First time Carnival. Just back from Spirit. The great, the bad and the ugly..

[lovesublime]

I'll first start by saying we had a great overall cruise. We did the southbound Alaska sailing. We had five in our group and some had never cruised before. For my husband and I, it was our second Alaskan cruise and third overall cruise. Our best cruise ever was on NCL. We were very excited to try Carnival. Since our ports of call are Alaska specific, I will post about them on that forum. Here, I'm writing strictly about our Carnival experience.

 

The great-Carnival Spirit is a beautiful, clean ship. She appears well maintained and we enjoyed our time on board very much. The food was really terrific. We tried a little of everything, including the pizza, buffet, made to order sandwiches, room service and the Supper Club. Michelle was our onboard naturalist and she did a wonderful job. Our cabin steward was the BEST! I only had two requests of him and that was to have a full ice bucket each evening and to not to take away the tray of tomato juice I ordered from room service each day. He fulfilled both. We received terrific servie from the purser's desk and the shore excursion. In fact, we felt that Carnival went above and beyond. My sister and niece had to cancel their dogsled/helipcopter excursion because they both were sea sick and my niece had sprained her ankle on another excursion. The excursion cost $566 each. Not expecting anything, sister's husband calls excursion desk at last minute and explains situation. They offered $1200 in onboard credit. We couldn't believe it! Carnival didn't have to do that, but my sister was very, very happy. She ended up buying a new digital camera and some jewelry for herself and my niece. Very nice Carnival!

 

We had one tender port and I thought things were handled very efficiently. We booked all of our shore excursions through Carnival and everything went off without a glitch.

 

The bad-Let me emphasize that nothing was so bad as to ruin the cruise for us, but we did note some things we could have done without. First, we didn't like the fact that the Lido buffet closes at 3:30 each day, and the La Playa grill closed at 6:30pm each day. We had a couple of late evening excursions with us not returning to the ship maybe 9:00 or 10:00pm those evenings. Our only food options were room service or the pizza. We did room service one night and besides the garden salad and the BLT, the food sucked. We also didn't care for the pizza. The food in the main dining room was very good, but we had the worst waiter in the world. He clearly hates his job and I'm sure he couldn't wait for us to leave. While still on our main course, he would start removing unused plates and glases-even the salt and pepper. He never smiled once. I even caught him rolling his eyes at my brother in law. His assistant was better, but I started to dread going to the dining room each night. Sure wish the buffet had been open.

 

Upon arrival, our stateroom reeked of cigarette smoke. Our steward explained that the previous couple chain-smoked continuously and even he couldn't stand it. He also told us that the carpet and curtains had been changed out that morning and the room had been ionized. He informed us that the next morning he would re-ionize and wash the ceiling. He did and it made a huge difference.

 

More bad-I had made reservations for the Supper Club through the link on John Heald's blog several weeks ago. When I called to confirm our reservation, they didn't have any record of it. I have read here that this has happened to several people. I recommend confirming as soon possible. We did end up getting to dine there after all (more later). In general, we felt that service was lackluster on this ship. I got the impression that the crew is trained to be 'fake' nice. I really don't need to be addressed by my first name to think I'm receiving good service. I prefer straight up professionalism and could do without the phoney attempt at familiarity by the crew members. However, I do feel that we, on numerous occasions, received genuine, sincere help from some crew members.

 

We all also thought the disembarkation talk was really, really bad. We didn't go to it, but did catch it on T.V. It looked to be a guise for telling us how to tip and fill out the comment cards. I don't appreciate being told how or how much to tip-especially on a cruise that employs the auto gratuity method. Tacky, tacky, tacky. I do believe in tipping extra for service above and beyond and our cabin steward was rewarded for his efforts. Why tip a maitre d' who did nothing for us? If everyone on the ship tipped him, then he could easily make 5 or 6 thousand dollars in one night. Even if each pax only tipped him $1.00, that's still over $2000! I also didn't appreciate being told how to fill out the comment card. Our CD informed us that checking anything other than "Exceeded my expectations" meant a failing score for those crew members. Sorry, but I'm not going to lie. If something didn't 'exceed' my expectations, I'm not going to say it did. For the most part, everything met my expectations and a couple of things exceeded it. Finally....

