Indytraveler83

That's terrible that you this experience, but I'm glad to see that it's improved. Maybe Carnival has been slowly switching to more experienced staff for the highly competitive Alaska cruises?

Yeah, this ship has some bad, bad karma right now. And agreed on it being worse than being at home. I haven't read your review, but I understand what you mean. If it's of any consequence, I was looking at the Celebrity boards to see if that's a line we might be interested in... And boy the complaints are fierce there too! I was also at the Hertz car rental counter on Saturday when the RCI ship came in, and the passengers there were rampantly complaining as well. I really feel like the issues are industry wise, and it feels like the cruise lines are putting 110% effort on their best known ships, while letting their issues (financial, maintenance, staffing) show on the older ships.

I think it's perspective. I don't care if someone is wearing a hat in the dining room, a t shirt on formal night, or has 4 Guys Burgers sitting in front of them. Other people's actions that do not interfere with me don't matter. And I totally understand how some people have gone overboard trying to police other people's behaviors. At the same time, there also has to be an understanding that if a rude action is directed toward me, or if someone is having a shouting match directly behind my lounge chair (both things happened on this cruise), that their actions do affect me, and make my cruise worse. I've chuckled and laughed at other passenger's behavior in the past, and not let it affect me. My point about this cruise, and the reason I mentioned it, is that the bad behavior was so over the top and so noticable that it did make my cruise worse, when these things normally don't.

I'm assuming nothing about you except a lack of social awareness, or just an eagerness to stir the pot (or both). The bottom line is, if I'm uncomfortable, I'd rather not pay to be there. And for people who have social awareness, they may want to know when/where they may also feel uncomfortable.

Sorry. No. I'm gay, and gay people have a history of having violence committed against them. Lately, we've seen plenty of videos of fights, brawls and things like that on cruise ships. Congrats if you don't feel like other people's actions could hurt you. But guess what? They can and do. If we get "looks" and are treated rudely, it sends red flags all over the place. Can we dance together? Can we hold hands? What happens if we do? What happens when one of those people giving us looks has a few too many cocktails? Other people's actions can very well harm you, and paying attention to social cues can help a lot if you want to avoid harm. Again, congrats if you are in a position that you can't possibly be harmed, or nothing you ever do could offend someone. But for many of us, it's important to assess the situation we are in.

You actually hit my first alternative choice on the head. RCI and NCL are too similar to Carnival to justify the switch to either of them in my opinion. Celebrity and Virgin are the top contenders for my business I'd Carnival loses it. I've resisted the more formal cruise lines based heavily on restrictive dress codes that don't feel like vacation. However, I may have to concede that one...

I'm on the Carnival Spirit on Aug 29 of this year, and looking at excursions for our trip. Our itinerary and my thoughts: Day 1 - Seattle Day 3 - Cruise Tracy Arm Fjord Day 4 - Skagway -Carnival offers a Rock Climbing and Rappelling excursion for $150, as well as a neat (but expensive) combo tour of the White Pass Railway and hile for $299 Day 5 - Juneau -several Carnival options here, from Whale watching for $190, a floar trip for $170, or a rather intriguing Bike and Brew tour for $126 Day 6 - Ketchikan -Carnival has a few options here, such as the Crab fest and "adventure" at $195, or sea kayaks for $170 Day 7 - Victoria -this is a short, late night stop that we will just walk around a little, if we get off the ship at all. Day 8 - Seattle This cruise is my 40th birthday celebration and a "bucket list" item. While I'd love to go all out, it also has to be on a fairly tight budget. I'd like to keep excursions at or below $150ish/person if possible. We are fairly active, and I'd love to get out and hike, bike or otherwise get out and be active. Not real interested in more passive excursions for this cruise. I'm entirely happy to book 3rd party, but am not very familiar with Alaskan operators. I'd be pretty happy with Carnival's excursions in Skagway and Juneau (Rock climbing for $150 and biking for $129 would be perfectly acceptable budget options), but really am not excited about the price or experiences offered in Ketchikan. Any thoughts on that, or better options for the other ports as well?

Out of curiosity, was your Spirit cruise to Alaska or a Caribbean port? A lot of what I've been reading had her initial Caribbean return to service as awful, while reviews seem to have trended better since she started in Alaska again.

I think we had assumed something different prior to this cruise. Both of our cruises in 2021 and 2022 were the best we've had and we were really eager to keep cruising in this current era. However, they were both out of Miami on the Horizon, and maybe location/ship was far more important than we realized.

