pozbaird

13 hours ago, crzndeb said:

Since you haven’t posted much on Cruise Critic, did you see at the top of the page, “Find a Cruise”? I happened to look for TA’s leaving from Southhampton, and I found a lot next year, and on different cruise lines, since you stated you wouldn’t be sailing Carnival for a while. Maybe not brand new ships, but some great itineraries. Seems like you are stuck in disappointment mode. Hopefully the holidays will bring you out of your funk. 

I appreciate you taking the time to look, and for posting here. I genuinely appreciate it. If you have read my posts on this thread, you will have read about the trying circumstances that my wife’s sister finds herself in. My wife and I have done a few Celebrity cruises, loved them, so we looked briefly at what the Reflection / Apex were doing in regard to transatlantic. Several problems immediately flagged up. Cost - they are good, but not cheap, and my sister-in-law has a budget she simply cannot exceed. We had booked the Mardi Gras crossing so far in advance. We got a good deal, and, we got adjoining cabins. My wife and I in a suite class we wanted, the very next room was a class my sister-in-law wanted, and could afford. It was perfect.

The Celebrity transatlantic cruises now obviously have seen the best cabins, for location and price, already snapped up.

As I explained, my sister-in-law’s long term partner was admitted to a cancer hospice a week or so ago, and has been given two weeks to live. When we booked the Mardi Gras, we knew his long term prospects were bleak, but we weren’t prepared for this deterioration, and bombshell just before Christmas. Then, a few days later, we get the Carnival Mardi Gras news.

As things stand, we are putting all thoughts of a replacement holiday to the back burner. We have had a few days since the cancellation news, where my wife and I briefly researched possible new cruises, but none of us have the heart for it. A new cruise, new flights, new hotels, new bookings. We are now just going to forget about it and get through Christmas, New Year, and whatever that holds for us in regards to my sister-in-law and her partner. Whatever it holds, it isn’t going to be good.

Having cruised on, and loved, both the Celebrity Reflection and Solstice, next year, sometime, when our heads are clearer, we will look into cruises on the Edge or Apex. Our intention remains that we are sadly finished with Carnival. We are gold members, but as I said in a previous post, they are a multi-billion dollar company where gold members are ten-a-penny. We won’t be missed.

Will make this my last post on the matter. Hope everyone has a good festive season.

Not had much luck finding a cruise to book to replace the one we just lost with Carnival - a transatlantic crossing from my home country, on a brand new ship, ending up in New York City, via places we actually wanted to stop at en route.

Thanks again Carnival. Sorry, forgot, thanks a lot Turku Meyer. I forgot for a moment it’s all their fault.

42 minutes ago, Don Kehote said:

The embarrassment should come from the manner in which the complaining takes place.  It's very, very cringey in many cases. I am embarrassed FOR some of the people who are upset because they learned their complain strategy from toddlers.

My wife and I have taken many Carnival cruises as a couple. I posted that on the cancelled transatlantic cruise, there were three of us booked. The third person is my wife’s sister. She has never been on a big cruise ship, never been on this sort of holiday. Currently, her long term partner was admitted to a cancer hospice near Glasgow, where he has been given two weeks to live. She had been caring for him, and dealing with his initial cancer diagnosis for years.

We booked this trip to give her something to look forward to, to have there to think about, rather than just thinking about her dreadful situation. She was looking forward to it immensely.

Last night, we had to contact her to give her the news. A week before Christmas. She was nearly in tears.

Complain to Carnival? Damn right I have. Politely, and I know it won’t get the ship built, but I have done it, and have taken a calm decision to take our future cruise business to someone not operating under the Carnival umbrella.

I appreciate some people might not agree with my stance, attitude, actions. That’s entirely their call, I respect their view. I just hope people respect mine.

46 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

I think you are incorrect about the flights....

On my correspondence from Carnival, they even give you an e-mail address at Carnival ‘airreimbursements......’ to which you send your receipts for non-refundable air travel, and hotel costs.

