The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly…

Okay, so if you’ve been reading my Facebook page, you know that I’m not happy with Carnival Cruise Lines right now and that our recent excursion on their ship for a week did not leave us with the warm, fuzzy feeling we were hoping for…To be fair, I decided to wait a couple of days and not let my anger taint anything that I write about them. I realize this is a blog and that I’m more than entitled to my opinion (and so are you) but I didn’t want to just vent for venting sake AND I wanted to tell the truth, something anger has been known to cloud before. That being said, here is a quick synopsis:
Saturday – we go through the boarding process and are met by…no one to show us where our room might be or the elevators or anything else. Luckily, Debbie had memorized the ship map in her excitement for cruising and we found our room quickly. There are 2 messages on the phone asking us to confirm our Monday Spa Appointments. I call the spa to confirm and the young lady is having issues finding our appointments (I’m calling back to confirm remember). After playing 20 questions with me, she tells us to show up Monday at 8:45 for both appointments (we’re happy to oblige). No further events…

Easter Sunday @ Nassau – We attend Mass at a beautiful church on the island and then a run on the ship (Debbie has become a much better runner since October and kicks my butt three different ways). We head down to the gym/spa to take in a ‘Flatter Abs’ class and find out it is actually an advertisement for ‘Detoxification’ with some health tips thrown in. Being gullible, I sign us up for a Body Composition Analysis and me for a Detox Body Wrap on Monday around noon. We head into the spa for some Steam Room and a shower. Debbie spends 5 minutes in the steam room, decides it’s set too hot and steps out. Her shoes, socks and sunglasses are gone and the rest of her clothes are pushed under the bench they had been sitting on. There is an employee standing there folding towels who had been there when Debbie entered the steam room, she saw nothing and begins to walk away when Debbie starts asking further questions. Debbie finally comes out and we talk to the young lady at the front desk telling her that Debbie’s stuff has been stolen. “Let me have your room number”, she says, “and we’ll call you if we find them”. No looking, no security, no recommendations at all. Big damper on the cruise. We spend a good amount of time looking around for the shoes, including watching the feet of women on the ship to see if they have them on. Debbie also walks around with her iPod because the shoes have her Nike+ sensor in them and the iPod will connect to it if they are relatively close. No running shoes and no sunglasses, bummer!

Monday – We head down to the spa after breakfast to get our originally scheduled spa treatments. The young lady at the counter looks us dead in the face and says “Your appointments were for yesterday morning, I tried to call all morning long and you never answered so you missed them”. Rage! We explain how we have the printout showing the appointments are for Monday morning, how we called Saturday and confirmed with the young lady that the appointments were for Monday morning. How she changed them to be at the same time for us. Blank stares. “We can reschedule you for some other time but you missed your appointments and there’s nothing else we can do”. No, you’re right, there’s nothing else you can do. Refund our money, we don’t want the appointments now. We need a sedative not a manicure! “Sorry, you booked your appointments online, we can’t credit your money back here, you need to go to guest services.” More rage, we turn to leave and I ask Debbie to wait. I cancel the three other appointments we scheduled yesterday as well, may $350 worth of lost revenue will make an impression but I doubt it. We make our way down to guest services where the relatively nicer lady listens to our story and then disappears for 10 minutes behind the wall. She finally returns and offers to reschedule our appointments for us! Hello! NO! Money, now! “Well, we can only offer you a ships’ credit since this was booked through the website” she says. Fine, we’ll spend at least that much on board so we take the credit ($135). She says the credit should show up tomorrow morning. Today is a day at sea so we spend a little time by the pool but Debbie begins to draft a letter to the Cruise Director “Butch” telling him of our travails.

