joeyancho

Cruise out of San Juan and you'll find a large amount of Puerto Ricans on the ship.[/QUOfTE]

 

Puerto Ricans are American.

Would you be kind enough to give me the contact point to complain about the 4day cruise onboard Harmony ? I bought this 4 day cruise as a 50th birthday present for my daughter in law. I can assure you that most of what has been commented on was confirmed to me whilst her and my son was onboard. They both say that the ship was not ready to accept full fare paying guests. I was sold this cruise as its maiden voyage not as RCCL now say as a pre inaugural. They went with great anticipation and excitement as to the facilities they wished to try out...all were closed. It was impossible to find somewhere to sit in the windjammer etc, they were continually stepping over cables or avoiding workmen. They did however find the shows excellent and the cabin was superb. I cannot understand how RCCL sold this to me back in October 2015 as its maiden voyage yet didn't ,nearer the time , contact me to say that it wasn't finished. Had they informed everyone , perhaps offered a refund or the choice to still take it at a cheaper rate is what really annoys me. I personally feel huge embarrassment at giving a birthday present that has turned out as it has. I intend to go for some compensation ( if I can find where to go ) not to be greedy as some of you suggest but to put right that which was wrongly sold to me by RCCL.

Sorry your gift did not turn out the way you had hope for. I would have been heartbroken. You have every right to be angry. Another example of corporate greed. Be prepared to get flamed.

Sauna in the buff is not unusual. However you friend got hit on.

Personally, I think a cruise to Hawaii is not worth it. There are 10seadays and 4ports. That's a lot of sea days! I would go nuts. So unless you absolutely love sea days I think Hawaii is better seen on a land based vacation.

That's funny, I was on the same cruise as you and I didn't have any issues. In fact, I booked another Miracle cruise while onboard.

Everyone has different tastes and expectations. That's why baskin and robbins makes 31 flavors.

Had a similar experience on the Miracle in November. The lido food was consistently horrible, tough beef, lukewarm, limited variety. The MDR was marginal. Some nights good, some nights not so good. Never great. We don't like the Miracle. Tacky 70's Vegas decore. No bells and whistles. Never again.

There is no comparison. The Paradise is a rusty bucket compared to the Splendor. You will love it. You can have a good time on either ship but Splendor is much nicer in any way. The Paradise is like the Staten island ferry.

everyone during the check in process must fill out a health form. so, if as some has suggested her that she had some type of mental health issue instead of a spur of the moment fight or being drunk, then she must have lied on her form by stating that she had no health problems. if she actually had depression issues or suicidal thoughts and had stated them on the form, she wouldn't have sailed and she would still be alive based on people's assumptions that she wasn't drunk but could have had mental problems.

Not sure the health form is for mental health issues. If so the ship would be empty. Pretty sure it is for contagious disease.

The cutbacks that Carnival takes generally do not show up at Princess. They are different lines with different focus. So I would say that for now we can still expect twice a day. For me it would not be make or break, but it is very nice. Part of the pleasure of cruising.

Nice review. Sounds like you had a blast. That's what it's all about.

We sailed the Coral from ft Lauderdale this past Dec. The food was not only the best of any Princess ship we have ever sailed, it was the best of ANY ship we have ever sailed! Out of 36 cruises. It really shined. Of course it was provisioned from Florida. But I imagine it would be great anywhere you sail from. Congrats on your first cruise and enjoy your new addiction.

I'm all for merging. It may even help pull in other guests from other lines knowing they have a larger choice of cruises to choose from Carnival to get a higher status quicker.

 

I only sail on Carnival, but recently have been looking around other lines. I really want a Princess cruise around Japan, but not thrilled at having to start back at 0. Even a 'past guest' discount for being on Carnival would be helpful.

Princess will consider you a past guest if you have sailed on Carnival. Also Princess is such a superior product you will think you are platinum or whatever on your first cruise . They really have their act together. I am platinum on Carnival and diamond on Royal. It has zero influence on my booking choice. I cruise Princess because it is the superior line. Life is too short to worry about a plate of strawberries.

Well, we just got home from our latest Carnival cruise on the Ecstasy and honestly we're unhappy enough to post a review for the first time. Not sure how to do this exactly but I'll list some highlights and go from there.

 

We were in Upper Deck 241 (U241) which is an aft balcony room. Standard size room, double size balcony. Balcony is easily big enough to hold three chairs and a table with room to move around. It's probably also the last balcony room we'll ever book because we are smokers and didn't realize until this cruise that we mainly used the balcony to smoke on. No we didn't smoke anything, all week, on our balcony but at the same time we probably used it for a total of an hour. For us it was a wasted upgrade.