In our case, our hotel booking was cancelled with no charge, but while our main airfare has been refunded, by cancelling British Airways flights we have incurred a non-refundable cost of £35pp. We therefore have a British Airways receipt for £105, which has to be sent to Carnival, not our travel insurance company.

4 hours ago, earlethepearl said:

Lesson learned. A lot of these new kids who have just been cruising for the last 10 years or so will learn. Don’t try to be the new kid on the block. You will be embarrassed. Lol. Slow and steady wins the race. These ships will be around for awhile. Let them work out the kinks. Then you can be like us veterans and sail them for years. Merry Christmas!!  

For some of us, it’s not about trying to be the new kid on the block. It’s about being Carnival customers who live in Europe, Carnival build their ships in Europe, and this is a one-off opportunity for us to cross the Atlantic in their latest ships.

Why would any of us feel embarrassed about being let down by a combination of Carnival & Turku Meyer? Any embarrassment should be felt by the executives of both companies who are letting down tens of thousands of their customers.

7 hours ago, bakersdozen12 said:

Actually, you need to seek reimbursement through your travel insurance. Carnival is not responsible for your flights. Just the cruise you booked with them. 

There’s a whole section on the correspondence Carnival sent us about getting receipts for non-refundable air fares, or hotels, and sending them to Carnival. Nothing about contact your insurers, not them.

2 minutes ago, declansdad said:

 

Just realized that you are from Scotland. We have Scottish ancestry and are hoping to making it to the other side of the pond some day.

Just don’t book on a Carnival transatlantic from the USA to the UK! 😀

Just now, declansdad said:

 

I'm not offended at all and I truly understand the disappointment.

 

You problems with British Airways are not the same as this. A problem totally within their control and a trip that had began. This was for a trip that is months away and you can still book another cruise.  If this had happened just before the cruise date it would be an entirely different situation.

 

I hope you do find something else and have  fantastic time.

We will! Thanks for that. It isn’t the end of the world - first world problems and all that.... we have talked about going to Vegas to see our beloved, but somewhat useless, Denver Broncos play in the new Raiders stadium... so maybe, just maybe...

19 minutes ago, declansdad said:

 

and what do you expect the complaint to get you?

In this instance, nothing that gets the eight cancelled cruises suddenly back on, but that isn’t the point. Remember a couple of years ago, British Airways suffered a huge IT crash that affected flights worldwide? We were caught up in that. Spent an entire day stuck in Heathrow airport, had to book a London hotel, return to Heathrow the next day, got to Houston, Texas - no luggage. Spent four days in Houston - still no luggage. Bought everything we needed, kept all receipts. Flew to Scottsdale, Arizona. Still no luggage. It turned up two days after we arrived in Scottsdale. Ruined a holiday we had saved up for, looked forward to.

We got home, and complained about it to British Airways, who, aside from refunding all our expenses, also awarded us a discounted flight voucher, plus shedloads of Avios frequent flyer miles that we used to upgrade to business. None of it fixed our somewhat ruined holiday to Houston & Scottsdale, but that isn’t the point, we felt that the discounted flight and the ability to enjoy a free business class flight was fair recompense. We didn’t stop flying with them as we felt their response was decent.

I imagine that most folk, having suffered a problem with a company, will contact that company, should the issue be big enough to warrant complaint.

For me, given the Mardi Gras cruise I was booked on was a never-to-be-repeated one-off, I don’t happen to think Carnival’s across-the-board 25% future discount is a very good response to the problem, so having discussed it, we will take our future cruise business elsewhere. If that offends anyone, tough.

3 minutes ago, declansdad said:

 

The point is that complaining to Carnival for something out of their control is pointless, being disappointed is understandable. The fact of the matter is booking a cruise on a ship that hasn't left the yard is a gamble.

No it isn’t pointless. You have a problem, are left disappointed, you complain to the company involved. Now, it isn’t going to change anything in regard to the ship suddenly being completed as originally advertised, because customers complained to Carnival, but it certainly isn’t pointless. 

