Carnival Cruises Reviews

I agree with your comments about Barbados. You got away lightly. Our Sea Princess cruise ended their in October. Everybody was allocated the same time of 07.10 to report to Immigration, even though the ship did not dock until 07.00. We had to queue for over an hour and by the time the immigration process started the queue was literally the length of the ship. The charter flight back was 2 hours late and we were told by the crew that the flights were normally late.

Totally agree. I went on this cruise in August and it was just an American/Puerto Rican feeding marathon. Some people didn't use plates; they just piled foor on to trays!! Prices on board were high, ($25 for a single photo) and some of the ports of call left a lot to be desired, notably Dominica. It was too manic to be on the main sun deck - we called it the McDonald's deck! Barbados immigration officials were late, rude and clueless, so there's a lot of hanging around. Never again.

most cruises are like this it's just how it is no matter what cruises lines your on

I have done cruises with Royal Carribean, Celebrity, Ocean Village, Princess, some two or three times, but only one with Carnival and never again. They discount the cruises to American servicemen who tend to want to party. The main entertainment is audience participation were they encourage the audience up on the stage and make fun of them all week. There were few visiting acts. There were no staff in the main theatre and consequently people were sitting in the aisles covering the emergency lights. Glasses of alcohol balancing on the balcony were another danger to the audience below. Drinks purchased at some bars in the happy hour were charged full price. The ships crew were allowed to bring their own guests on board at the ports of call, were they headed for the self service restaurants and filled up their picnic baskets to take home. There appeared to be poor disabled facilities. One person in his wheelchair was refused use of the tendering service, as there were no facilities to transport him so he had to stay on board. When he did leave the ship at Livorno the courtesy shuttle bus on the dock side did not have facilities to transport him so again he had to stay on ship. The ship was the Carnival Liberty and was new at the time. I complained to Carnival and my party of seven were each offered $150 each of our next carnival cruise. Not one of us has taken up their offer. We continue to cruise but Carnival never enters our minds.

Uh-oh. I thought that selling-off lots of late-availability cabins to locals at bucket-prices was the speciality of Princess. Seems like the rot is spreading, due to the recession. ..........I'm not one for bickering about who's paid what, but I'd have been p****d-off with your experience of the unexpected culture, inconsiderate behaviour and the self-service scrums courtesy of the locals, which has been oft-repeated on these pages re some Princess cruises (same for italian/Spanish ships in the Med). ..............Incidentally, Princess did alleviate the problem to some extent by excluding MRD and some other facilities from the bucket tickets - was that the case with your cruise? ........... Caribbean-wise, I'll stick to Carib-based UK ships for that reason as well as the immigration hoo-haa, and the on-board pricing & "grats" policies which I'd have thought you'd have been aware of. .................Sorry your cruise wasn't the experience it should have been. .....Chris

I have never wanted to travel on the Carnival vessels, because I suspected it would be exactly as you described. The Macdonalds of cruising? You have now confirmed it!!!