carnival dream or liberty?

[joswhales]

im trying to pick a cruise to sail on and i was looking for feedback about carnival ships. i just sailed on sunshine and was so disappointed. i wrote carnival a 10 page letter and sent pictures. im not one to complain about anything... im very leary about sailing carnival again. im looking for opinions on other carnival ships

[stargate fan]

im trying to pick a cruise to sail on and i was looking for feedback about carnival ships. i just sailed on sunshine and was so disappointed. i wrote carnival a 10 page letter and sent pictures. im not one to complain about anything... im very leary about sailing carnival again. im looking for opinions on other carnival ships

 

Can you specify what disappointed you? Maybe we can help with avoiding those things on another ship.

[carrieluvsgreg]

Well, it's hard to know what you'd like to hear about since you had such a bad experience on the sunshine. My favorite ship is the dream. I love the cloud 9 spa amenities, but you should've had those on the sunshine. We like the pasta bar above lido restaurant. We also like tandoori on the back of the ship. We love the trivia and the dance lessons. Karaoke is fun as well as the piano bars. We've never had a bad experience on carnival to warrant a 10 page letter... Any issues we've had over the years were ranger minor and solved immediately. That's why we're still cruising with them 11 years later. Hopefully your next trip will be better.

[joswhales]

well lets see we sailed on conquest in 2012 and absolutely loved it. so i said lets try sunshine even though i read lots of bad reviews and had a friend of mine tell me not to try it cause when it was destiny she said it was horrible and thats why she wont sail carnival anymore. we are not one to complain about anything but this ship was the exception.... where do i start... customer service was a joke they didnt care about your complaints all they said was im sorry and walked away from the counter.. the line was non stop the whole cruise at there counter. i even called my travel agent from the ship to tell him not to book anybody on sunshine and to tell me who else to complain to.. there is no future cruise desk and that is whom he told me to talk too. nobody had anything nice to say about this cruise. its bad when the cruise director asked a room full of about 400 people how much fun they were having on sunshine and nobody applauded the look on her face was priceless. the ship smelled like sewage enough to make you sick to your stomach in some places. the tile floor on deck 4 atrium was cracking under your feet. there were water leaks coming out of the smoke detectors at the top of the stairs in the aft . the food on the buffet was horrible and never marked clearly. so you never knew what you were eating. never any lines there cause everyone ate someplace else. there was only 5 hot food items to choose from on the buffet... coffee and juice machines were always out. public bathrooms were out of order. you would have to wait at least 10 minutes for an elevator. i fell sorry for anyone who was disabled. we usually walked the stairs. the smoking area was a joke about 100 people crammed in a 20 by 30 area. and the worst thing of all was at guy fieri burger joint the condiment dispensers never worked right so they had mayonaise in pour jars sitting out in the heat and you could see it spoiling right before your eyes.. i was surprised nobody got sick! the dinning room was the best place to go for dinner never a complaint there. the shows were awesome. this ship needs some major adjustments. for it being newly renovated it was so disappointing. we didnt let it ruin our cruise. it almost was comical as to what we saw everyday with crew members. either the crew is lacking or not doing there jobs.

 

what kind of entertainment does dream have? i noticed they dont have the playlist performers that im used to. i like to do dance classes, waterslides, comedians, listen to live music, shows. what other food options do they have that are free besides the buffet and dinning room?

 

thanks for your suggestions and time

[brookeq]

The dream had dance classes most days. I didn't do any of them but did are it once.

 

There was live music somewhere every night. I enjoyed the male singer that sang outside the crimson dining room every night.

 

I didn't enjoy the shows too much. The dancers and singers were just ok.

 

They had 2 comedians for our sailing. I only saw one and it was the early family friendly show.

 

Karaoke was fun. It wasn't every night though.

 

We also enjoyed the game shows and gender wars was fun.

 

There was always plenty to do.

 

For food other than the dining room there is:

The buffet

And then near the buffet is the burrito bar, and the Mongolian wok.

By the aft pool is the deli and tandoori stations.

By the main pool is the grill and pizza

Above the lido is the pasta bar.

 

There is also a BBQ on the lanai deck on sea days. We didn't get to try this.