Tuesday @ St. Thomas – I help with the letter (2 pages) and we turn it in after a short jaunt into St. Thomas. The islands are beautiful but it’s all about buying high-end jewelry or low-end t-shirts and we’re not interested in either. We spend a pleasant day on the ship with one exception. $45 had been credited to our account and we couldn’t tell why. Debbie calls guest services to inquire and she’s told that they’ll only credit her appointment, not mine because I had received my services! Within about 3 minutes, the lady neither knew or cared whether I received my services, she just wanted to make sure I got my $90 credit (Debbie was great). Our cabin steward “Junior” is pleasant but the only people who make us feel like they want us on the ship are the Dining Room Wait Staff. “John” and “Ryan” were very good and by Thursday night John knew all our names (not a great feat except that the kids rarely ate with us at dinner time). At 10 PM, we get a call from Butch letting us know that he has no authority over our situation but that he has scanned in our letter and forwarded it to the appropriate people on board. We thank him for his help and go to bed.

Wednesday @ St. Martin – We go out onto the island to get some beach time (truly a beautiful place) and then head back to the ship. The $90 credit for my appointment is now posted to our account. There’s a message from the Hotel Director asking us to call the service desk and schedule an appointment with him. We call and are scheduled to meet tomorrow morning at 10 AM.

Thursday – We meet with the Hotel Director. There is a slight language barrier but the gist of the conversation is that Carnival does not treat their guests this way and they are truly sorry. They are willing to reschedule the spa appointments for free but we turn that down just on principle (okay, we’re stubborn too). The Hotel Director confirms that every conversation we’ve had with the spa, including the phone call Saturday confirming our appointments, had been handled by the same employee “Mia” and that they plan to discuss this behavior with her extensively. We left feeling placated but not really satisfied though I honestly could not tell you what could have satisfied us. At dinner, a lady we had not seen before comes by to offer us any beverages we would like ‘on the house’. Unfortunately, we’d been in the sun and drinking all day long and really just wanted water. She brought two large bottles of water to our table and asked the waiter to ensure we get what we wanted drink-wise. When we returned to our room we found that two Carnival backpacks filled with goody’s have been left on our bed. Obviously, they’re trying their very best to make good on our cruise and they almost succeeded…almost.

Friday – Second day at sea and very pleasant except for the 7-10 foot swells that are rocking the boat something fierce. They started yesterday afternoon and will continue until we reach port tomorrow. A new credit for $140 appears on our account. They have credited Debbie for the cost of her shoes and her sunglasses. We’re both impressed with the measures they’ve gone to to ensure that we feel compensated for our loss and we do. They have honestly done everything we could have hoped for and more to ensure that we’re happy with the cruise. Again, they almost succeeded…

So what’s the deal, you ask? Well, honestly I’ll tell you that Carnival never stood a chance of making us happy on this cruise. If Debbie’s shoes had never been stolen, if we’d gotten our spa appointments and the weather had been absolutely perfect the whole trip, Carnival would not have had a repeat customer. The reason is that we’ve been spoiled. The only cruises we have to compare this one with are Disney Cruises. What we didn’t realize is that Carnival is an entry level cruise. The cost is less, that’s true. If you’ve never cruised before, you won’t see anything wrong and you’ll probably love it; even if your shoes are stolen. But let me explain something. On Disney (and other upper echelon cruises), your staff know your name before you get on the ship. Once they put a face to a name, they will call you by name for the rest of the cruise, normally from day 1. If a person on the cruise leaves a dish beneath the stairwell, an employee will find it and remove it before the next person passes. The ship is immaculate. Everyone, not just the people who get tips at the end of the cruise, EVERYONE wants you to feel like you are the most important person on the cruise. The Captain of the Disney Magic thanked us personally for trusting our family to his care and then stopped to take a picture with Debbie and I later in the cruise. Becka had a handstand contest with the cruise director from our last cruise and when she won, he announced it far and wide. And he acknowledged her by name for the rest of the cruise. That’s service! Yes, we paid for it but Debbie and I both agree that if we had it to do over again, we’d pay the extra money and take the Disney Cruise. And I’ll tell you one other thing, we spoke to many people on this cruise and the majority of the ones who had cruised other lines said the same thing we did. That this cruise wasn’t terrible but given the opportunity, they’d cruise the higher priced lines instead.

Final verdict? Based on our experience, pay the extra money and get pampered. If money is an issue and you’ve never cruised before, you’ll like Carnival and have a great time (but keep an eye on your shoes)!