7 minutes ago, declansdad said:

Typically an airline would have the plane before booking passengers on the flight.

Well yes, but the point I’m making is that none of us had booked a cruise with Meyer Turku, so naturally, Carnival will be the ones getting grief from let-down customers, just as British Airways or United Airlines would, even though the cause of the problem could be equipment manufactured by Boeing, Airbus, or Rolls Royce engines, whatever.

Three of us were booked on the Mardi Gras trans Atlantic crossing out of Southampton. To say we are disappointed is a bit of an understatement, but disappointment is all it is. At the end of the day, there’s no point in being overly angry or cursing Carnival / Turku Meyer to the heavens - because, after doing it, you’ll just be back to where you are - having to cancel your flights, hotels, whatever.

We have just been onto our hotel in New York to cancel, and have cancelled our flight home to the UK with British Airways. The hotel was no problem, no charges to cancel. British Airways was a bit more problematic, we have charges that we now must seek to have re-imbursed by Carnival.

As loyal Carnival customers who, amongst other Carnival cruises, have also done trans Atlantic on the Vista and Horizon, we were so looking forward to doing a third trans Atlantic cruise on the impressive looking Mardi Gras. However, we have no intention of booking with Carnival again anytime soon, and will take our future business elsewhere. We are not doing this in anger, or being petulant about it, we are making this decision calmly, and having discussed it between us.

Sorry Carnival, but you have just lost two customers. You are a massive, hugely rich company though, so I’m sure our decision won’t bring your empire to its knees.

I once saw a guy on a cruise wearing a New England Patriots 'Tebow 5' jersey. Funniest thing I ever saw. I mean ever, not just on a cruise.

Unless it blows a gasket again, I'll be on the Splendor from March 12 to 19, so that covers St Patrick's day. As a Scot, I celebrate St Andrews day, but hey, just for a day, pour me a Guinness!

A good suggestion would be to get Bono from U2 and throw him overboard. :cool:

Glad you are going to give it a go. Hope everything runs smoothly. :)

Thanks. Been looking forward to this holiday for a while, but these things are outwith our control, so we'll fly over on Friday, check our e-mails at the hotel in Miami and take it from there.

Even if the entire cruise gets cancelled and we're in Miami, we can fix up something while there. The only worry we have is if the ship gets sent out on Sunday, and the 'technical issue' arises again.

Time will tell! Looking forward to these business class flights to get the holiday going. That's our frequent flyer BA miles put to good use at last!

I totally understand your concern; we reside in Kentucky (planning and travel expenses involved). Not anywhere near the planning, etc. you have, but we are still concerned and are considering changing our cruise.

Hope you get the Wyn in Vegas, and have a fantastic time!

Update: we didn't book Las Vegas! We contacted British Airways to try and change our flight home from Miami to Vegas instead - it would have cost way too much money to do it. We sat down today and pondered if we really wanted to travel from Scotland all the way to Miami, then after a day, go back to Miami airport to face a five hour flight to Vegas, then after a week in Vegas, fly back to Miami for one day before flying from Miami - London...

Nah, too much like hard work. So, we'll roll the dice and take our chances on Sunday by going on the cruise. As things stand, it is supposed to be the original itinery, who knows though!? Things can change and maybe we will be offered an amended truncated cruise to Nassau and Freeport instead? We are not that keen to go back there, but it isn't the end of the world, we will get our heads around it and enjoy a few cocktails and some sunshine - with a discount and future discount to sweeten things.

We are not complainers by nature, we will work something out should things change between now and Sunday... a few ice cold Sam Adams' will fix anything!

We've been coming to the USA on holiday every year for twenty years now, although we only discovered cruising a couple of years ago. Fingers crossed things get fixed on the Splendor and no unforseen issues happen between today and Sunday.

