I will never cruise with Carnival again, and here's why...

This will be a multipart review that i'm writing as a letter to John Heald and Carnival corporate. Since i am a member here, you all will get more details, and I'll share pictures with you.

Let me simplify everything before I go into detail. The food sucks now, the service sucks now, and whoever is running the technology on the conquest simply doesn't care.

Now, my letter...

To be honest, it takes a lot for me to put as much effort and thought into a letter as I have this one, but a lot of my experience needs to be brought to the attention of Carnival. I like writing reviews, whether they be positive or negative, because I like to feel like my opinion matters to someone, somewhere out in the world. I have written both scathing, apocalyptic reviews of businesses that I wish would burn out of existence, and “Second coming of Christ” glowing reviews of businesses that deserve to have each of 7 billion people on this planet patronize their locations. The problem with most of my reviews is I see things very black and white. I never give 2, 3 or 4 stars on Yelp, just 1 or 5, only because I feel that noone needs to hear about mediocrity. Anyway, on with the show…

I spent 7 days aboard the beautiful Carnival Conquest. I say beautiful, because cruise ships all fascinate me. My experience was far from beautiful, unfortunately. However, I will highlight both the positive, the glaringly negative, and some of the mediocrity I experienced while on board. Mind you, 51 weeks ago I was on board this same ship, out of Galveston, on it’s usual itinerary. I’ll be honest, I couldn’t be happier that we were missing Cozumel for the first time in 4 cruises. I’m glad carnival is dry docking the Conquest this year, because she’s definitely showing her age, especially with the technology on board. For example, the TV menu system in the staterooms has become almost impossible to navigate because it’s so slow, the channel the TV defaults to had a Microsoft Windows error on it for several days, and the channel that show’s the ship’s status was stuck on the same slide for the entire trip. The staterooms are in dire need of revamping. Simple things like making an auxiliary input on the TV available to guests(without having to pay for a bloody suite) would have made my trip MUCH better, as well as updating that god awful pink trim. Anyway, I’ll get on to my daily experiences and other thoughts

Day one, embarkation. I know Carnival has very little to do with the operation of the cruise terminals, but this does need to be said… Embarkation in New Orleans is nothing short of painful. The port of New Orleans does not have their coordination together in the terminal. I’ve never waited so long to get my sail and sign card. Even after we got our cards, the whole boarding process made no sense with the “zones” and people pointing and going in different directions. We eventually just found our way to the gangway and got on board. We made our way to Lido, enjoyed lunch, took some pictures, and by the time we were bored, the rooms were available. It was exciting for me, because I’ve never had a balcony, and it was a totally new experience for me. There were 2 surprises waiting for me in my stateroom when I got there. One was our order from Bon Voyage. The second, was a lovely pile of black short and curly hairs(you know, the kind that come from the place down under…) all over my bed. Seriously. Freaking. Gross! I immediately sought out the room steward to rectify the situation. Few things are unforgiveable, this would be one. My disappointment continued at dinner. The flat iron steak I had was cooked perfectly, but was completely flavorless. The “guacamole and salsa” starter was one of the most culinary insulting things I’ve ever experienced, especially being half Mexican. I can ALMOST forgive the fact the chips are Tostitos(although you have the wonderful chips on lido available everyday, why not use those?), but being half Mexican, I can never, ever forgive the fact that I was served pace picante sauce. I understand the whole cutting corners thing, but making your own salsa, and doing it cheaply is VERY easy. Shame on you, carnival. To top everything off, it seems that the dining room staff has been drastically reduced. Of 4 cruises, I’ve never had to wait so long in the dining room for my food!! It took almost an hour to get our starters. I know it’s a longer dining experience, but come on!

Looking forward to reading your review. I'm all about balanced reviews (I HATE the ones were everything was absolutely perfect, and the ones were everything was absolutely awful).

I just wanted to throw 2 cents before you send your letter to Carnival (that is, if you want it to be read): Keep it SHORT, SIMPLE and OBJECTIVE. Letters that are too long, full of subjective information and too melodramatic usually end up in the trash can with no reply or a "sorry for your troubles, here's a $50 OBC on your next cruise" canned reply...

