Carnival booked our air travel from Orlando to Atlanta to Rome on 10/30/08 for a cruise leaving Rome on 10/1/08. The connection in Atlanta was scheduled less than 45 minutes from the arrival time from Orlando for the connection to Rome. When we disembarked the plane in Atlanta we were greeted by a Delta representative who informed us that there was no way we would be able to make the outgoing flight. Two representatives of Delta contacted Carnival and each was quite upset that the connecting flight was made in such a short time, stating that Delta required a minimum of 90 minutes between flights, preferably 2 hours. We had to stay in a hotel on 9/30 before being able to arrange a flight to Naples, the first port of call of the cruise. We were told by Carnival that a representative would meet us at the Naples baggage claim area to bring us, and our baggage to the ship. Not only was there no one there to meet us, but because of the confusion of the flights, there was no baggage there, either. We took a cab to the ship. We had no baggage for five days before the baggage was delivered. In addition, we were told that all expenses (over $500.00) encountered because of this situation would be reimbursed, including our cell phone expenses (over $300.00) - because we would be in phone contact during the problem. We submitted receipts, as we were told for said reimbursementdenied reimbursement. They offered us a 20% discount on our next cruise, which we deemed unacceptable, and an insult.

It should be noted that my disabled wife postponed surgery scheduled for 9/23/08 for this cruise, which she had been looking forward to for many months. In addition, we were given a cabin that had power doors at the entry and the bathroom. My wife was almost knocked down by the door 3-4 time trying to transfer from her wheelchair into the bathroom. Fortunately, I was nearby, and prevented her falling to the floor.

It should be noted that more than one Carnival representative admitted to me that this was entirely Carnival's fault because of the terrible booking of the flight. Whereas Carnival has tried to blame the airline for the lost luggage, it is evident that the poor arrangements were the cause of the effect of the misdirected luggage.

My boyfriend and I just got back from a 7 day cruise on the Carnival Triumph, The Eastern Caribbean Cruise. It was the worst experience of my life. I spent a lot of money to travel from California to Miami to go on my one vacation of the year and it was all ruined by Carnival. It was my boyfriend’s birthday and he was completely let down as well. First off, they knew before we boarded the ship that they were going to have to cancel the Bahamas port, and didn’t tell anyone until we were already on the ship and moving, which was so horrible. They said it was the weather, although on the way back the Bahamas port was great and sunny, but they still kept us on the boat the whole time. We had 5 days at sea and only were able to get off the ship two times. The service was the worst I have ever experienced. The people were rude, and grumpy. Everything fun to do cost money, and the free activities were repeated, exactly the same. They were soo boring, I would rather have sat in my stateroom, which was dirty, and I had holes in my sheets. Blood Stains on my sheets. It was disgusting; they play the movies over and over again instead of having new ones daily, like advertised. The food, o my, where do I start, the food was just plain disgusting. I eggs every morning were soggy. The bacon stuck in clumps and tasted horrific. The lunch was hard, chewy, most of the time overcooked, whatever it may be, and if you ordered a chicken sandwich and opened it up to take off what you asked them to not put on in the beginning, you would find that there was barely any chicken on it at all, once time in my Chicken Fajita Wrap I opened it up to find ONE piece of hard chicken, it was awful. I threw up almost every meal, because it caused me a stomach ache. When they told us they were canceling the Grand Turk port. They offered us $20.00 a person, just like they did with the Bahamas port. Can you believe that, from a $2000.00 dollar cruise, I saw 2 places, and got $40.00 bucks back. All my excursion were canceled and it took days to receive my refund. Which still has not posted to my bank account? I won money in the casino, which was great, but nowhere near compensated for the time, money, efforts, and everything else I put into trying to make this a nice cruise for my boyfriend’s birthday. I would have been happier staying home. I found out Royal Caribbean was at the Bahamas the 5 day we were at sea, why could they have not taken us to the their private owned island? Because another one of their ships were using it? Come on... we were supposed to go there earlier in the week, why not take us there on the way back, because they knew the more they kept us on the ship, the more money they made, on drinks, games, gambling, and all the other bogus activities they had that somehow always cost money. I felt totally freaked out by all the characters they had as well, they would pretty much force you to take pictures with these creepy looking things. So annoying. Someone trying to sell you something everywhere you looked. The sushi was the worst, totally fishy, and pretty much I had the worst vacation of my life. I have cruised Royal Caribbean before, and it was a wonderful experience, in fact it was also in hurricane season, September, and it was an amazing time. The ship was cleaner, the food was sooo wonderful, the service/people working on the boat was wonderful, and the activities were amazing ;) If you want to cruise, take Royal Caribbean ;)

After having an amazing cruise on Royal Caribbean one year, my family (husband, 2 kids, parents & brother) decided to try out the other cruise lines out there...

like Carnival. Maybe we were spoiled on Royal Caribbean or maybe Carnival "Fun Ship" Cruises just take no pride in quality of service. Before we even got on board the Victory, we were handed a change of itinerary stating that we would not be going to Nova Scotia Canada as intended, but instead, St John's New Brunswick. Ok, no problem seeing as there was a slight tropical storm in the way and we'd never been to St John's Canada anyway.