I appreciate the advice. We are in a similar situation as far as price, we booked Alaska at that crazy rate when they were pulling ships from Australia and into Alaska and trying to fill bookings. We were originally on Freedom, but got transferred to Spirit. I did a few bock bookings on other lines for Alaska, and ironically HAL was the cheapest, though still at 50% more than we are currently booked at. I get that Alaska is a different thing entirely, and if we can just have a functional cabin with decent food and tamer passengers we will be good. Trying not to overreact to one bad cruise, but also not eager to book on Carnival again until we see how it goes on the Spirit.

Bad cruises are a new thing for me. This was #8, and while we've had bad things happen before, this was our first cruise we wish we wouldn't have gone on. Obviously the plumbing issues are a somewhat unusual situation, and the "fit" with other passengers is something else as well. But what are your best ideas to ensure a good time on the older ships? We sail Spirit in August and could use all the suggestions we can get.

To be clear for everyone: I didn't claim any open or obvious discrimination. It's staring that lingers too long, or saying "excuse me" to people they squeeze past except us. Little bits of impolite behavior that let's one know they aren't welcome, when everyone else is. I've never sailed long beach (and it's much too far away to realistically consider), so I can't speak for that. As a previous folks have mentioned, we've had good experiences out of Miami. I'm curious as to if Port Canaveral would be similar? Both of those ports are usually the cheapest to fly to for us.

Thank you. His "sister" is a mini dachshund and at 7 pounds she usually gets all the attention, lol!

Thank you. His "sister" is a mini dachshund and at 7 pounds she usually gets all the attention, lol!

He actually is a dachshund/Chihuahua mix, but his markings are stereotypical Brittany markings, so everyone thinks he is (even the vet at first). He's 8 years old but stuck looking forever like a Brittany puppy!

If it were me, I'd change to something newer. I doubt the Glory is going to be much different . Vista class and newer ships honestly feel like a different cruise line. I didn't notice the stark difference until now.

You'll have to let me know what you think of the Spirit. I'm seriously reconsidering our Spirit cruise. We got it at an epic price that we will never get again, but I also can't do another shipboard experience like this.

The thing that frustrates me the most is that our experiences on the Horizon were totally different. The SAME FOOD was so much better, and the overall cruise was amazing. Our Horizon cruises were an amazing value and we would step back onboard in a heartbeat.

I absolutely agree with Miami departures. I just hate the airport. Some cruising friends said they fly to a nearby airport and just drive the rest of the way

Thankfully we were cruising with family, so we could use their rooms. Still felt weird asking to use someone else's bathroom.

A few things I forgot: Our room was 7203. It's a forward facing room with a window. The concept was interesting, and I wouldn't avoid this idea in the future. However, you do feel A LOT of motion, so keep that in mind. I would also avoid this particular room, as I doubt they will make much of an effort to fix the issues further. It's 9 am and debarkation is very slow. We thankfully aren't ina hurry, but I feel sorry for those who needed off the ship quickly.

I've heard "A bad cruise is better than a normal day on land." No. It isn't. On land I have reliably hot water, safe food and friendly coworkers. I hate that I paid for this, and hate even more that I used 4 vacation days. I would have rather been at my desk, sipping coffee and talking to clients. I feel like Carnival has quietly split their experience into two tiers. There are the Vista class ships and newer, which seem to get unique entertainment, the best staff and all of it is kept up to compete with RCL, MSC and the rest of the cruise industry. The older ships exist in purgatory, still relying on the "Funship 2.0" formula that was developed since before we started cruising. This experience is getting long in the tooth and Carnival seems to be doing it's best to milk every dollar from this ships without investing a dime. After we cruise on the Spirit to Alaska, here are my rules for all future cruises: 1) I will never sail on anything older than the Vista. Nostalgia is a powerful beast, and the Farkus ships are a fond memory. No need to further tarnish those memories. 2) Never, ever sailing for 5 days or less. This wasn't even a "party" crowd, but was some entirely different animal, people who just didn't even want to be here. 3) Never sailing out of New Orleans again. We have always bristled at the other passengers coming from here, but it's so much worse now. I know this is a highly personal opinion that will get some flak. But we aren't comfortable, and we simply won't vacation that way. If you have questions, let me know. If you were on this cruise, I'm interested to see if you had a similar experience as we did.