A tip I would give is that the blue towels (or yellow Serenity ones) you get on board are available to buy as brand new, beach towel sized items. Instead of buying a souvenir T Shirt, or some sort of other trinket - invest in a Carnival beach towel. We bought a blue one and a yellow one. Use them for the gym, the best quality towel I have ever used and a brand-new freshly sealed Carnival towel is probably the best 'souvenir' I have bought on holiday. When your T Shirt you bought has died a death after one wash, the Carnival beach towel is indestructable... :cool:

Carnival should get Led Zeppelin to reform and put them on every cruise I am booked on. They should also persuade Neil Peart of Rush to get behind the drum kit again and get Rush onstage for a few shows.

Failing that, could they raise Bon Scott from the grave and get the original AC/DC line up together?

No? Oh well...

So I reading Your post it seems you are afraid that they will cancel, that they won't cancel and you will be scared to sail on the ship, that they will sail and do an abbreviated itinerary finally hoping they just cancel,the cruise? So I am a bit confused.

 

My 2 cents is that they honestly do not know if the ship will have the part, (which was shipped from Italy) installed and ready to go by Sunday.... I am certain they are working round the clock but as of now I don't think they really know.... it will probably be a down to the wire decision as engineering fixes do not always go as scheduled... they don't know it's fixed until it is fixed (and the fix is approved by class and USCG).

 

so being on the safe side, I would say there is a good possibility that the cruise on March 12 will also be adjusted (there is also the possibility it is fixed they don't know yet) so you should probably start to think about if YOU are willing to sail on the ship if it has a different schedule or if you will sail knowing they are working on one of the prop systems... the USCG would not let the ship,sail if it were unsafe, that you can be sure of... and it would be near to impossible that they will outright cancel the cruise since the ship IS operational just slower.... so it would be up to you whether you choose sail.... or make other plans. Hope you find a way to enjoy your vacation regardless... should be great weather down here next week!

Your location is South Florida. My location is just outside Glasgow, Scotland. I agree my original post was a bit conflicted, but we booked this trip a long time ago and we have booked our cat into the cattery, our car into the airport car park at Glasgow for two weeks, flights down to London, flights from London to Miami, two nights in a downtown Miami hotel - then the cruise part - back to Miami for an overnight stay on a South Beach hotel, then fly back Miami - London - Glasgow. As regular British Airways customers, on the flight from London to Miami, we have managed to use our frequent flyer miles to get business class upgrades. So, we have invested a lot of time and this is an expensive trip for us.

I appreciate Carnival, like any cruise line or indeed airline, can suffer technical issues. Having suffered technical issues I wanted clarity and a quick decision from Carnival - which I received. I received a second e-mail from them (as some people mentioned above), which says they think they can fix the ship to allow it to follow its advertised itenery on March 12, but have given us the opportunity to cancel with full refund, and to claim any lost airfare costs.

Weighing up all our options, we have decided it would be a hassle to cancel the cattery, car park, domestic and international flights, two different Miami hotels - and lose the business class flights we were looking forward to, so we are going to cancel the cruise, and my wife is currently sitting on her iPad looking into return flights from Miami to Las Vegas mirroring the Sunday to Sunday timescale of the March 12 cruise. We will keep all our Miami arrangements but just go to Vegas instead of going on the cruise.

Part of me thinks 'just go on the cruise - it'll be fine'. There's still a doubt though. So, given the opportunity of a full refund, we're taking it. There's a lot of considerations... between now and March 12 maybe they won't fix it and we passed up the chance to cancel. Maybe thousands of people booked on the cruise cancel, and it sails out with half capacity and little atmosphere on board... who knows? We don't, and given the possibility that Carnival really don't know either (otherwise why even offer refunds and refunded airfare if they were 100% confident it will be fixed), then we're just cancelling.

Better go - need to get Wynn in Las Vegas booked ASAP...

We did the Transatlantic cruise last year on the Vista, from Barcelona to New York. Having been on older ships like the Victory, Legend and Inspiration, and enjoyed them, the Vista was, as you would expect, fresher and more modern. We were positive about the experience on the Vista, with a few caveats. The main dining room we found to be too dark in decor and lighting. It was clearly trying to go for the dark wood and muted tone look, but we felt it was merely dark and was uncomfortably hot towards the back of the dining room.

