Fantasy - July 23, 2011 - The Nightmare Cruise

[zqvol]

We sailed from Charleston on Saturday July 23, 2011 on MS Fantasy. This turned out to be a horrible mistake and the worst cruise that we have ever experienced. I will provide details of the good, bad and ugly, and yes the very ugly below.

 

The Good:

 

It was wonderful sailing with Dessi the maitre’d in the Celebration dining room. We have sailed with her twice before on the Legend and enjoy her style in the dining room. She genuinely seemed happy that we remembered her and provide us with a private kitchen tour and sent over cheese plates at dinner.

 

The gym was well equipped and as such made it easy to get in my normal workout. The instructors were very knowledgeable and happy to provide pointers. The morning stretch class was a great start to the day!

 

The ship was very clean and well kept. There were a few areas that need minor repairs but nothing of significance. The design is such that the bathrooms are much larger than in the newer ships. The showers are a really nice size.

 

The production shows were great. Nightclub Express and Ticket to Ride. There was a nice five piece band performing on the Promenade deck, which turned out to be the Fantasy Showband. It is a shame that they were not used for more things.

 

The Lido pool was very nice on the day we were docked in Freeport, which was the only day that you could get close to the pool.

 

Silent debarkation is a hit. The whole fleet should move to this model. I loved the fact that you could not use the elevators to the debarkation deck until you deck and side of the ship were to debark. The fact that Carnival controlled access with crew members was a plus.

 

The Bad:

 

Food quality was mediocre at best. In the dining room we often got food served at the wrong temperature, or food that had clearly been sitting under a heat lamp for too long. There is no excuse for serving cold pancakes or dried out fish. Something like this occurred at least once each day.

 

The Serenity deck is anything but serene. There was a constant flow of children visiting their parents, and the fact that the outside dining area of the Lido overlooks the deck makes it loud and full of food aroma.

 

Other than the two production shows there was no entertainment at night. To all that like comedians I apologize but that is a lame way for carnival to claim entertainment. Using the guests as entertainment is beyond laughable. I get better at a local high school play.

 

Charleston embarkation procedures are laughable, but this is not Carnival’s fault. If you sail out of Charleston be prepared to take approximately an hour from the time you get in line to park your car until you finally get out of it and get a chance to move toward the ship. Once you get moving toward the ship it is not too bad, but be prepared to walk up the equivalent of seven flights of steps to get on board the ship.

 

The Ugly:

 

The group Music Boardwalk was horrible. These guys really need to go take some music lessons. They cannot even sing in tune with each other. This incarnation of the group is really bad. They try to hide their lack of musical ability by playing loud, but all that does is make noise. Everyone should realize that this “group” is on every ship in the fleet and some of them are clearly better than others.

 

Cain service was lacking for the first time on any cruise. We told the steward the first day that we had any time dining and went to dinner every day between 6 and 6:30. Not once was our cabin made up when we got back from dinner. He was usually there around 9:00 p.m. One night he skipped us completely. In the morning he was never there before lunch. I blame this not on an increase in the number of cabins that he had to service but on overbooking the ship. This cruise sailed at well over 110% of capacity. On our hall, I noticed that at least 75% of the inside cabins had at least 4 and often 5 passengers. These cabins take two to three as long to service as one with two passengers and as a result service suffered.

 

The Very Ugly:

 

Rude passengers and children out of control top the list of the very ugly. We have cruised over 20 times within the past 6 or 7 years and this passenger mix was the most poorly behaved that I have ever encountered. I must add before anyone says that it is summer that we sail about this time of year every summer, summer has nothing to do with it, and the situation was the people.

 

Children of all ages were allowed by their parents to run up and down the halls until the wee hours of the morning every night. The pounding of not so little feet on the steel decks reverberated throughout the entire area. I spoke with crew members who even noticed it down on decks two and three where they have their cabins. The situation was so bad one night that I stuck my head out of the cabin to tell them to stop and discovered that one of the children was in fact a 35 – 40 year old dad who was running with his children to wear them out.

 

On three separate occasions security had to remove large groups of teenagers from the glass elevators. The youth were sitting on the floor riding up and down and preventing anyone from using the elevators. They would often get to a floor, and hold the elevator while one or more of them ran to get something from somewhere.

