Just got on the Pride and not impressed so far

[NCTribeFan]

This may have been pointed out (I confess I haven't read all the posts) but the spa (and shop) folks are not Carnival employees.  Thing with these workers, imo, is they just tend to be a bit on the snobbish side, especially in the shops.  Now, I don't sail to buy jewelry, but I do occasionally enjoy just looking.  Maybe even trying on a yellow diamond ring.  Just for fun.  They're just way too aggressive.

 

When in the spa getting a treatment, they've always been pleasant enough, but there have been times I've stopped at the desk to ask questions and felt they were just not making any effort.

 

Yes, I think they're shorthanded.  The crew has been overworked for years but it's just much worse now.

 

Of course, Carnival wouldn't think of restricting their sales so they can keep the crew/pax ratio at a level where service is good and staff isn't frazzled.  Given the cruise lines' struggles due to Covid, they're going to accept every booking they can even if it leads to unacceptable interactions between crew and guests.

[pjhootch]

On 8/9/2022 at 5:05 AM, Velvetwater said:

Sometimes I wonder if it's people are so used to shiny and new megaships their perspective is off.

 

A good chunk of Non US folk sail on much older ships each season and are fine with it. 

 

I would take an older ship with better passenger ratios and space over some of the new stack em high vessels.

 

Trust me, a good chunk of US folk sail on these older ships and love them.  I am one of them.  I loved checking out the Mardi Gras and am looking forward to a trip on Celebration- but those tend to be unusual sailings for us.  I love the older ships and really prefer the smaller passenger load.

 

[pjhootch]

19 hours ago, Eli_6 said:

 I probably was more annoyed by it than I normally would have been because I had just walked a mile pulling my luggage and my kids' luggage.  In the heirarchy of my complaints about this cruise, it was low on my list.    

 

Eli- glad you came back to update and add more information.  You've been around long enough to know there are always the people that doubt a story because it never happened to them.  One bad crew member is all it takes create the type of incident that happened with your son.   Stand your ground and don't worry about the people who don't believe you.  The purpose of your post was to give us a heads up about what happened on your cruise.  Mission accomplished.  

 

I am booked on Pride this October in Europe and next July around Britain and Ireland.  I appreciate the heads up there may be a mess embarking, since I bet school lets out the same week next year.   Hope Carnival is more responsive to you than they have been- but it doesn't sound hopeful to be honest.

[Mira28]

On 7/23/2022 at 12:46 PM, maryann2 said:

I love the Splendor too. Sailed on her out of New York a few years ago and a couple of weeks ago to Alaska. Booked again for next month.

     I love the Splendor too! My first cruise was on her out of NYC in 2014. I was hooked on cruising after that. 

[Eli_6]

Still have not heard anything from Carnival.  It doesn't look like I will get anything back on any of my future cruises because they were either booked using FCC that was from a cancellation of a cancellation going back to 2020 -or- are too close to sailing date -or- have non-refundable deposits.  I would lose about $1800 plus $600 OBC on my October Panorama cruise plus $700 in airfare.  And I would lose about $2700 on my Pride cruise next year plus $600 OBC.   We did have a wonderful cruises on the Splendor and haven't had any major problems on any of our other cruises...even ones we took after the shut down. We have been on the Mardi Gras, Vista, Breeze, Splendor and Pride since the re-open and ONLY the Pride was a bad experience.  Sigh.  So, I am really in a conundrum about whether to keep them or not.  My husband is of the mind to eat the $ on the October sailing and go on the Europe one for next year and I am just the opposite...my view is that I have more faith that the Panorama will be okay but I do NOT want to get on the Pride again.  He thinks that maybe they will have gotten it together by then and says it won't even be the same crew by next year and the Pride will be coming off of a dry dock. Also, he argued that the cruise we will be on (BCN to Dover with Spain, Portugal, France and Belgium) will not have very few tender ports---which is where most of the stress and problems originated from.  I don't know what to do.  I really hate losing money and this isn't just a matter of a couple hundred dollars. But I also don't really want to get back on the same boat where we had a pretty horrific experience. Fortunately, I don't have to decide right away on any of them except the October sailing...

 

However, I am going to cancel my 2024 cruises to Australia...but the deposits are only like $450 total for both of them and after doing the flight to Europe with my kids, my husband already said there was no way in h**l that he is getting on a flight to Australia for 17 hours. Albeit, our delayed flight in Houston plus flight plus layover in London--which was longer than it should have been because of a delay on our flight to Scotland--plus flight to Scotland plus drive to where we were staying was about 24 hours in total...it was 4 pm Houston time when we left our house to 9 or 10 pm UK time the next day by the time we arrived at the castle we were staying at in Dollarbeg, Scotland which = about 23-24 hours.  But at least that was broken up with being able to stretch our legs and a shower at Heathrow. The idea of actually being on the plane itself nearly that long sounds horrible.  