The casino was very crowded, too many slots and gaming tables crammed in. On the Transatlantic crossing the Havana Bar was dead as a dodo - will no doubt liven up on sunshine cruises with perhaps an overall younger crowd.

The main theatre was caught between two stools - with no dedicated nightclub, it was supposed to fill two roles, theatre and nightclub, but wasn't really successful in either role as opposed to two seperate venues on other ships.

That aside, initially we thought the atrium on the Vista was lacking the grandeur of other atriums, but we really grew to love the big LED funnel atrium. A very welcoming place to sit and people watch, we ended up loving it.

We likened the Vista experience over older ships to our experience visiting Las Vegas over many years. Older Vegas hotels were themed - Luxor, Caesars, Mirage, Excalibur... just like ships such as the Legend, Victory etc. Recently, developments in Vegas such as Aria or Wynn eschewed themes, for 'classier' more 'upmarket hotel' vibes. The Vista moves in the same direction as the newer Vegas hotels.

You still know you're on a Carnival ship, but there's a danger that if they keep moving too far in this new direction then eventually you could feel that you're in any modern hotel on land, in any city, in pretty much any country...

Still, on balance, we'd give the Vista 85 out of 100. Opinions, opinions!

My wife and I are booked on the Splendor, out of Miami in six days time (from time of posting this). 12th March. We received an e-mail from Carnival informing us of the engine troubles on the Splendor, and that we would receive further info as and when they had it.

We subsequently learned that the March 5th cruise set sail out of Miami with a greatly amended itinery, with the destination being Nassau and Freeport in the Bahamas, with the option given of a full refund, or to undertake the amended cruise with 50% discount, 50% discount on a future booking, and onboard credit. At the time of typing this, we can see on cruisemapper and the Nassau terminal webcam that the Splendor made it to Nassau, albeit slowly, and engineers are looking at the issue.

I phoned Carnival, who said that as things stand, our upcoming March 12 cruise is still slated to visit the advertised ports of call - Amber Cove, St Thomas, San Juan and Grand Turk. It appears to be a fluid situation though, if the problems cannot be fixed during the current truncated Bahamas cruise, we too could be looking at being offered a full refund, or a discounted amended cruise.

We would simply like some clarity - as soon as possible. We have visited Nassau and Freeport before, and have no real desire to re-visit, even at a discount. Certainly, we do not want to be heading there on a ship that would be on its THIRD cruise in a row suffering with a 'serious technical issue'. We simply do not want to take a chance heading out on a compromised Splendor that could easily blow a gasket again - while at sea. We'd be on it wondering if we'd reach Nassau, never mind anything else. If offered - we'd grab the chance to completely cancel. However, we are commited to flying out on Friday 10th to Miami, with a two-night stay in a hotel booked. We also have a hotel booked for one night on the day the cruise arrives back to Miami, and flights home booked for Monday 20th.

We really need Carnival to be quick and clear about the current problems being suffered by the Splendor and to make a quick decision about the upcoming March 12 cruise. If the whole thing is cancelled, we are looking to fill in the 'gap' that a cancelled cruise would leave by getting up to Orlando and staying in Universal Studios, or maybe to hire a car and drive through the Keys to Key West.... keeping all our Miami flights and hotels intact.

I just have this nagging feeling we will be told between now and Friday 'everything is still as scheduled', then we fly out, get to Miami and once we reach US soil, they then tell us the ship needs some real work done that means it cannot set sail. Just a bad feeling I have. I just wish they'd cancel the March 12 cruise right now, to give the 3,000 people due to travel in currently uncertain circumstances a chance to fix something else up in advance.

Of course, maybe my nagging feeling of impending gloom and doom will prove to be unfounded, they'll get the issues fixed during the current stop in Nassau, and everything will be back to normal for the remainder of this current truncated schedule cruise.... and, from a selfish POV, for our cruise on March 12.

Watch this space! Fingers X.