My wife, myself, our 16-year old son and his best friend all went on our very first cruise on the Carnival Sensation 6/24-20/07 to the Bahamas. My wife and I have been all over the Caribbean and internationally but we have always flown. Time to try out a short 4-day cruise to find out if we are cruise people or not.
Started out well, drove from Tampa to Port Canaveral without incident, check-in went fairly smooth, baggage got to us fairly late, around 5 PM. No problem as we familiarized ourselves with where things were, how to get around, and the apparently mandatory safety meeting on the hot, hot Lido deck. Hamburgers were REALLY greasy, fries actually pretty good but the other prepared lunch looked even less appetizing. Cabin was to be expected, (boys were in the one next door) cozy, with a small but functional bathroom.
First the good news:
1) Waiter at our formal dinner was as friendly and attentive as could be. Even though we only went twice as the food was decent (lobster is always a welcome sight!) I tipped him $20 for his superior service.
2) Pizza was very good along with the adjacent deli sandwich area
3) The 80's show was very entertaining along with the adult comedians.
4) Bed was very comfortable, slept like a rock most nights
5) Played roulette and had a lot of fun with most of the dealers and players, but lost about $350 over 3 nights
6) Hit for about $250 on the slots at Atlantis in a little over an hour, made up for roulette
Now the fairly bad news:
1) Like we said before, the Lido deck food for the most part was less than appealing or tasty and the staff was for the most part not much better for service (appeared totally apathetic for the most part).
2) We saw kids as young as about six being watched by slightly older siblings/friends as late as after midnight, a lot of the kids not well behaved (run wild, run free!)
3) Didn't hit for jack on the ship slots
4) We will never go to the Bahamas again Freeport is a dump and in Nassau we only went to Atlantis which was nice, but for us, we will take Aruba anytime for wonderful people, nightlife and shopping.
Now for the NIGHTMARE!
Went to Atlantis resort for the day and paid the $100 each to use the facilities and pool (lazy river was amazing!). Left about 11:30 AM and got back around 8 PM and guess what? WE WERE ROBBED! We had $850 stolen out of the cabin safe from my wife's wallet. Now the REAL nightmare begins! Neither of us remembers exactly if we locked the safe, OK, if $850 is the price I pay for being stupid, so be it. Thank God my wife's expensive jewelry and watches were also not taken (too hard to hide I guess). The way Carnival treated us afterward is a lesson in being uncaring and screwing the customer. We immediately told the cabin staff to call security and a manager and it took almost 20 minutes for them to show up! One security officer came down, spoke to us, told us to calm down, and then directed us to the purser's desk to fill out forms! SAY WHAT??? So filling out forms is the most important thing at this point, huh? All right, off to the pursers to fill out forms and another hour goes by (not that we were really expecting Sherlock Holmes to come and solve the case). Finally the security officer returns with his colleague and they proceed to tear our room apart looking for the missing money! As they are tossing our room (actually twice and three times) they are also insinuating (3 times totally) that maybe our son and his friend stole the money! Let's see Sherlock we saw the money before we left and the boys were with us all day. Hmmm. My wife lost it and proceeded to let them know what she thought of their family tree.
OK Mr. Security, what happens now after you have made US feel like the criminals? Oh, we will continue the investigation and you can stop by the pursers office later and find out the results. When can I go to the pursers office to find out? Uh, later tonight sometime.
When, 10 minutes, 3 AM, WHEN???
Oh, later, maybe a couple of hours.
To the pursers desk 2 hours later where she disappears for 20 minutes to write up a letter instructing us to call Guest Relations (another oxymoron) when we return to port. We subsequently follow-up with security the following day to find out 3 people have access to our room and they won't give us any info as to what they did to investigate these three. Pretty much vacation is ruined now with 2 days left. It was priceless, however, to see the look on our stewards face as my wife (hell hath no fury!) let him and his 2 assistants know (many times over) that one of them was a THIEF and to not come near our room for fear of never fathering children again! There was nothing more to be said.
Coming back to port on a Thursday, I called Guest Relations and of course got no follow-up until the third time calling and getting a nice but, obviously, impotent supervisor to take control of our case. After five days of NOTHING, we were finally notified that we would be given 15% off our NEXT cruise (fat chance, sister!) and a $50 on-board credit for each person. Why not just take that off on the cruise from hell we just finished as WE WILL NEVER TRAVEL ON CARNIVAL AGAIN? Oh no, we can't do that. Why was I not surprised they were the kind of company that would give a starving dog a rubber bone!
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