cosmo cruiser

We have friends flying in from Indiana to sail with us on Sunday on the Splendor. My only concern is if they let us sail but end up sending us to Key West and the Bahamas? Not going to be a happy cruiser if that is where they say we have to go. Does anyone know if they totally change the itinerary of we have the option of cancelling with a full refund? I would rather cancel and go at a later time than spend 7 days going to Key West and the Bahamas.

Thank you to each of you for the kind words and all the paryers. We are finally back home and thankfully my husband is making progress toward recovery from a very rough experience. We are very blessed. We got back on Feb 18th and my husband was finally back home on Feb 25th.

 

We sailed on Carnival Splendor out of Miami on 1/11/15. Kenny had a heart attack right after sitting down to dinner the very first night. We had ordered and introduced ourselves to our wait staff when he started to feel ill. We ended up going by wheelchair (one of the waiters RAN while pushing him in a wheelchair) to the infirmary where he received amazing care in a matter of minutes. The medical staff was professional and totally knew what they were doing. We were both very impressed. It was determined in short order that he needed to be evacuated and fast. We were heading to two days at sea before our first port so he wouldn't be able to get the care he was going to need on board. We were medi vac off the ship around midnight onto a smaller boat for a long, rough, and windy ride to Freeport. Carnival diverted the ship as close to Freeport as possible even though we were not scheduled to stop in the Bahamas. Once there we were taken to a local hospital so he could be stabilized. We were there for 12 hours and then we were medi vac by air ambulance to Ft Lauderdale to the Broward Heart Hospital which is a level 1 trama center.

While the stay in Freeport was brief and the staff was wonderful you do not want to be in the hospital there. Very old equipment and out dated technology to say the least. Thankfully we were able to get to Ft Lauderdale quickly. IF he had only had a heart attaqck we would have been home in less than a week. They did a heart catheraztion and put in 2 stinks and his heart was up and running fine.

 

Unfortunetly he aspirated on the medical flight (threw up into his own lungs) while he was strapped down upon take off and things went down hill fast. He developed aspiration pnemonia which is pretty serious by itself. When they treated the pnemonia it killed all of the good bacteria in his body and he developed C-Diff which is a serious infection in his gut. Over the course of the next two weeks his kidneys shut down, his bowels stopped working, and his colon stopped processing. He had respiratory failure and was on 100% breathing machine. His became septic and went into septic shock. He was on 24 hour a day kidney dialisis for 4 days and then had an additional three days of 4 hour a day dialisis. He was sedated for a total of 19 days and was delerious for a week after that. He had two main lines put in, was tubed twice and had to have a trach put in on day 18.

 

When it was all said and done he spent 33 days in CVICU and an additional 6 days in a regular room. We had to have a medical transport home to Indiana (an RN went on a commerical flight with us) and he was on oxygen for the flight home. Once home he had to go to a rehab center to regain his balance enough to be home alone so I could go back to work. Last Thursday he was readmitted to our local hospital because he was feeling horrible after only a week or so home. He ended up being dehydrated and having a urinary tract infection as well as a stomach virus. He is home again as of yesterday and the virus will run it's course. He is on meds for the infection and hopefully he will start physical, occupational and cardiac rehab again next week.

We are praying he will make a full recovery in time. He lost so much muscle mass being sedated and in bed for 33 days that it is going to take time. He has a good attitude and wants to get better and get back to work so that is a huge part of the recovery process.

I feel very blessed that we received the amazing care in the infirmary, in Freeport as well as at Broward Hospital. I am afraid if we had been sent to a different hospital or had any other team of doctors he very well may not have made it thru it all. The team of doctors he had in Ft Lauderdale were nothing short of miracle workers with everything he was dealing with at once. They truly saved his life.

 

I had often wondered what kind of medical care you would get on a ship if you ever needed it? I now know they can do what needs to be done and they are amazing. We hope to sail the Splendor again (as of now we are booked to sail her to Canada/New England in September) and hope to have a chance to say thank you in person.

 

We were supposed to be on the Glory this week for a cruise but we had to cancel that one as he isn't strong enough yet to be on a cruise and I am out of vacation time due to being gone for almost 6 weeks while all of this was going on. We will sail again and it will be on Carnival. We will be lifetime supporters and customers after the way they took care of us in our most desperate time of need.

