Around 4/05, I received the infamous $1600 voucher and called into the one time only phone call. So, as not to miss the deal which looked sensational, I too put down $698 like many of you had done and didn't bother to start researching anything since I knew I had 18mths.
Now, that I wanted to take the vacation on 8/06, after researching on the web, I realized that the hotels, including the cruise ship are beyond substandard. On the voucher, the impression is given that you will get either the Imperial Majesty or the Carnival. And I'm sure most of us that purchased this rip-off thought that we were going on the Carnival.
However, the cruise reviews of the Regal Empress swayed me totally. There's complaints left and right about how old and crappy this ship is (a 50yr old liability that should be retired). Upon seeing all the bad reviews, I called the 1-888-217-2620 customer service number whereby I spoke to this guy Ranjie. I told him that I had read alot of negative reviews about this ship and wanted to change to Carnival.
He told me that it would cost me as follows, $450 to upgrade, $345 additional for the child, $200 upgrade costs to an outside room and then of course, I still owed them the rest of the $698— bringing the grand total to $1693 (and if you add the $698 that I had already deposited then it came to $2391 for 2 adults and a child.
I decided to research with Carnival and they quoted me an outside room for 3 on their level 3/4 deck at $978.85! Also the hotel rooms cost in the vicinity of $62-$75 if you have AAA and a sub-compact car for a week could not possibly total to $2391! After computing the costs, I began to think that this looked like a scam.
After all if I was paying another $995 to transfer to Carnival. It didn't seem right that $1396 of the rest of the monies was going towards 5 nights hotel and 1 subcompact car.
I am now going to book Carnival on my own (since I owe my family a vacation) and follow the letter of Arpine, North Hollywood (submitted to the website on 5/22/06) with some minor changes to file a letter of refund.
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