 

A particular waiter, who I will not name, but who I complained about to the Guest Services manager almost made me do something that I would never consider: removing the gratuities. The incident occurred at breakfast one morning and since it would have penalized too many people I left the gratuities alone. Without getting into a lot of detail this server refused to order an omelet prepared like I wanted, refused to find any salsa,, claiming that they did not have any on the ship, and then told me that I was stupid when he brought me regular eggs instead of egg beaters, and I caught him. That was the last time that waiter was seen by us.

 

Conclusion:

 

This cruise has made me rethink booking on Carnival again. I am only 2 cruises from platinum and I am not sure that there is any reason to go back on Carnival. While I loved sailing out of Charleston, the cruise quality was such that flying to Miami would have been a better alternative.

 

 

All in all this cruise was a nightmare!

[JerseyshoreBruce]

Sorry you had a bad experience......i always cruise in the summer due to me having kids and only once had to take a kid out in the hall. I feel your pain but don't think that would have ruined my cruise or caused me to hate Carnival. Some parents do lack brains and let their kids run wild.

[SiBuDe]

Bull!

[Cruise Envy]

Third review I've seen of this cruise, all of them different. I appreciate you sharing it, and encourage everyone to remember reviews are subjective. I can't wait until we sail on her on 8/13!

[Tapi]

Thanks for the review. Your comments about the negative things are very similar to what we encountered aboard the Fascination last December, which seriously made me consider never cruising on Carnival again. For a long time, I couldn't mentioned a Carnival cruise to my wife.

 

We are going to give Carnival a try again in a few months though (Somewhat of a forced decision. We invited my mother in law to go on A vacation with us, and she had enough fun points for a free 7 night cruise on Carnival, so here we go again, this time on the Dream).

 

I had to convince my wife that this cruise won't be like the last one. If it is, I know it will definitely be the last time we set foot on a Carnival cruise...:(

[jhale]

I sometimes wish the cabin doors opened outward when there are children running up and down the corridors. Oops! ;)

 

*edited to add this is not exclusive to children, anyone one running up and down the hall would fall victim to the door of justice, lol...

[quickrate]

You have confirmed my decision never to cruise during the summer months! I think many of the isssues you experienced were due to overcrowding of the ship and way too many rug rats on board! LOL And no, I'm not a child hater but chidren who don't have parents who could care less what they are doing can make the whole cruise miserable for everyone else. No excuse for the rude waiter-sounds like someone on burnout. I think since you got along so well with the maitre'd, I would have reported him as he is a direct reflection on her. After 17 cruises on Carnival, I'm fortunate to have never run into these issues but I suspect it has to do with the times of year we cruise.

pat

[patseacruiser]

wish there was a 'like' button for the doors that open outwards!

[pe4all]

Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy your cruise. I do think that shorter cruises cause a lot of stress and strain on a crew, with the turnover of new passengers every few days. However, that is no excuse for your steward not to do his job, or for a waiter to mouth off at you. And I won't even go into the "kids gone wild" rant!

[JerseyshoreBruce]

I sometimes wish the cabin doors opened outward when there are children running up and down the corridors. Oops! ;)

 

*edited to add this is not exclusive to children, anyone one running up and down the hall would fall victim to the door of justice, lol...

I have timed it just right late at night and took one down by popping out the door with my body tightened up and ready for the impact....they never came running again.:DJust to let you know i saw them pass a few times and knew they were old enough to take out...not little kids..i wouldn't do that

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

...

Silent debarkation is a hit. The whole fleet should move to this model. I loved the fact that you could not use the elevators to the debarkation deck until you deck and side of the ship were to debark. The fact that Carnival controlled access with crew members was a plus.

...

 

Could you elaborate on the "Silent Debarkation"? One of my continuing complaints with Carnival is the annoying announcements starting at something like 7AM with the CD often coming on and acting way too happy "Goooood Morning everyone..." :mad: ! Other lines don't seem to pull that crap, thus coming across as more civilized and less intrusive. I hope that the "silent" part of this is what I think it is!

 

Thanks,

 

Tom

[happy cruzer]

You state summer has nothing to do with your bad experience. My opinion is it does. There will be a certain per centage of summer cruises that for whatever reason hit the really ugly critical mass and on just about any line. I'm not sure there is anyway to predict which one it will be. There are reports on all the lines that sound just like your experience with the cruisers. Although the way down to service and food being affected because of the crowd; seems the staff just can't keep up or lose their will to try until the unruliness stops. Just what I have noticed from reveiws of summer and holiday cruises. and what I experienced myself many years ago on another cruise line.

