Cruise / Carnival Cruise

Cruise / Carnival Cruise

We just went on a Carnival Cruise to the Western Caribbean on the Triumph. On the good side was the very attentive waiter in the main dining area. I checked information on the ship up to the morning we left. However, that information is not correct - I believe on purpose. For example, the information touts how good it is that cans of soda are available in vending for only $1.00. It is convenient. Of course, they were actually $1.50. That is a very different price. We went up to the internet cafe to check some emails quickly. The sign posted next to the computer says 40 cents per minute. Ok, we think. Now we are committed to using the internet. Once we sign in with our cabin an agreement screen pops up saying it is really 75 cents per minute. Well, we already made up our minds to do this so...and the internet is very slow. We end up taking 3 minutes to quickly check 1 email!

Then I print the bill. 75 cents per minute for 3 minutes + 3.95 one time connection fee! What?!??! These are just samples of how they get you convinced of one thing then switch the price after you are committed. If I didn't like the price increase of $1.00 to $1.50 I had no alternative. Cans of cola at the bar or restaurant were $1.50 or $2.50 depending on the help since they were not very well trained. Actually, cans were $1.50 and 20 oz bottles should have been $2.50. All drinks brought on board from land were confiscated! Yep, don't want you bringing on a mini-bottle of tequila from Mexico when they can charge you $6.95 for a margarita with far less alcohol. They also had duty free shops on board with pretty good prices, except...in the USA, a citizen is allowed up to $800 of goods duty free, after that you pay tax to customs! So, the salespeople touting that you can buy a $2000 ring for $1200 are wrong or misleading people. Yes, it is that price if you don't declare it - a crime, but... The pool on deck was awful for us. I had been on Cunard cruises before which are English and more sedate. This pool on Carnival had a live 3 man band playing at above rock concert level - and they weren't that good. So good luck trying to read or even talk on deck. We had to go 4 decks up and away from the band to even sit out without getting a headache. They also had loud hip-hopish music playing in the casual dining area. What's wrong with half volume - people were almost yelling to talk to each other. Also, although the service in the main dining room was very good - the cuts of beef were awful - the fattiest bad meat ever. YUCK! They sold gold by the inch (chains) on board. It claimed 18K gold. I have an 18K gold bracelet already and their metal looked lighter - more like 10K. I asked them about the gold chains. They said it is pure 18K gold mixed with another metal (forget the name). Hmmm, an analogy for them: pure alcohol mixed with 80% water is no longer pure alcohol - doesn't taste the same either? So your pure 18K gold is not 18K, but a much lower grade. That is why it can be offered for the prices they have. Kind of deceptive!!! The final straw was the cruise director. He was kind of funny in the week's entertainment, but the day before we finished the cruise his true colors shone brightly. He mentioned that we should take 2 minutes to fill out the comment card. The comment card actually only has 4 choices for each question and only 3 lines at the end for comments.

The questions are very specific to get certain response. The 4 choices are Exceeded Expectations, Met Expectations, Opportunity for Improvement, Not Applicable. Well NA doesn't count. And Met or Exceeded Expectations would be good. However, the cruise director said that if on average everything was good, we should mark Exceeded. If it is just exactly as we thought it was, and you are used to 24 food and pampering, put Met Expectations. Opportunity for Improvement would be only if it was a disaster on the order of the Titanic.

Also, he said that there are 1100 crew working for us and don't mark them all down just because you had a bad experience with 1 (maybe your waiter spilled wine on your new shirt and you didn't like the way he handled it). Well, heck, why doesn't he just fill out the cards for us. Basically, Carnival can honestly say that 99-100% of all cruisers rate them as Met or Exceeded expectations since the cards and verbal directions force that. But the results are meaningless. I also didn't like the automatic 15% tip for EVERYTHING. If you wanted to alter the amount you had to wait in a giant line the last day of the cruise when we were in dock. No way would someone wait in a 2 or 3 hour line to change 15% to 10% (or whatever) rather than just wait the 1 hour or so to get the hell off the ship! Note: All shore excursions were very overpriced. The same excursions are waiting on the docks for you from independents or even the same companies. A $109 snorkel through Carnival (who contracts local firms) is $79 on the dock from a local firm. The final insult Andrew M Click this link to e-mail the above consumer: Email User Consumer