Just back from the Paradise...

[EmmaPeel]

...any questions?

 

My overall impressions are that the customer service and overall quality are far less than the three other Carnival Cruises I have been on (2 on Ectasy to Baja Mexico and one on Pride to Mexican Riviera). The food quality and dining room staff were by far the least impressive part of the cruise.

 

It is surprising that the customer service was so bad, considering that this cruise (according to the Carnival crew members we spoke to) is ususally 85% - 95% first time cruisers. If this had been my first cruise, I would probably not cruise again based on this experience.

 

It was still a good cruise and we still had a good time, but it could have been better. The person cruising with me (also a past guest) felt the same, as did some of the past guests at our dinner table.

[CaptainEdwardJohnSmith]

...any questions?

 

My overall impressions are that the customer service and overall quality are far less than the three other Carnival Cruises I have been on (2 on Ectasy to Baja Mexico and one on Pride to Mexican Riviera). The food quality and dining room staff were by far the least impressive part of the cruise.

 

It is surprising that the customer service was so bad, considering that this cruise (according to the Carnival crew members we spoke to) is ususally 85% - 95% first time cruisers. If this had been my first cruise, I would probably not cruise again based on this experience.

 

It was still a good cruise and we still had a good time, but it could have been better. The person cruising with me (also a past guest) felt the same, as did some of the past guests at our dinner table.

 

yours is the Captain's favorite screen-name, I have all her Avengers episodes. :D

[EmmaPeel]

yours is the Captain's favorite screen-name, I have all her Avengers episodes. :D

 

 

Thanks Captain! We like Mrs. Emma Peel very much as well...in fact that's what we named one of our dogs! :)

[Wennfred]

Could you tell if the Casino was Smokeless?

 

 

Fred

[KSCnCA]

Sorry your cruise was not up to par. I am starting to wish we had waited for the Ecstasy to come to San Diego instead of taking Paradise out of Long Beach next month.

Did you try smuggling alcohol and if so were your successful? Did you see alcohol confiscated?

[huhwhat]

Could you tell if the Casino was Smokeless?

 

I was on the Paradise last weekend, for the 3 day and there was smoking in the Casino. The Cruise Director said the 4 day was non-smoking in the casino and that we should "fill out those comment cards" if we wanted to see the casino go non-smoking on the 3 day.

[CarrieBl]

We just returned from the 4-day (March 19-23) and had a great time. I'm a former director of Customer Service and therefore VERY picky about the service I receive and the only area I was disappointed in was the bar service. They were a bunch of inattentive grumps and I noted that on my comment card loud and clear. My husband felt the same way and did so as well. Bar service = crap!

 

On the flip side - our stateroom service was the best we've ever had...quick, extremely clean, and a nice presentation of towel animals/mints/cookies. He called us all by our names from Day 1. We had a problem with our toilet one morning and they were there to service it in 10 minutes flat. I used to travel for business quite a bit and that was a record for maintenence!

 

Our dining room service was highly professional (Vitaly and Dimitri from the Ukraine and Belarus), and I joked with them to loosen up because they were making me nervous from taking it so seriously LOL. Some of the entrees were superior to others, but thanks to this board, I knew which to order and which to avoid. I heard many complaints about the steak, but I had Roast Chicken, Lobster, Jerked Pork Loin, and Veal Parmagiana and thought they were great. The escargot and chocolate molten cake were wonderful too. All far superior to most food served at WDW even at the better restaurants.

 

The cruise director, Michael, and the assistant, Jenny, were both really fun. There was an incident on Day 2 when Jenny joked with my 7 year old by taking his Funship Freddy doll and saying "It's mine now!". My son has Asperger's (high functioning autism with no impact on intelligence, but issues with social skills and pragmatic language, meaning he doesn't always get jokes or sarcasm). My son burst into tears and believed she was serious. She felt terrible and 2 mintues later she ran over with a towel animal she had made for him and apologized. When I told her to please not feel bad, she said she felt terrible and I assured her the same thing had happened at Disney World many times and no one ther had ever gone the extra mile to try to befriend my son and make sure he knew it was a joke. I was very impressed! .

 

The Camp Carnival staff did a wonderful job with the kids. That's a thankless job, but they had smiles (some more than others and I made recognition of that on the comment card). They didn't do some of the activites listed and whenever I asked why they told me they didn't have enough supplies for all the kids that showed up. That's an issue, they should be well stocked. However, the counselor would give me the activity privately (i.e. color a backpack) to take home. A good customer service remedy.

 

The entertainment I don't expect to be Broadway quality, but I appreciated that the singers and dancers gave it their all instead of phoning it in like some of the Disney performers do in the WDW shows/parades. The comedians were funny, particularly Merl Hobbs. Bobby Bourgia's (sp?) magic show was better than I expected.