 

Arriving in Charleston was a huge hassle. We were the first one in line at the port but there were multiple issues that screwed up everything. The first was Carnival not getting people off the ship. The dock workers said they had never seen it take so long (people were still on the ship after 11am). Then there was a wedding party that received priority to go ahead of us. Not a problem until they opened up the lines the wedding party used to get to the parking area. So we got their first, sat in the car and waited over an hour and then got to watch around 60 cars go ahead of us before they opened up the line we were in. Irritating and not a great start.

 

Customs: Not a problem at all at the start of the cruise. More than likely the huge reason it took so long to get everyone off the cruise from the previous cruise. One guy in particular was a complete and total ass. My wife described his mood as someone who caught his wife cheating with his best friend and then had to come in to work. He actually told the poor kid standing behind us that he needed to use his words because the kid stuttered when he was asked a question. Petty ahole. We missed our carry off departure time because we stood in line at the piano bar for an hour to clear up duty fees.

 

Alcohol: Didn't deliver the alcohol to the room like prior cruises. I'm so glad we didn't buy any this time because everyone had to line up in the nightclub at 7am the last morning to pick it up. Last I heard the typical wait was around 15 mins to pick up ship bought alcohol and 1.5 hours for island bought alcohol. The line went from the nightclub in the middle of deck 9 all the way back into the aft lounge and snaked around inside the lounge. That ended any plans to purchase alcohol in the future unless they start delivering to the room like before.

 

Personal Problem One: The smoking areas are almost non-existent on this ship. The only areas to smoke are one half of the casino bar, half the casino, a few of the seating areas in the nightclub (on non-kid friendly nights only) and roughly 10% of Deck 11. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that roughly 95% of the ship is non-smoking. Even this wouldn't be that much of a problem except for problem two.

 

Personal Problem Two: Almost every part of the ship was loud to be point of being obnoxious. The casino bar had live music right next to it that could be heard almost anywhere else on deck 9. When they didn't play it played a set list of radio music at close to the same problem. The Lido deck was also jacked up to be heard from every part of deck 10 (and 11). I wouldn't swear to it but my general impression is everything on this ship, the loudspeakers, programs and music was louder than any other time we've cruised by a significant amount. This is related to the smoking part above because there wasn't a single quiet place on the ship that we could just relax and smoke. Not once the entire week. I know it's not a big deal to most but we paid a lot of money for this and it's not that much to ask for.

 

They mentioned multiple times that they only cruise full and we had a full complement of 2600 passengers. Unless half these people lived in their room I think they were blowing smoke. At no time was the Lido deck full, a deck chair was always available, many times the pool was empty, the halls and casino were not crowded and even the shows were lucky to be half full. It was clearly much emptier than when we last cruised on the sister ship Fantasy a couple years ago. This leads to the food problems that seem to highlight the mystery people.

 

Food problems: The food was standard Carnival and maybe slightly better than last time. But it was hard to get. The only day both buffet lines in the Lido dining area were open for dinner was the first day. We didn't expect lines out to the pool area from inside but we had those almost every night with only one line open. The Lido dining area was constantly running short...coffee machines out, drinks out, no half and half for the coffee, ice cream machine not staying cold.

 

We had your time dining and after the second night didn't go back. The average time for dinner for 2.5 hours. Brunch in the dining room averaged over 1.5 hours. Our friends on board who continued to go to the formal dinners said it never got better through the week. The servers were excellent and friendly as usual but you could tell they were being run ragged and it appeared most areas had 2 instead of the normal 3. This made a huge difference.

 

Other problems: Yes, the nickel and dime problem is here. Everything was more limited or cost extra. We saw our room steward a total of three times in a week. He didn't even clean or show up the first day. Room turn down is now once a day and you'll get a paper to check if you want service in the morning or evening. No more chocolates. No extra towels or bathroom welcome package. Never received ice (and only the suites on this ship have a mini fridge). The new room service menu is here with around half of it having a $5 surcharge. I wasn't impressed with the food we did order either...standard fare, missing condiments and not as good as even the sandwich or pizza shops.

 

Bar issues: We ordered quite a few drinks from all over the ship at various bars (didn't get the Cheers program). I started watching them make the drinks and almost every time the drinks didn't have even 1 shot in them. I would estimate most of the drinks got around 1/2 a shot. This was in the Lido bars, the casino bar, the dining area bars and based on taste most of the bars that served during shows. The other thing is not using all of what they make. My favorite drink this time was the Miami vice. Every time they had leftover in the blender (after adding the alcohol) that didn't make it to the glass. So the drinks are already short on alcohol and then you also lose more from waste.

 

Security: I don't know what has changed but I saw more security on this cruise than I've seen on the last five cruises combined. They roamed the main decks usually in groups of three and it wouldn't be unusual to see 6-7 an hour in high traffic areas. It was enough to start thinking they had received some type of threat and were actively watching for it. No idea.