 

We always have sailed with travel insurance and like most people have considered not buying it a time or two just because we never used it in 25 previous cruises. All I can say is I am so thankfull we had it. The air flight from the Bahamas alone was almost 12K and every penny was covered by the insurance. I don't even know yet what all of the other things cost but quite a lot of it will be covered once I am able to get the claim sumitted. I was pleasently surprised to learn that the cruise insurance also will cover up to 10K of non covered medical costs after our regular insurance pays. We may have enough to cover most of our deductables and out of pocket costs. What a blessing it is that we spent that $90 per person just to be on the safe side!

 

Sorry this is so long but quite a few people asked how he was doing and what actually happened so I wanted to fill you all in. Thank you all again for the prayers, we felt them all the way to Florida. Safe travels :)

QUICK UPDATE: Kenny has made a 99% recovery (some loss of kidney function but nothing we can't deal with) and we are cruising again! We sailed the Canada/New England coastline in Sept and we sail this Saturday out of Ft Lauderdale on the Conquest. We are very, very blessed and thankful that it all turned out the way it did. It was a long road but he was able to return to work on June 1st. We are spending Thanksgiving Day on the beach sharing a picnic lunch with each other. We are planning to spend Friday at Broward hospital saying some very special Thank You's to the doctors and nurses that took such good care of him while we were there. It will be an emotional trip but in a good way I am sure. Thanks again for all the good wishes and prayers, they were needed and very much appreciated. Looking forward to seeing Carolina Viking 71208 (fellow Hoosiers) on the Conquest. Safe Travels All and Happy thanksgiving to each of you and your loved ones. We are counting our blessings and they are many!!!!

That is so nice Donh44,,,we were really a family on this one...; Cosmo..it means so much when folks get back and can get well with big experiences..so happy for you.

We would love to meet you on the Splendor in September! The plan at this time is to be on the Splendor as long as Kenny does well and is strong enough to do so. I believe with all my heart he will be recovered and back to work well before September! We will keep in touch so we can plan to meet & share a drink on the Splendor when the time comes. I will join the roll call so we can make contact with each other.

I truly felt like I did have a family of CC members with us thru out this "adventure". Not an adventure I would ever want to go on again but the support has been amazing.

SJN911- Thanks for all the prayers and good wishes. Nice to have you in my CC family!

That is great to hear. It seems like arnival's insurance is a good deal. I had always looked at alternatives. I do have one related side question, what did Carnival do with your belongings ? Since it took a while to get back to home I wonder what they would do with it. I have usually always purchased insurance formedical, and I know Carnival offers it when you book. With that said, during our travels with Cunard, given the often older clientele on the longer voyages it is almost de rigeur and openly discussed. If you take anything longer han a week or a far destination they practically yell at you if you don't have insurance.

While I was in the infirmary answering questions and trying to do what I could for Kenny, the head of security came to the infirmary and asked for permission to enter our cabin and pack up our belongings. Well of course that was the least of my worries at the time and I hadn't even considered needing that to happen. He took three crew members and in a matter of very short time all of our belongs had been packed up and were waiting outside the infirmary to be loaded on the transport boat. Once in the Bahamas, when we were getting ready to board the medical airplane I was told I had 15 minutes to pack, I could take a purse and a small bag and there would not be room on the plane for anything else. I called the Carnival contact number and they sent a Carnival rep to the hopsital to pick up our bags and arrange shipment back to Indiana for us. I had them send the bags on my companies UPS account and I paid back my company for the charges. I am now in the process of filing a claim for all of the expenses related to this thru the travel insurance and the charges can be claimed for refund. I am sure if a person didn't have a company UPS account to use Carnival would have shipped them against a credit card or billed a person if need be. They totally took care of anything we needed. Our luggage arrived in Indiana about a week after we shipped it, way before we arrived :) but eventully we got there as well!

Please check your email I sent you the video from two different emails addresses because the video was too big .

