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How to bail out your bathroom, and other emergency tips…

Mary Ellen1

By Mary Ellen1,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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Mary Ellen1

Mary Ellen1

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How to bail out your bathroom, and other emergency tips…

 

Hi. I’ll keep this review short, since it's composed at sea, on my tablet, and typing is a PITA. But I’m on a cruise ship, enjoying all of its fabulous amenities, so life is pretty good. And I am blessed. :D

 

We're currently B2B'ing on the Glory. This is day 6; tomorrow we turn around in Miami. We had quite a cabin adventure the other night, in which I learned new things that 24 previous cruises had never taught me.

 

Forget grabbing your life jacket. And heading to the muster deck. Here’s a tale of water gushing into our cabin, faster than the teensy little drain in the floor could keep up with it.

 

So… how do you bail out your bathroom? In the middle of the night, no less?

 

There I was, 2:30 in the morning. Washing my hands after using the facilities. I’d turned the water off at the sink, but I was hearing something. Like water running. What-the-??? I turn around to see a big stream of water gushing out of the left-hand side of the loo. And shooting downward, onto the floor. Again, what-the-??? Like a garden hose had just turned on. Full Blast. Yikes! :eek:

 

I grabbed towels and threw them onto the floor and leapt out of the bathroom. Turned on the light to roust DH, screaming that we had a flood. And called Guest Services.

 

By this point, the toilet brush is actually bobbing around the bathroom floor. Sailing on the high seas! Wheeee! Water is sloshing over the threshold and out onto the carpet in the cabin. My feet, and the legs of my pajama bottoms, were already wet, :eek: so I figured I had nothing to lose by stepping back into the I-hope-it's-clean-water to grab the last of the towels.

 

We needed to start bailing. Fast.

 

Now someone from housekeeping had shown up. Yay! And even better, Dude knew how to bail. He grabbed the wastebasket, tipped everything out of it, and got to work. Scooping and pouring all of the water into the shower. By the time he got ahead of the flood, and water stopped sloshing onto the carpet, other maintenance staff had shown up, and got the water to the cabin turned off. Then came a plumber, who repaired the valve or pipe that had burst in the wall.

 

By this time, we had already had the conversation with Guest Services that said, “Oh no, madame, we can’t possibly switch your cabin. The ship is completely full. There are no other cabins available.“ I wasn’t sure I believed him… :rolleyes:

 

All of the workers had left. We ventured a look at the bathroom. Me: “Honey, would you say that puddle on the floor is getting bigger? Or is it just sloshing around?” Bummer. It was definitely getting bigger. We’d stopped the torrent of water, but now we had a slow leak.

 

Another call to Guest Services, who were pretty convinced the water we were seeing was just residual water leaking out of the wall. Um, great? I think?

 

OK. Did I mention I’m Platinum? Yes, really. Show me proper respect. This chick is Platinum. This was our very first completely-all-Platinum cruise.

 

So I decided to play the Platinum card. Called Guest Services again, reminded him of my fabulous Platinum status, and that we’d taken a lot of cruises with Carnival. I used these Magic Words: “I really must INSIST that you move us to another cabin.”

 

Ding-ding-ding! THAT WORKED! The man at the front desk looked at his computer more closely, and another cabin somehow materialized.

 

Yay for 4am treks to the front desk in your jammies, to pick up new keys. Yay for quickly stuffing a few overnight essentials in a bag, and trekking the entire length of the ship to get to your new cabin. Yay for some sad dude named Steve, who missed his cruise, leaving an extra cabin available for us. His FTTF paperwork was sitting on the desk.

 

But.

 

The next two things that happened weren’t fun. At all.

 

First, as soon as we turned the lights out, the phone rang. Our new BFF at Guest Services. “I’m very sorry to say, but it seems you’ve left the Do-Not-Disturb sign out on your other cabin. And now the maintenance staff can’t enter, to work on the room. Could you please possibly go back there and let them in?” But of course. We may be Platinum, but we’re not jerks. DH made the trek, down to the other room and back.

 

The second not-fun thing that happened was making the 10am Pajama Walk of Shame back to our original cabin to get clothes and things. Ugh. Some people are comfortable wearing their robes around the ship. But I’m not one of them. :o

 

So here we are. We’ve been in our new cabin for 3 ½ nights, and are now packing our things to move back to our original cabin in the morning. So much for planning a B2B where you don’t have to change cabins! That didn’t work out. But everything about the rest of the cruise has been great, and they comp'd us a lovely dinner in the steakhouse last night.

 

Here’s to a middle-of-the-night cruise adventure we’ll never forget!

