All Carnival Brides

[bless81s]

My Fiancee and I decided to get married through the Carnival Cruise Lines. My question is this, which ship is the best ship to get married on? Also, which carnival ship has the best onboard activities?

 

We are willing to leave out of any port in Florida.

 

Thanks!

[tuskjl29]

I choose the Valor Cruise ship, because of several family and friends booked that ship before we planned our wedding date. Since we did not want to burden family with an additional cruise + plus the extra money to do 2 cruises in 2 months, we decided to go on the cruise everyone was already booked on.

 

The only sad thing is the Valor Cruise ship does not have a wedding chapel. So, If you need to be married in a chapel vrs a regular room. Look into carnival's ships and see which ones have wedding chapels.

 

Good luck-Jennifer

[valorbride]

I was married aboard the Valor on 9/25/05. We were married in the Capital Room which was wonderful and very pretty.

[r1forbgirl]

Please rethink your decison to get married on Carnival. I've been up for 2 weeks straight I think just scanning sites like this and trying to figure out what I will do now that Carnival ruined our wedding. Not only did they never perform our ceremony it was a mediocre cruise at best! I'm really not one of those people who complain about everything. We just wanted to have a romantic ceremony and honeymoon without a lot of fuss. They truely ruined my wedding day and I have no way to fix it anytime soon. We spent all our money on this cruise and were promised a ceremony one of the 1st 2 days at sea (we wanted to be married at sea and since this is not legal we had gone to the courthouse a few days prior, but did not tell anyone, and did not exchange rings)with the remaining being our honeymoon. I have a gown,shoes,headpiece and jewlery that I've never worn and techinically I'm legally wed but I didn't get to have a ceremony, or exchange vows, or rings with my husband. We don't feel married Carnival has left us in a horrible situation and now they refuse to do anything about it. We don't have the money to plan something like this again. I will include the letter I sent to them. It's quite long but even if you read half of it, you'll see we tried so hard to make this work and they kept canceling or changing the plans on us. No bride should put up with what I did and for all that ,I still never had a ceremony. I'm sure some people have had decent experiences with Carnival but since this happened I've found tons of people who have had major problems with Carnival including their wedding dept. For all they put us through they decided their doing nothing. They sent us a 3 line letter saying they would give us a bon voyage gift if we sailed with them again UNBELIEVABLE!!!! Trust me and stay away from Carnival. Do a web search for "Carnival Complaints" and see how much you pull up!

Carnival Cruise Lines

Guest Relations Department

3655 NW 87th AVE

Miami, FL 33718-2428

RE: Carnival Legend, 9-18-05, 4172

I am writing this letter to explain why I do not intend to travel with Carnival Cruise Lines(or any of your sister cruise lines) in the future, unless you can find some way to amend this travesty. I plan to share my story with everyone I know, and anyone who asks. I am also sending copies of this letter to Modern Bride, Brides, Bride Again, The Knot (online), the local paper; The Virginian Pilot, possibly the New York Times (since we departed from New York and should have arrived back in New York after having wonderful ceremony at sea), our travel agent Cru-Con, as well as anyone else I think will help spread the news of the awful way Carnival treats couples planning to wed on their ships. I want to make sure other brides are not disillusioned by the farce your web site and your wedding department, details for ceremonies with Carnival.

It is most disturbing to me that nothing was done to remedy the situation before it got to this point. I cannot comprehend how a company such as yours, who's own logo is the "fun ships", a company who supposedly prides their self on customer satisfaction and promotes wedding packages and honeymoons to be such a "breeze for the couple", could do such an injustice to a bride and groom on what should be one of the most important days of their life.

I sincerely hope that this letter has landed on the desk of someone who actually cares and takes the time to read it, in it's entirety. If it has not, I hope you have the courtesy to pass it to someone who will care. Certainly someone at Carnival has a conscience and still worries about customer service. I have no doubt, this will not be brief, but I feel it is necessary to explain the trip as a whole and not just how devastated we are about not having our ceremony. For myself and my fiancé, Carnival has ruined our wedding day! I should hope someone at least takes the time to listen to our story, since I am taking the time to write it.

