I am writing in regards to a recent cruise we purchased with Carnival.
After have taken several cruises on different lines in the last several years, we decided to try Carnival. The booking process seemed smooth at the beginning. We had book an interior with a Guarantee. No problem. However when we received our documents a cabin had been assigned. I immediately called our booking agent and voiced my concerns. She called Carnival and they told her this was standard practice when a cruise begins to fill. O.K. I supposes I can understand that.
We began our vacation with a two night stay in Miami. It was wonderful, and we were both looking forward to a luxurious cruise with you. Soon after we arrived on board it began to sour.
When we got to our room we called for room service and waited, as the phone rang, not on hold, for thirty minutes. Finally someone answered and it took another twenty-five minutes before anyone arrived. We have both worked in service-industry related jobs before and know that sometimes "this type of thing happens" so we laughed it off.
At this time we began putting our luggage away and I noticed that several lights were out in our cabin. (six out of eleven!) No biggie! I unscrewed one and gave to the room person who was in the hallway when we left that evening and explained what the situation was and what room we were in.
When we arrived at dinner we were greeted by a head waiter who seemed very helpful, at first. After the appetizers, main courses seemed to take forever. Our waiter came to our table and assured us it was not his fault our entrees were slow, but it was the fault of the cooks, the kitchen, and who knows who else.
Again, I understand a swamped kitchen, but I would never imagine a waiter going to a table and passing-the-buck on the kitchen. At that point I felt embarrassed to be in that seat. Our Entrees arrived and he gave me her order and mine to her. We switched, it just seemed easier. This happened four more times throughout the week.
Our fisrt day in port was San Juan. It was beautiful and more fun than we had hoped for. When the ship docked there were announcements as to disembrking procedure and the basic Who, What, Where, When, etc. We came back and got ready for another fun day in St Thomas. We called for a 7:00 am wake-up call and went to sleep. We woke up 8:30am wondering what the deal was with the wake-up call. It turns out it sometimes didn't work and, as we were told "isn't the best alarm" We wondered if we were in port yet so we called the pursers desk and asked if thay had begun disembarking.
The person at the desk, apparently, did not know what that meant. He told us to listen for announcements. We were familiar with announcements, such as those made the day before. We listened... We waited... We finally went upstairs where we discovered that we had been in port since 7:30 (?) and had been disembarking for an hour. We were told by the excursion director (?) that they normally don't make announcements when they arrive in port in the morning, and was dumbfounded that the pursers desk didn't actually know what was happening.
We came back from a fun day in St Thomas and had some food. We decided to go back to the room and get some rest, I wanted a coffee and aproached one of the coffee counter to ask for a paper cup. I was told, NO.!?!
This was THE first time I had ever experienced someone on a cruise telling me no to anything reasonable. I mean honestly, the cruises I've been on before you could ask for organic bees honey pankaces on a stick with marmalade imported from Thailand served with a porcupine quill and two Ostrich eggs over easy with a Basil cream sauce, and Damnit! They would try. At least try to accomidate the guest. NO
I got NO
Paper cup please?
NO
I went back to my room and counted Six lights out. I was now having a bad time.
The Final day at sea was the best though. We had run into a coule that booked-in right next to us. We are from Michigan and they were from Minnisota, right? So we began talking about our experience. He began by telling me of how, when they arric=ved, they were taken not to the room they reserved, but up four floors to deck six. They were somewhat worried at first then they opened the door and found it was a room with a balcony. WOW!
Wow is right.
They had not book a reserved room.in fact, when I asked him about this what he said was "we were so suprised at the new room I quickly checked my documentation to see if we had been charged with a guarantee. The paperwork had no indication of this. So I called my travel agent to see what she did when she booked it and she said that no guarantee was booked with the cruise. You got lucky." I guess so they received what we paid for. I cannot express to you the deep disgust and disappointment I felt at this point. I felt swindled, honestly. How does this happen? Is this type of randomness a company guideline?
The following night, we discussed the tipping procedure, as some of our table guests had not been on a cruise before. I said to them " Do any of you know what our waiter's name is? Any of the table staff? Any of the Cruise Staff?"
No one answered.
As far as I know room 2215 on the Triumph still has six lights out.
Timothy
Traverse City, Michigan
U.S.A.
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