I have the video, not something I ever thought we would see. Looking forward to sharing it with our kids (now that their dad is going to be ok:))

Thanks again for taking the time to reach out to us to share this. Very much appreciated.

I'm so glad that your husband is stable and in rehab. Your story is truly amazing and thank you for sharing. Prayers for his complete recovery. One question I have is if the med evac flight was paid for by your carnival insurance or you had separate insurance for that flight.

The cost of being flown from Freeport, Bahamas to Ft Lauderdale was almost 12K and was totally covered by the cruise insurance we bought thru Carnival. We had up to 30K to use just for transportation alone. Our flight home was also covered under the plan. Kenny & the nurse flew first class and I had to pay up front for my flight (economy class) and it will be refunded to us on our claim once we get it filed. If he had not needed a nurse we would have both been flown home first class with me as his travel escort (non medical). We will also get back the cost of our original flights to Florida.

All I can say is wow. You are a very strong person wit,h a strong fighter of a husband. We are fellow Hoosiers - what city are you in?

Thank you for sharing something so personal,and may you get the rest you deserve and a speedy recovery to your husband. Thoughts with you.

 

On a lighter note - I bet that waiter running was burning the rubber tires getting him there the fastest way for him. Do you think Carnival updated the ship team, I know they usually don't post medical for privacy reasons, but I am sure they are wondering.

We are from Auburn and are quite often in your neck of the woods as we have friends in the Indy area.

YES the waiter was running so fast I had to take off my heals, hike up my dress and run at (my) top speed to even try to keep up with them. That young man gave it his all and I really appreciated it.

One of the services of the ON-Call team is they call you everyday to check on the patients progress and to make sure I (the family) doesn't need anything. It was a connection that I came to rely on each day. Most days the same person calls you and over the length of time we were there I felt like we got to know each other. Carnival also called every few days to see if we needed anything and to check on his progress. One of the times Carnival called I asked them to get a message to the infirmary staff and the crew to let them know how he was doing and to express our thanks. The person on the phone assured me that because I asked that they be updated he would be able to do that for us. I can only assume that he did in fact contact them. He said he would be undating them via e-mail. I plan to send many personal thank yous, soon, I just haven't had a chance to do so yet, but I will.

What a nightmare but thankfully a good ending. We always take out insurance the way we see it if we are spending over 2k plus for a cruise what is another $180, surely to just have that peace of mind and the fact if we need it we have it is all worth it, glad you had it too!

 

Its a good thing you didn't go on the Glory this week, a 21 year old young man went overboard and as far as I know which was two day later after he jumped (camera's were used to confirm) he wasn't found, surely a depressing cruise for all those passengers. Sometimes things happen for a reason. Happy cruising.

How very sad. We will add his family to our prayers. I too believe everything happens for a reason, we just don't always know what the reason is. We would have started the trip on the Glory with a cancelled flight to Miami as well. We were not able to cancel our flights (I didn't buy the extra airline coverage for our plane tickets because I had vacation protection already) and I was sitting at the hospital on Friday getting notifications that our flight was delayed, delayed, and finally cancelled at 2am. It was not meant for us to be on the Glory this week from all indications. However we still feel 100% blessed and thankful.

We were on this cruise and I have video of the evacuation if you would like to have it I can send it to you via email ..my prayers with you and your family always ..

That is amazing and we would LOVE to have the video. I have had co-workers ask me if I took pictures while he was being taken off the ship............well duh.....NO I was a little preoccupied at the time and scared to death so I didn't think to whip out my camera.

If you would be willing to share the video we would appreciate it very much. You can e-mail it to cosmo.cruiser@hotmail.com if you would be so kind. Thank you for offering to share this. I am sure our kids and grandkids would love to see it as well.

What a beautifully written update . So glad dh is on the road to recovery. And thankfully you did have trip insurance. I buy it within an hour of booking a cruise. Have used it twice so far- but not for anything nearly as catastrophic as you went through. Continued well-wishes for a speedy recovery sent your way!!p.s.- you may want to post this on Carnival Funville site, and send it to Customer Care dept. at Carnival. I am sure they get more complaints than compliments on cruise matters!

Thank you for the suggestions. I hadn't considered doing that but I like the idea and will do it as soon as possible.:)

My goodness! Thank you for sharing your story.