If it were just one small thing or even a few things, the trip may not have been that bad. But since the problems were constant throughout the trip, and, we were never able to "inconvenience" your Capt. and crew to conduct the ceremony we were told we could have, we feel that we wasted a great deal of money. And now, to make matters worse, we do not have the money to plan and pay for something such as this again, but I do have a dress, with matching head piece, jewelry, and shoes, that I have not worn. No ceremony was held for us on a Carnival cruise ship as we planned for in advance. We were not given the opportunity to have a wedding ceremony and then go on a honeymoon as most couples do. We simply went on vacation and managed to spend all of our wedding money.

While I know that Carnival can not help the weather in any way, it just makes our trip/wedding that much more upsetting. Our original plan was to cruise out of New Orleans, Nov. 5th - 10th. Bryan's birthday is November 2nd. This would have been a wedding, honeymoon, and birthday party all in one. We are part of a social club that has planned their annual cruise with carnival for several years now. This group has chapters all over the world, therefor it is no a small event. I'm sure it would be a loss to Carnival, for our group to plan with another cruise line in the coming years. The change in plans, due to hurricane Katrina, caused a few others to cancel (due to the price increase and port change), but at this point I know you still have over 50 people from our group now cruising on the Glory, Nov. 5th - 12th, out of Port Canaveral. As I said, we were originally planning to take the cruise with our group (leaving from New Orleans) so that friends and a few family members could attend our ceremony and celebrate Bryan's birthday with us. When the New Orleans cruise was canceled, the group travel agent rebooked for the cruise on the Glory. The price more than doubled. Unfortunately we had to make the decision to change our plans all together and settle for a cruise that we could afford and would no longer allow us to be with friends and family. We made the best of it and had to hurry things (my dress most importantly) as the cruise we decided on was leaving much sooner than we had planned.

We have always dreamed of being married at sea. While we understood it was not legal to have the ceremony at sea, after visiting your web site many times and calling your wedding department, we realized that we could be legally married at the courthouse, locally, and then cruise on one of your ships and have a "Renewal of Vows" ceremony. Legally we would already be married, but in our hearts and minds we were set to be married at sea! Our anniversary would be from the day we had our ceremony on your ship. No one other than ourselves knew that we had been married at the courthouse and we didn't consider ourselves married. We did not (and still have not, since we still have had no ceremony) exchange rings. We were very excited and it seemed to be coming together so well, with the exception of no guests now.

At first, I had a very hard time getting information from your wedding department. They have a bad habit of leaving calls on hold for extended periods of time. I finally spoke with Alina Vasquez, both by phone and e-mail. She sent all the information I needed on the ceremony. We discussed everything in detail from bringing our own music if we so desired, down to what the champagne flutes would look like and say. Ms. Vasquez assured me that we would be able to have our ceremony on one of the first two days at sea. This way, we would officially be married and on our honeymoon for the remainder of the 8 day cruise. She said we could not plan any of the specifics such as the time or exact location until we were onboard. She instructed us to meet with the group coordinator immediately after arriving. She explained that each sailing has a new crew and this was the reasoning for having to wait until arriving at the ship.

I spent a great deal of money having my dress altered because I did not have the time to wait for the correct size which was already on order. I paid extra to have my hair done since I had to squeeze in an appointment (especially on a Saturday since we cruised on Sunday). I had my nails done and did all the things any normal bride would do to feel special and beautiful on her day!

Upon arrival at the port at 9:30 am, we asked to speak with the group coordinator. We were told we could not speak with her until onboard and boarding would start approximately 12pm. We asked if there were any possible way to speak with her sooner, as we were trying to plan our wedding ceremony. We were told he must wait. We made it onboard by 1:00pm and went straight to the pursers desk only to find that the group coordinator was busy, but we could leave a message and she would call us back in our room later in the day. That evening when we finally heard from Mona (the group coordinator for our cruise) she told us it was too late to plan for Monday as she needed at least 24 hours notice(even though we'd been asking for her all day). She said it would have to be Tuesday. We discussed a few details, she said she would speak with the Capt. and call us back. Even though we've waited all day, we wait in our cabin awhile longer (instead of enjoying ourselves on one of the decks). But we think it's worth it, because we are going to have a very special ceremony at sea just as we've always dreamed.