 

The Ugly-As I mentioned, the Supper Club did not have our reservation. while trying to resolve this and get a new reservation with the Supper Club maitre d', I had the worst experience of this cruise. After putting me on hold a couple of times and double checking I was informed that "THE ONLY RESERVATION I HAVE TOMORROW AT 7:30PM IS FOR A PARTY OF TWELVE WHICH ISN'T YOU"! Click. She hung up on me. I was livid. I know my face was red. I couldn't believe I had been treated so badly. For anyone who knows me-they would tell you how meek and quiet I am. I never raised my voice at her. My husband picked up the phone to find her manager, but I talked him down. I thought it was just best to forget it and move on. The next a.m. a different lady from the Supper Club called and said they had some cancellations and offered us either 6:30pm or 8:30pm. We took the 8:30 and ended up having a fantastic dinner. It was truly delicious.

 

More ugly-We witnessed a couple of pax being verbally abusive to the crew. We observed one elderly handicapped man asking (yelling) to an officer if Carnival discriminated against handicapped people. This man had apparently fell while tendering. We saw the officer back away into a corner to get out of the line of traffic, and the man yelled "do have somewhere you have to be, why are you backing away?" He started shouting, but we had to move on and I didn't catch what else transpired.

 

The next bad thing is in no way Carnival's fault, but it played a role in the poor service we received. Our sailing had an outbreak of noro. Not just a few cases, but a bad outbreak. Our assistant waiter told us that it was an extremely difficult cruise for the crew and that about 20 cases a day were being reported. On about the third day, pax could no longer serve themselves and it stayed that way for the entire cruise. The smell of bleach filled the air and service took a nosedive for the worse-which is kind of understandable. I understand that a noro outbreak puts a lot of stress and strain on the crew.

 

All in all, we had a really terrific cruise despite some problems. We were fortunate that none us of us contracted noro, but we washed our hands as if we had a mental illness and I'm sure that made a difference. We would definitely cruise with Carnival again and the little glitches we experienced didn't make or break the cruise. We had a good time and Carnival offers a very nice product. However, if NCL offered a similar itinerary on one of their newer ships, we would choose NCL. We found that 'freestyle' suits us and we prefer having more options for dining. I did not enjoy lugging dresses, suits for the 'elegant' nights. I would like to have a nice dinner while being dressesd casually. I have to give the edge to NCL.

[VolzCruiser]

Thanks for the review and I agree that the closing of the buffet closing at 3:30 does make it difficult to grab a quick bite when coming back from excursions. I am kinda of surprised that the grill and the deli were both closed at that time as well. I have always found at least one of those open to grab a quick bite when I get back on ship. Oh well I will have to remember that when for when I take my Alaskan cruise.

[azbaby8062]

Thanks for the well rounded review. I am glad you took the bad with the good and still managed to have a good time.

[bakechef]

I'll first start by saying we had a great overall cruise. We did the southbound Alaska sailing. We had five in our group and some had never cruised before. For my husband and I, it was our second Alaskan cruise and third overall cruise. Our best cruise ever was on NCL. We were very excited to try Carnival. Since our ports of call are Alaska specific, I will post about them on that forum. Here, I'm writing strictly about our Carnival experience.

 

The great-Carnival Spirit is a beautiful, clean ship. She appears well maintained and we enjoyed our time on board very much. The food was really terrific. We tried a little of everything, including the pizza, buffet, made to order sandwiches, room service and the Supper Club. Michelle was our onboard naturalist and she did a wonderful job. Our cabin steward was the BEST! I only had two requests of him and that was to have a full ice bucket each evening and to not to take away the tray of tomato juice I ordered from room service each day. He fulfilled both. We received terrific servie from the purser's desk and the shore excursion. In fact, we felt that Carnival went above and beyond. My sister and niece had to cancel their dogsled/helipcopter excursion because they both were sea sick and my niece had sprained her ankle on another excursion. The excursion cost $566 each. Not expecting anything, sister's husband calls excursion desk at last minute and explains situation. They offered $1200 in onboard credit. We couldn't believe it! Carnival didn't have to do that, but my sister was very, very happy. She ended up buying a new digital camera and some jewelry for herself and my niece. Very nice Carnival!

 

We had one tender port and I thought things were handled very efficiently. We booked all of our shore excursions through Carnival and everything went off without a glitch.

 

The bad-Let me emphasize that nothing was so bad as to ruin the cruise for us, but we did note some things we could have done without. First, we didn't like the fact that the Lido buffet closes at 3:30 each day, and the La Playa grill closed at 6:30pm each day. We had a couple of late evening excursions with us not returning to the ship maybe 9:00 or 10:00pm those evenings. Our only food options were room service or the pizza. We did room service one night and besides the garden salad and the BLT, the food sucked. We also didn't care for the pizza. The food in the main dining room was very good, but we had the worst waiter in the world. He clearly hates his job and I'm sure he couldn't wait for us to leave. While still on our main course, he would start removing unused plates and glases-even the salt and pepper. He never smiled once. I even caught him rolling his eyes at my brother in law. His assistant was better, but I started to dread going to the dining room each night. Sure wish the buffet had been open.