 

Everything we asked for with a smile was returned with one. The Purser's desk was efficient and they gave my kids playing cards and pens for waiting patiently.

 

We did prepaid gratuities but I handed an extra tip to the Stateroom guy up front, so that could have helped, but not the other areas.

 

The hot breakfast food was the only bad food. It never stayed warm and was below average. But the pastries and fruit were quite fresh. The pizza was much better than I imagined and my kids wanted to eat it every lunchtime. Tea time was very limited compared to what we experienced on Celebrity, but what they served tasted good. I had to laugh at the Lipton tea packets when the waiter opened the box.

 

The majority of the photographers were very patient with my autistic son who needs a little help posing and smiling naturally. 90% of our photos came out great for their effort positioning all of us.

 

I am a glass half full kind of person, we only spent $300 person on the cruise, and I won the $500 BINGO on the 2nd night, so I was in a good mood and not looking for the bad! :D We tend to find the fun in any activity when on vacation and love when quirky things happen...like finding 3 guys running a mile in their underwear at night on the jogging track. :eek: My 7 year old is still laughing about that. He got that joke! LOL

 

If anyone has questions, feel free to ask! My cruise was better because of everything I had read in advance on this website!

[Kurbanfan]

wish we had waited for the Ecstasy to come to San Diego instead of taking Paradise out of Long Beach next month.

 

The Ecstacy is coming to San Diego:confused:

[Wennfred]

 

If anyone has questions, feel free to ask! My cruise was better because of everything I had read in advance on this website!

 

On this 4 Day cruise, was the Casino Smokeless?

 

 

Fred

[KSCnCA]

Sorry - I meant the Elation coming to San Diego!

[cathyz]

Sorry to hear you had a bad time on the Paradise, but don't give up cruising for one bad experience. We were on the Paradise last October and had a great time (some areas were even better than our recent Pride cruise which was also great). But then alot depends on your dining room staff and stewards, etc.

[Kurbanfan]

Sorry - I meant the Elation coming to San Diego!

 

I know I was just teasin ya...We got her booked for August....

Love San Diego!

[KSCnCA]

I love San Diego too. And it's especially nice getting a 15 minute ride from home to the cruise ship terminal to leave for ANYWHERE! My dream is to take off from SAN with a case of wine on a repositioning cruise through the Panama Canal to Florida. Someday we will do that - when we can afford the time off and a balcony cabin!

[EmmaPeel]

Wow, so many responses all of a sudden. Sorry not to respond sooner, but I was off-line all day.

 

From the little time I spent in the casino, it seemed there was smoking but it was only barely noticeable.

 

We did not smuggle alcohol on board, but we did bring on (3) bottles of champagne and (1) bottle of wine at embarkation. We did not see any alcohol being confiscated, but they were looking hard for it at security. I have never seen anyone scrutinize two sealed bottles of water the way they did. We also got through check-in really fast, probably because we had VIP check-in (first time with VIP, loved it!) so maybe that's why we didn't see any alcohol get nabbed.

 

Don't get me wrong it wasn't a terrible cruise, it just could have been better. It seemed that the staff was particularly grumpy and did not try to give good customer service. It also won't deter us from taking another cruise in any way. We still think Carnival is better than the other cruise lines we have been on. It was just surprising to see the drop in customer service, compared to the past 3 Carnival cruises we have been on.

 

If I had to pick the one thing that was the least up to par, it would be the food and dining staff. Across the board, from chicken to fish to steak, it was just not good (compared to past cruises). The dining staff was inattentive, each night at least two people at our table got the wrong order, and the table cloth was dirty every night (we had the late seating). I do have to give our head server kudos for not charging us the corkage fee when we brought a bottle of champagne to dinner the last couple nights.

 

Who knows, maybe the crew was at the end of their stay on the ship.

[Wennfred]

From the little time I spent in the casino, it seemed there was smoking but it was only barely noticeable.

 

Thanks for the info, waited all day for this answer :D Off to work.

 

Fred

[luv2cruise777l]

I was on the Paradise on New Years Eve 2006 and Nov. of this year and going again in May and can't tell you enough how fun our cruising experience has been. The 3 and 4 day cruises are different than the 7 day cruises in my opinion. I agree that they should be trying their best to "hook" the first time cruisers but I think because they have so many new cruisers each week that they don't try their best. I have been lucky enough to get great staff on this cruise ship to make my vacation very enyjoyable.

[rmundy]

can you wear capris in dinning room? i heard that you can dress pretty casual on this cruise true or false?

[luv2cruise777l]

can you wear capris in dinning room? i heard that you can dress pretty casual on this cruise true or false?

 

It is pretty casual in this dining room. I would say that capris would be fine in the dining room as long as it isn't on formal night.