Just off Miracle- Honestly not what I expected...great trip, but not what I expected

[MoonBaby]

Angela,

 

Great review! I too, am sorry you had such poor waiters. It makes such a difference in your overall impression of the cruise! The week before your cruise I had fabulous waiters, both in the dining room and in the supper club.

 

I found all the staff that I had any interaction with to be pleasant, helpful, and always smiling. No matter what line, it seems to be hit or miss as to whether you will get good waiters or not. On my most expenisve cruise, on Celebrity, I did NOT like the waiter at all! The assisant waiter was great though! The assisant got a MUCH bigger tip than the head waiter!

 

I am glad that overall your experience was good! Now...any thoughts as to what line/ship you would like to do next? I love Carnival, but after two cruises in a row with them I am ready for a change...going back to Celebrity (have wanted to do one of the big m-class ships for a while!) for a Baltic Cruise.

 

But I am sure I will sail with Carnival again, though only on the NEWER ships!

 

Oh, one more thing...did you have early or late seating? I have always done late seating on my cruises and have never felt rushed...often I am the one rushing off to see a show or to do some activity!!!! If you had early seating, next cruise you might want to try late seating.

[crusinmama22]

Glad you had a great time.

 

We sail the Miracle 12/26/04 and can't wait.

 

We have sailed the Legend and the Spirit and love the Spirit class ships.

 

good review

 

Miracle 12/04

Legend 2/03

Spirit 2/02

Destinty 2/00

Imagination 2/98

Festival 2/79

[Knights on the Beach]

Angela.......ur not alone in ur observations about the staff and fellow passengers.....dont think that this was an unusual occurance.....more often than not u will be finding cranky staff and rushed service in the dining room.....so dont count on it being any better on ur next sailing....if ur lucky maybe........I think a lot of first timers go on a carnival cruise and think they are gonna be pampered and feel as if each passenger gets the royal treatment......ive yet to experience this after many carnival cruises...

 

I totally disagree. Out of our 11 cruises, we had BAD service in the dining room on only one of them, the Victory last year. We've had very good to excellent service on most all of our other cruises.

[27123]

hey great review , I thing we are cruising the same time as Cricket September 12th on the Miracle out of Baltimore. Anyone else going?this will be our first local cruise and our longest cruise to date (with the exception of Being on an aircraft carrier while in the Marines)

[cricket]

Angela...Really nice review and thanks for taking out the time to write a review so near your returning home! I have a great impression that maybe this waiter just does not like young adults as yourself and I really get irritated at their attitudes! Young adults should be treated with respect and in my years of dealing with the public I see this way too often. You do have to speak up for yourself though. Next time request a new table. Eventually the head of the dining room will realize the rotten job this waiter was doing. I feel that we pay a good price to go and relax and enjoy and that type of treatment takes away from your fun days.

[callajl]

Angela-

 

I have read quite a few posts where people are just being ugly and something should be done about it. It does not make one feel welcome.

 

I wanted to thank you for posting your review- we are cruising on the Carnival Miralce next Easter out of Tampa and I am very nervous. We have only cruised Disney before and actually have a RCI Mariner cruise on Halloween BUT I am very nervous about the Miracle. I am paying more for this ship than I have any of our other cruises and have a lower category room! Your review was very positive about the Miracle and I hope that Carnival does something about the attitutes of their employees. This can really put such a damper on what should be a wonderful experience.

[MrPete]

I just came off the Miracle and found their customer service to be par excellance!

 

Yet, one day at open seating for lunch, we found someone with his head up his wazzu. Never gave me a menu until I asked for it, got our orders all wrong, and looked like he was having a mental breakdown. We complained after lunch, and never saw him again. He was from Chile. I forget his name.

[jim & Robin]

I think maybe the fact that the tips are now added to your sail and sign card could have some effect on the type of service. When my wife and I went on our first cruise on the Tropicale in 1986 the staff was great and we were pampered beyond our wildest expactiations. Then the tips were earned and given on the last night of the cruise. The cruise line helped us with suggestions as to the amount but the final decision was up to us. When we went on the elation in 2001 it was the same way, no adding the tips to your sail and sign card, we were given an envelope to put them in. Both times we tipped more than the recommended amount because we felt the level of service deserved it. My feeling is that now with the tips being added to the sail and sign card automatically it takes away from that. Even though you have the right to adjust the amount up or down or even have it removed completely, most people won't do that and the staff gets the feeling that it is all they will get and they will get it automatically no matter what the level of service is. This removes the incentative to give that little extra special service. I think this was a very bad move on the part of the cruise lines and is effecting the level of service on the ships. Another factor is probably that the staff is given more area to cover. When we went on the tropicale in 1986 our waiter and bus boy had only two tables of 8 people to take care of. Needless to say were pampered beyond our wildest dreams. On the Elation in 2001 they were given more responsibilty, I am not sure how many tables they had but it was more than two. I am sure that is the way it is with the cabin stewards. On the tropicale our cabin steward was absolutly wonderful and attentive. He was always asking us if we needed anything, and if he was near our cabin and seen us coming down the hall he would have the door open for us when we arrived. Needless to say he got much more than the minumum recommended tip. ON the Elation we hardly ever seen our Cabin steward, but he did a wonderful job of keeping the cabin clean, so no complaints there. Just lacked the personal touch that we had on the Tropicale. Both cruises we had a wonderful time and no real complaints and that is why we are going on carnival again on the Legend 11/3/04. However one of the first things I am going to do when we get on the ship is have the tips removed from our sail and sign card. I always have and always will tip according to the level of service I receive. Call me old fashioned or anything you want, but that is the way it should be. A tip is not guaranteed, it is earned.

