Onboard Mardi Gras Now & they are having some challenges

[audcc77]

7 hours ago, CruisingFromLA said:

On board now, and my husband has been pissed every night for dinner. I have to keep reminding him it's only night 1, night 2, now night 3 so far and the staff is still learning. He is trying to be understanding, but it's getting hard for him as each night didn't seem to get better. 

 

For example, we ate at Cucina del Capitano today for dinner. Started off well, as they came and gave our party bread and took our drink order within 2 minutes of sitting down. I received my cocktail within 10 minutes after ordering. My husband had to ask 3 additional times before he got his glass of wine 70 minutes later. Appetizers came within 10 minutes after placing our food order. Then we waited over an hour to get our entrees. 3 out of 4 of us got our entrees at the same time, which were all cold. My husband didn't get his entree until 30 minutes after ours. Dessert took another 20 minutes after clearing our entree plates. Oh our ice creams for dinner every night has always been melted and soupy, which is disappointing.

 

Not complaining, just noting our experience so far. 

I would have asked for whomever had some authority to fix the issues right then. If the issues were not fixed, I would have gone to GS and gotten a refund.  
 

Getting the attention of a server is sometimes difficult but if that’s the case, I take my plate and head to the door where servers are going in and stand there.  That usually gets someone’s attention and they don’t like it.  I do this in land restaurants too. I am nice about it but there’s no need to sit for an hour for a drink or eat cold food.  
 

[NCTribeFan]

I was on that Vista inaugural and MDR service was just awful until we found a decent crew and requested their section after that.

 

I will never sail an inaugural again.  I don't want to sail brand-new ships anyway.  The fumes from the new carpet, paint, materials was awful, too.

 

But everyone wants to be FIRST! and then they aren't happy when the bugs haven't been worked out.  No thanks!

 

My TA is on the ship and she hasn't said anything about sub-standard service or long wait times, but then she wants to sell as many expensive suites as possible, so I doubt she'll advertise any issues! 😄

[deliver42]

All things the OP pointed out are pretty normal for a inaugural sailing. It usually takes about 2 or 3 before things straighten out.

[TNcruising02]

8 hours ago, mommysoncruiser said:

I don't think someone giving their honest opinion is a problem. Not sure why so many are jumping down their throats. I for one appreciate it so that I might know what to expect on my upcoming cruise. 
 

OP: thank you for sharing your experience! I really appreciate the feedback from someone who is experiencing this firsthand. Hiccups are okay but some of the things are unacceptable. Good on you for voicing your observations.

I agree.  I would rather know going in to a cruise that the dinner service will not be good and that it will be almost impossible to get a drink in the casino.  I appreciate the OP for letting us know their experiences.

 

I cruised on the first 7 day cruise on the Panorama.  I think the first cruise was a three or four day.  Anyway, the service was awesome.  The only glitch we experienced was a delay in boarding the ship due to them processing so many B2Bs.   Other than that, it was an incredible cruise with great service.  

 

If Carnival knew they were understaffed for the first cruise, they should not have accepted so many bookings.  The dinner experience sounds horrible.

Edited August 3, 2021 by TNcruising02

[BrianMD]

6 hours ago, SNJCruisers said:

What bottleneck?  The casino on the Mardi Gras is over twice the size of any other casino in the fleet.

The bottleneck I'm referencing was clearly stated in the OPs original post so clearly there was an issue. My post was not in reference to the Mardi Gras specifically, just the many casino offers that Carnival has offered. 

[tree.critter]

18 hours ago, Lil2Angelic said:

I still remember all the major issues with Vista's inaugural. When I saw this thread I was expecting some major problems. To me, this thread post sounds like things must be going pretty smoothly with the ship. I wonder if they are not sailing with a full crew? Do we have any info on the number of guests and crew onboard? Perhaps they need more servers? How is the casino otherwise? Thx OP!

I forget the exact numbers but Christine Duffy said we had over 4000 guests and 1300 crew on board for our first sailing. The crew is working so hard to try to make it as smooth as possible. Yes the dining times seems to be the number one complaint I’m hearing onboard. That….and getting lost.  
 

This is my first inaugural sailing and from reports in the past I expected a lot more glitches. Some areas are working through the organization better than others. I am so happy to be on the ship and there is so much to enjoy besides the food. I would absolutely do it again. What the crew are lacking in service skills at this point is balanced out for me by their efforts and their joy to have the opportunity to be here too. 

