Never again on Carnival

[Shorty]

I have been on 4 Carnival cruises, but never again. I just got back from the 5 day Caribbean on the Sunrise out of PortMiami. Booked it specifically for the ports, and because it was my birthday. Took my 18 year old granddaughter and adult son with me. First cruise for both of them.

I WILL NEVER GO ON A CARNIVAL CRUISE AGAIN!

Yes, I said it. I've been a Carnival fan for years and was REALLY looking forward to this. Overall, ship was nice, crew was awesome, activities were fun and food was good (not as good as in the past, but good) but overall, CARNIVAL FAILED.

I am not a complainer, but here goes:

1. Randomly moved my room, an "upgrade", but didn't move my son's. (Same booking, right across the hall from each other). I called (after some detective work to find a phone number). On hold for 45 minutes. Customer service person literally said "so what do you want me to do about it? Everything is sold out". So I'm on a different deck on opposite ends of the ship. Finally resolved this prior to sailing, but it was expensive. Not close but on the same deck.

2. Changed ports of call. I paid for a trip to Jamaica and Grand Cayman. I got a trip to Jamaica and Nassau. Nassau is the armpit of the carribean (actually Freeport is, but close). I understand that places are still closed, but no refund or credit for a later cruise. It was Nassau or lose your money... in 1981 I was literally kidnapped and dumped by a taxi driver in Nassau. Not a fan of that port.

3. Randomly charged my granddaughter's room card $42.02 as we were leaving the ship. I had checked balances at 7am and we were all square, and she didn't charge anything after that. But that popped up. I paid it in cash because they were holding us hostage. 

4. Our next door neighbors in our "upgraded" cabin smoked weed on their balcony 24/7. They started before we left port in Miami and kept it up day and night. Last bowl was as we docked back in Miami. They had quite the thing going, with all their cruising group coming in and out of their main party room to smoke on the balcony, with fans set up to divert the smoke out to sea. Except it didn't. It came on to our balcony and was sucked into our room.
Of course I complained. To Guest Services. To security. To cabin steward. To Guest Services. To Security.... over and over. We got a letter from the captain saying they were strict with their policy and something would be done. 
Nothing was.
We could not use our balcony, and eventually our room reeked so badly we had to go out on the upper deck by the spa deck to sleep. 

5. Our debit cards were frozen so I ended up paying all our fees in cash. Everything settled including the $42.92 mentioned above.  I thought it was the bank, but no, it was Carnival. Home for 4 days now, 2 days til Christmas and my $$ is still being held hostage by Carnival.

 

So sail. It's fun, safe, a good deal and I will do it again. 
But not on Carnival.

#carnivalcruise #CarnivalCruiseLine #carnivalsunrise #carnivalfail

[Emrys]

Hey @Shorty, so sorry about your experience on the Carnival Sunrise. I would also be annoyed at some of those things, especially that it was the first cruise for the younger ones. I'm surprised they never did anything about your neighbors! Grand Cayman has been closed for a while to cruise ships, so you should have had plenty of notice on that. Maybe it was all due to COVID and a lack of crew, who knows! Which cruise line will be next then?

[CrazyCruiser]

#1)  Never book a cruise for the ports. Hope for the best and plan for the worst. Any number of things can cause you to miss a port: weather, a sick or injured passenger, civil unrest in the island... I could go on and on. It is for that reason that your cruise contract states that they can change or skip ports at anytime. All they owe you is the port tax back.  And fyi, Grand Cayman is a tender port, if winds are high it is always canceled. You should have done some research before booking.

#2) It was a cruise to JAMAICA for goodness sakes! Did you really think there would be no weed smoking going on?   Some of the excursions even include marijuana samples, like the Bob Marley plantation tour.  

#3)  Carnival puts a hold on blocks of your money attached to your debit card, as do ALL cruise lines. It starts with an initial amount, and then they will put a hold on more as the cruise goes on and you spend more.  Again, this is in the cruise FAQ's.  All you had to do was read it.  

Changes to your cabin assignment are infrequent, but sometimes necessary. Would you sleep in a cabin that someone had just got sick in?  What if the last passenger broke the T.V or clogged the toilet??

Your reasons for anger towards Carnival are not really warranted. 

[Carol]

Been a fan for years but only been on 4 Carnival cruises? Hmmmm, but sorry you had a lousy cruise, don't have a clue why they would upgrade your room (without notice?) knowing that you were travelling with someone else in another room close to you, did you not link your rooms together for dining, etc?  Our Carnival Rep (Erik Rojas, ext 82880) goes above and beyond for us with stuff like that! Its always better to call and talk in person and work this stuff out prior to the actual cruise...  Yeah, changing ports sucks but it happens, storms, COVID, high winds, etc., you just have to go with the flow......

[Della Sinko]

We have been on 20 cruise ships, 17 with Carnival.  The only thing I found concerning is the money issue. Don, don’t they have a signature on the charge slip? We always use cash for the “bank” and add to it when necessary.  I am hoping that hasn’t changed. You can have any of those issues on any cruise line.  We went on RC and had an upgrade which was the ONLY good thing on that trip. They gave us a balcony which was nice but the food was not so good, etc.  Once, we did go to a port that they SHOULD have closed due to huge waves, it was a tendered port and getting out of that tender to get back on the ship was challenging to say the least.  Then we were stuck in port for awhile while they fixed the door that was damaged by the tender slamming into it so badly that the hatch couldn’t be closed and waves were pouring in.  And Disney was a great cruise, but a 3 night cruise was so expensive it was INSANE! You can find issues with every cruise line if you take enough of them.  Carnival remains our go to, and we leave on our next one on the 22nd of this month and I can’t wait!