Praying your dear husband makes a full recovery and will be 100% long before your fall cruise.

 

Do you mind me asking if your travel insurance was through Carnival? That's what we always purchase the day we book a cruise.

Yes we booked it thru Carnival. Years ago when we first started cruising the coverage thru Carnival wasnt' as good so I always bought thru insuremytrip.com. In the last few years Carnival has improved the coverage they offer and I always book it thru them now at the same time I book a cruise. It is easier and the coverage meets our needs. Thanks for the prayers and well wishes.

Thank you to each of you for the kind words and all the prayers. We are finally back home and thankfully my husband is making progress toward recovery from a very rough experience. We are very blessed. We got back on Feb 18th and my husband was finally back home on Feb 25th.

We sailed on Carnival Splendor out of Miami on 1/11/15. Kenny had a heart attack right after sitting down to dinner the very first night. We had ordered and introduced ourselves to our wait staff when he started to feel ill. We ended up going by wheelchair (one of the waiters RAN while pushing him in a wheelchair) to the infirmary where he received amazing care in a matter of minutes. The medical staff was professional and totally knew what they were doing. We were both very impressed. It was determined in short order that he needed to be evacuated and fast. We were heading to two days at sea before our first port so he wouldn't be able to get the care he was going to need on board. We were medi vac off the ship around midnight onto a smaller boat for a long, rough, and windy ride to Freeport. Carnival diverted the ship as close to Freeport as possible even though we were not scheduled to stop in the Bahamas. Once there we were taken to a local hospital so he could be stabilized. We were there for 12 hours and then we were medi vac by air ambulance to Ft Lauderdale to the Broward Heart Hospital which is a level 1 trama center.

While the stay in Freeport was brief and the staff was wonderful you do not want to be in the hospital there. Very old equipment and out dated technology to say the least. Thankfully we were able to get to Ft Lauderdale quickly. IF he had only had a heart attaqck we would have been home in less than a week. They did a heart catheraztion and put in 2 stinks and his heart was up and running fine.

Unfortunetly he aspirated on the medical flight (threw up into his own lungs) while he was strapped down upon take off and things went down hill fast. He developed aspiration pnemonia which is pretty serious by itself. When they treated the pnemonia it killed all of the good bacteria in his body and he developed C-Diff which is a serious infection in his gut. Over the course of the next two weeks his kidneys shut down, his bowels stopped working, and his colon stopped processing. He had respiratory failure and was on 100% breathing machine. His became septic and went into septic shock. He was on 24 hour a day kidney dialisis for 4 days and then had an additional three days of 4 hour a day dialisis. He was sedated for a total of 19 days and was delerious for a week after that. He had two main lines put in, was tubed twice and had to have a trach put in on day 18.

When it was all said and done he spent 33 days in CVICU and an additional 6 days in a regular room. We had to have a medical transport home to Indiana (an RN went on a commerical flight with us) and he was on oxygen for the flight home. Once home he had to go to a rehab center to regain his balance enough to be home alone so I could go back to work. Last Thursday he was readmitted to our local hospital because he was feeling horrible after only a week or so home. He ended up being dehydrated and having a urinary tract infection as well as a stomach virus. He is home again as of yesterday and the virus will run it's course. He is on meds for the infection and hopefully he will start physical, occupational and cardiac rehab again next week.

We are praying he will make a full recovery in time. He lost so much muscle mass being sedated and in bed for 33 days that it is going to take time. He has a good attitude and wants to get better and get back to work so that is a huge part of the recovery process.

I feel very blessed that we received the amazing care in the infirmary, in Freeport as well as at Broward Hospital. I am afraid if we had been sent to a different hospital or had any other team of doctors he very well may not have made it thru it all. The team of doctors he had in Ft Lauderdale were nothing short of miracle workers with everything he was dealing with at once. They truly saved his life.

I had often wondered what kind of medical care you would get on a ship if you ever needed it? I now know they can do what needs to be done and they are amazing. We hope to sail the Splendor again (as of now we are booked to sail her to Canada/New England in September) and hope to have a chance to say thank you in person.

