We went on a New Years Carnival Ecstasy cruise to celebrate a wedding anniversary. The previous Ecstasy return voyage was several hours late to port according to officials on shore prior to departure. As a result, embarkation was a nightmare, with 2 hour waits to board. Because we were the last in priority of the three cruise ships to load potable water for the trip, the port water pressure was very low by our turn. Consequently, we left over 8 hours late. We missed our first port of call (Cozumel) by 10 hours, and had only 1 or 2 hours of real daylight there, depending on how long it took you to get off the boat, so we had most of the excursions cancelled or shortened, some on the mainland dock as we lined up to leave. Because of the high number of excursion cancellations ,we waited for over an hour to attempt to find an alternative. There were also water pressure problems on the boat during the cruise, resulting in either no water (all morning) to rusty water later. We had water pressure problems for one entire morning, and rusty water for several hours afterward. Because of the dire need to make up for time, the boat was pushed to its limits, causing pitching and rocking that made us sick the entire first day. We had very limited activities on board and no compensation for the missed excursions/late port of call. The second port was also abbreviated due to "unforeseen circumstances with the port authorities waiting to approve our docking" (why do we have to wait over an hour if they know we are arriving? Whats THAT all about?). The lunch buffet was unfit to eat, consisting of vegetables (of which we would not eat, not knowing the cleaning standards of the ourdoor buffet) and some breadsticks. When we returned to the ship, and complained to request our money back, the lines were always long at the Shore Excursion booth, with ONE person attending at excursion times, and during complaints. When you finally got to the head of the line, they either sent you back to the info booth to repeat the story again, and then you were told to return at a later time, wait your turn again that you had to come back when the purser was there and available to answer your questions. We were finally told we HAD we had to complain to Miami, that they were NOT authorized to reimburse any amounts to customers. Now we are being told by Miami that if we did not correct the problems and notify the purser to remedy them immediately, once we left the ship the complaints will not be resolved. There has to be some sort of guarantee of performance these cruise lines are required to provide. If not, someone SOMEWHERE should find a way to put them out of business until they deliver what they promise. I am certain we will never receive compensation, and the promise of 10% off our next cruise is a JOKE. Thanks alot, Carnival! You ruined our anniversary, and we can't replace a milestone such as this, but do you care??? No way! So just keep on booking people who are mistaken enough to think these are just one time occurrances. Also, customers are on to your ploy of having Carnival employees who respond to these complaints with rebuttals about their own "utopia experiences", hoping that people will discount the complaints. All they have to do is take a look at the wrongful death suits and the barrage of complaints about their customer service. In fact, I challenge them to find an ACTUAL CASE that was handled to the party (ies) complete satisfaction that can be verified by written/verbal confirmation. Let's see if they meet that challenge like they meet their complaints - empty handed!