Carnival loses luggage and doesn't care!

[Orangeskull]

Sailed on the Carnival Conquest March 31st 2018 Case# LFLI-SB-CQ-04012018-1

 

So I have held off a month on writing this review to give Carnival a fair chance in retaining a customer and actually making an attempt at customer service. First trip with Carnival and the crew loses my wife's luggage. My wife has the clothes on her back and that's it. We approached the customer service desk and advise of our situation. "We had waited six hours before we went down." The individuals at the desk gave us there best step-ford wife's smile and told us to be patient, they were still delivering luggage. Went back down at 10pm, advise of the same thing, no change. I ask the young man "Tulan" what was my wife to do being that our first stop is in the morning? Tulan stated they could open the ship store for us at 4:30 pm to obtain some additional clothing. I advise Tulan that the ship is supposed to leave port at 3:30pm how would that help? Thankfully an unknown kind stranger who was in the lobby heard what was going on and the sobbing of my wife and she gave her a swimsuit, yes a complete stranger helped my wife, not Carnival.

 

We finally were able to get someone in management who started to try to help. She offered us a credit to start buying clothes onshore. First stop private island, no stores. Second stop, all stores closed due to Easter. Third stop, which was our 5th day we made it to Curacao. So instead of enjoying the island my wife spent her time trying to find underwear and a bra being that she was now wearing the same underwear for 5 days? So the day was spent searching for ill fitting clothes to just finish the trip out. No fine dining for us. No going out to the clubs.

 

So on the final night of our trip as everyone is putting their luggage out to be picked up to go onshore what pops up at our door at 10pm. Yep, my wife's luggage. Our porter had no idea where it came from. Security stated they had no idea where it was and customer no help could tell us nothing either. So yes my wife's luggage was on the ship the entire time. So the ship offered us a 20% discount to come back, yep 20%. We told them that was insulting at best. We sent an email to customer service, we received no reply. We called them one week later and the young lady while nice said there was nothing else they could do. To quote her "Carnival moves a lot of people, and luggage gets lost, it's a part of doing business." Yes, she really said that. She then went on to say its too bad the luggage showed up on the last day because she could have done more for us. Insane.

 

So now we sent another letter to the Carnival CEO and that was over a week ago and still nothing. So this is our first and last trip with Carnival and now that they have decided they don't care about us, I'm now making it known what kind of business this is. Second honeymoon absolutely destroyed by an uncaring, thoughtless company with no sense of ownership. :mad:

[Megan_Strick]

So this is your first post here. Welcome. I'm sorry your wife had to deal with that but why in the hell would she wear the same underwear for 5 days???

[GUT2407]

I’m not sure what else you think they could have done to get her more clothes.

[firefly333]

RCL lost my luggage once, and it was finally found by just walking up and down different decks.

 

We did find it luckily but to me close call, why was it on the wrong deck? Just lucky no one took it.

 

And I got a song and dance until at least 10 pm that night and then a crew member offered to walk the ship with me.

 

20% isnt that bad, but my clothes arent worth that much. but yea i can understand your wife wanting a fresh bra.

 

But they dont even spring into action until like 10 pm I know since it happened to me once.

[Towel Critter]

This sounds like it could be a case of a "practical joke" by another passenger, a very cruel practical joke. That the luggage showed up when it did makes me think this might be the case. Just a guess though.

[asalligo]

I expect a lot more than 20% off the next cruise after a whole cruise without my luggage.

[asalligo]

This sounds like it could be a case of a "practical joke" by another passenger, a very cruel practical joke. That the luggage showed up when it did makes me think this might be the case. Just a guess though.

 

A note went around on our cruise last month on the final sea day asking everyone to look for a missing piece of luggage. I wondered how someone could have it and not know, but then I heard the story of many people in the same room and everyone thought it was someone else's.

[salty dingo]

I'm trying to figure out where a piece of luggage could be for so long and not be noticed... especially when it was reported lost, so they must have been looking for it. Just does not make sense.

[Orangeskull]

So this is your first post here. Welcome. I'm sorry your wife had to deal with that but why in the hell would she wear the same underwear for 5 days???