We were supposed to be on the Glory this week for a cruise but we had to cancel that one as he isn't strong enough yet to be on a cruise and I am out of vacation time due to being gone for almost 6 weeks while all of this was going on. We will sail again and it will be on Carnival. We will be lifetime supporters and customers after the way they took care of us in our most desperate time of need.

We always have sailed with travel insurance and like most people have considered not buying it a time or two just because we never used it in 25 previous cruises. All I can say is I am so thankfull we had it. The air flight from the Bahamas alone was almost 12K and every penny was covered by the insurance. I don't even know yet what all of the other things cost but quite a lot of it will be covered once I am able to get the claim sumitted. I was pleasently surprised to learn that the cruise insurance also will cover up to 10K of non covered medical costs after our regular insurance pays. We may have enough to cover most of our deductables and out of pocket costs. What a blessing it is that we spent that $90 per person just to be on the safe side!

Sorry this is so long but quite a few people asked how he was doing and what actually happened so I wanted to fill you all in. Thank you all again for the prayers, we felt them all the way to Florida. Safe travels :)

__________________

Thank you to each of you for the kind words and all the paryers. We are finally back home and thankfully my husband is making progress toward recovery from a very rough experience. We are very blessed. We got back on Feb 18th and my husband was finally back home on Feb 25th.

We sailed on Carnival Splendor out of Miami on 1/11/15. Kenny had a heart attack right after sitting down to dinner the very first night. We had ordered and introduced ourselves to our wait staff when he started to feel ill. We ended up going by wheelchair (one of the waiters RAN while pushing him in a wheelchair) to the infirmary where he received amazing care in a matter of minutes. The medical staff was professional and totally knew what they were doing. We were both very impressed. It was determined in short order that he needed to be evacuated and fast. We were heading to two days at sea before our first port so he wouldn't be able to get the care he was going to need on board. We were medi vac off the ship around midnight onto a smaller boat for a long, rough, and windy ride to Freeport. Carnival diverted the ship as close to Freeport as possible even though we were not scheduled to stop in the Bahamas. Once there we were taken to a local hospital so he could be stabilized. We were there for 12 hours and then we were medi vac by air ambulance to Ft Lauderdale to the Broward Heart Hospital which is a level 1 trama center.

While the stay in Freeport was brief and the staff was wonderful you do not want to be in the hospital there. Very old equipment and out dated technology to say the least. Thankfully we were able to get to Ft Lauderdale quickly. IF he had only had a heart attaqck we would have been home in less than a week. They did a heart catheraztion and put in 2 stinks and his heart was up and running fine.

Unfortunetly he aspirated on the medical flight (threw up into his own lungs) while he was strapped down upon take off and things went down hill fast. He developed aspiration pnemonia which is pretty serious by itself. When they treated the pnemonia it killed all of the good bacteria in his body and he developed C-Diff which is a serious infection in his gut. Over the course of the next two weeks his kidneys shut down, his bowels stopped working, and his colon stopped processing. He had respiratory failure and was on 100% breathing machine. His became septic and went into septic shock. He was on 24 hour a day kidney dialisis for 4 days and then had an additional three days of 4 hour a day dialisis. He was sedated for a total of 19 days and was delerious for a week after that. He had two main lines put in, was tubed twice and had to have a trach put in on day 18.

When it was all said and done he spent 33 days in CVICU and an additional 6 days in a regular room. We had to have a medical transport home to Indiana (an RN went on a commerical flight with us) and he was on oxygen for the flight home. Once home he had to go to a rehab center to regain his balance enough to be home alone so I could go back to work. Last Thursday he was readmitted to our local hospital because he was feeling horrible after only a week or so home. He ended up being dehydrated and having a urinary tract infection as well as a stomach virus. He is home again as of yesterday and the virus will run it's course. He is on meds for the infection and hopefully he will start physical, occupational and cardiac rehab again next week.

We are praying he will make a full recovery in time. He lost so much muscle mass being sedated and in bed for 33 days that it is going to take time. He has a good attitude and wants to get better and get back to work so that is a huge part of the recovery process.