 

Brunch in then main dining room is also in sea days

[LadyVolFan]

We sailed both in the past 2 years. We loved the Liberty. The Dream was ok, but it seemed that everything was better on Liberty. We loved Karl with a K, but I believe he is not the CD anymore. The CD on Dream (James) was never around. We only saw him in the theater at night, and we just weren't impressed. Of course, we had terrible weather on the Dream and missed two ports...that could be the reason we disliked it.

[carrieluvsgreg]

well lets see we sailed on conquest in 2012 and absolutely loved it. so i said lets try sunshine even though i read lots of bad reviews and had a friend of mine tell me not to try it cause when it was destiny she said it was horrible and thats why she wont sail carnival anymore. we are not one to complain about anything but this ship was the exception.... where do i start... customer service was a joke they didnt care about your complaints all they said was im sorry and walked away from the counter.. the line was non stop the whole cruise at there counter. i even called my travel agent from the ship to tell him not to book anybody on sunshine and to tell me who else to complain to.. there is no future cruise desk and that is whom he told me to talk too. nobody had anything nice to say about this cruise. its bad when the cruise director asked a room full of about 400 people how much fun they were having on sunshine and nobody applauded the look on her face was priceless. the ship smelled like sewage enough to make you sick to your stomach in some places. the tile floor on deck 4 atrium was cracking under your feet. there were water leaks coming out of the smoke detectors at the top of the stairs in the aft . the food on the buffet was horrible and never marked clearly. so you never knew what you were eating. never any lines there cause everyone ate someplace else. there was only 5 hot food items to choose from on the buffet... coffee and juice machines were always out. public bathrooms were out of order. you would have to wait at least 10 minutes for an elevator. i fell sorry for anyone who was disabled. we usually walked the stairs. the smoking area was a joke about 100 people crammed in a 20 by 30 area. and the worst thing of all was at guy fieri burger joint the condiment dispensers never worked right so they had mayonaise in pour jars sitting out in the heat and you could see it spoiling right before your eyes.. i was surprised nobody got sick! the dinning room was the best place to go for dinner never a complaint there. the shows were awesome. this ship needs some major adjustments. for it being newly renovated it was so disappointing. we didnt let it ruin our cruise. it almost was comical as to what we saw everyday with crew members. either the crew is lacking or not doing there jobs.

 

what kind of entertainment does dream have? i noticed they dont have the playlist performers that im used to. i like to do dance classes, waterslides, comedians, listen to live music, shows. what other food options do they have that are free besides the buffet and dinning room?

 

thanks for your suggestions and time

 

I will say that our first sailing on the Dream wasn't nearly as enjoyable as the next. We sailed on her when she first came to the US. she started getting poor reviews and Carnival responded by dropping the prices. I was game, so I bit and we booked an eastern Caribbean itinerary. On that trip the ship seemed very crowded, it seemed like we waited constantly for everything. We also didn't enjoy the eastern ports like we do the western, so I'm sure that May have played into our overall impression. One thing that I splurged on during that trip that really changed my overall impression was that I bought a single day pass to the cloud 9 spa. I couldn't justify the $150 pass to use by myself and my husband wasn't really interested in buying the $250 couples pass. That day in the thalassotherapy pool and thermal suites was amazing! It made me want to re-book on the ship regardless of our other feelings. Last April was that chance and we but the bullet and booked an interior spa cabin. Much to my husbands surprise, he also loved the T-pool. So, were back on the Dream for relocation this April.

What I noticed on our trip last year was the staff had found their "sweet spot". The service was greatly improved, it really didn't seem that crowded. We rarely waited in lines and all of those things made it one of our best trips ever.