This is the beginning of a long process, going back and forth, trying to make the arrangements for a time and place that the Capt., a photographer, and a cake cutter (who really isn't necessary for only a bride and groom) are all available at the same time. We were told before hand that Carnival makes all the arrangements for the couple, but on your wedding day, a bride usually likes to know a little about what will happen and what things will look like. Mona always treated me as if I were a nuisance for asking her any questions. She didn't know and didn't want to be bothered with finding out answers to questions concerning whether the wedding march they play would be the organ version or orchestra version. Simple questions were far too much of a bother for her. I asked Ms. Vasquez previously if it would be possible to have the bouquet, offered with your wedding ceremony, rather than the one long stem rose, offered with the renewal of vows ceremony since we were considering this our wedding. She didn't think that would be a problem, but Mona was strictly by the book (or should I say computer print out). If it wasn't listed on her little piece of paper (that she had to keep finding) dictating what is included for the renewal of vows ceremony, we couldn't have it. Our only option was to purchase anything in addition to her list (or instead of something on the list), from the formalities shop.

Mona never introduced herself personally (which I thought was completely unprofessional). Instead we were stuck in our cabin the first 2 days waiting for phone calls from her! We really weren't being that difficult. We just wanted the simple ceremony the Capt. performs, hopefully close to sunset because we discussed having pictures done on the deck (since we were not permitted to have the ceremony on deck as we hoped) and then we were planning to make reservations in the supper club for an intimate dinner. We had no guests. We wouldn't have taken much time or space for any of the people involved. We were paying the same amount of money that someone with 10 guests would pay but no exceptions or changes could be made for us. Times for the ceremony kept being changed. Phones calls kept being made.

We missed dinner the first night on board because my bag did not come until it was too late for me to shower and change. There were absolutely no events going on the first night (even though I had convinced my fiancé how Carnival ships were always so much fun and had a great party atmosphere with so much to do all the time) which was odd since Carnival is known as "The Fun Ships". The pools were not filled when we boarded (but if they had been, they close so early it's pointless and hot tubs on a cruise ship should never close, but that is only my opinion). There was no music on the decks when we boarded, no fun, party type atmosphere as I've experienced on Carnival in the past. We went to the disco (which we kept being told was so much fun) after eating on the Lido deck (which we will later discover far surpasses eating in the main dining room most evenings), and there were all of 2 people in there. We asked several crew members where and when could we receive the drink coupons that I paid for in the package I purchased. The first 4 people we asked had no idea. Then we were told we had to get them from our waiter in the dining room. Well, we missed dinner due to my luggage coming so late, so now we would have to wait for our drink tickets until the next night. We placed our door tag on the knob for room service the next morning and called it a night.

We wake when room service knocks and the order was completely wrong. We laugh about it and move on, but had no idea that this was the beginning of a long downward spiral. I really hoped to sit on the decks in the sun, but didn't want to get crazy tan lines since we were planning to have the ceremony Tuesday and my dress is strapless (again, little things a bride has to worry about - not ruining my nails or hair and worrying about tan lines, which is why the ceremony was desired on Monday). A few calls are made between Mona and I this day. As I said, times keep changing. It's making me very uneasy and I still have not met Mona. The planning was not supposed to be this complicated per Ms Vasquez and your web site. We explore the ship a bit, try to relax and look forward to our ceremony the next day.

While getting ready for the Capt.'s party Mon. night, I lost 2 of my hair clips down the sink drain. I called to the reception desk and asked how long the party would last (debating if I had time to worry about the clips). I was told one hour. I decided to wait for the plumber (as our room steward had already attempted to pull them out with a fork) to come and hopefully retrieve my clips out of the drain because they matched my gown perfectly. I would still have 30-40 minutes left to enjoy the party.