I can't wait to see the rest of your review. We are sailing the Conquest at the end of this month. Not sure I'm liking this at all.

What dinner seating did you have and which dining room?

I can't wait to see the rest of your review. We are sailing the Conquest at the end of this month. Not sure I'm liking this at all.

 

What dinner seating did you have and which dining room?

Anytime, in the renoir dining room. I hate assigned time dining.

Service in the MDR on our last cruise was also noticeably MUCH slower than in previous cruises. We ended up only going to MDR 3 times and the rest of the time we went to Lido Buffet or just snacked.

Can't agree more about the "pink" color themes in the rooms. Glad to see the newest ships have adopted more nuetral earth tones. Would love to see the salmon pink disappear at dry-docks!:D

Looking forward to rest of your review!

We have just completed our second Carnival cruise (Legend/Freedom) and based on our experience and reading many reviews on this website, I am convinced that you are more likely to have service issues with anytime dining. With a set dining time the workload on the staff is set. After the first night, only 60-80% of the diners show up on any given night. Since they have to anticipate the staffing needs in the anytime dining room, it is more likely that service is inconsistent. Also, having done the Chefs Table on our last cruise, we learned how critical the timing in the kitchen is to effectively deliver meals to the guests. Food is not made to order like in a fine restaurant. It makes sense that with anytime dining, it is more likely that they could fall behind on certain items that are unexpectedly popular.

The kitchen is set up to deliver the best food quality and service to the set dining times. You exchange this more consistent and predictable quality for flexibility. Even though it is late for us, we will keep using the late seating.

I post this not to discount your experience, but to help others planning their vacation.

When we were on Triumph this past Halloween, the TV did the same thing. It was stuck on the 1 channel the entire time and we even had them change the batteries in the remote. I wonder if it has to do with the Satellite sometimes?

:(

Sorry that your cruise was that bad...you sound severly disappointed (to say the least).

Although I am curious as to the details, I kinda dread the onslaught from the loyalists that is sure to follow.

Anytime, in the renoir dining room. I hate assigned time dining.

Have you ever tried NCL?? They do freestyle better than any of the other lines do anytime....

also, I can't vouch for the salsa on NCL, but the guacamole is made right there. In their Mexican eatery, you see the avacados all piled up and the big wooden bowl they make it in.

It's probably the best guac I have ever eaten.

I too am really smitten with the *IDEA* of anytime dining...HOWEVER...I talked to my friendly Carnival Personal Vacation Planner (PVP) about it. I wouldnt normally do that as I am quite the researcher and prefer to do things myself.

That said, 2 years ago we planned a 17 person wedding cruise and he helped coordinate dining etc for the large group, I digress....

I called and asked him about the anytime dining (for our upcoming cruise) and he said that he would not recommend it. Your service will suffer a bit, you wont get the personalized attention (different table/different wait staff every time), and they are usually reserve the "suckiest" tables (near the kitchen etc) for the anytime seating.

We changed ours to early dining as a result.

Just my $.02

Looking forward to the rest of your review. We were on the Conquest in Dec. It was our third Conquest cruise and 8th cruise overall (6 on Carnival). It was by far our most disappointing cruise experience, to the point that we will probably be doing land vacations for a while and will probably try another line the next time we do cruise.

I am not a cheerleader by any means, but your first couple of complaints seem minor. The TV? We use the TV as a nightlight, there are such better things to do. The salsa and chips. Come on.

The hair on the bed would be a real issue though.

I'm guessing there are worse things to come in your review.

Sailed Conquest in December and agree embarkation was horrendous. Had received an email from Carnival the week prior stating if travel was flexible to arrive at port between 10:30 and 12:30. Left Hotel (Hilton) in a taxi (was beginning to rain) at 10:15 and sat in traffic for an hour (and the Saints were NOT playing in town). Once we arrived at the drop area, there were still a lot of passengers from the prior cruise waiting transportation away from the Port. I believe part of the grid lock was due to debarkation on the incoming cruise being delayed for whatever reason.

