Just off the Magic - The Great, The Good and the Horrible - Serious Problems Onboard W/ Fighting & Kids

[jimbo5544]

38 minutes ago, UPNYGuy said:

that wasn’t the implication. The implication was exactly what I said. Carnival tends to cater to the cheap weekend booze cruise crowd. People will spend less on a weekend cruise simply to get the cheers, and get blasted all weekend. 
 

and DW and I have seen a marked difference in demographics sailing on the cheaper vs more expensive sailings on carnival. Cheaper = booze cruise. More expensive = older, more well heeled and well traveled.  

Except, lately, they are not the cheapest cruise line out there

[2wheelin]

Regarding the problems with out of control kids, it has about 1% to do with income or disposable income. 99% is lack of parenting skills.

[ledges1]

I mentioned earlier, I will not do a 4 day booze cruise for many of the reasons mentioned above in this post. Yes, there are many well behaved people on the cruise, but the partiers can spoil the trip. Therefore, I refuse to do the cruise. I remember one cruise where a girl came on the lido deck with a confederate flag bikini (not smart). She did not stay long before she changed. These are mainly drive up to the port cruises and are on the low end of the price scale. Some cities are worse than others. I have cruised from N.O. More than a dozen times and I may not go back.

[UPNYGuy]

52 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

Except, lately, they are not the cheapest cruise line out there

Carnival usually comes in cheaper than Royal Caribbean, NCL, Princess, HAL, and Celebrity. MSC can sometimes undercut Carnival, but I haven’t seen this party all night demographic on any of our MSC cruises. 

[UPNYGuy]

34 minutes ago, ledges1 said:

I have cruised from N.O. More than a dozen times and I may not go back.

there are a bunch of ports I will actively avoid going out of myself

[jimbo5544]

27 minutes ago, UPNYGuy said:

Carnival usually comes in cheaper than Royal Caribbean, NCL, Princess, HAL, and Celebrity. MSC can sometimes undercut Carnival, but I haven’t seen this party all night demographic on any of our MSC cruises. 

Not disagreeing with you, just stating facts.  Lately, and I mean the last year, Carnival on average has been higher.  That said, not worth further discussion.  I would also agree that the demographics sailing have changed.  I have my thoughts as to why, but not the place time, or venue for that.  At the end of the day, it is what it is.  I would expect to see more actions applied by Carnival subtly over time to address (just my thoughts).  We will see.

[UPNYGuy]

2 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

 I would also agree that the demographics sailing have changed.  I have my thoughts as to why, but not the place time, or venue for that. 

I have my thoughts as well, but tend to keep them to myself 

[MsTabbyKats]

36 minutes ago, UPNYGuy said:

Carnival usually comes in cheaper than Royal Caribbean, NCL, Princess, HAL, and Celebrity. MSC can sometimes undercut Carnival, but I haven’t seen this party all night demographic on any of our MSC cruises. 

But MSC attracts large groups of "not the most sophisticated" foreigners.

[jimbo5544]

1 minute ago, MsTabbyKats said:

But MSC attracts large groups of "not the most sophisticated" foreigners.

Not my fav cruise line.....;

[UPNYGuy]

3 minutes ago, MsTabbyKats said:

But MSC attracts large groups of "not the most sophisticated" foreigners.

We have not run into this on MSC. But, we usually also sail in the yacht club. We tend to alternate between MSC, Carnival, and Royal lately

Edited August 29 by UPNYGuy

[tonit964]

I remember years ago, like 15 or 20, reading here on CC, the security Carnival employed were from India and trained in some form of Martial Arts, I don’t remember the specific name for them but it was something like Gurkas? 
 

I guess they don’t do that anymore, 

[MsTabbyKats]

5 minutes ago, UPNYGuy said:

We have not run into this on MSC. But, we usually also sail in the yacht club. We tend to alternate between MSC, Carnival, and Royal lately

We stay in YC also....but we venture out to the buffet (pizza!).  The fruit fights are amazing...as is the table hogging and pushing.  But, it's not a "fear for your life" situation.

 

 

 

[Itchy&Scratchy]

On 8/28/2024 at 9:34 AM, ohioNCLcruiser said:

No cheap deal is worth dealing with that.

it's not even cheap. I paid more for our upcoming (first) Carnival cruise than I paid for our Princess cruise and the same amount I paid for our 2 Celebrity cruises.

[UPNYGuy]

7 minutes ago, MsTabbyKats said:

We stay in YC also....but we venture out to the buffet (pizza!).  The fruit fights are amazing...as is the table hogging and pushing.  But, it's not a "fear for your life" situation.

 

 

 

The pushing is an interesting observation. On MSC it seems like more people try to jam their way into the elevator before people begin to exit. On Meraviglia, it isn’t as much of an issue (dedicated elevator for y/c). But seascape the priority elevator set up malfunctioned, and lots of people shoving to get in. DW ended up getting very blunt and nasty with two women that were trying to jam into a full elevator before people could exit. She yelled at them in Spanish that they need to wait.  We run into this far less on R/C and Carnival. 
 