[Eli_6]

Oh, the other reason my husband doesn't want to go on our October cruise is because we both came home from this cruise with Covid.  We also had Covid after our May Alaskan cruise on the Splendor. We are both vaccinated and boosted.  I did not get seriously sick in May, he did.  We both got pretty sick this time. I am about 12 days out from getting sick and my husband started feeling bad on the plane ride home.  I actually had to go back on the anti-viral drugs because I seemed to relapse even after getting a little better.  I am assuming they are two different strains.  This second strain we caught on the Pride was bad news.  Considering that I am relatively young and don't have any health conditions, I was surprised at how hard it hit me. Our kids were fine...they are vaxed and boosted.  One got a little sick the first time but never tested positive.  Neither got sick or tested positive this time.  Lucky them. 

[Eli_6]

23 hours ago, pjhootch said:

 

Trust me, a good chunk of US folk sail on these older ships and love them.  I am one of them.  I loved checking out the Mardi Gras and am looking forward to a trip on Celebration- but those tend to be unusual sailings for us.  I love the older ships and really prefer the smaller passenger load.

 

Yeah, we went on the Splendor right before this and that has been my all-time favorite cruise!  I loved the cruise and the ship...even with the weird circle decor.  We got a kick out of the artwork...including the mosaic of the guy on the toilet in the elevator.  My kids still talk about that.  8/9 year old boy humor centers strongly around bathroom jokes and seeing a piece of artwork featuring one of their favorite topics was fun for them. 

[cruisingguy007]

23 minutes ago, Eli_6 said:

Still have not heard anything from Carnival.  It doesn't look like I will get anything back on any of my future cruises because they were either booked using FCC that was from a cancellation of a cancellation going back to 2020 -or- are too close to sailing date -or- have non-refundable deposits.  I would lose about $1800 plus $600 OBC on my October Panorama cruise plus $700 in airfare.  And I would lose about $2700 on my Pride cruise next year plus $600 OBC.   We did have a wonderful cruises on the Splendor and haven't had any major problems on any of our other cruises...even ones we took after the shut down. We have been on the Mardi Gras, Vista, Breeze, Splendor and Pride since the re-open and ONLY the Pride was a bad experience.  Sigh.  So, I am really in a conundrum about whether to keep them or not.  My husband is of the mind to eat the $ on the October sailing and go on the Europe one for next year and I am just the opposite...my view is that I have more faith that the Panorama will be okay but I do NOT want to get on the Pride again.  He thinks that maybe they will have gotten it together by then and says it won't even be the same crew by next year and the Pride will be coming off of a dry dock. Also, he argued that the cruise we will be on (BCN to Dover with Spain, Portugal, France and Belgium) will not have very few tender ports---which is where most of the stress and problems originated from.  I don't know what to do.  I really hate losing money and this isn't just a matter of a couple hundred dollars. But I also don't really want to get back on the same boat where we had a pretty horrific experience. Fortunately, I don't have to decide right away on any of them except the October sailing...

 

However, I am going to cancel my 2024 cruises to Australia...but the deposits are only like $450 total for both of them and after doing the flight to Europe with my kids, my husband already said there was no way in h**l that he is getting on a flight to Australia for 17 hours. Albeit, our delayed flight in Houston plus flight plus layover in London--which was longer than it should have been because of a delay on our flight to Scotland--plus flight to Scotland plus drive to where we were staying was about 24 hours in total...it was 4 pm Houston time when we left our house to 9 or 10 pm UK time the next day by the time we arrived at the castle we were staying at in Dollarbeg, Scotland which = about 23-24 hours.  But at least that was broken up with being able to stretch our legs and a shower at Heathrow. The idea of actually being on the plane itself nearly that long sounds horrible.  

 

Stick with your US cruises, if it isn't broke don't fix it. I certainly understand your frustration and the visceral anger and wanting to recoil entirely but there is no need to throw the baby out with the bath water (so to speak). Stick with the cruises you've enjoyed and press on through to make the best of it. You won't lose money and who knows, you may have such a great time that your disposition changes. Whatever you decide, I'm sure it will work out for the best.    

[pjhootch]

11 minutes ago, Eli_6 said:

 8/9 year old boy humor centers strongly around bathroom jokes and seeing a piece of artwork featuring one of their favorite topics was fun for them. 

 

In my house, 31 year old son and 69 year old husband find nothing funnier than bathroom and fart jokes.  They never outgrow it.

 

I understand not wanting to get back on a ship that left a bad taste in your mouth.  I also would feel personally compelled to not lose my money to a company that made me mad.   We canceled our Australian cruise because the flights were just going to be too much time traveling.  I really did want to go and snorkel at the Great Barrier Reef, but not probably going to happen.  We were able to have them shift our deposit to a different cruise without losing any money.  Of course- that won't work for you if you cancel all your cruises.  

