receiving emails from your site almost daily. And the following day, a salesperson called. I did not request this and was at the time only in the looking phase. I explained my irritation to my husband to be and immediately canceled my membership to your website. My finacee went online and joined your site (he doesn't check his email and is never home, so he knew he wouldn't be bothered by your site.)

We booked the cruise and a room on the Lido deck with a balcony. The day after our wedding we headed to Miami to catch our cruise. We were told that the ship set sail at 4 P.M. And so we arrived at around noon. The building had no circulation and soon my husband was sweating and becoming irritated. The greeter was friendly, but most everyone else was grumpy and demanding.

After nearly an hour in line, we finally made it onto the ship. We were happy that our room was already available to us and found it to be clean, and the linens to be soft and comfy.

Food
We went to the eating area on that floor and got into what we thought was the only line for foodwhich happened to be quite long. We got plates of burgers, hot dogs and fries and sat down to relax. The burgers were average, the fries below average.

We soon saw a couple of people coming out of a back room and we went exploring and found the Mediterranean Restaurant and pizzeria. That night we came back and ate at the Mediterranean Restaurant overlooking the water. The view was nice, the food disappointing. We were told by friends and family that the cruise would have good food, but instead we found it to be very generic, the meat flavorless or greasy and so forth.

The eggs were loaded with butter. The bacon extremely fatty. The danishes were good. The fruit seemed all fresh, except the bananas. One day my husband went to get one and found all of the bunch to be split and black inside.

The pizzas were ok, but generally a very cheap pizza, not even as good as the ones they serve to school age kids.

The ice cream and yogurt was fine. Would have been nice to have toppings like hot fudge. The rest of the desserts were always hit and miss, either they were wonderful or extremely bland.

The carved meats were usually bland and very rarely were there and well done.

The lines were horrid. And if something like shrimp ran out, the line got even longer while everyone waited and waited for the shrimp to be filled again.

Many a night we found only one side of the restaurant open and a line formed. Many nights we also found that the door next to the line to get out to the rest of the ship was closed off. This seemed ridiculous, we would get to the door see a sign and have to turn around and go to the side where there was no food. Not only was this annoying, but it created a lot of extra traffic in between the fruit and dessert table with people coming in and going to the opposite side for food, or turning around and trying to find an open exit.

We did not want to dress up and go to formal nights, so two of our assigned eating days kept us from the main dining room. We did manage to go two nights. The last night the pork chops with mole sauce were good and the chocolate cake was extremely rich.

The gumbo however was thin. I think I found only one small chunk of meat, and very little rice. The souffl had an overwhelming egg flavor. The servers very friendly and helpful, I believe our table was 508, upstairs in the Pacific dining room.

Drinks
I was amazed that the dining hall had such small cups. It forced us to refill them 2-3 times a meal. And after meal hours, if you wanted a drink you were forced to walk past the first drink machine which was closed to one that was farther back. Didn't seem reasonable.

It would have been better to had one of the front drink fountains open 24 hours as well. And maybe have a drink fountain in the room with the coke machines near the rooms. I probably would have ordered room service less if I would have had easier access to something to drink. You should really also make bigger cups available. Heck, you guys served alcohol in bigger glasses than the glasses we were given at dinner. Or have servers coming around giving refills while you are eating.

The lemonade and fruit punch were good. We were also surprised by how good your water tasted.

I found it a bit tacky to sell wrist bands for Coke. We were only on the boat for a full 3 days, and the fee for Cokes was outrageous.

We aren't big drinkers, but did buy one of the souvenir cups and got a couple of refills during the week. However, it seemed like your cruise line was being very self serving in taking away alcohol that was bought onshore. Why would you do that, other than to force your customers in racking up a bill at your bar? And you guys seem to promote drinking, quite heavily, on your ship. There's always someone offering mixed drinks, a drink of the day and even happy hours. Plus tons of bars, but no comedy clubs.

Room Service
On the second day I was told by the Information Desk (very friendly guy with an Australian accent) that Room Service was free, so we began using that about once a day. The first time we called, the food came within 15 minutes and the sandwiches were excellent. The second time, the food came in about 30 minutes, food still pretty good. Plus we got to relax in our room, not having to wait in long lines, only to then find a table and then silverware.