 

So I am glad to hear all the good things that you reported. That probably means after the kids are back in school things will be back to good out of Charleston.

[NCTribeFan]

Yeah, well, I absolutely will not sail in the middle of the summer. Too expensive and too many kids.

 

I thought Music Boardwalk was one of the better bands I've heard, and, trust me, if you read my reviews, you'll see that I'm pretty hard on the musical performers!

 

Food was good on my latest Fantasy cruise. I totally believe that it is hit-or-miss with some of the dishes (mainly the beef) as to the quality that they receive for any particular cruise. Food temperature has never been a problem on any of my cruises. I've sometimes not been real happy that I was at a table near the kitchen, but maybe that helps when it comes to the food being served at the proper temperature.

 

I loved the Serenity area. Except for the couples that had their loungers all day PLUS their chairs under the shade so they could just go back and forth whenever it suited them, while some of us couldn't get a seat in either area. And the ones that would drag their loungers around so that there was absolutely NO pathway through the area, but, hey! It's ALL ABOUT ME! Who cares if I make anything inconvenient for anyone else! I'm on vacation and I'm allowed to be as selfish and inconsiderate as I wanna be, right? Right?

 

Whew. Almost went off on a rant there! :p

 

Anyway, I wouldn't hesitate to sail Fantasy out of Charleston again. Love Charleston. Love the Fantasy-class ships. If they'd add more 7-day cruises (mine was Nassau, Grand Turk and Half Moon Key), I'd go as often as I could.

[JerseyshoreBruce]

Yeah, well, I absolutely will not sail in the middle of the summer. Too expensive and too many kids.

 

I thought Music Boardwalk was one of the better bands I've heard, and, trust me, if you read my reviews, you'll see that I'm pretty hard on the musical performers!

 

Food was good on my latest Fantasy cruise. I totally believe that it is hit-or-miss with some of the dishes (mainly the beef) as to the quality that they receive for any particular cruise. Food temperature has never been a problem on any of my cruises. I've sometimes not been real happy that I was at a table near the kitchen, but maybe that helps when it comes to the food being served at the proper temperature.

 

I loved the Serenity area. Except for the couples that had their loungers all day PLUS their chairs under the shade so they could just go back and forth whenever it suited them, while some of us couldn't get a seat in either area. And the ones that would drag their loungers around so that there was absolutely NO pathway through the area, but, hey! It's ALL ABOUT ME! Who cares if I make anything inconvenient for anyone else! I'm on vacation and I'm allowed to be as selfish and inconsiderate as I wanna be, right? Right?

 

Whew. Almost went off on a rant there! :p

 

Anyway, I wouldn't hesitate to sail Fantasy out of Charleston again. Love Charleston. Love the Fantasy-class ships. If they'd add more 7-day cruises (mine was Nassau, Grand Turk and Half Moon Key), I'd go as often as I could.

I agree i will never book a cruise shorter than 7 days again......did the Fantasy out of NO for a 5 day one and its just too short.

[dayday]

We took a 7 day cruise on the Fantasy in June and had a wonderful time we have no complaints at all. We did experience children "running wild" but I blame the parents not the ship or carnival. We also had no problem with traffic going to the ship I think as with any port it depends on what time you show up, the whole process from the time we parked until we were on ship was about 30 minutes. Our disembarkment went very smooth also. From our experience I would highly recommend this ship. We are booked for a cruise on the Fascination in November and the Legand in April I can only hope those goes as good as the Fantasy.

[1965]

I have timed it just right late at night and took one down by popping out the door with my body tightened up and ready for the impact....they never came running again.:DJust to let you know i saw them pass a few times and knew they were old enough to take out...not little kids..i wouldn't do that

Hope neither of us gets flamed, you for doing it and me for thinking this is priceless. Gonna' file this strategy in my keeper file, and pull it out when necessary. We are seldom bothered by unruly kids, but it does happen, and there's just no excuse.

[kenandteri]

We sailed from Charleston on Saturday July 23, 2011 on MS Fantasy. This turned out to be a horrible mistake and the worst cruise that we have ever experienced. I will provide details of the good, bad and ugly, and yes the very ugly below.

 

The Bad:

 

Food quality was mediocre at best. In the dining room we often got food served at the wrong temperature, or food that had clearly been sitting under a heat lamp for too long. There is no excuse for serving cold pancakes or dried out fish. Something like this occurred at least once each day.