I had to hunt down a porter to take our checked bags. Once in the Terminal the lines moved quickly enough and the remaining boarding process went smoothly.

Our room was fine and steward (Bawa) took great care of us. Had early dining and all went well there also. Tried some things I didn't care for and had some things I really liked. Wait staff was appropriately attentive.

I was intent on relaxing on this trip and spent the 3 sea days up on deck reading. Nary a chair hog is site....in fact, there were plenty of chairs to be had even in prime areas around the pools. One thing I noticed (not sure if this is just on the Conquest or all ships) was Bingo.... Last March, on sea days there would be Bingo Sessions where you could play multiple games of bingo at the session for the same fee. Didn't see that on the Conquest. I sail the Freedom this March and hope they have the multiple games of bingo there. (they did in 2010 as I won!! woot, woot).

Debarkation was another painful process. Seems there were issues again and self debark was not called until close to 9:00.....Unfortunately, no preliminary announcements were made regarding the delay and as a result, there was a total gridlock outside the elevators on deck 3 with a mix of self and assigned folks all trying to figure out where and when to go.

All in all, my experience was good....Not my favorite cruise by any means and probably ranks at the bottom of the 4 I've been on. But was still enjoyable. I look forward to the rest of this review to see how your experience compared to mine.

Ordering flat iron steak was your first mistake. Anyway, looking forward to seeing what else you have to say.

I don't live in a black and white world soooo I'll skip your review because most of it seems minor and more irritating than anything. But I do hope you narrow your complaint because no one at a corporate office will make it through anything this long.

Anytime, in the renoir dining room. I hate assigned time dining.

Seems you hate alot of things. Sorry the salsa ruined your cruise.:rolleyes:

I am not a cheerleader by any means, but your first couple of complaints seem minor. The TV? We use the TV as a nightlight, there are such better things to do. The salsa and chips. Come on.

 

The hair on the bed would be a real issue though.

 

I'm guessing there are worse things to come in your review.

Well, let me put it to you this way... I have certain expectations that carnival has built up over the years. It's been a year since i've been on the conquest. The food quality has certainly degraded(the only exception to this is the pizza is MUCH better than it was last year). I'm disappointed that something as simple as guacamole and salsa is nothing more than something poured out of a bag and a jar. I'm disappointed that the entire staff on the ship has changed, whereas the shows are the exact same bloody thing.

As far as the TV is concerned, my wife and I spend a lot of time in our stateroom relaxing, because there isn't a lot else to do on the ship, especially when it's cloudy and slightly chilly outside. I like to see where we are, the status of the ship, how deep the water is, etc... because it's something that *I* enjoy. I also utelize the TV's menu on a regular basis to see how much debt i'm getting into. things like this may seem small, but it's a compounding set of irritations that made it a bad vacation

Other than the bed seems so minor as to be silly complaints. How is it possible to get bored on a cruise ship? Never happened to me. Use some salt and pepper on your steak.

I am not a cheerleader by any means, but your first couple of complaints seem minor. The TV? We use the TV as a nightlight, there are such better things to do. The salsa and chips. Come on.

I think the TV is a big issue also. We have much down time and spend plenty of it in our cabin. The TV is on quite often.

I was ticked because of the 70% of the channels are basically Carnival commercials.

Not everyone likes the lame activities 'bingo, crafts, slots, bean bag toss, hairy chest, port lectures, ect.

Trying to downplay/trivialize peoples concerns is the exact reason why it is ok for Carnival to keep cutting back.

As for Chips/Salsa, only Carnival can screw that up..

Well, let me put it to you this way... I have certain expectations that carnival has built up over the years.

I for one (probably one of very few) who GET that.

For me, my disillusionment with CCL is from comparing to CCL back in 2003-2007 or possibly 2008.

 

Trying to downplay/trivialize peoples concerns is the exact reason why it is ok for Carnival to keep cutting back.

 

agree.