I never really paid attention to it on MSC because we are always in the yacht club and very rarely venture out of there 

Edited August 29 by UPNYGuy

[UPNYGuy]

10 minutes ago, MsTabbyKats said:

We stay in YC also....but we venture out to the buffet (pizza!).  The fruit fights are amazing...as is the table hogging and pushing.  But, it's not a "fear for your life" situation.

 

 

 

The most brazen example was on NCL where two school groups had a partial charter and ran amok. You and I discussed this briefly a bit ago, but it was an infamous thing in the NCL thread. I happened to be on the ship when it happened. It was on Getaway. 

Edited August 29 by UPNYGuy

[MsTabbyKats]

2 minutes ago, UPNYGuy said:

The most brazen example was on NCL where two school groups had a partial charter and ran amok. You and I discussed this briefly a bit ago, but it was an infamous thing in the NCL thread. I happened to be on the ship when it happened. It was on Getaway. 

Yes...out of NY...religious school vacation, right?  I can say this, because I am "of those people" (but secular)...disgusting behavior and an embarrassment to my peeps.

 

After that, for a while, I made sure not to sail during that week!

 

 

[UPNYGuy]

Just now, MsTabbyKats said:

Yes...out of NY...religious school vacation, right?  I can say this, because I am "of those people" (but secular)...disgusting behavior and an embarrassment to my peeps.

 

After that, for a while, I made sure not to sail during that week!

 

 

 

yes. Was out of Miami, but a NY sect and MIA sect were onboard. 

[UPNYGuy]

5 minutes ago, MsTabbyKats said:

Yes...out of NY...religious school vacation, right?  I can say this, because I am "of those people" (but secular)...disgusting behavior and an embarrassment to my peeps.

 

After that, for a while, I made sure not to sail during that week!

 

 

and 100% no judgement on my part for them being part of a religious school (I actually went out of my way to avoid that topic in the original post when we were first talking about it). It was the behavior, the lax attitudes of the parents, and the complete and utter failure of NCL to recognize that this had become a problem. 

[Ilovesailaway]

Interesting.. Not that we have not seen this coming for years. People suck.

And Carnival doesn't enforce rules... never has!!! 

Of course as always, I would recommend longer more expensive cruises leaving from harder to reach embarkation ports. That should filter out the travelers from the riff raff.

 

 

 

[jlawrence01]

7 hours ago, MsTabbyKats said:

@Stick93The problem is that "Carnival Security" are generally small guys from the Philippines...who are not trained law enforcement officials.... and Carnival passengers are very often drunken extra large Americans.  Not a physical challenge at all..........

 

They can't even enforce anti-chair hogging rules....

 

For me, Carnival is good for longer sailings when schools in session.

 

I have seen many cruise ship security staff.  Many of them are former Filipino military or mall security guards.  In those situations, it is OK to have smaller people as they generally work in groups of three to five.  You cause trouble and you are very quickly surrounded.

 

Ship security would have fewer problems if the staff consisted of former football 🏈 players, bouncer types.

 

By the way, would you as ship staff enforce the chair rules of doing so would affect your customer reviews and ultimately your income?

[jlawrence01]

4 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

Not disagreeing with you, just stating facts.  Lately, and I mean the last year, Carnival on average has been higher.  That said, not worth further discussion.  I would also agree that the demographics sailing have changed.  I have my thoughts as to why, but not the place time, or venue for that.  At the end of the day, it is what it is.  I would expect to see more actions applied by Carnival subtly over time to address (just my thoughts).  We will see.

 

Most of my cheap cruises have been on Princess and HAL recently.  It is more a function of the particular week you choose to cruise.

[mfs2k]

I wonder why the people you guys are complaining about aren't on this site justifying the behavior.. 

[pc_load_letter]

5 hours ago, MsTabbyKats said:

But MSC attracts large groups of "not the most sophisticated" foreigners.

 

I'll gladly take a stuffy Frenchman or Guinness swilling Brit over the trash Carnival has been having on their ships lately.

 

My wife is dead-set on reaching Platinum this year. Which we will do in October. After that, I said we are switching to other lines.

 

Thankfully RCL is bringing another ship to San Pedro. Wish NCL would offer a permanent ship.

Edited August 29 by pc_load_letter

[ProgRockCruiser]

12 minutes ago, pc_load_letter said:

My wife is dead-set on reaching Platinum this year. Which we will do in October. After that, I said we are switching to other lines.

So...I gotta ask.  What is the point in achieving that goal (getting to Platinum) if you aren't going to exercise the (rather meager) perks by switching lines?  Just so she can say "I did it"?

[pc_load_letter]

1 hour ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

So...I gotta ask.  What is the point in achieving that goal (getting to Platinum) if you aren't going to exercise the (rather meager) perks by switching lines?  Just so she can say "I did it"?

 

Pretty much! I don't get it. We reach it this October then we have a December cruise. Our cruises next year are all on other lines.