 

Upon arrival, our stateroom reeked of cigarette smoke. Our steward explained that the previous couple chain-smoked continuously and even he couldn't stand it. He also told us that the carpet and curtains had been changed out that morning and the room had been ionized. He informed us that the next morning he would re-ionize and wash the ceiling. He did and it made a huge difference.

 

More bad-I had made reservations for the Supper Club through the link on John Heald's blog several weeks ago. When I called to confirm our reservation, they didn't have any record of it. I have read here that this has happened to several people. I recommend confirming as soon possible. We did end up getting to dine there after all (more later). In general, we felt that service was lackluster on this ship. I got the impression that the crew is trained to be 'fake' nice. I really don't need to be addressed by my first name to think I'm receiving good service. I prefer straight up professionalism and could do without the phoney attempt at familiarity by the crew members. However, I do feel that we, on numerous occasions, received genuine, sincere help from some crew members.

 

We all also thought the disembarkation talk was really, really bad. We didn't go to it, but did catch it on T.V. It looked to be a guise for telling us how to tip and fill out the comment cards. I don't appreciate being told how or how much to tip-especially on a cruise that employs the auto gratuity method. Tacky, tacky, tacky. I do believe in tipping extra for service above and beyond and our cabin steward was rewarded for his efforts. Why tip a maitre d' who did nothing for us? If everyone on the ship tipped him, then he could easily make 5 or 6 thousand dollars in one night. Even if each pax only tipped him $1.00, that's still over $2000! I also didn't appreciate being told how to fill out the comment card. Our CD informed us that checking anything other than "Exceeded my expectations" meant a failing score for those crew members. Sorry, but I'm not going to lie. If something didn't 'exceed' my expectations, I'm not going to say it did. For the most part, everything met my expectations and a couple of things exceeded it. Finally....

 

The Ugly-As I mentioned, the Supper Club did not have our reservation. while trying to resolve this and get a new reservation with the Supper Club maitre d', I had the worst experience of this cruise. After putting me on hold a couple of times and double checking I was informed that "THE ONLY RESERVATION I HAVE TOMORROW AT 7:30PM IS FOR A PARTY OF TWELVE WHICH ISN'T YOU"! Click. She hung up on me. I was livid. I know my face was red. I couldn't believe I had been treated so badly. For anyone who knows me-they would tell you how meek and quiet I am. I never raised my voice at her. My husband picked up the phone to find her manager, but I talked him down. I thought it was just best to forget it and move on. The next a.m. a different lady from the Supper Club called and said they had some cancellations and offered us either 6:30pm or 8:30pm. We took the 8:30 and ended up having a fantastic dinner. It was truly delicious.

 

More ugly-We witnessed a couple of pax being verbally abusive to the crew. We observed one elderly handicapped man asking (yelling) to an officer if Carnival discriminated against handicapped people. This man had apparently fell while tendering. We saw the officer back away into a corner to get out of the line of traffic, and the man yelled "do have somewhere you have to be, why are you backing away?" He started shouting, but we had to move on and I didn't catch what else transpired.

 

The next bad thing is in no way Carnival's fault, but it played a role in the poor service we received. Our sailing had an outbreak of noro. Not just a few cases, but a bad outbreak. Our assistant waiter told us that it was an extremely difficult cruise for the crew and that about 20 cases a day were being reported. On about the third day, pax could no longer serve themselves and it stayed that way for the entire cruise. The smell of bleach filled the air and service took a nosedive for the worse-which is kind of understandable. I understand that a noro outbreak puts a lot of stress and strain on the crew.

 

All in all, we had a really terrific cruise despite some problems. We were fortunate that none us of us contracted noro, but we washed our hands as if we had a mental illness and I'm sure that made a difference. We would definitely cruise with Carnival again and the little glitches we experienced didn't make or break the cruise. We had a good time and Carnival offers a very nice product. However, if NCL offered a similar itinerary on one of their newer ships, we would choose NCL. We found that 'freestyle' suits us and we prefer having more options for dining. I did not enjoy lugging dresses, suits for the 'elegant' nights. I would like to have a nice dinner while being dressesd casually. I have to give the edge to NCL.

 

Actually you don't have to pack a suit and formal dresses anymore on carnival, to be in dress code for formal night. A button up shirt and dark twill pants would due on this evening for a man, and a lady could wear a skirt or pants with a nice top.

 

Other than that, it was a great balanced review. Some of your negatives would have left some people swearing off Carnival for life, but apparently you understand that some people just have less than stellar moments.

 

MAC