Wow...I'm sorry your cruise was a disappointment. The Conquest was our favorite ship thus far. I'm drawing a complete blank at the "salmon" pink though. There were some foods on the Conquest that I didn't care for to include the famous "fish and chips" and "mexican" foods...being from Texas I'm a little hyper critical on the mexican BUT most everything else was quite good. Our cruise was still out of Galveston. As far as Chips and Salsa go...SIGH...we tried RCI's Oasis of the Seas...the awesomest in the fleet and they too used bagged generic tortilla chips, gallon salsa and even worse...their hamburger buns came out of the fridge and right into a bowl next to the steam table.

The "curls" from down under might have upset me quite a bit too. That doesn't even make sense unless the steward didn't clean the room properly. I might have had the steward and supervisor there to see that...

Our cabin was SPOTLESS. Our steward was so super phenomonal...I think he cleaned our room at least 2-3 times a day...it was always fresh.

So sorry for your bad experience...a:(

also, I can't vouch for the salsa on NCL, but the guacamole is made right there. In their Mexican eatery, you see the avacados all piled up and the big wooden bowl they make it in.

It's probably the best guac I have ever eaten.

Dang - I might just try NCL for their guac! I LOVE guac! :p:D

As far as the you- know-what hairs- well, that would flip me out, too. The beds are supposed to be stripped in the turn-around before the next cruise. I always see piles of fresh linens in the hallway. Your steward must have tried to short-cut you, and got caught. As far as the flat iron steak goes - that is subjective. I had a great one (for the first time in 13 CCL cruises) on Liberty, and was totally surprised on how good it was. However, dd20 ordered one also - cooked the same way - and she didn't like hers. Waiting to read more of your review....

waiting for more...

side note we had no issues.... well real issues when sailing out of NOLA in Oct. There was aissue with some alarm going off and we could not procedd while that was dinging. Then the lady checking us in was not the brightest bulb and could nto figure out we had 2 rooms booked - 1 for us 1 for the kids. But no long waits terminal was easy to navagate etc... but we where on Ecstasy a smaller ship!

A properly cooked steak should not need Salt and Pepper. And I agree that the Flat Iron steak feel FLAT!

I too am really smitten with the *IDEA* of anytime dining...HOWEVER...

 

That said, 2 years ago we planned a 17 person wedding cruise and he helped coordinate dining etc for the large group, I digress....

 

I called and asked him about the anytime dining (for our upcoming cruise) and he said that he would not recommend it. Your service will suffer a bit, you wont get the personalized attention (different table/different wait staff every time), and they are usually reserve the "suckiest" tables (near the kitchen etc) for the anytime seating.

We changed ours to early dining as a result.

 

Just my $.02

The suggestion that they reserve the "suckiest" tables for anytime dining sounds like typical Carnival agent hyperbole (like when the sales rep called us to sell us the trip insurance pointing out that our teenagers would be "boarding a foreign vessel and touring foreign lands" Yikes!).

While I think I would definitely stick to assigned dining for a large group, we were just on the Miracle on Dec 20-28 and the entire second level of the two-level MDR was reserved for anytime diners. They had a completely separate hostess desk out front. Assigned diners entered on the 1st level, anytime diners on the second. Although we missed out on having the same waiter all 8 days, we got to eat at 7:15 rather than 6 or 8:15, and ended up with only two different waiters during the cruise.

Why Carnival can't just come out and simply say that larger groups will be accommodated more efficiently with assigned dining (rather than hoping to get tables near one another as they come open in "anytime" dining, which is going to be tricky at best), is baffling.

... I called and asked him about the anytime dining (for our upcoming cruise) and he said that he would not recommend it. Your service will suffer a bit, you wont get the personalized attention (different table/different wait staff every time), and they are usually reserve the "suckiest" tables (near the kitchen etc) for the anytime seating.

 

I did ATD in both March & November and we loved it. I am not sure why people care if you have the same waiter who remembers your name every night or remembers to bring you coffee after dinner every night. Also, on both cruises we were in what I understand to be a seperate dining room that regular seating. Correct me if I am wrong. Neither cruise did we have a horrible table near the kitchen. We sat at booths, tables in the middle, tables on the side, all over.