When we arrived in the Follies lounge, there were no seats to be found. Finally after flagging down a waiter with only one drink left on his tray, they announced the party was over. They actually told people to leave the area so the could get ready for a show. The party lasted exactly 35 minutes. We were there for 5 minutes. I decide to go straight to the pursers desk and ask if there will be another Capt.'s party. I speak with a very rude woman, named Ari, who tells me "no, there will be another formal night but not another Capt.'s party". I recognize her voice and explain that when I called earlier, she told me the party would last one hour. I tell her it lasted 35 minutes, obviously, as it is now over. She insists that the party is still going on. I explain that we've just come from Follies and it is definitely over. She very rudely says to me "so it's my fault you didn't get there on time?". I started to explain what happened (concerning my hair clips) when I realized I needed to mention to her, how rude she just was. She then says, "so now I have an attitude problem and it's my fault you couldn't get dressed early enough?". I sincerely hope someone addresses this issue with this very rude employee you have at the pursers desk. Again her name was Ari, and she should not be working in a position where the crew members should be the friendliest.

By this time I am fuming. I'm feeling that Carnival was a poor choice for something as important as our wedding and honeymoon. So far things have been unorganized, unprofessional, and many on your staff are rude or ignorant. The chaos is becoming stressful to both of us and we are far from enjoying ourselves. We decide to have a drink and go to our late seating dinner in the dining room. We are one of the first tables seated (since we are early due to the party ending early). Our assigned table is located directly after entering the dining room. We have a table for 2 and become surrounded by hordes of people (cattle) pushing and shoving to their (troughs) tables. We wait and wait and wait. We can't even seem to get water, let alone bread service, or have our order taken like the rest of the large tables filled with families around us. We felt very unimportant and ignored. Finally we had to ask the Maitre'D to send a server to our table. The food was mediocre at best. We attempt several times to get a drink in the dining room but bar servers are hard to find. When we do order, it takes the length of the meal to receive the drink and then they wish you to put your fork down, stop eating, and sign a ticket for them. Do they think we're going to run off without paying our bill? Where are we going to go? We're on a boat for god sakes. Besides, Carnival makes certain every little thing is added to our sail and sign account which had to be opened with a credit card. We ask our waiter several times about the drink tickets. He has no idea what we are talking about and refers us to the bar servers. They are clueless as well. Finally a woman shows up at our table and says she looked for us the evening before. That is it. We have no idea who she was, but we have our tickets now. The night continues to go downhill. We went to bed and hoped that Tuesday would be beautiful for our ceremony. But first we place our order for room service on the door.

Tuesday morning; wedding day! Again our breakfast order is all wrong. They bring cereal with no spoon, danish when we asked for muffin, the wrong juice, no cream or sugar for the coffee. At this point my nerves are frazzled because the breakfast just brings back all the disappointments of the past few days. I decide to go to the pursers desk and talk to someone about all the problems we're having. This is supposed to be an exciting and romantic time for us and we're both miserable. I speak with a very nice woman named Ashwinnie (forgive me, I'm certain the spelling is incorrect). She listens very intently and decides the first thing that should happen is that I should meet Mona (finally) in person. A few minutes later Mona arrives and I have to explain everything again. I cry several times. I suppose a bride becomes emotional when everything has gone so terribly wrong up to this point. I explain to Mona how nothing has gone as planned so far and a bride should not feel this upset on her wedding day. I just don't feel that Carnival has done anything they say they will do. Both Mona and Ashwinnie spend some time with me (buttering me up). We discuss the ceremony. We walk to the chapel and look at things. Change the time again (imagine that), to accommodate for the sunset (since we are traveling further south) and to have time for our dinner in the supper club. I am pleased and happy that we will have our ceremony that night. We set the time for 6:15. The ceremony was to take approximately 15 minutes. The sun was to set about 6:30 that evening so we would have great photos taken on the deck. While we were having photos taken, our cake and champagne were to be set up next to our table in the Golden Fleece supper club (which is unfortunately another expense in addition to the cruise and ceremony). Our reservations are for 7pm. It all sounds perfect.