 

Since you have time to decide everything except October, don't rush into deciding about Europe next year.  We will be on the Pride from Rome this October and I have not read anything about there being tendering problems on the Mediterranean sailings or the sailings from Barcelona.  

[kwokpot]

8 minutes ago, pjhootch said:

We will be on the Pride from Rome this October and I have not read anything about there being tendering problems on the Mediterranean sailings or the sailings from Barcelona.  

There wasn't tendering problems because all the Ports on the Mediterranean itineraries were docking Ports;however, several ports had issues with not enough shuttle buses.  

[kwokpot]

48 minutes ago, Eli_6 said:

Oh, the other reason my husband doesn't want to go on our October cruise is because we both came home from this cruise with Covid.  We also had Covid after our May Alaskan cruise on the Splendor. We are both vaccinated and boosted.  I did not get seriously sick in May, he did.  We both got pretty sick this time. I am about 12 days out from getting sick and my husband started feeling bad on the plane ride home.  I actually had to go back on the anti-viral drugs because I seemed to relapse even after getting a little better.  I am assuming they are two different strains.  This second strain we caught on the Pride was bad news.  Considering that I am relatively young and don't have any health conditions, I was surprised at how hard it hit me. Our kids were fine...they are vaxed and boosted.  One got a little sick the first time but never tested positive.  Neither got sick or tested positive this time.  Lucky them. 

I'm sorry to hear that you and your husband came down with Covid. We were very fortunate to have been OK after 31 days on the Pride. Unfortunately our luck ran out a couple of weeks ago. We did a short 4 day cruise on the Virgin Scarlet Lady from Miami. Virtually no one wore a mask on the ship besides the employees, and we didn't either. We did mask on our plane rides to and from Miami. We left the cruise and Miami on a Sunday, tested negative on Wednesday ( to board another cruise with family on Friday), husband started feeling symptoms on Thursday, and then tested very positive on Friday, the day we were supposed to drive to NJ board a cruiseship. So we couldn't meet up with other family for the cruise. It's Day 9 today and I've been negative all this time but he tested yesterday and still is showing positive, although the viral load is obviously lower given it took a couple of minutes to show up on the home tests. Good thing is he hasn't had a fever in 7 days. We've been isolating at home and decided tomorrow will be a full 10 days of isolating and masking, and we will end the masking and isolating.

 

I wish you and your family the best and give it some time after you've recovered from Covid to decide on your future cruise plans. 

Edited August 14, 2022 by kwokpot

[ninjacat123]

2 hours ago, pjhootch said:

 

In my house, 31 year old son and 69 year old husband find nothing funnier than bathroom and fart jokes.  They never outgrow it.

 

I understand not wanting to get back on a ship that left a bad taste in your mouth.  I also would feel personally compelled to not lose my money to a company that made me mad.   We canceled our Australian cruise because the flights were just going to be too much time traveling.  I really did want to go and snorkel at the Great Barrier Reef, but not probably going to happen.  We were able to have them shift our deposit to a different cruise without losing any money.  Of course- that won't work for you if you cancel all your cruises.  

 

Since you have time to decide everything except October, don't rush into deciding about Europe next year.  We will be on the Pride from Rome this October and I have not read anything about there being tendering problems on the Mediterranean sailings or the sailings from Barcelona.  

I would love to hear about your Pride cruise this October!  If you do a review, please post a link here.  Thanks!!

[CruizinSusan70]

8 hours ago, pjhootch said:

 

In my house, 31 year old son and 69 year old husband find nothing funnier than bathroom and fart jokes.  They never outgrow it.

Pull my finger...

[NCTribeFan]

OP, do you have a PVP or a TA?  They often can get results to a complaint that we, the customers, can't.  My PVP left Carnival several years ago and I now use a TA for them.  She's a top seller and has some contacts that actually have the power to get things done.

 

I don't even really consider the Spirit-class ships to be "that" old!  I'm a fantasy-class fan.  At least, I used to be.  I've never been on the Dream class; have sailed both Vista and Horizon and liked them OK, but wouldn't go out of my way to sail on them.  Have zero interest in the new ships.

 

I've become a HAL fan.  Love the ships.  Their Vista and Signature class ships are similar size to the Spirit class (but rather more understated decor). 😄

 

BTW, I returned home from Alaska on HAL's Zuiderdam in mid-June with Covid.  Very mild cold symptoms.  Will get my flu shot at the end of the month, then my 2nd Covid booster 3 weeks later, so that will be 3 weeks prior to flying to Rome.