 

The ship: It's an older ship. We actually liked this ship better than the Fantasy as it seems like it's received some newer upgrades. Typical older Carnival fare (which doesn't bother us at all). Some typical problems like elevators going out of service and machines having issues. We did have some problems though including raw sewage coming up from the shower drain on the third day. It was enough to coat most of the shower floor and curtain and it really, really smelled bad (definitely sewage and not just pipe gunk residue). On the sixth day it sounded like they were snaking more plumbing in our area of the ship as there was a persistent noise in the walls and ceiling for around an hour. No, we didn't even get an apology for the sewage incident.

 

Stops: Our main stop and the one we were looking forward to the most was Half Moon Cay and was cancelled as everyone lined up to get on the first tender. Grand Turk was horrible with cloudy water and pushy and aggressive beach workers. The Dominican Republic was great, the people were friendly and not aggressive and it was one of the best ports we've had.

 

Weather: According to the screen that showed the cruise stats the average wind the entire time was 30-40mph. We almost never had a smooth day at sea (small white cap waves most days) and the ship has a slight rocking almost the entire time. It didn't bother us but I doubt we'll take another cruise in late April - early May if that's standard weather for the area.

 

Some positives (because it's never all bad). The Chef's table was absolutely great and probably our best part of the entire cruise. The Chef was friendly, talkative and the food was beyond fantastic. The final main course with the Wagyu beef made it worth it but the other 10 dishes were all good to great. The best three hours we spend on the ship and unlike the dining room we were eating or entertained the entire time. Highlight of the cruise. Even at $172 for two we would have paid for another chef's table night just to have it again.

 

The cruise workers were hit or miss. The bad ones were "ok" but most of the people were friendly, helpful and seemed glad to be there. Our room steward was ok at best but was bad enough we didn't tip him any extra (a first).

 

The DR was our best port by far. It's new, clean and the people were super friendly and seemed glad to see you. No pushy or aggressive salesmen and very smooth getting to our excursion. We choose the RIU all inclusive resort and it was nice enough that we're considering going back to that resort for a week. It was also nice that it's basically next to the port (you could see the ship while in the pool at the resort) and total travel time there and back was probably 15 minutes. Would have gladly spent another day here and skipped Grand Turk.

 

Well, that's enough wall of text. There were no major problems but so many little issues that overall I doubt we'll go back to Carnival for a good while. It's bad when the two highlights of our cruise were the chef's table that served food not available anywhere else on the ship and the day we spent off the ship at a resort. Happy to answer any questions.

Try Princess next. A better cruise in every way.

36 cruises, my experience. Booking is very easy. Pick where you want to go. Call vacation planner. Book it. Next comes the stressful part. Waiting, waiting. Packing, make sure everyone has everything needed. Double check. Got to the dock or airport on time. Wait on line to check in. Get thru security. Wait to get on the ship. Next is the best part. Get on board. Leave your cares on land. Aaahhhhh...... No stress from here on out. Relax. Eat, drink, be merry. No cooking, no cleaning. IMHO, cruising is the least stressful vacation one can take.

Sista Vista

I think swill best describes it.

Doesn't sound like you'll be steaming out on time today. Get pics of that rplatform on the bow for us if you can. There don't seem to be any pics of that floating around the internet.

Post #1 and #8 have pictures.

License and registration please.......

30% is reasonable.... probably more than reasonable. I would be happy with what you got and stop looking to cause more problems. CCL once again proving why they are the best cruise line.

Kinda harsh bro. And Carnival is hardly the best cruise line by any measure. Cheapest yes, best no.

I am going to let everyone in on a fantastic place to view the scenery. We did this on our recent Crown cruise. I assume most people are not aware of it because we were always out there by ourselves. Here goes. To get there you will need to be on the Lido deck. Walk towards the bow passing both pools. There will be a door that goes to a hallway. Keep walking past all the cabins. At the end of the hallway there will be a door. It is not marked in any way. Open it and go thru the next door. You will be on a huge deck that is right above the bridge. It offers spectacular viewing. It extends all the way on both sides over the bridge, offering a unique view down the side of the ship also. They lock it at night but reopen it early in the morning. It is a little tricky to find, but well worth it.

Of 36 cruises, that's my favorite.

No problemo amigo. Stay in the tourist area. Don't go out at night. Don't buy drugs. Don't get drunk in public. Don't act the fool. All the usual stuff. No problemo amigo.

We were on the coral in December. It is a lovely ship. We had a great time. Everything was perfect. The food was great. The shows were great. The crew was great. I think you will have a terrific time.

Out of all of the comedians to choose from, I always thought it was a bit odd for Carnival to form a partnership with George Lopez. I wonder if one of "the beards" is related to, or a good friend of George?

Same reason the put Guy Fieres name on a hamburger stand. Marketing.

My Dad said under the Golden Gate in 1944 on a brand new destroyer doing trials. When they came under it he was up on the radio tower checking tide height and a guy hollered, "How long you been out?" He said, "When did you build this bridge?"

That's funny. When my dad returned from the Pacific during WWII, the sight of the Golden Gate brought him to tears.