I go to the cabin, put on my swimsuit and decide to try and enjoy myself out on the deck with my fiancé for awhile. Just about the time I'm heading back to the cabin to start dressing for our wedding, I hear an announcement for "my name" to call the pursers desk. I go to the closest phone and it's Mona. She is telling me that once again, the plans are changing. Unbelievable!!! I can not believe what I'm hearing. After all the planning, changing and setting up and now it's 2 hours before we're supposed to have our ceremony and they are changing the plans again! I just snap at this point. I don't know what to do. I don't say much to Mona as I am completely unhappy with the new plan and in shock that Carnival can not do a better job than this. I go to the cabin and cry. Bryan becomes very upset at this point because once again his bride is in tears. He marches to the pursers desk in a fury in search of Mona. Five minutes later Mona and Bryan arrive back at the cabin together. Mona explains the new plan her and the Capt. have decided on. What about me? What about Bryan? Do we get to have any say so in our wedding? Apparently Carnival could not scrounge up a photographer to be in the supper club at 7pm so we would have no pictures of our champagne toast or cake cutting if we went ahead with the plan made earlier in the day. We are apparently working around what everyone else wants except the bride and groom (the ones paying for it). Mona tells us she's moved the ceremony time up 15 minutes and having our cake and champagne in a lounge, which is ludicrous since there are only 2 of us. Then we will take pictures and proceed to dinner. This is not what we want. This was not what we decided on. It won't feel special. It will not be intimate. There will be no candles, no romantic atmosphere. They want to hurry us around, have a ceremony in a chapel that we didn't want, run into a big empty lounge by ourselves to cut the cake (before our dinner) then rush to try and catch the sunset. All to accommodate a photographer! I don't think it could have sounded any more unromantic or impersonal. At this point I don't care if the cook takes pictures on our digital camera. Why on earth would we change all of our wonderful plans at this late hour? And I know with all the photographers always running around the dining rooms (snapping pictures of guests with food in their mouths) there would have been at least one photographer in the supper club. None of this made sense but she was not offering anything else. I was about to dress. I had my gown pressed 2 days prior thinking we would have been married by this point. What can I do? I try to smile and move forward but the tears just start rolling down my face, and I am unable to stop. After I control myself somewhat, I call Mona and tell her there is no way I can walk down the aisle this miserable. I call and cancel the supper club reservations as well and cry myself to sleep. It's 4:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday. We've been on the ship since 1pm Sunday and have not enjoyed ourselves one bit.

Bryan tries to arrange something for Wednesday morning before we pull into port in San Juan but Mona tells him there is not enough time to arrange this. (what needs to be arranged? It's two people having a 15 minute ceremony conducted by the captain. The cake is already baked).

Wednesday morning I call Mona and ask why we can't have the ceremony that morning. She says there isn't time to plan it now, and that her and Bryan discussed Thursday after we leave St. Thomas. She says they already have the entire thing planned. I remind her that he did ask about wed. morning as well. She said the problem was the cake. "What happened to the cake from the day prior?" , I ask. I'm told it was probably thrown out. To me, that means the waitstaff ate it. So now I'm left with possibly, not definitely (as nothing has been definite thus far), getting married on the 5th day of our 8 day cruise. We were to be married right away and enjoy our honeymoon. My nails no longer look good. My hair is completely undone from the style I paid for at the salon, and I have a tan line from the one hour I did go on the deck. On top of that, Thursday is the one day we actually have tickets for 2 shore excursions and now I'm supposed to cram my wedding in to the day as well.

I decide to go on the deck, have a few drinks and not think about it. Bryan says he will arrange everything and it will be beautiful.

We get off the ship for a bus tour and a little shopping but since everything closes about 7pm and we did not arrive until after 3pm, there wasn't much open after our tour. This was horrible planning on Carnivals part. We were even told by the cruise director that the shops close at 7pm, so if Carnival knows this why don't they plan to get there earlier? Since the shops were all closed we decided just to head back to the ship and have dinner on board. We're in port until midnight, but everything in San Juan is closed so what is the point?

Wednesday night while having dinner, Bryan tells me that he and Mona came up with a wonderful plan. He and I will go about our day (Thursday) as planned with the shore excursions and after the 2nd trip we will come back to the ship, dress, and have our ceremony just as we are leaving port in St. Thomas. They thought the pictures would be beautiful with St. Thomas as the background, and it would be close to sunset. We would have dinner reservations at 6:45 so we could accommodate the photographer. It sounds OK to me. I'm not happy that we aren't being married until this close to the end of the cruise, but it sounds nice and Bryan was excited, which helped me to get excited.