First off, let me just say that as we boarded the ship, it just seemed so unrefined. The interior was decorated in such a tacky way, it reminded me of a gambling resort type, not so much Las Vegas, but maybe Atlantic City. Right off hand, you can smell the cigarette smoke, that eminated throughout the entire ship. It was disgusting to say the least.

That night we were looking forward to dining and having a good meal. Yet, another disappointment. The food was horrible and cold. My husband had ordered the NY strip steak with potatoes and green beans, what came on the plate was basically a rubber steak with a side of fat and grizzle. My chowder was warm at the top but ice cold towards the bottom. The chicken satay appetizer was so dry and tasteless. They tend to concentrate more on quantity rather than quality.

The next morning, we had a full day at sea, the ship was moving at such a slow pace like 15 knotts, that most of the passengers on board, including my mom got terribly seasick. Everyone rushed to the doctor on board for those drammamine pills. We didn't understand how a ship this size created so much rocking, people were swaying from side to side, it was aweful.

Not once did we feel any kind of swaying on our Royal Caribbean Cruise.

We thought that there would be at least something to do on the Victory besides drinking at the bars (there were several by the way), we tried to go play ping pong, but there was only ONE table that was placed in an enclosed area by the stairwell the size of my closet!! Of course there was a line of people waiting to play so we checked that off our list. Next, we headed to the arcade or should I say "money eating machine". Almost every games we tried to play with the exception of the surfing and the car racing games were broken. It cost $1 to play each game and once you put your tokens in, they don't start up and you don't get your money back. Carnival Cruise Ship attendants don't bother to put an "out of order" sign. What to do next? We opted to work out at the gym for a while, of course, why did we even bother? Their freestyle weights were either too light like 7 lbs or too heavy like 25-30 lbs. There was nothing in between. Their running track was mediocre as well. Their pool slide was closed half of the time and when they did decide to open it, the water was icy cold. The jacuzzis would have been nice if only they enforced the "no children" rule. It was crawling with kids under 12, even at the "adults only" jacuzzis. Some kids were even eating in the jacuzzis and that was just plain nasty, but no one did anything. Even late at night, there were still kids in the jacuzzis and we had to wonder, where are their parents?? Getting drunk of course! Afterall, Carnival Victory is basically a "Floating Bar" designed specifically for people who just want to drink, get drunk, leave their kids unattended to do whatever they please even if it means upsetting the other passengers, and for people who are too wasted to even know what the food should taste like. I think that's why the food is so aweful, most of the people are just too drunk to realize it tasted like crap. For instance, on our last night, we ordered pork chops and out came this pork chop with some green juice oozing and bubbling out ( I kid you not). We were appalled and afraid to eat it. The food by the 4th day was still cold and we really dreaded dinner time. We opted for pizza and burgers instead. Luckily the only thing this ship had going for them was the 24hr pizzas and the late night burgers and fries. Their 24hr soft serve ice cream was the only treat worth having, as the desserts they served during their dinners tasted like cardboard. We were really hoping the dinners and meals would be gourmet and just tantalize our taste buds, but it was far from that and it just left us with a bad taste in our mouths. It's pretty sad when pizza is the only thing worth looking forward to, and I am not a big pizza fan.

The service was also mediocre, the room attendants and waiters looked like they hated their jobs and wanted to jump ship. Our room attendant did however, do an ok job in tidying our rooms and placing extra towels etc., but he didn't go that extra mile with the towel animals every evening. He made us one freaky towel animal that didn't look like anything we've seen, more like a towel mutant which scared the kids. Maybe that was his intention, who knows. Our waiter forgot our salads one night and the asst waiter totally ignored us and forgot to serve us any bread, as he just stood there chatting away and laughing with the other waiters. Karma works in mysterious ways as that asst waiter tripped while the ship still swayed from side to side.

This was truly a disappointing cruise ship experience. We will never step foot aboard a Carnival "Fun Ship" ever again. Our travel agent was so right when she said that if you want a family friendly, adventure-type cruise choose Royal Caribbean or Norwegian, but if you want to just party and get intoxicated, choose Carnival. We should have listened, but we live and learn.