Was it Carnival, the ship, or just me?

[Jessylynn]

We just got back from a 5 day cruise on The Inspiration and regardless of the icky weather, we had a good time. The last time I cruised on Carnival I was aboard the Triumph and had a wonderful time. This time I felt like things had gone quite a bit downhill. The size of the ship did not bother me as I kind of like the smaller ships but I felt from the moment that we got on that things were not as I had remembered.

 

The most disgusting thing was the fault of a passenger but I wish Carnival would have cleaned it up. A passenger had gone #2 (trying to keep this as non nasty as I can) in the toilet over by the Champaigne Bar and then somehow wiped poop all over the stall, toilet and walls. It was so nasty and disgusting that as soon as I saw it I walked over to a Carnvial worker and told them. They assured me someone would clean it up asap. 24 hours later they had finally started to clean it up. I understand that nobody would want that job but it had to be done. I was very friendly and just whispered what I saw and then heard from several other people that they had mentioned the dirty bathrooms as well and were assured someone was on the way to clean it. The bathrooms with exception of our own were always dirty, and always undersupplied. The bathrooms in Mexico were cleaner.

 

We were pressured every 2 minutes for the drink of the day from the moment we boarded until the day we got off. One bartender would ask and we would say no thanks, then the guy standing right behind him would ask as well as the man right behind him. I felt like we were being bombarded. When we would order a drink, it would take about 20 minutes each time for it to get to us. I will say that almost every Carnival employee was so friendly, that I dont think I ran into a single unpleasant worker, that was definetly refreshing from day to day life. The only crabby worker was the woman DEMANDING to take your picture. We would be talking at dinner and she would just interupt all rudely and yell at us to go sit by our husbands, or put the Inspiration boat ring over your neck, or whatever there prop was for the night. I think we were "told" 20 times a day to do something for the picture. That is fine for me except when we are at dinner and you need to pose for numerous pictures. Who wants to wear a bouy when you are dressed up eating filet mignon? Food in the dining room was great, food in the buffet was so so, but that was alright, it was a buffet for 2000 people, what can you expect. The only thing that was wrong was they didnt always have tongs for each dish of food, people started using tongs from other dishes and it became a mess. Plates on tables as well as roomservice plates in the halls were left on tables for hours, and the deck in the back of the boat had a section that was a 2x4 piece of wood with masking tape holding it together.

 

Overall I enjoyed our time away because afterall you are on vacation, and it is all what you make of it. The weather was kind of icky but we made due and learned to enjoy the clouds-nothing was stopping us. We had nothing but wonderful room stewards, as well as waiters in the dining room, but just felt that maybe the quality of Carnival has gone down a bit in the years. We are looking at possibly doing Royal Carribean next time, our would just return to Celebrity cruiseline again. I hope I wasnt to negative.

[GoinCruisin]

Probably none of the above... It's not Carnival, probably not the ship, and not you...probably an off week. I have never been or felt pressured to buy drinks on Carnival... I will say it was WAY worse on RCL... they even do it in the dining rooms!!!! During lunch AND dinner, it was CONSTANT!!!! I have never experienced that on Carnival, thank goodness!!!!

 

I would have added to the mess in the bathroom by throwing up after seeing that :oYUK!!!!

 

I've never had a buoy put around my neck in the dining room, thank goodness! LOL!!!!

 

None of your experience above has been my experience, so perhaps it was an off week... but I would imagine it could happen on any ship, any line... perhaps try one of the newer ships... good luck!!!

[shavdog]

but then again, maybe not...

[serene56]

eww- with all the stuff going on with narovirus I would think that taking a buoy around the dining room is a diaster waiting to happen.

 

When the photgrapher approaches us at dinner- we jsut firmly say no thanks and go back to what we were doing.

[Rowan555]

I just spent 10 days on the Fantasy and never once felt pressured to buy drinks or take photos. A simple "no thank you" before they even asked seemed to suffice and they were on their way. We even avoided most of the photo ops on the way into port - with the exception of one photo I knew I wanted to do with the kids.

[PA Dutchman]

I will vote for the ME. Most of the time its all "common cruise sense" You will always have a good time if you want to, and don't sweat the small stuff. 99.9% of the time you can't do anything about whatever you think made a bad cruise, people look for somebody else to blame it on, remember the other 4 fingers and which way they point just go with the flow and have a good time. :D

[yogimax]

In all honesty, the public restrooms on Carnival ships can be disgusting.