Thursday morning we wake at 6:30am to watch the ship pull into port in St. Thomas. We take in the view and decide on a nap before heading out for our shore excursions. This is going to be "our" day! We just know it. We are awakened by the telephone. I can only imagine who it is. Bryan answers and it is Mona telling us that she is very sorry, but once again our ceremony can not happen as planned. She apparently never checked with the Capt. before agreeing to all the times for Thursday. The Capt. said he was not able to conduct the ceremony as we are pulling out of port because he must be on the bridge at that time. He would not be able to get away for at least 2 hours (meaning 8pm). This is something Mona should have known. We asked why someone else couldn't conduct the ceremony. We didn't care who did it at this point, since we're legally married and just want to exchange our rings and feel married. She said there were only 2 other people who could conduct the ceremony and they were both busy at this time as well. Mona's suggestion is to be married after we leave Tortola. She says, "then everybody will be happy, everyone will be on board and available, and it will be nice". I ask her, "what about me? what about us? aren't we supposed to be happy? after all, isn't this our wedding?". The best Carnival could do for us at this point is to offer us a wedding ceremony the last 2 days of a cruise that was supposed to be our honeymoon. I've never heard of couples going on their honeymoon and then getting married. Furthermore, you typically enjoy your honeymoon, or try to. You don't spend it trying to plan your wedding or trying to keep your nails and hair looking nice because hopefully the next day you will actually have a ceremony! You don't usually spend your honeymoon arguing with an incompetent group coordinator on a cruise ship who can't seem to coordinate anything. How can a woman possibly enjoy a cruise to the Caribbean, snorkeling, swimming, and sight seeing, when you're worried about keeping your hair style in tact for a wedding ceremony? A ceremony you were promised would occur before you have the chance to do any of the listed activities. At my wits end I ask Mona, "what are you going to do? how are you going to make this right? Carnival needs to do something and you don't seem to be able to handle this. I think you need to call Alina Vasquez.". She tells me she will call her and call us back. So we wait in our cabin by the phone, as we have so much of the cruise. Her return call is meaningless. Mona tells us that she has just spoke with Alina and Alina's response was that I was given all the information on the packages offered. Yes, I most certainly was. Now if only I could have one of those packages I was assured could be, and only be, arranged for once on the ship, everything would be great. How did her phone call help in any way? We begin to wonder if Mona is actually speaking to anyone about planning our ceremony.

We decided at this point, after having wasted most of the cruise trying to plan something that would never come to fruition, to try and enjoy what was left of the trip and have some fun. No more worries about hair, or wacky tan lines. No more talking to Mona who had done nothing but make us miserable. No more crying because we spent every dime we had saved for our wedding and honeymoon on a mere vacation. It can't be a honeymoon when you're not married.

Perhaps Mona just didn't give a damn because this was her last sailing on the Legend. I don't know. Maybe she never talked to Captain Robert Garibbo about any of this. You would think if she had, he would have introduced himself. Possibly offered an apology for all the mishaps and confusion. Maybe sent a brief note with a bottle of wine to our dinner table. At no point were we ever offered anything for our inconvenience, our sadness, for the inadequate staffing or the inability to plan something and follow through with it. No massage was offered to try and calm an upset bride and groom. No offers for my hair or nails to be done in their salon before our ceremony (which would never happen). Never an offer to go ahead and have our dinner in the supper club that we had to cancel twice. Nothing was offered to us. Someone could have, at the very least, offered one of our photos taken by the photographers who were constantly blamed for the time changes of the ceremony. After all, at Carnivals prices for photos, it would be less expensive to pay for your own photographers cruise fare, for him/her to be at your disposal throughout the trip.Your prices for photos are completely unjustified when you do nothing more than send kids out with digital cameras snapping unfocused, unflattering pictures of people, develop them and then throw them out when they are not purchased for your outrageous prices. I've never seen such a gross display of waste. You could try asking people if they would like their photo taken or perhaps selling them for less. I'm certain you could sell those photos for $5.00 a piece and sell almost every single one. You'd make more money and have less waste. I suppose after working with your incompetent group coordinator and the rude pursers for a week, I can see that Carnival is not interested in things of that nature. But we were not even offered a photo and of course we never had the ceremony to have an opportunity to purchase wedding photos. I shudder at the thought of the price the wedding package photos would have cost. We did not learn till the 3rd night that we would only be offered a package and would not be able to purchase individual photos of the ceremony. It really didn't matter, we never had a wedding.

