I embarked on a Carnival cruise 2 years ago. Actually the boat never left the port, as my friends and I were escorted off of the ship shortly after we got on because we were underaged. How did this happen? Our travel agent from i-cruise.com, Mr. Jason Hicks, booked 7 of our tickets to Carnival.
My friend Cindy handled everything through email with Mr. Hicks. After reading the Carnival website, she concluded that perhaps we may not go on this cruise because of an age restriction. Anyone under 21 must be accompanied by a gaurdian of the age of at least 25. Cindy asks Mr. Hicks if the age restrictions were true (3 people in our party were under 21 and no one was the age of 25). He said no, and everyone can get on board, and that they NEVER check for ages (I have this in writing via email to boot). She asks him two times after this to confirm that it was okay since of us were the age of 25 (I and another girl were the eldest at the age of 22), and he confirmed yes it was perfectly fine.
Everyone but myself was from Washington and myself hailed from Los Angeles. The port was in L.A. So my father and I picked everyone up from the airport and then we went to the port together. Once we got aboard, we ate lunch. Then we go to our rooms and then we hear a page 3 members of our party. They have to go to the purser's office and they tell them that they must get off board because they're too young. We're confused because Jason told us it was fine. We protest because we have paid in full already (around $500 each) and Carnival said that we probably could not get a refund because it was the travel agent who booked it. They told us that we'd have to get the refund from i-cruise.
See that's the loophole. I-cruise does not have the money, it was send to Carnival, on my credit card it went to Carnival but it was i-cruise's fault for misleading us. Of course at this point everyone is angry since we lost about $500 each AND my friends from Washington have to all stay at my house for a whole week. We try calling Jason, and he says he'll look into it but really does NOTHING for us. He promises that we'll get a future cruise certificate, but I haven't seen ANYTHING and I've left countless voice mails with him and his supervisor.
A year later I file this case to SMALL CLAIMS but unfortuently because they are in another state, I was not able to. So I filed it against Carnival, and I lost because it was i-cruise who was at fault. This may be a unique situation but the bottom line is WE WERE RIPPED OFF AND I CAN'T GET MY MONEY BACK. We're screwed over bad by i-cruise.com. Take Caution when dealing with their money grubbing agents!!!
~ Mad in California
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