[DarkJedi]

OK, I'm going to throw some different info in on this.

We were just on the Insiration in October and the bar staff was really hard core about selling drinks, at the time I just put it down to the number of people we had that were keeping them supplied with orders, but it was a constant stream of people asking if we needed drinks. I don't think anyone waited too long for their drinks though.

The ship didn't seem as clean as the Imagination was, but we did see constant cleaning staff. We did notice the bathrooms were understocked, several times I noticed the handwipes used for opening doors to be empty boxes.

Except for the day of embarcation I don't think we were ever approached by a roving photographer except at dinner. The girl wasn't rude or overly aggressive IMO, and we're not fans of the dinner pics either. The only "prop" used during the dinner pictures for us was the pirate with the plastic blade.

I don't remember there being a 2x4 on the back railing, and we took several pictures back there so that may be something new.

 

We attribute all this to the ship since we have the Imagination to compare against which is the same class and we felt was much nicer, except for interestingly enough our room steward and our wait staff, which were much better on the Inspiration.

[buddyjo143]

Food in the dining room was great, food in the buffet was so so, but that was alright, it was a buffet for 2000 people, what can you expect. The only thing that was wrong was they didnt always have tongs for each dish of food, people started using tongs from other dishes and it became a mess.

 

What can you expect at buffet for 2000? At some places you can expect and do receive high quality, delicious food. DH and I dined at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut on Thanksgiving Day. The food was plentiful, delicious and the quality was maintained throughout the day. I think you can get good food at such places. Sorry yours wasn't better during the trip.

[2Ports]

I have never been or felt pressured to buy drinks on Carnival...

 

Snark! :p

[Beffy1167]

Probably none of the above... It's not Carnival, probably not the ship, and not you...probably an off week. I have never been or felt pressured to buy drinks on Carnival... I will say it was WAY worse on RCL... they even do it in the dining rooms!!!! During lunch AND dinner, it was CONSTANT!!!! I have never experienced that on Carnival, thank goodness!!!!

 

We had exactly the opposite experience with pressure to buy drinks...much like the OP. We've cruise Carnival twice and both times felt bombarded by servers attempting to sell us booze. On RCCL, after saying "no" once, no one bothered us again.

Having said that, we still prefer Carnival for a variety of reasons.

[GoinCruisin]

We had exactly the opposite experience with pressure to buy drinks...much like the OP. We've cruise Carnival twice and both times felt bombarded by servers attempting to sell us booze. On RCCL, after saying "no" once, no one bothered us again.

 

Having said that, we still prefer Carnival for a variety of reasons.

 

LOL, I still think we had a bad trip on RCL... just an off week, the staff on the SOS was really bad... not a smile all week from almost anyone :( They were peddling the drinks in the dining room so bad we didn't go back (the worst was the shots!!!! unbelievable!!) Of course I left the ship with about 6 shotglasses and many specialty glasses, but I swear they pimped drinks harder than I've ever seen... but like I said, I really think we had an off week... willing to give it another chance on a different ship :D

[truecruiser]

the bathroom incident is beyond disgusting! have never had this (thank god!) :eek: i hope Carnival closed off the bathroom as "out of service" from the moment you told them, until the moment it was cleaned and sanitized. But, you have to wonder: What kind of person wld do this?

[Grits53]

Having only cruised on the Conquest (twice), I have experience with no other ship to compare it with. All I can say is that the Conquest is very different from what you described. We found it to be nothing but first rate in all departments. I hope you noted the disappointing areas on your comment card. Carnival definitely needs to be made aware of conditions such as you described. In fact, if the dining room photographer was as unpleasant as you say, I believe I would have talked with the Maitre' D about it right then and there. I do not believe Carnival wants any member of their crews to be less than pleasant and upbeat at all times. At least that was the impression we were given.

[GoinCruisin]

the bathroom incident is beyond disgusting! have never had this (thank god!) :eek: i hope Carnival closed off the bathroom as "out of service" from the moment you told them, until the moment it was cleaned and sanitized. But, you have to wonder: What kind of person wld do this?

 

Could have been someone with Noro... might not have been, but anyone that has ever had Noro understands that nothing is "controlled"... and projectile takes on a whole new meaning :eek: I would guess this way before assuming it was someone that wanted to paint the walls with poo :p LOL Then again, you would think they would clean up after themselves... to NOT clean up is inexcusable, unless they were taken to the infirmary... this should not have been left for 24 hours no matter what...