 

Brother, which part of no luggage did you not understand? They don't sell underwear on the boat. We didnt hit a stop till the 5th day where she could purchase any. So during the day she would wear the bathing suit given to her by a stranger then at night she either had to wear that one pair of underwear or go commando. *The ship did offer to laundered the underwear to which we did take advantage of.

[Towel Critter]

I'm trying to figure out where a piece of luggage could be for so long and not be noticed... especially when it was reported lost, so they must have been looking for it. Just does not make sense.

My guess is under the bed in a different cabin.

[Liljo22]

I'm trying to figure out where a piece of luggage could be for so long and not be noticed... especially when it was reported lost, so they must have been looking for it. Just does not make sense.

 

More than likely was delivered to another cabin that had it in their room until the last night when they realized it was not theirs. Told the steward and it was delivered to the right cabin that night.

[LynnTH]

I am always afraid of the airline or cruise line losing luggage. (actually one year we got in FLL leaving for a cruise from Miami the next day. We had 5 pieces of luggage for the 4 of us. Only 2 showed up. Other luggage was in Chicago. The luggage did show up in FLL the next morning - we were not confident that it would be brought to the ship so we took a $200 taxi ride back to FLL and got our luggage)

 

But, because of that incident - I now split up the clothes and pack some of everyone's clothes in all the different suitcases. My family thinks I am nuts but I am not going to be anywhere without some clothes to wear.

[winddawn]

I'm so sorry this happened to your DW. I can appreciate how upsetting this must have been to her. I've cruised on Carnival 33 times and never had this happen, and I'm thankful for that. We all know though that it COULD happen on any cruise. I always pack a couple extra pieces of clothing including a swimsuit and undies in my carry-on bag just in case. Especially for people that don't wear "average" sizes, loss of luggage can present a difficult to deal with predicament in the Caribbean and on a ship where typically only "average" sizes of clothing are available for sale. I hope you'll reconsider cruise avoidance in the future. From what you described, it sounds like a passenger may have found your wife's luggage in their cabin when they were ready to prepare for debarkation. How unfortunate. We'd all like to think other passengers are more observant and considerate than that, but unfortunately they are not. Best wishes for all of your future vacations!

[beachbum53]

I have a question for Orangeskull. When your luggage was finally found and delivered to you, were your Carnival tags still attached to them? I'm guessing they were, or your bags wouldn't have been delivered to your cabin. I'm inclined to agree with others that your bags were stashed in someone else's cabin, for whatever reason. If that's so, I'm not sure what Carnival could do about it, beyond what was offered.

Edited May 7, 2018 by beachbum53

[sfaaa]

Savvy cruisers always carry a few essentials (a change of clothes, medication, toiletries etc) in their carryon in case their luggage shows up late or gone MIA. For me, I always carry my own luggage on and off the ship to save time and avoid potential risk such as this.

[katiel53]

I am sorry your wife has her luggage lost and that it turned up the last night. I would bet money on it that it was in some jerk's cabin the whole cruise and found it when packing to go home. I bet there were 2 friends cruising together and each one thought it belonged to the other person, but not smart enough to look at the luggage tag.

 

I am guessing the luggage was either in the closet or under a bed the whole cruise. I can't imagine someone being that mean that they would know it belonged to someone else and still holding it until the end of the cruise.

 

We had someone take my sister's luggage at an airport and take it home and if we hadn't figured out that the person did it, we'd have been missing luggage for our cruise. The airline tried to give us all kinds of excuses why the luggage wasn't there, all of course, not their fault. We realized that a similar looking case was still going around on the carousel and brought it to the airline and they then decided we might be right.

 

Fortunately, they were able to contact the other passenger who was at the other end of the island in Puerto Rico (this was at SJU) and we had 2 days before the cruise. The person who took it took his time returning the luggage. He also opened it and went through the entire suitcase looking for heaven knows what. A simple clue that it wasn't his was a woman's purple coat right on top inside.

 

There are many who are inconsiderate and don't care about anyone else and my thought is that is what happened to your wife's luggage. It might have even been removed from the luggage trolley by the person who had the luggage the whole cruise, but was too lazy to return it. I think the offer from Carnival was fair, but obviously you don't.

[salty dingo]

More than likely was delivered to another cabin that had it in their room until the last night when they realized it was not theirs. Told the steward and it was delivered to the right cabin that night.

