becarpe1

I have just read the responses to our nightmare. I am sorry that we are not seasoned cruisers. My husband and I are very organised people. We would never be flippant about getting back on time or early. We honestly looked through all of the paperwork available to us in the cabin. I had gone out especially to buy watches for us both as I was told by my sister that you stayed on ship time. That's why we synchronized our watches with the waiter at breakfast. I also didn't ever see any signs or hear any announcements. Maybe we were just so excited about being on board. We did feel very lost about locating restaurants, activities e.t.c. However we did arrive back at the dock at 3.30pm. I obviously realize now that Cozumel must have been on a different time. I had also not read,heard or realized that we had to be back 30 minutes before sailing. As far as to me waiting 4 days to get my medicines, we were aboard the Paridise for 2 days. Then we had 2 flights and a drive to get back to our family in Spring,Tx. It was that night that I became ill. We had to have the local pharmacy call the medical exchange in Little Rock,Arkansas. Eventually the on call doctor called in the medicines I needed. I understand that we were lucky to be taken on board the Paridise. We just stayed in our cabin unless we had to eat. I guess that I was just so devastated and emotionally vulnerable that I felt like we deserved compensation. My husband is a Police officer and I'm in retail so this $2000 is a big issue and the extra expense affected our bill paying ability when we returned home. I don't know if we will be in a position to go on a future cruise. Thanks for pointing out how useless we were !!!!!

Hey guys,

Back in May of this year, my husband and I left out of Galveston to start our 1st cruise. It was to be our long awaited honeymoon,our 20th wedding anniversary, my 48th birthday celebration and were going to renew our wedding vows on a beach.. We were both so excited. I had been buying bits and pieces in preparation for a couple of month's. I am from England and didn't have Proms or homecoming e.t.c. I wanted to dress up and feel like a princess for once. I live with my husband and 3 children in Vilonia,Arkansas. My husband is a Police officer and I have been in retail loss prevention. Now a regular associate at JC Penney's. My kids had been on the Carnival Magic the previous year with their grandparents. They were so excited for us as they knew how long it had been since we had a vacation. Also they had such a blast that they wanted us to experience the same. However after we had left at approximately 5pm on Sunday May 17th, we had the Monday night formal night but I started out kind of shy to go all out to a posh gown. Anyway we had a fabulous time. The next morning we were going to dock at the first port of Cozumel. I was awake on our balcony at between 5 & 6 am. We pulled in to Cozumel as scheduled at approximately 7am. We had read all of the paperwork in our cabin and itinerary. When we went to breakfast we asked our waiter what time we had to be back? He said 4pm. He even checked my husband's watch face and synchronized it to his. We left the ship shortly afterwards to explore Cozumel. After a fabulous day we arrived back at the dockside at 3.30pm giving ourselves extra time. We were told that we were late and that our ship had left. We thought that they were joking. We then realized that they weren't. At that moment my heart dropped. We had been left behind in Mexico. We didn't know what we were going to do. We had no clothes,phone's medicines or anything else. We were told that we had to pay $29.99 each for a visa stamp. This had to be cash. There were two non English-speaking female border patrol agents who sat at one end of a bench and us at the other. The Mexican guy who supposedly worked for Carnival cruise lines with us at the other end. My husband and I had taken some money out before we left the ship for buying gifts. Luckily we managed to scrape together the $60. I asked the guy what if we hadn't had any cash? He replied " then we take you to ATM. We were then driven around at speed to take another couple who had also missed the ship to get there Vista's. The guy was on his phone all the time speaking Spanish. I thought Liam Neeson was going to turn up like in the movie "Taken"!!!!! Anyway, he informed us that we could join the Carnival Paridise. This ship was finished with it's cruise. It was headed to Tampa, Florida. Due to not not much choice we agreed. We still didn't know what we were going to do. My husband and I decided to pay for the internet access and contact his mom. She investigated the different types of travel options available to us. We had to fly from Tampa to Dallas and then on to Houston where we were met by our family. We were taken to my mother-in-law's home where we stayed for 4 days until we could meet our ship. I had been without my medicines for about 3-4 days now. I was having really bad withdrawals. I had hallucinations, night sweats, blurred vision,uncontrollable muscle movements and nightmares

I eventually managed to get a on call doctor back in Arkansas to call in a prescription for me. I was very ill. I have never felt such devastation in my whole life. It was our dream vacation. Has any body ever had a similar experience? We were refunded $120 prepaid gratuities. This was a given as we weren't even there to have the services. I have tried the Better business bureau, Maritime lawyers in Florida and asking the insurance company that came with the cruise. I feel that this was no.way our fault and deserve compensation. The final offer from Carnival was a 20 per cent did count on our future cruise. Does anyone have any suggestions for us. Thanks. Also the airfare from Tampa cost an extra $500. The cruise cost 2,000. Thanks.