The Ugly: Let's start with the food. It was BAD. We ordered much of the same food on the Horizon and the experiences couldn't have been any different. Chocolate melting cake was solid and overcooked. Much of breakfast tasted like it has been frozen and then microwaved back to life. Many of our dishes had clearly been overcooked. Steak temperatures were random, and "medium rare" came out anywhere between rare and well done. Now this would have been part of the "bad" if it weren't for the fried chicken. Most of our table ordered the Southern Fried Chicken one night, and it came out with large black burns (clearly from heat lamps) all over it. The skin was no longer crispy, and the meat itself was blackening from the burns. When we tried to politely reject this food, the dining staff looked at us like we were crazy, and audibly complained about food waste as they removed the dishes. Our room: The shower started off bad. Heat was difficult to find on a dial that spun freely. By our second day, hot water disappeared entirely, and it took two days for it to be repaired. In the middle of this, our toilet also stopped working, leaving us without working plumbing in our room for more than 24 hours. We first tried to get our room steward to call maintenance, but for whatever reason this failed. Angry, we went to Guest Services who showed far more concern. It still took multiple return trips to get any sort of hot water again, but they did provide onboard credit, wine and checked in with us constantly. This room still isn't quite right, and maintenance doesn't seem to care. But at least guest services did. Ship maintenance: while the appearance of the ship is good, things are broken everywhere. Half of the gym equipment is down, lights are out everywhere, toilets, sinks and other fixtures aren't working. All of the maintenance work we saw being done was cosmetic, and no efforts seem to be made to fix functional items. The Hub App: while it has been the hero of our last few cruises, it was the villain here. I'm not sure if the ship's poor wifi is mostly to blame, but the app switched days, times and agendas on a regular basis. One morning we woke up, and the app said it was 11:58 PM. This prevented us from checking into breakfast. To make matters worse, while this was a clear ship wide issue, the dining staff must have been left in the dark, arguing with each passenger to check in on the app. It was a flat out mess. And finally: Our fellow passengers. I've never been on a cruise with so many verbal altercations, yelling, arguing, shoving and lack of basic kindness. One member of our party is elderly and clearly has mobility issues (but is walking), and people would literally shove past him into the elevator, making him wait for the next one. My husband and I are a same sex couple, and by the second day we didn't dare so much as touch each other on the shoulder, afraid of the glares and angry looks we got from many of our fellow passengers who seemed eager to start a fight (we aren't ever a heavy PDA couple, but typically try to hold hands or dance together on cruises). No one here was on vacation. They all acted like they had brought the people they hated the most into a nightclub for 5 nights and were just hunting for trouble. And finally, my overall reaction to this cruise:

The bad: Let's start with the dining room staff. Some were friendly, attentive and remembered our names. That was likely about 50% of them. The rest were standoffish, made no effort to remember names, and disappeared frequently. Coffee refills at breakfast, water refills and simple requests (like cream for coffee or ketchup at dinner) were infrequently responded to. Even the better wait staff forgot orders, mixed them up and made mistakes we aren't accustomed to. While we are used to the occasional mistake, they were so numerous that dining took 2+ hours and felt like a fight to get the simplest of meals completed. The ship design: This was our first time on a Conquest class vessel. It will be our last. All of the ship's outer decks are focused inward toward pools. The stadium seating on lido is weird, and the only way to see the ocean is to visit deck 10 or higher, where the wind is an issue. We badly missed the aft decks on most of the other ships. The interior isn't any better. It feels spacious at first, but when full of passengers, most venues crowd easily. It was strange to see so many open, wasted spaces that should have been utilized better. The entertainment: We knew we would take a step down from our recent Horizon entertainment experiences. We didn't know how far of a step it would be. The violin string trio were the only group we liked (taste is subjective, I know), but they were only scheduled during dinner, making it nearly impossible to see them. There were only musicians playing in the atrium and the casino (where the seating is very limited) and only sometimes. We were forced to try and rely on the "old" Carnival entertainment, such as the comedy club and the Playlist shows, which we have grown tired of. We were bored. Most nights we were in the room by 9 PM. All of that said, I'm reasonable, and this is much of what we expected on an older ship on a 5 day cruise. Had it ended here, the cruise would have been exactly what we expected it to be. However...

The good: Most service staff (dining not included): the bar staff on this ship was phenomenal, room stewards were friendly and full of smiles, and Guest Services (which we rarely have needed on past cruises) responded admirably to extensive issues with our room (I'll detail this in the "Ugly" section). Guest services aggressive response likely saved our relationship with Carnival, so I am grateful they have a team that is well trained. Ship cleanliness: Visually the ship looks much better than expected, and cleaning was constantly occuring. Cozumel: our visits to Mr. Sanchos are a tradition that never disappoints. I know Cozumel is one of the most touristy ports that offers very little in unique experiences. That's ok, we needed at least one reliably good thing. That's it. That's all I got for this section.