I feel very blessed that we received the amazing care in the infirmary, in Freeport as well as at Broward Hospital. I am afraid if we had been sent to a different hospital or had any other team of doctors he very well may not have made it thru it all. The team of doctors he had in Ft Lauderdale were nothing short of miracle workers with everything he was dealing with at once. They truly saved his life.

I had often wondered what kind of medical care you would get on a ship if you ever needed it? I now know they can do what needs to be done and they are amazing. We hope to sail the Splendor again (as of now we are booked to sail her to Canada/New England in September) and hope to have a chance to say thank you in person.

We were supposed to be on the Glory this week for a cruise but we had to cancel that one as he isn't strong enough yet to be on a cruise and I am out of vacation time due to being gone for almost 6 weeks while all of this was going on. We will sail again and it will be on Carnival. We will be lifetime supporters and customers after the way they took care of us in our most desperate time of need.

We always have sailed with travel insurance and like most people have considered not buying it a time or two just because we never used it in 25 previous cruises. All I can say is I am so thankfull we had it. The air flight from the Bahamas alone was almost 12K and every penny was covered by the insurance. I don't even know yet what all of the other things cost but quite a lot of it will be covered once I am able to get the claim sumitted. I was pleasently surprised to learn that the cruise insurance also will cover up to 10K of non covered medical costs after our regular insurance pays. We may have enough to cover most of our deductables and out of pocket costs. What a blessing it is that we spent that $90 per person just to be on the safe side!

Sorry this is so long but quite a few people asked how he was doing and what actually happened so I wanted to fill you all in. Thank you all again for the prayers, we felt them all the way to Florida. Safe travels :)

Sailed out of Miami on 1/11/15 and my husbankd had a heart attack as we sat down to dinner. The doctors, nurses, and all of the staff were amazing and saved his life. We were taken off by smaller boat, stabilised in Freeport (not where the ship was headed, they diverted) and then air flight to Ft Lauderdale. Unfortunetly we are still in Ft Lauderdale and my husband is in critical condition. His heart is fine (2 stints) but he developed all kinds of serious complications. Please add us to your prayers as we fight to get him well and back home to Indiana.

Carnival is the only line I would even consider going on in the past and certainly in the future after all they did for us at our most serious moment of need.

I am not sure how I will ever thank the amazing crew members that stepped up to help us in so many ways. Once we are home I will write a detailed review to try to give at least a small amount of crdit where credit is due.

We sailed on the Splendor out of Miami on 1/11/15. It was out 26th cruise and we have never sailed without insurance. Never in the past have we used one penny of insurance. I am right now sitting in the Broward County hospital in Ft Lauderdale Florida while my husband is critically ill in the ICU unit. We have been here 8 days and it looks like it could be weeks until we are even able to consider going home. My husband had a heart attack 9 hours after getting on board. We used the infirmary on board ($2000+) then they diverted the ship to Freeport (not somewhere we were supposed to go) so we could be taken off by a smaller transport boat (40 minutes by boat to the nearest land) He was transported to a hospital in Freeport where he was for 12 hours while he was stabilized. He was then medi-vac flight to Ft Lauderdale. He aspirated on the medi-vac flight and it has been down hill from there. I have paid for cruise insurance on every cruise we have been on and the medi-vac flight alone is more money than I have paid for insurance over the years in total. We are looking at 12K JUST for that flight alone. 26 cruises times approx $200 each trip is only $5400. Approx cost of 2 cruises but still less than half of the medi-vac flight we took one week ago today!

I am reading cruise critic to keep my mind off what is going on around me. I wouldn't wish this situation on my worst enemy. Buy the insurance.......even if yu never use it is peace of mind. This situation could bankrupt a family in very short order. We are well into 6 figures already and no where near done. Yes we also thought he was healthy and it wouldn't happen........don't kid yourself, it can happen to anyone. Illness, injury, heart attack, trip and fall. Trust me when I say you do not want your loved one in a hospital outside of the US, the care that is available is not what you would want or expect. Getting them back to the US can be critical and time can be a huge issue.