 

The Serenity deck is anything but serene. There was a constant flow of children visiting their parents, and the fact that the outside dining area of the Lido overlooks the deck makes it loud and full of food aroma.

 

Other than the two production shows there was no entertainment at night. To all that like comedians I apologize but that is a lame way for carnival to claim entertainment. Using the guests as entertainment is beyond laughable. I get better at a local high school play.

 

Charleston embarkation procedures are laughable, but this is not Carnival’s fault. If you sail out of Charleston be prepared to take approximately an hour from the time you get in line to park your car until you finally get out of it and get a chance to move toward the ship. Once you get moving toward the ship it is not too bad, but be prepared to walk up the equivalent of seven flights of steps to get on board the ship.

 

The Ugly:

 

The group Music Boardwalk was horrible. These guys really need to go take some music lessons. They cannot even sing in tune with each other. This incarnation of the group is really bad. They try to hide their lack of musical ability by playing loud, but all that does is make noise. Everyone should realize that this “group” is on every ship in the fleet and some of them are clearly better than others.

 

Cain service was lacking for the first time on any cruise. We told the steward the first day that we had any time dining and went to dinner every day between 6 and 6:30. Not once was our cabin made up when we got back from dinner. He was usually there around 9:00 p.m. One night he skipped us completely. In the morning he was never there before lunch. I blame this not on an increase in the number of cabins that he had to service but on overbooking the ship. This cruise sailed at well over 110% of capacity. On our hall, I noticed that at least 75% of the inside cabins had at least 4 and often 5 passengers. These cabins take two to three as long to service as one with two passengers and as a result service suffered.

 

The Very Ugly:

 

Rude passengers and children out of control top the list of the very ugly. We have cruised over 20 times within the past 6 or 7 years and this passenger mix was the most poorly behaved that I have ever encountered. I must add before anyone says that it is summer that we sail about this time of year every summer, summer has nothing to do with it, and the situation was the people.

 

Children of all ages were allowed by their parents to run up and down the halls until the wee hours of the morning every night. The pounding of not so little feet on the steel decks reverberated throughout the entire area. I spoke with crew members who even noticed it down on decks two and three where they have their cabins. The situation was so bad one night that I stuck my head out of the cabin to tell them to stop and discovered that one of the children was in fact a 35 – 40 year old dad who was running with his children to wear them out.

 

On three separate occasions security had to remove large groups of teenagers from the glass elevators. The youth were sitting on the floor riding up and down and preventing anyone from using the elevators. They would often get to a floor, and hold the elevator while one or more of them ran to get something from somewhere.

 

A particular waiter, who I will not name, but who I complained about to the Guest Services manager almost made me do something that I would never consider: removing the gratuities. The incident occurred at breakfast one morning and since it would have penalized too many people I left the gratuities alone. Without getting into a lot of detail this server refused to order an omelet prepared like I wanted, refused to find any salsa,, claiming that they did not have any on the ship, and then told me that I was stupid when he brought me regular eggs instead of egg beaters, and I caught him. That was the last time that waiter was seen by us.

 

Conclusion:

 

All in all this cruise was a nightmare!

 

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems like most of the Bad/Ugly/Very ugly items that were listed really had nothing to do with Carnival (the waiterm food and cabin steward issue being an exception, of course). Kids, unruly teenagers, children running through the halls... these are all things tht are not the responsibility of a Cruiseline. As a parent and the wife of a teacher, I hate it when others put all the blame on anyone other than the parents -

 

I have taken my daughter on a cruise, and will not hesitate to do so again - because I know that I have raised her to be respectful of other people and to respect authority. I have seen Carnival security and other staff on various cruises dealing with the situation of unruly children and teens - but if no one reports them riding in the elevator, running in the halls, etc., are we to expect someone from Carnival will be in every elevator, every hallway at all times?

 

As for the music and entertainment (or lack thereof), there are plenty enough reviews on this and other websites that no one should go on a cruise not knowing what their options for entertainment are. In my opinion, there is always something to do - whether or not it is something that I choose to participate in is up to me. In fact, there are numerous times that we've chosen to spend the time after dinner simply enjoying the fact that we are not having to do dishes!