When we went to Grand Cayman we had to meet in the Caribbean Lounge at 7:15 am so we put the sign on our door the night before requesting Continental breakfast to be served between 6:30 and 6:45am. At 6:45am, my husband looked out the door and saw another room being giving their food and he called to check on ours. The woman said it was on its way. At 7:00, we called again and were told once again it was on its way.By 7:05 we gave up and made our way down to the Caribbean Lounge. If we would have known that breakfast was not going to come, I would have ran over to the main restaurant and grabbed some danishes.

After this incident, we ordered food on two additional nights and never received silverware. We would ask for no mayonnaise and our request would be ignored. The last night we ordered room service it took almost an hour to receive it. We made sure to request silverware, and thankfully got it.

Room Stewards
We appreciated having our room cleaned twice a day. Jerry and Pavlo always smiled and were extremely friendly in the hallway. We locked our self out once and Jerry was extremely nice about it and came to our rescue rather quickly.

Shows
For the most part, we enjoyed the music shows and even listened to the travel talks. Dana was a hoot.

We were extremely disappointed by the time and dates of the R-rated comedy show. There were 4 shows in all. Three of which were scheduled for midnight when we were to be at port first thing the next morning. Luckily the last midnight show we were at sea the next day and managed to catch it. The comedian was hilarious and my husband absolutely loved him. We had hoped that you would have had a comedy club on board so that we could have occasionally caught a comedy show during the day while at sea.

Misc.
We decided to relax in the hot tub one night and went to the one right before all the food and next to the stage on Lido deck. We were extremely disappointed to find that the hot tub was barely warm. We asked another newlywed about it and they said that they were also disappointed by this, but they head heard that the hot tub at the very front of the boat on Lido deck was actually warm. We never bothered to try it, it was always packed and we didn't want to go through the effort of changing clothes again.

My husband went down to the Purser's Desk to get change to do laundry one day and was given a hard time because he wanted to use his Sign and Sail Card to get the coins. The woman asked why he couldn't just give her cash. Considering we were told the Sign and Sail cards were for our convenience so that we wouldn't have to carry cash around, this was kind of ridiculous. My husband ended up just giving her $10 in cash. (We hadn't brought much cash with us, and the $84 for parking ate through a large part of what we had.)

Also, our new luggage which we bought for this cruise received a dent to one of the metal stability pieces inside. Likely from the handling of the luggage after we dropped it off and the time it took to get to our room.

Also, we found that a large number of passengers on the boats were newlyweds and yet their wasn't many activities targeting us. On our last day at sea there was one session of the Newlywed game, but that was it. We would have liked to have had more activities targeting us.

The employees in the spa were extremely friendly and always smiling. I ended up paying for a package and then paying for my husband to go up and get a shave and a massage. While he was in the spa I decided to go down to the casino and do a little bit of gambling. I took my sail and sign card to the desk and asked for $10 in quarters. I was told that their was a $20 minimum AND a $. 60 charge. Come on. I am coming to gamble, realizing that I am likely going to lose all my money on the machines as it is and you guys are charging me even more to lose my money in your machines. It wasn't very much, but it was the point of the matter.

I asked my husband about it and he said that noone had told him their was a fee for getting money to gamble when we went gambling in the casino twice before. I had been at the desk with him when we got money before and had not heard anything mentioned. When we got our check at the end of the cruise, we realize we were charged for taking out money.

Getting on the boat and off the boat we were in warm rooms with no circulation and people yelling at us or in general bad moods. I'm not sure if we will ever do a Carnival Cruise again. My father, who has taken several cruises asked how our honeymoon went and we told him about how disappointed we were in the lack of choices for entertainment and how greasy the food was. He said that he had always found cruise food to be excellent, but of course, he had never taken a Carnival Cruise.

Your cruise line seems like it would be fun if you like to drink a lot, every night and have a group of girlfriends to drink with you. But I think if my travel group of girls goes on a cruise we will try a different cruise line.

Company: Carnival Cruise Lines
Country: USA
State: Florida
City: Miami
Address: 3655 N. W. 87th Ave

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