It seems to me that in addition to the mishaps we encountered, Carnival has severe problems with organization on The Legend. The crew is inadequate, ignorant of their duties and surroundings most times. The activities were silly and far too few. The entertainment is sad on a good day. The cruise director was more funny than the hired comedians. The band for the pool musically, would be acceptable, minus the singer. The dancers all looked very new and untrained compared to other cruises I have been on. And again, for the entertainment I will mention how unorganized things were. One of the shows we were most looking forward to was canceled not once, but twice. Both times it was blamed on the waves. It was too rocky for the dancers they claimed. Certainly they knew the waves would not lessen, far before the time the show was to start. The cruise director chose to announce the show was canceled once people were in the theater and had been waiting for 15-20 minutes. I would bet something else was the problem. Dancers can account for rocking. Certain steps can be taken out of the show. You do not wait until you have a theater full of people, trying to see a show that was canceled the night prior, who have all dressed over 2 hours early for dinner on a formal night, to cancel the show. It was unprofessional and rude, but consistent with the rest of the cruise.

And if all of this weren't enough, your blue chairs on the sun decks stained the back of Bryan's new swim trunks. Not too worry. The staff closed all the pools and the upper decks as well as the slide on our last sea day anyway. I'm sure had I complained to the pursers desk about the swim trunks they would have just replied "who cares, the pools are closed".

Also, when we picked up our luggage at the port, it seems one of our bags managed to receive a huge tear. From the cabin to the baggage claim, one bag had a huge tear and another had a small tear. It was almost like one more kick in the behind, or someone saying, "and don't come back!".

I ask you this, what are we supposed to do now? We've told all of our friends and relatives we were to be married on a wonderful cruise and upon our return we would have a big party to share the pictures of the ceremony and honeymoon. We have no pictures to show them. We never had a ceremony. We were not given the opportunity to exchange vows and rings. We've started to feel as if we did something horribly wrong by thinking we could get married, just the two of us in a romantic "at sea" ceremony. Most people were upset they couldn't attend and look what happened; we never had a ceremony. I can't even figure out if I should call Bryan my husband or fiancé. We don't feel married. We've had no wedding but technically we are legally wed (due to running to the courthouse just so we could have a splendid ceremony onboard a cruise ship). We'd love to start wearing our wedding bands but at the same time we'd like a formal ceremony where we exchange them. After all that is what we had planned and paid for. We don't want to taint anything else about this union we are still trying to create. So please tell us, what are we supposed to do? We've spent all of our money on a mediocre vacation, that we had saved for a wedding at sea and a honeymoon cruise. We could have looked past all the inadequacies of the cruise had we actually had our ceremony Monday (9-19) or Tuesday (9-20) as planned. We may not have even noticed the problems, being blissfully happy, married and on our honeymoon. But Carnival ruined all that for us! Carnival did not give us that opportunity. My mother had a gift delivered to our cabin. The "Just Married" package that Carnival offers on the web site. It includes a white "bride" and black "groom" t-shirt, just married flip flops, and a just married bag. We kept waiting to have our ceremony so we could wear our t-shirts and flip flops together and use the bag to carry personal items to the sun deck, displaying "just married". All of it sits on my floor, never having been used. Such a waste. I suppose it's our fault for not using the items, but we thought it would be so fun to wear right after our ceremony. Maybe this seems silly to whomever is reading our letter, but aren't you entitled to silly maybe even goofy, fun, trivial things on your honeymoon? What should I do with it now? Why would I ever want to wear a Carnival "Bride" t-shirt? To remember the cruise I thought I was getting married on? Should I tell my mother, "I'm sorry you wasted $70 on just married shirts and a bag. We never used them since they wouldn't marry us."?