[alliecat1970]

Eli, I Did a solo for my 52nd birthday in April on Panorama and I list it as carnival best. I was fortunate to get a Havana inside room dirt cheap then, and girl leave,  honey at home no offense souse, and RUN it was awesome from food oh my service and comedy shows. My husband and I did Maudie graw and🤣 yes that's how Im going to spell it last December and gave it 2 thumbs down, my point if u do decide to try carnival again panoroma hands down.          Janet

[thunderingherd11]

On 8/1/2022 at 8:32 PM, LuvCruiSun said:

I agree with this 100%!  People seem to take any negative comments personally just because it wasn’t their experience. It’s really unfair to deny someone else’s experience!

I agree.  But it is also ok to point out that their experience was probably not the norm.  And that interpretation plays a big part in relaying ones experience.

[Eli_6]

Carnival finally got back with me.  They investigated and could not identify who the man was. Apparently, no one will own up to it, but they do have written reports of the incident...just apparently no one (including myself) could identify the employee by name. They tried to pull security video but it had been written over.  The Carnival rep told me that it should have been handled differently on the ship (i.e. after we made the report, the video should have immediately been pulled so they could identify the employee...especially since it involved a minor) and they are giving us our cruise fare in FCC and said my sons and I could both go to three counseling sessions each.  I actually wasn't expecting or wanting anything from them other than them to discipline/talk to the employee so I appreciate this.  I do very much appreciate that corporate handled this correctly even if the people on the Pride did not.  They were very apologetic and acknowledged that the people on the Pride did not handle the matter correctly.  They did have incident reports of the matter (not sure if from other guests or employees???)and said that it should have been investigated as soon as the matter was report since it involved a minor and physical harm/aggression and the Pride staff was in the wrong for not doing that. I feel happy with this resolution and that Carnival corporate at least attempted to try to determine who the employee was even if they were ultimately unsuccessful. 

 

[Eli_6]

Oh, and we did end up deciding to cancel our Panorama sailing even before I heard from Carnival and just lose our deposit. However, I don't really regret that because we will be right at the "three months mark" from our prior Covid (and that seems to be when immunity wanes) and my husband just feels like he can't risk that and having to take so much time off of work again and being down for that long again. For whatever reason, this last round of Covid was pretty hard on us. I don't know if it is a different strain or what, but it was worse than the first time...at least for me.  I wonder if maybe it was a variant that was more resistant to the vaccine.

[ninjacat123]

18 minutes ago, Eli_6 said:

Oh, and we did end up deciding to cancel our Panorama sailing even before I heard from Carnival and just lose our deposit. However, I don't really regret that because we will be right at the "three months mark" from our prior Covid (and that seems to be when immunity wanes) and my husband just feels like he can't risk that and having to take so much time off of work again and being down for that long again. For whatever reason, this last round of Covid was pretty hard on us. I don't know if it is a different strain or what, but it was worse than the first time...at least for me.  I wonder if maybe it was a variant that was more resistant to the vaccine.

I'm happy to hear Carnival corporate office stepped up.  Thank you for relaying this info on CC.  I hope your family's recovery from Covid will be quick and complete.👍

[cruisingguy007]

Good for you! Glad you found a satisfactory outcome and Carnival stepped up to make amends. Hope the rest of your cruises are awesome and you can put this chapter behind you. 

[asalligo]

Booked on the Pride in December and I keep wondering if it is still the right choice with her age and all the Carnival cutbacks. 

[lazydayz]

1 hour ago, asalligo said:

Booked on the Pride in December and I keep wondering if it is still the right choice with her age and all the Carnival cutbacks. 

We agree, but are probably going forward as we got a great deal and an aft balcony.  

[kwokpot]

9 hours ago, lazydayz said:

We agree, but are probably going forward as we got a great deal and an aft balcony.  

If you got a great deal then I wouldn't worry about it, as long as you're going into it with your eyes open to all the plusses and minusses. Having said that I personally won't be boarding the Pride next year even with amazing casino comped offers. Too many other cruiselines and ships with amazing offers. In fact we're booked on the Celebrity Apex next July for Iceland, Scotland, Ireland. 

[lazydayz]

On 8/19/2022 at 6:45 PM, kwokpot said:

If you got a great deal then I wouldn't worry about it, as long as you're going into it with your eyes open to all the plusses and minusses. Having said that I personally won't be boarding the Pride next year even with amazing casino comped offers. Too many other cruiselines and ships with amazing offers. In fact we're booked on the Celebrity Apex next July for Iceland, Scotland, Ireland. 

Sounds like a great trip.  For whatever reason, I don’t get Celebrity offers, just RC and Carnival.  

[pe4all]

Eli_6 -  so glad things "kind of" worked out for you and you finally got a reply from Carnival.   As others have said - if you work through a pvp (or maybe even a TA) see if they can work on possibly moving your deposits and fcc for the cruises you may want to cancel to a new booking without penalty.  We have had that done before by our pvp. 

Edited August 21, 2022 by pe4all