Thursday March 23rd we showed up at noon to get on board to the MS Sensation (Carnival Cruise Line) half way through this long maze like line the line stopped, we were told that they are delaying the embarkment process beause they were running out of room to put people that have already registered. To make a long story short, after waiting 10 hours (with few notices with any real information regarding what was actually going on) we finally got onboard. We later found out that the ship wasnt ready for a scheduled coast guard inspection since it had just got back from a 6 month tour in the gulf housing Katrina victims. We were told that they spent millions of dollars to renovate the ship to have it ready for the public. Apparently not enough though, with the number of broken things on the ship, it looked as if they fixed noting from its time at sea. The following were what we saw on our trip: dining room had hundreds of bulbs out, peeling paint all over the ship, mens rooms with caution tape over them for the full trip, shower head kept falling off everytime we took a shower, broken bar stools vice gripped and caution taped off in the main atrium, leaky roof in the plaza lounge, pool slide out of commision the whole trip, and the pool needed to be drained after the first day, juice machines spilling out onto the floors two days in a row, ice cream machine down to be constantly fixed, a bar being closed due to being renovated right beside the main pool, and card room closed (looked like it had never even opened).
We also later found out that the ship took local travel agents and the carnival sensation crew out the night before to celebrate the inaugural sail. I guess they should have spent that time to get the ship ready for the inspection. The worst part was that they would get on the intercom and make an update on our progress, and the annoucement was so misleading, they said "we are guaranteed by the coast guard to have an update in 20 minutes" 2.5 hours later food was started to be wheeled out, we knew then at 6pm that we were going to be there awhile. We didnt get another annoucement till after 8pm!!! Both port of calls were delayed. Some excursions were canceled with no compensation and some were delayed.
The only compensation we were offered for the whole experience was 50$ credit per person and 25% off our next cruise. Who would want to cruise with Carnival again. I will say the crew tried very hard to make up any bit of salvation they could muster, with no avail the exp was miserable. It took 10 hours to get on the boat and 3 hours to get off, apparently the first group of people to be let off the boat were non-us citizens (suposedly to aid in the speed of the disembarkation process for the rest of the passengers) it took 2 hours for them to get their affairs in order and to disembark, while it took less than 45 mintues for the rest of the boat. My thought... Let the rest of us off first and while the non-US citizens get their affairs in order the rest of us will already be gone. After the first night it was almost impossible for carnival to redeem themselves in my eyes, it just seemed that they werent willing to do much for our inconveniances.
0 comments