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

23 hours ago, Oldsweets said:

We are aboard and will start by saying the crew is working hard, they are trying, and they are happy to have guests aboard.  This start up is clearly not a smooth as Horizons first cruise with a number of challenges almost all the result of just starting, major changes put in place by carnival, or maybe poor planning or simply bad luck.  Bar servers in many locations is slow at best with the casino clearly bogged down and your will be lucky to see a servers every 45 minutes and once your order is taken it’s so long before they return you simply believe they are nit returning.  Part of thus seems to be a problem of congestion at the bar setup and some the shear size of the casino.  The tables and slots are clearly full and carnival is clearly not ready for thus much business.   We are seeing that in a 4 hour casino visit you we will lbe able to get 2 drinks using our drinks on us card.  The servers are clearly rusty as they often will visit a table and ask just a couple guests for orders and run off instead of taking The Who tables order.  The Specalty Restaurants are no better as the staff simply don’t know the drink or dinner menu and simply avoid asking about any desire for a drink which I can only assume I’s because they are overwhelmed by taking dinner orders.  So far at 2 specialty restaurants  for 2 nights of dinners we have had very long waits before our order is taken [35 min last night] and attempted to order a glass of wine and told they didn’t have it and hustled off.   We went to the restaurants bar and order the very same wine 3 times during dinner so right now I would say bar service is going to be self serve.  We find that the smaller bars are giving great service nut the large venues are nit.  We are not expecting the carnival of 18 months ago but they have a much BIGGER learning curve then I expected.  The new coffee machines are simply plain annoying as most are not operational so you are always looking for one that is green.  The elevators now seem to cancel out the floors picked if more then 4 selections designed I hear to resolve kids pushing multi floors as a game.

At what capacity is the shipped booked. 

[ProgRockCruiser]

I am not surprised there are a few glitches and issues.  I am sure Carnival is not surprised either.

 

The best thing to do is report them, politely, in case for some reason the management-level is not aware.  I'm sure they are all scrambling to fix the bigger issues, but it might not take much to solve a smaller issue - e.g. if drinks & food took so long at dinner at Cucina, maybe there was a specific staff-assignment issue, and all that is needed to fix it the next night is to have staff member A do "this" instead of "that" - e.g. pull one person from the pizza place who is diligently slicing pepperoni, but not really solving a bottle neck issue there, and have them come help at Cucina.

[JaniceB]

11 hours ago, CruisingFromLA said:

On board now, and my husband has been pissed every night for dinner. I have to keep reminding him it's only night 1, night 2, now night 3 so far and the staff is still learning. He is trying to be understanding, but it's getting hard for him as each night didn't seem to get better. 

 

For example, we ate at Cucina del Capitano today for dinner. Started off well, as they came and gave our party bread and took our drink order within 2 minutes of sitting down. I received my cocktail within 10 minutes after ordering. My husband had to ask 3 additional times before he got his glass of wine 70 minutes later. Appetizers came within 10 minutes after placing our food order. Then we waited over an hour to get our entrees. 3 out of 4 of us got our entrees at the same time, which were all cold. My husband didn't get his entree until 30 minutes after ours. Dessert took another 20 minutes after clearing our entree plates. Oh our ice creams for dinner every night has always been melted and soupy, which is disappointing.

 

Not complaining, just noting our experience so far. 

My husband would have left, he has no patience and as far as his drink he would have gotten up and found a bar.  He would not have complained to anyone but me which can be annoying.  :)

[bafinegan]

1 hour ago, JaniceB said:

My husband would have left, he has no patience and as far as his drink he would have gotten up and found a bar.  He would not have complained to anyone but me which can be annoying.  🙂

I know right?  My hubbs does the same thing.  ANd he will continue complaining to me until I say/do something.  So I look like the Bi***and he looks golden😒

[2Shoes2Go]

1 hour ago, ALWAYS CRUZIN said:

At what capacity is the shipped booked. 

GSM (one of two), old friend, says 75%

Yes, we’ve noted the challenges onboard. But, the happiness of the crew and officers is contagious. So, we’re having a wonderful cruise!

Edited August 3, 2021 by 2Shoes2Go
Added

[helene109]

Hi!

Did they do the preboard photo? If so with or without masks or was it done once you are on the ship? Thanks!

[2Shoes2Go]

2 minutes ago, helene109 said:

Hi!