Build a couple of new Spirit Class ships. Our favorites by far. :)

Put a ship back into Tampa market. Love sailing out of Tampa.

and found many of the same issues to be true. This was cruise #25 so we have plenty to compare it to. It was very shaky quite a bit of the time. Some rough seas but certainly not the worst we have seen over the years. We would rank this in the low #'s as far as cruises go. It was still good to be at sea and not at work or home in the cold but on a scale of 1-10 this one was a 3 at best. We hated the new American Feast Menus in the main dining room. We missed all of the old standbys that we look forward to. The service was super slow and our wait team just didn't have their act together at all. We always dine in the dining room at night and this trip we gave up on night four and ate on the Lido for the rest of the week. It was food, but not much more than that. Guy's burgers were great as usual, but after a few meals you want something new. The fish tacos were terrible, greasy & cold both times we tired them. Breakfast in the dining room was just ok, not wonderful like normal. The only positive is I normally gain weight on a cruise and this time I didn't gain an ounce. :)

We did not notice any smoke smell at all in the main areas or lobby at any time. The casino did have smokers in it but there are so few places that they can go now what do you expect. The non-smokers brought this on themselves by gripping so much that about 5% of the ship even welcomes them any more.

The band in the casino area was really good and we enjoyed listening to them. We didn't go to any shows this time or book any excursions thru the ship. The ports were all great and we loved the sunshine and beaches.

We did see a poor man knocked to the ground during debartation. It was like a cattle call with people pushing and shoving like little children. Sad to see. If people would just follow the rules and go when they are supposed to I think it would work quite well, but some people have to be "first" no matter what. You can't fix stupid, so ya just have to laugh at them I guess.

Overall we were disappointed in the Liberty this time. It is our second time to sail this ship and it wasn't near as good the second time around. We sail the Splendor next so hopefully it will be more up to the standards we know Carnival is capable of providing.

Looking forward to sailing again as soon as we get thru the holidays.

We sail Sunday on the Valor out of San Juan. We already have a balcony booked and they offered us a Grand Suite for $399.99 extra per person, when I said no thank you they offered a regular suite upsell for $250 per person, we declined again. We only have one sea day and most of the suite perks we already get being platinum. We did accept an upsell in 2013 to a suite just to try it once. It was nice but just not worth the extra $ to us. If we were not platinum the perks might be of more value to us? As it is the extra sink and a bit more space just isn't enough to offset the $. I did go on line and the price for a Grand Suite was still over $3300 so it would have been an ok price considering what I paid for the balcony, but we are happy with what we have. Seems there are quite a few suites and Grand Suites left on our sailing considering we are only 6 days away? I think more people are turing down the upsells than in the past? Seems like it to me anyway. Can't wait to be back on the sea.

I have tried at work and at home and nothing seems to be going thru? I finally printed the filled out form this morning and e-mailed it. I am not sure that will work but I thought it was worth a try. It is only $20 this time but that is good for a couple of drinks so I want to at least try. :)

I bet if the book a cruise button wasn't working their IT dept would be on it in a flash!! Hope it is fixed soon, I hate the hassle of filling the form out so many times and when you hit the button.............nothing. Ugh.

A couple of times we have done a B2B with Thankisgiving week being the first leg and the week after being leg 2....................two totally different cruises! Thanksgiving week is FULL of kids. Once the count was more than 60% of the total people on board. Kids everywhere. Playing in the food at the buffet, ice cream cones left melting in the elevators, doors slamming at all hours of the night, running in the hallways, cutting in lines, and overall crazyness. I blame 90% of the mess on the parents that don't actually "parent" while on vacation. These kids are left to run wild. I felt really bad for the staff that had to try to control all the kids. It sure made a lot of extra work for the staff. We spent most of our time on our balcony and in the casino during the first week. Sadly when a staff member would try to step in and correct a situation the parents often would then yell at the staff member because of course their little angel would never............

Week two was a totally different cruise. I think there were less than 50 kids on the entire ship the second week and it was wonderful. No kids cutting in line and pushing each other in and out of the lines, no kids playing in the dining rooms, no messes, and you could actually move about the ship with out fear of being trampled by a herd of out of control pre-teens. There was room for a person to swim or be in the hot tub if they wanted to, and the elevators actually didn't stop on every single floor every time you needed one!