To make that theory believable, you would need people in another cabin who do not know what their luggage looks like, and don't open all their luggage.

[gerelmx]

This sounds like it could be a case of a "practical joke" by another passenger, a very cruel practical joke. That the luggage showed up when it did makes me think this might be the case. Just a guess though.

 

I was thinking the same

[tallnthensome]

To make that theory believable, you would need people in another cabin who do not know what their luggage looks like, and don't open all their luggage.

:loudcry: I agree, Who wouldn't notice that the luggage in their room wasn't theirs in the first five minutes let alone a week later? .... and someone said a joke maybe? I.Q.'s apparently dropped like a rock in the last week on CC.

[tattoos]

There are lots of parents who book a balcony stateroom for themselves and book an interior stateroom for their children. Maybe the suitcase was overlooked by the children in their haste to go to the pool, get ice cream, pizza, etc. The suitcase was probably overlooked until the final day. An adult would more likely be aware of a strange suitcase because they probably did the packing and unpacking.

 

If our family of adults cruise together, we also pack essential clothing for a couple of days in each other's suitcases. Also, I always pack a carry-on with my prescription drugs and other medications along with two changes of clothes. If they misplace my luggage, I'm golden for a few days.

 

On one of our cruises, we had received all of our luggage except one and we walked the halls on our deck and found it in front of a similarly numbered stateroom.

[Rudyard]

I'll agree this does suck and I'm sorry your wife had to go through that. As for Carnival, there really wasn't much they could do on the ship. I doubt they keep any extra clothes around for this kind of thing. Look on it as a learning experience as it can happen on any cruise line.

 

My carry on always has an extra pair of shorts, a couple of extra pair of socks and underwear, and a couple of extra T-shirts. As for our luggage, we don't do "His and Hers". We divide our stuff between the suitcases just on the small chance that something like this could happen. That way we have some clothes for each of us instead of one being reduced to a borrowed swimsuit while the other has a full wardrobe. I do the same thing when we fly too.

[Micahs Grandad]

To make that theory believable, you would need people in another cabin who do not know what their luggage looks like, and don't open all their luggage.

 

Actually we have seen this happen twice.

 

Someone gets luggage not belonging to them and stupidly stashes the luggage under their bed.

 

Once or twice the cruise line sent out a note with a picture of the lost luggage asking if anyone had seen it.

 

I wonder if Carnival did do this at least?

 

BTW cannot believe people actually flamed the OP for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

[Orangeskull]

I have a question for Orangeskull. When your luggage was finally found and delivered to you, were your Carnival tags still attached to them? I'm guessing they were, or your bags wouldn't have been delivered to your cabin. I'm inclined to agree with others that your bags were stashed in someone else's cabin, for whatever reason. If that's so, I'm not sure what Carnival could do about it, beyond what was offered.

 

Yes the tags were in fact there and upon opening the suitcase it did not appear that anything had been moved or tampered with. It is possible somebody was being a jerk, I guess our main issue was the genuine apathy of their customer service. Everything obtained from them was a fight.

[winddawn]

To make that theory believable, you would need people in another cabin who do not know what their luggage looks like, and don't open all their luggage.

 

Regardless of the reason, I've been on a few cruises on both Carnival and other brands where the cruise line delivers a paper to all staterooms during the cruise asking passengers to check their suitcases to see if they might have a suitcase that doesn't belong to them. I don't understand how it could happen either based on my situation, but from experience I know it does happen. It might be accidentally overlooked, or maybe related to uncaring, or purposeful action. Regardless of the reason, it's always unfortunate. Hopefully the OP learned some great tips from experienced cruisers about how to prepare for the unfortunate situation nobody ever wants to have to deal with.

[Orangeskull]

Actually we have seen this happen twice.

 

Someone gets luggage not belonging to them and stupidly stashes the luggage under their bed.

 

Once or twice the cruise line sent out a note with a picture of the lost luggage asking if anyone had seen it.

 

I wonder if Carnival did do this at least?

 

BTW cannot believe people actually flamed the OP for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

 

We actually requested they send something out on the 2nd morning of the cruise and they stated they would do so. They did but it wasn't until the 4th day of the cruise.