Did they do the preboard photo? If so with or without masks or was it done once you are on the ship? Thanks!

Yes, lots of photo areas set up on way to board. No masks in pictures, that I saw.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

34 minutes ago, 2Shoes2Go said:

GSM (one of two), old friend, says 75%

Yes, we’ve noted the challenges onboard. But, the happiness of the crew and officers is contagious. So, we’re having a wonderful cruise!

 

Tell Harrison that Tom (from next week!) says HI  🙂

 

Tom

[LaCal]

I read a review from another person who gambles and is onboard now 

 

She stated the first night was very slow in getting a drink but since then the service and servers have gotten much better with some drink servers coming around every 5-10 minute 

[2Shoes2Go]

56 minutes ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

Tell Harrison that Tom (from next week!) says HI  🙂

 

Tom

Will do! He hasn’t even been home, since all this started!

[SNJCruisers]

9 hours ago, audcc77 said:

I would have asked for whomever had some authority to fix the issues right then. If the issues were not fixed, I would have gone to GS and gotten a refund.

No refund to be given.  Cucina del Capitano is currently free on the Mardi Gras.

[SNJCruisers]

5 hours ago, ALWAYS CRUZIN said:

At what capacity is the shipped booked. 

70%, about 4,000 passengers

[Eli_6]

3 hours ago, bafinegan said:

I know right?  My hubbs does the same thing.  ANd he will continue complaining to me until I say/do something.  So I look like the Bi***and he looks golden😒

Are we married to the same man? My husband half the time has more of an issue with things than I do, but won't say anything about it and just complain and complain and complain to me. Then I end up finally saying something and end up looking like a "Karen."

[bafinegan]

13 minutes ago, Eli_6 said:

Are we married to the same man? My husband half the time has more of an issue with things than I do, but won't say anything about it and just complain and complain and complain to me. Then I end up finally saying something and end up looking like a "Karen."

Must be a guy thing....🙄

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

Looking at you tube reviews for Aug 1st and the 2nd. The ship looks great. I see no massive amount of people as they walk taking the videos. 

[snowballs mom]

1 hour ago, Eli_6 said:

Are we married to the same man? My husband half the time has more of an issue with things than I do, but won't say anything about it and just complain and complain and complain to me. Then I end up finally saying something and end up looking like a "Karen."

Been there, done that with mine on multiple occasions😄

[BlerkOne]

1 hour ago, Oldsweets said:

 Part of the issue seems to be simple overbooking venues.  Carnival would be wise to simply deny a few of us reservations in order to see that those who dish-we up actually are able to receive good  service.  

The issue should heal itself once Carnival starts charging for the venues.

[BlerkOne]

1 hour ago, Oldsweets said:

.  Our dinner servers tried to get us the wine we ordered but once again we were told that they didn’t have the wine we requested and we would need to try another location.  Strangely as a history not that on the “first” night of sailing we were informed that drinks requiring lime couldn’t be made as they didn’t have any.

I think a supply chain issue and doubt Carnival could do much about it for the current cruise. Perhaps they can pick up limes in one of the ports. Many things aren't as available as they used to be and delivery times are off.

[my kids mama]

We were on the 2nd cruise for the Vista.  I do remember drink service in the MDR took a bit.  Other than that, I think the service was pretty much on par.  I bet the next cruise will have more kinks worked out.  

 

Also, for the person that said Carnival shouldn't have accepted so many passengers, if they couldn't take care of them.  Here is my $.02.  My opinion from my experience only...

 

We own a bakery that does lots of farmers markets. This year, we were signed up to do 23 markets per week.  When I signed up for the markets this year, I had no idea how I was going to staff them.  Everyone is shorthanded this year, not just me, the whole world.  My guess is that Carnival took as many reservations as they thought they might be able to handle, and then do their very best to make sure that every ship is "as staffed as possible".  Staffing is hard right now.  I bet they didn't know until the last minute how many employees were going to be there.  They probably lost a few at the last minute due to Covid cases as well, even with all of them being vaccinated.

 

 My daughter currently has covid, and was vaccinated. Maybe we just need to give them time to get back to "normal". I just know that they are trying their a$$es off. 

 

If you don't want to be a guinea pig, please don't book the inaugural cruise.  If you choose to do this, be patient... It will get better.   It's still 6 months out for my next cruise, but a bad day on a cruise ship is better than a good day worrying about how you are going to staff your market season.  Just my opinion...