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freedomcruiser891

freedomcruiser891

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Something really similar happened to us on the freedom last March except the water wasn't in the bathroom but in the carpet of the room [emoji37]. They did reimburse us $80 per person however and we didn't even complain at all. We just asked if they could fix it. Carnival always does a good job keeping people happy [emoji1]

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Mary Ellen1

Mary Ellen1

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Thanks, all, for the words of support. These are truly First World problems, right?

 

sfaaa, I'm still processing how I feel about the compensation we received. DH thinks we're fine, but this has really been a hassle. I may be sending Carnival a letter after we get back...

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SadieN

SadieN

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We had to do this at midnight in a bungalow hotel once. No compensation, but got a (slightly) better bungalow.

 

Besides your PJs, any other clothes get wet? Did they offer to wash them?

Edited by SadieN
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Momis2

Momis2

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What a horrible thing to have happen. I can speak from experience what a pain in the tuchis it is as we were on a 30 day Polynesian cruise and had the toilet overflow like you did only it happened 5 different times over the course of the cruise!!! We were on a first name basis with the plumber. He would just randomly stop by the cabin to see how we were doing. It was happening ship-wide so it wasn't something we did or did not do. Even the public bathrooms were involved.

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sfaaa

sfaaa

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sfaaa, I'm still processing how I feel about the compensation we received. DH thinks we're fine, but this has really been a hassle. I may be sending Carnival a letter after we get back...

 

I would consider refunding of one night cruise price a reasonable compensation. We all pay big bucks to cruise and relax, not to subject ourselves to more stress and nasty surprise in the middle of the night.

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ObstructedView2

ObstructedView2

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I'm still processing how I feel about the compensation we received. DH thinks we're fine, but this has really been a hassle.

 

I may be sending Carnival a letter after we get back...

The most efficient, productive way & time to handle any issue (good or bad) when sailing is (while onboard), not when you get home with a letter. Since you are about to begin your 2nd leg of the B2B, take advantage of that opportunity...

 

You've handled this issue in stride, enjoy the rest of your cruise.

 

 

 

 

:)

Edited by ObstructedView2
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sandi422

sandi422

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The most efficient, productive way & time to handle any issue (good or bad) when sailing is (while onboard), not when you get home with a letter. Since you are about to begin your 2nd leg of the B2B, take advantage of that opportunity...

 

You've handled this issue in stride, enjoy the rest of your cruise.

 

 

 

 

:)

I agree that handling issues while on board is best. We had a few minor issues on our cruise 2 weeks ago. They were handled while on board quickly. It's a shame you had to play the platinum card. As a guest with a legitimate problem in the cabin, you should not have to ask a second time to be moved to another cabin. Amazing how that second cabin miraculously appeared.
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Mary Ellen1

Mary Ellen1

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What a horrible thing to have happen. I can speak from experience what a pain in the tuchis it is as we were on a 30 day Polynesian cruise and had the toilet overflow like you did only it happened 5 different times over the course of the cruise!!! We were on a first name basis with the plumber. He would just randomly stop by the cabin to see how we were doing. It was happening ship-wide so it wasn't something we did or did not do. Even the public bathrooms were involved.

 

Oh no, that's horrible!

 

Let me just state again, for the record, that our situation (just like yours) was NOT "passenger-stops-up-the-toilet." Something burst in the wall. I discovered that there's an overflow outlet, on the side of the toilet, near where it's bolted to the wall. Water was sluicing out of that thing like it was a garden hose. :eek:

 

 

I agree that handling issues while on board is best. We had a few minor issues on our cruise 2 weeks ago. They were handled while on board quickly. It's a shame you had to play the platinum card. As a guest with a legitimate problem in the cabin' date=' you should not have to ask a second time to be moved to another cabin. Amazing how that second cabin miraculously appeared.[/quote']

 

Yeah, I'm surprised at how the new cabin materialized. Further, we'd asked several times (and called pre-cruise) if there were any balcony cabins available. We were willing to pay for that upgrade. But they kept saying no. :rolleyes:

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Mary Ellen1

Mary Ellen1

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We had to do this at midnight in a bungalow hotel once. No compensation, but got a (slightly) better bungalow.

 

Besides your PJs, any other clothes get wet? Did they offer to wash them?

 

Nothing else got wet, thank Heavens! Just my PJs and the carpet. And my feet. :eek: We had the Platinum laundry service, so we were fine with that.

 

Thanks again to all who have responded with well wishes. I appreciate it! Ya gotta laugh sometimes, right? :)

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