[truecruiser]

yeah, but noro and infirmary, you'd think we wld have heard about this for sure.

 

never had a gross pax like that aboard w/ me or, maybe i just never saw them:p whatever the sitaution, i think we'd all agree that if this was indeed as bad as the OP states, it's the definite exception, not the rule.

[GoinCruisin]

yeah, but noro and infirmary, you'd think we wld have heard about this for sure.

 

never had a gross pax like that aboard w/ me or, maybe i just never saw them:p whatever the sitaution, i think we'd all agree that if this was indeed as bad as the OP states, it's the definite exception, not the rule.

 

I would guess that almost every ship that has sailed the past several weeks has had at least one episode of noro... maybe not an outbreak, but it's that season, and there doesn't have to be an outbreak for Noro to be onboard... it just doesn't make the news when there isn't a large outbreak...

[DarkJedi]

I have never been or felt pressured to buy drinks on Carnival...

 

You do realise that it's only pressure if they ask you and you DON'T want a drink right?

[DGP1111]

. . . wiped poop all over the stall, toilet and walls. It was so nasty and disgusting that as soon as I saw it I walked over to a Carnvial worker and told them. They assured me someone would clean it up asap. 24 hours later they had finally started to clean it up. . . . then heard from several other people that they had mentioned the dirty bathrooms as well. . .

Was on the same sailing as you, and am SOOO glad that the male passengers were taking better care of their restrooms, as I didn't encounter one problem at all. That would have made me ill for sure, and I can also add that I'd have never gone back in a second time to check on the status.

 

We were pressured every 2 minutes for the drink of the day from the moment we boarded until the day we got off. One bartender would ask and we would say no thanks, then the guy standing right behind him would ask as well as the man right behind him.

Again, I'm glad I was able to get by with a quick shake of my head to let them know I wan't interested. Taking a guess here, but perhaps with the non-stop rainy weather, the deck servers were nowhere near their expectations of sales, and were trying to make that up somehow.

 

. . . or put the Inspiration boat ring over your neck, or whatever there prop was for the night.

Yes, I did see some of those shots in the photo gallery. Thankfully no one in my dining room (or at least nearby) got asked to do that.

 

and the deck in the back of the boat had a section that was a 2x4 piece of wood with masking tape holding it together.

I, too, noticed that when we got onboard Saturday, as that's where I stood for sail-away. When we got back from Calica, they had placed the new wood out for installation, but were hampered by the rain. They were completing it as we disembarked on Thursday (again in the rain)

 

Overall I enjoyed our time away because afterall you are on vacation, and it is all what you make of it. The weather was kind of icky. . .

I agree. For me it was a great vacation, though a less-than-stellar cruise, but there's nothing I could do about the weather. And you were being nice in saying "kind of icky". It WAS just absolutely icky throughout.

 

Glad you were able to still have a good time despite everything.

[starketcher]

Never felt pressured with the drinks, but have waited a while to get mine on ocassion. BUT.....I despise the photographers, especially when they block the gangplank when you are tyring to get off in ports!! I usually wave them away whenever I see them and sometimes by the end of the week, they know not to try!

[GranysT]

Hi Don and Jessylynn. Glad you both enjoyed the cruise,as did Don and I. I was also pretty disappointed with the weather. Did it really have to follow us the entire 5 days? The ship really "rocked and rolled",part of the time. My Bonine worked very well,thank goodness.

 

I didn't experience the messy rest rooms,but did notice the bar server's seemed a bit "over anxious" to sell you. All in all, we enjoyed the cruise, in spite of the bad weather. At least it got warmer. Our dining room waiter said the week before was gorgeous,and probably the one after us was also. We just got the bad luck of the draw. Happy holidays All.

[LHP]

My vote goes for the ship. Sounds like this ship needs to "tighten up". But it certainly is not indicative of all the Carnival ships.

 

I recommend an immediate trip on the Miracle!! This will restore your "cruising soul"!!

 

Glad you had a good time anyway..now there's someone who was meant to cruise~~

[minxkelly]

Well, after the first day when I said no to drinks and mentioned, "I am pregnant" I wasn't asked again. I appreciated that. We also were not pressured too much for photos unless we approached the photgraphers. There was a lovely woman on the Miracle who was great with our 2 yr old son, Flor i think was her name, no pressure just smiles and friendliness.

Colleen