I didn't mean to get this lengthly but I hope maybe this will help others understand the difference in the quality of service a little better. We all need to voice our opinion to Carnival about adding the tips automatically to the sail and sign card, I know I am.

[cruzindad]

Like MrPeteLI, we just got off the July 10 sailing of the Miracle. I found all of the staff I encountered to be friendly and helpful. Our dining room staff was exceptional.

[halos]

I have little experience with cruising compared to most posters and I understand what the previous poster said.

Although I do agree that tips should be earned....I also think a cruise situation is different than on land. Cruise employess make pennies an hour. Tips are extremely important to them. I think because there happen to be SO many cheap-skates in this world who believe that service employess don't require/deserve tips, that is the reason that tips are now put automatically on the S&S cards.

My assistant waiter told me she made $65 a month...it's pitiful.

 

I think if people in general were naturally more generous, the cruise lines wouldn't have had to implement this policy. My guess is that there were not enough positions being filled on cruise ships because people didn't like making that low a wage and then coming off the ships with so little in tips...not necessarily because they didn't work their heads off to please passengers, but because they did work their butts off and got nothing from the inconsiderate cheap-o's that cruise. My opinion is that $10 per person/per day doesn't even qualify as a tip. I consider that just a cruise expense and then I tip the people who serve me graciously on the cruise at the end. I would like to add that although I have only taken 3 cruises, I have never been disappointed with my service...I may be lucky, I may just be easy to please compared to others, but I have never had the experience of having to wonder whether to tip or not because my service wasn't good...it's always been excellent.

I honestly don't believe that the totally insignificant amount of money you have put automatically on your account is detrimental to your service. If you have bad service, I think it's just because you were unfortunate enough to have a bad wait staff or your waiter was having an off day...or even week...or you may just expect more, which is fine. I also believe these folks are WAY overworked and have too many table to take care of. THIS is what the cruise lines (maybe just Carnival...I have no idea) should address. Adding a couple more waiters to the dining room will cost the cruise lines next to nothing with the salaries they pay...if they took some of the burden off these folks, they'd be more able to serve better.

[MrPete]

For the newbies, this is what I've seen over the years:

 

When there was only one place to eat, the dining room was always crowded every night. Who wants to skip food?

 

Ever since they introduced a secondary place to eat, the dining rooms were conspicuously empty on tip night of the low lifes that wanted to skip tipping their waiters. It was pityful. I don't blame the cruise lines for doing this. And I still have every right to adjust my tip; I've just never had the need to. In fact, for superior service, I give extra cash to those that have earned it.

[valentina1209]

Angela, we had a similar negative dining room experience on the Miracle last month...not that our waiters didn't try hard, but the just seemed to overextended and busy, unable to deal with the number of passengers, to provide us with prompt and attentive service. Like refilling our glasses and replenishing our silverwear in a timely fashion. There was a noticeable difference the nights we were still in port and less people came to the dining room - then service was much improved because the wait team had less tables. We encountered your language barrier problem in the dining room when we were randomly given various waiters for breakfast and lunch - again, not that they didn't try hard to please, but they just didn't seem to 'get' what we were asking for.

 

This made the such a poor impression on us that we will never sail Carnival again, and will go back to other cruise lines that we had better experiences on.

[SallyMay]

Angela, thanks for the review of your cruise, the good and the bad. If was your expierence and you had the right to tell it. Sorry you were disappointed, however, the next cruise maybe the one just for you.

[stokerhj]

Thank you for your post. I'd prefer that people be honest about their cruise experience, rather than gloss over things that really could be improved. To be honest, I noticed a lot of the same thing on my last Paradise cruise. A lot of the staff just did not look like they were happy to be there. When you're having the time of your life, you want to think that everyone feels the same way and when you are treated curtly it can dampen your experience. I don't know what can be done about it, though- much of the staff on these ships are worked way too hard, and they have to deal with a lot of rude passengers. It's just disconcerting when you try to be friendly and cannot get a smile in return.