We now try to only go the week after Thanksgiving if possible. This year we sail on the Friday after Turkey Day and I am sure it is going to be a wonderful (mostly kid free) 8 day cruise for less money than the week before would have been. Just not worth the stress for us to go that week. I guess if a cruise was free.............we would have to consider going that week but anyting other than free, I am picking a different week.

Just our experience. Oh and we actually like kids, just not out of control ones that are not being parented and that take over the ship!

Best of luck on your cruise.

I have a dilemma myself. We are going on the Pride in August. I am looking to book the same cruise again for the following August (2015). The price right now is really low and I'm tempted to book it... but would love to wait until I'm on board so I get the $100 credit (really $200 as we will get 2 cabins). I just don't know if it's better to book it now or wait it out, hope the price stays low, and book on board to get the extra money on top of that.

You could always book now while the prices are low.....then once on board go to the desk and do a sample booking to see what the prices are. If it is the same or lower on board book again, and take the OBC. Then when you get home cancel the first booking. You will be a year out so there would be no penalty. If it's higher even with the OBC offer then leave the first booking in place, say thanks and move on.

We were on the Legend last week and booked two cruises to take advantage of the OBC for both. One in Sept & one in March 2015. I would have booked them anyway so way not do it when I can get an extra 100 to spend on board. Nothing to lose by booking now and looking at it on board in Aug. Good Luck.

I would have gone on that cruise even if I knew it was going to happen! Full refund, future cruise, cash, and god only knows what else............sign me up! Call me crazy but anytime you take any type of vacation things can happen. NO company can plan for this type of incident and I think most of it was blown totally out of reality. The people that complained the most planned from the very start of the problem to file suit no matter what Carnival would have done for them. Those are exactly the type of people I always pray we are not on a cruise with. And YES we have been on lots of cruises, leave this Saturday for #23, #24 is booked and God willing we will cruise many, many more times.........ALL on Carnival! :)

2 weeks ago and we had our first cove balcony! Loved it! We didn't experience any extra noise, the balcony seemed so private and cozy. I would totally book a cove again if we sail this class of ship. Not a huge fan of the ship itself, totally different decor and feel than other Carnival ships we have sailed. We love the Spirit class ships so we will sail those when we can. Go for the cove....I dont' think you will regret it at all.

I have been trying for a month and so far NO luck at all. We have the usual letter from our casino host from our last cruise in Nov 2013 so I started calling right away because we sail again in 7 days on the Breeze. The mailbox is always full and I have waited on hold for up to 72 minutes before giving up. This dept so needs more staff. Not much point in giving out the letters if you can't make contact to even see what is being offered. Before our Nov cruise I sent tons of e-mails long before we sailed. I received an e-mail back 3 weeks AFTER we cruised....duh, that was a waste of time to say the least.

We got a flyer in the mail yesterday offering a special casino cruise but I doubt we will even try to look into it as there is almost zero chance of getting thru to talk to them about booking one of the cruises offered.

I did talk to a Carnival rep that I radomly punched in an extension and even she couldnt' get them to answer the phone, and she make an honest attempt for me. I appreciated her help and thanked her but I still wans't able to talk to anyone in the casino dept. I really doubt we will get anything as a result of our play in Nov. It is very frustrating to say the least. Almost not worth the effort at this point. Still looking forward to sailing in a week, it iwll be good to get away from sub zero temps and the darn snow.

They told us it was due to undertow. They made anouncements the night before but we didn't hear them. The first time we were in the dining room and later in the casino. The speakers system on that ships is not the best. Never did we hear any anouncements in our room other than for the muster drill. The TV will go mute IF you have it on and you can go into the hallway to try to hear what is being said. Really bad system, we missed 99% of anything that was said. I didn't mind missing the sales pitches but there were some things we really did need to hear. Those should have been sent into the staterooms IMO!

We would have missed our flight out of Baltimore if not for special help from a Carnival emp. He ran us off the ship in record time and we made our flight with 5 minutes to spare. I wish I had gotten his name so I could send him a big thank you! Saved the day for us.

Not a cruise we would repeat, but overall we had a good time. NO cruise is ever really "bad", they just get over!