[blue_water]

well lets see we sailed on conquest in 2012 and absolutely loved it. so i said lets try sunshine even though i read lots of bad reviews and had a friend of mine tell me not to try it cause when it was destiny she said it was horrible and thats why she wont sail carnival anymore. we are not one to complain about anything but this ship was the exception.... where do i start... customer service was a joke they didnt care about your complaints all they said was im sorry and walked away from the counter.. the line was non stop the whole cruise at there counter. i even called my travel agent from the ship to tell him not to book anybody on sunshine and to tell me who else to complain to.. there is no future cruise desk and that is whom he told me to talk too. nobody had anything nice to say about this cruise. its bad when the cruise director asked a room full of about 400 people how much fun they were having on sunshine and nobody applauded the look on her face was priceless. the ship smelled like sewage enough to make you sick to your stomach in some places. the tile floor on deck 4 atrium was cracking under your feet. there were water leaks coming out of the smoke detectors at the top of the stairs in the aft . the food on the buffet was horrible and never marked clearly. so you never knew what you were eating. never any lines there cause everyone ate someplace else. there was only 5 hot food items to choose from on the buffet... coffee and juice machines were always out. public bathrooms were out of order. you would have to wait at least 10 minutes for an elevator. i fell sorry for anyone who was disabled. we usually walked the stairs. the smoking area was a joke about 100 people crammed in a 20 by 30 area. and the worst thing of all was at guy fieri burger joint the condiment dispensers never worked right so they had mayonaise in pour jars sitting out in the heat and you could see it spoiling right before your eyes.. i was surprised nobody got sick! the dinning room was the best place to go for dinner never a complaint there. the shows were awesome. this ship needs some major adjustments. for it being newly renovated it was so disappointing. we didnt let it ruin our cruise. it almost was comical as to what we saw everyday with crew members. either the crew is lacking or not doing there jobs.

 

what kind of entertainment does dream have? i noticed they dont have the playlist performers that im used to. i like to do dance classes, waterslides, comedians, listen to live music, shows. what other food options do they have that are free besides the buffet and dinning room?

 

thanks for your suggestions and time

 

I don't understand the comment about the Destiny but we sailed her 3 times and loved that ship. Liberty is nice, not our favorite and we're on the Drean next week and can report back on our experience there.

Your report is concerning to me because we've had only excellent experiences over the past 8 cruises with Carnival...

[joswhales]

I don't understand the comment about the Destiny but we sailed her 3 times and loved that ship. Liberty is nice, not our favorite and we're on the Drean next week and can report back on our experience there.

Your report is concerning to me because we've had only excellent experiences over the past 8 cruises with Carnival...

Destiny turned into Sunshine last year with there 2.0 upgrades

[Georgiagolfer]

DW and I have sailed Liberty 2 times and Dream once. We would pick Liberty over Dream if these were the only 2 ships available.

[Tapi]

Dream and Liberty are our two favorite Carnival ships, but we give the Liberty the edge. She's definitely our #1. Our dinner at Harry's Steakhouse has been, without a doubt, the best dinner we've EVER had on a cruise ship of any cruise line we've been on!

 

About your 10 page letter to Carnival, as legitimate as your disappointment may be, they will NOT take the time to read such a lengthy letter. The sad truth may be that your letter found its way straight to the trash unread and, at best, you'll get a canned "Sorry for your troubles, betcha can't wait to sail with us again. Here's $25 OBC on your next cruise" letter.

 

If you want for your disappointment to at least be read, resume your letter (preferably to one page), stick to key points, leave emotions out and keep it as objective as possible and resend. :)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

Edited January 31, 2014 by Tapi

[terryinal]

I was on the TA cruise on the Sunshine. So I was on it 17 days. I didn't care for the lay out that much but I didn't find the problems you did.Now if you are young you would love all the stuff to do for young people up top. I still like the Liberty over the others. I just got back from B2B on the Elation yesterday and had two great cruise's. But I'm in my 60's and don't did the water works

[joswhales]

i wrote the letter at the request of my travel agent.. he sent it in for me.. he does alot of business with carnival. so hopefully they will read my letter

[Sparky2]

We have not been on Dream so I cannot respond to comments about that ship.

 

We just got off Liberty this past Saturday and loved the new 2.0 upgrades, especially Guys Burgers.

 

Josh Waitsman is the current CD. Of course, I don't know when you are planning to sail so he may not be there.

[Mysticks1]

I have to agree with Tapi, I really don't think your complaints will be properly addressed from a 10 page letter. I would also condense it down and list your major concerns as bullet points. I would also send the condensed version in to John Heald. You may get a better reaction from him and his staff and he would probably be better at getting the problems addressed by the correct people.