 

In my humble opinion, your vacation is what you make of it. Cruises offer an exceptional value for the money, leading to more and more families taking cruises - but it is no worse on a ship than in any hotel or resort (unless you go to an all adult resort) - where there are families, there are going to be those families whos parents are merely looking for a free babysitter so they can enjoy themselves without a care or concern as to what havoc their offspring are creating.

 

I have to wonder if the issues with the food and cabin steward were brought to anyone's attention. I do not hesitate to let someone know whenever I feel like I am not receiving the service/quality that is expected - not that I want any compensation, but how can things be improved upon if no one lets management know something is amiss? Not to "tattle" on every little thing... but a room not getting serviced for multiple days???? That would defintely warrant a comment.

 

Yes, we all expect 100% top notch service delivery whenever we go anywhere - especially on a cruise! But is it fair to dismiss an entire cruiseline because of one bad cruise? I'm not a Carnival Fanatic - I simply choose to cruise on Carnival becuase they offer the best value, ports, etc. for my vacation dollar...

[petesweet]

I appreciate the balanced review since I'm trying to read as much as I can about the Fantasy. I had to laugh at the "facts" you tossed out about the cabins, however. I have to say I have never taken a count of how many cabins in my area had four or five passengers. How do you do that?:D

 

Kathy

[Cruise, J.D.]

Zqvol, sorry you had a bad cruise. I was on the 7-night cruise the week before your cruise. We had an excellent time, but I respect that each cruise is different for each person. You can take a look at my review on here. With summer comes lots of children and that should not come as a surprise.

 

I completely agree with you on the silent debarkation. It worked wonderful.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

Could you elaborate on the "Silent Debarkation"? One of my continuing complaints with Carnival is the annoying announcements starting at something like 7AM with the CD often coming on and acting way too happy "Goooood Morning everyone..." :mad: ! Other lines don't seem to pull that crap, thus coming across as more civilized and less intrusive. I hope that the "silent" part of this is what I think it is!

 

Thanks,

 

Tom

 

...

I completely agree with you on the silent debarkation. It worked wonderful.

 

 

"Silent Debarkation" being... ?

 

THANKS!

 

Tom

[Cruise, J.D.]

"Silent Debarkation" being... ?

 

THANKS!

 

Tom

 

The times for self-debarkation and each zone were posted in the Fun Times on the last sea day. When your time came up, you were to proceed to the forward elevators. No announcements were made. The TV screens throughout the ship showed the current zones for debarkation. Somehow it worked. When our zone came up, we simply walked to the front of the ship and off. The line moved quickly.

[pe4all]

I think the silent debark sounds like a great idea. My only question is - how do they stop "the masses" from crowding the hallways, etc., as we have seen many times during "not-so-silent" debark? Maybe it worked because it is a smaller ship?

[Cruise, J.D.]

I think the silent debark sounds like a great idea. My only question is - how do they stop "the masses" from crowding the hallways, etc., as we have seen many times during "not-so-silent" debark? Maybe it worked because it is a smaller ship?

 

I'm not sure. I didn't notice, but perhaps the employees were actually enforcing the designated waiting areas. The hallways and stairwells were not crowded.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

The times for self-debarkation and each zone were posted in the Fun Times on the last sea day. When your time came up, you were to proceed to the forward elevators. No announcements were made. The TV screens throughout the ship showed the current zones for debarkation. Somehow it worked. When our zone came up, we simply walked to the front of the ship and off. The line moved quickly.

 

I REALLY like the "no announcements" part of that! :D The last thing I want to hear on that last morning is the early morning "wake up call" (in the form of a 7 something AM announcement in our cabin)!!

 

Tom

[LHP]

The good news is that you can cure MOST of the "nightmare" ills ON

 

CARNIVAL ( I haven't cruised other lines so I can not comment on them)

 

by not sailing when school it out.

 

We only cruise when school is in session. LOVE the Carnival product...the clientele sometimes....not so much. :(

 

As for Music Boardwalk...we do not believe we have ever sailed with them....

 

but to have an Asian band that is not spot on is an exception...not the rule. As a musician, since 99% of them play by ear (which is a natural GIFT) , the Asian bands are normally not just good but FABULOUS.

 

The only thing I can think of is that (due to unforeseen circumstances) they may have had to add a new band member at the last minute and have not had time to gel.

 

I had already been warned about Charleston's Embarkation process......

 

Sorry, this cruise was not up to par. I think everyone should sail who they are happy with....and if that isn't Carnival, I hope the other cruise lines you select will be give you the best cruises ever.