I sincerely hope that you, Carnival, decides to make all of this right. It's really awful to give a couple the hope of such a beautiful wedding and then never come through with it. Not because you couldn't, but because you have no organization, no one competent enough to plan such a tiny event. You do however have employees who care only about the ending of a cruise so they can begin their vacation and then transfer to a new ship. It's heartbreaking for me to think that I purchased a gown specifically to be married on a cruise, in warm weather. I purchased shoes that were meant for a cruise ship wedding, in warm weather (another words sandals). My hair was even done in a style fitted for the islands. Even if we had the money to throw together a small ceremony here in VA, it is too cold now for me to wear my gown or the shoes I purchased. To add salt to the wound, it seems I've seen nothing but commercials for Royal Caribbean cruises since we've been home. Bryan just looks at me each time one comes on. Royal Caribbean was his choice for our wedding/honeymoon and he let me book Carnival. I'm not sure what the best answer is, as you can not give us a September wedding in 2005 now. But you certainly have the means to correct your wrong.

Before I end this letter I would also like to say "thank -you", to our very sweet and always accommodating assistant waiter. His name was Claudiu from Romania. This was his first sailing on The Legend. We could certainly tell. His attitude and charm had not been ruined by the rest of The Legend staff yet. If you could find 900 more like him, The Legend might be a nicer ship to sail on. We sincerely hope you give him the credit he is due and we wish him well.

We look forward to a quick response.

Sincerely,

[Liberty Bride]

The best ship would be no ship! Honestly, go with another cruiseline. Carnival is not a good choice. I am three weeks away from my wedding day and I would cancel it if I wouldn't involve all our family and friends who are cruising with us!

[Longboysfan]

If this was not a true story it would be funny.

Even I know the Captain is on the Bridge when leaving every Port.

 

Carnival's little ship of Horrows.

 

Sometimes it's better to go to the top on the ship - Hotel Manager.

The person helping you clearly had no grasp of what to do or a fall back plan or time windows for getting anything done.

[kujobie]

Take it with a grain of salt. For every nightmare, there are a thousand good experiences that are untold. People don't usually write letters like this when things go well. Read the fine print. Vow renewals, which is what r1forbgirl purchased, do not guarantee a specific time or place to occur. r1forbgirl obviously had unrealistic expectations that she could dictate when and where her ceremony would be conducted. To the OP, we are getting married on the Carnival Miracle, which has a chapel, and sails out of Tampa, a very nice port. Tampa is our home town and we have sailed from here a few times. Very easy and efficient boarding and debarking. And it's a nice place to visit, too. Anyways, Carnival, and other lines, perform many wedding ceremonies every week and you hear reletively few bad tales like the one above. Don't let them scare you away.

[2007CarnivalBride]

Yes, Carnival has their issues but so does RCL and the other lines. If you read some of the other posts on this board you will find RCL brides also telling you not to plan your wedding with RCL. Every cruise wedding experience is different and no cruise line is perfect. You could just as easily have issues if you planned a traditional wedding. Look at the post from yesterday. That bride's reception site when out of business 5 months prior to her wedding and now she has to cancel other commitments/contracts and plan a cruise wedding from scratch in 5 months! My point is that there are no promises with either cruise line you choose that your wedding will be flawless. There's no promises when planning a wedding period that it will be flawless so take a chance, pick a cruise line you like, a cruise with destinations your interested in and hope for the best.:)

[icruise333]

I don't know about getting Married on the ship, but definately consider that as far as honeymoons go, I would keep in mind the Carnival Pride and Valor, they are gorgeous ships and have alot of activities.

[engagedatsea]

My Carnival Wedding on May 29th was not perfect, but I would do it over again. I got married in the Chapel aboard the Carnival Legend. We used the picture on our Christmas Card. We had an elegant cocktail reception with a clasic pianist.

 

I was 50 at the time of the wedding. It is my first marriage. I wanted the flowers, the white dress, the music and the fluff in a small wedding (32 people). There really is no other way I would have been able to get all that in one place and still be able to bring my step son and daughter in law on the cruise with us, all for less than a traditional wedding.

[sd1029]

I just got married on the Carnival Miracle and my wedding was perfect. I would highly recommend it. The cruise director said that the Miracle has been rated the top Carnival ship for the last 2 years (based on all guest surveys and crew worker surveys). They have a special award in the atrium that said that so I don't think he was just saying it.