Ecstasy Reviews!

[funhavn]

sailed on 03/31/05

 

As per our phone conversation, I am writing you in regards to our recent cruise. I have several concerns that need to be address by Carnival Cruise Lines, if they wish to keep my business.

 

1. As per our conversation, I was to receive a photo coupon, and a bottle of champagne for each cabin that I reserved. On the first night at our dinner, we received our photo coupon at the dinner table, and thought they were going to bring our champagne to the room since we observed several rooms receiving champagne that day. We never received the champagne that night, or the next night, on the 3rd day I went to the pursers office to inquire about the champagne that we were told that we would be receiving, the pursers office me that I was only to receive the photo coupon and was not authorized to receive any champagne, I then informed the pursers office of the mistake that someone had made. I was looking forward to this and was going to celebrate my 11 wedding anniversary with this, as well as to celebrate with 2 first time cruisers to give them a very pleasant experience and hopefully would continue to have future cruisers. Later that evening I received a note from the pursers deck stating that I was not authorized to receive this champagne but as a good gesture Carnival was more than happy to provide me a bottle of champagne for each room. After receiving the champagne, I had to request from the pursers office 4 times for champagne glasses and a bucket of ice to keep the champagne chilled. This did not give me a chance to enjoy the champagne that was delivered never even opened the bottle that I received due to the poor communication and the poor service in delivering the champagne. I have a question for Carnival Cruise Lines, if you were to deliver a bottle of champagne, wouldn't you bring glasses as well to drink the champagne with, and is it normally drank at room temperature?

 

2. Room Steward- Our room steward failed beyond reasonable expectations, since this was not my first cruise, I kinda knew what to expect of the room stewards. On the first day I introduced myself and my family who I purchased the cabin for, and expressed to him to make sure that he was to go above and beyond what he normally would so that the first time cruisers would have a wonderful experience in cruising. I advised Robert that I would compensate him very well if he met these goals that I wished of him. Each night we never received any towel animals that are normally made, there was only 1 night that my mother and sister and her young boy, that received 1 elephant towel animal, the rest of the cruise we never saw any. As far as cleaning of the cabin, our steward never cleaned the room, the only thing he did was to replace the towels and linen, never straighten the room up like I had experienced on the Holiday, now in my moms cabin they also experienced the same situation, not receiving any attention to dirty room, just replacing the towels and linen. On one night we received what we thought was clean linen, the linen smelled very bad, I had to track down the room steward and asked him to replace the linen due to the smell of the linen. The soap and the shampoo in the shower was never refilled during our cruise, the toilet paper was never restocked, eventually ran out of toilet paper had to borrow toilet paper to take care of personal hygiene areas. The ice container that is in each room, had to constantly ask to have ice each time. At one point once I found out that the steward wasn't going to bring the room ice I found the restocking cooler from his supply closet and restocked the ice container or would call room service. Also during the cruise someone had broke a glass outside the door of my cabin and the cabin to the right of my cabin, the steward was notified of the glass in the hallway, and you would think this would be a top priority for him to prevent injury from the glass or "PASSENGER SAFETY", the steward just left the glass in the hallway, I myself and another passenger was warning other passengers of the glass, so those barefoot passengers would not get injured. The one passenger that was assisting me went down the hallway and toted a vacuum cleaner all the way back to help clean up this glass so no one would get injured. At this point when the room steward saw this action taking place is when he intervened.

 

3. Food Service Employees- I was using a restroom when a food service employee came in and used the rest room and failed to wash his hands after using the restroom, if I was able to get his name I would have reported this to the officer on duty. This is not acceptable and is against US FOOD REGULATIONS, and also jeopardizes the Passenger Safety again. I don't think Carnival wants to have a Norwalk Virus to break out due to a crew member(s) not using proper procedure, especially ones that involve food preparation. unfortunately I didn't eat in any of the buffet areas where this employee was working.

 

4. Restrooms- I didn't see any crew members but a 1 to 2 members maintaining the restrooms on the ship, there was several restrooms that I happen to go in that didn't have working air blowers to dry your hands, or paper towels to dry your hands. The floors had not been moped or maintained, trashed was scattered all over the floor.

 

5. Photo Staff- I had a very bad experience from the photo staff, even spoke with the photo manager, Stephen Railton. I advised him that I was missing some photos that had been taken but were not put up or someone had discarded them, he advised me that he would look for my photos, and that I would receive a phone call from his staff advising me when the photos were in the photo shop. On the last day of the cruise at about 830am I received this call, unfortunate due to bad weather we were late in arriving into port and the ship did not debark like they normally do, people were all lined up in the atrium and each floor waiting for customs and immigration clearances, so therefore I was not able to reach the photo shop until after about 1 hours after they had closed the shop. Once I mingled my way around the crowd trying to get to the photo shop, I was advised that they had already discarded the photos that I had requested. The staff was kinda being short with me so I asked for the photo shop manager, they stated he was in a meeting, I then went to the pursers desk to have the photo manager gotten hold of after he promised that he would located these photos that I had requested, after he arrived he informed me that he had located the photos, but due to the photo shop being closed, he was no longer able to provide me with the photos because they had already been discarded, he then stated that one of his employees had called the room at 830am, I stated they had, but I had tried to make my way to the photo shop, but explained to him about the long lines and the trying to determine a way to reach the photo shop, without tempers flaring because people were thinking you were trying to cut the line for immigration, he stated there was nothing he could do. This is totally unacceptable way to do business, If this photo manager gave his word, and did not keep up what he stated he would do, then I feel Carnival Cruise Lines, should not be making promises that they cant keep. Or this issue needs to be addressed thru training.

 

Windsong Dining Room- I went to lunch and was told it was open seating, but would not allow groups to sit together, I then asked for the Matron D he was supposedly in a staff meeting, I spoke with the officer in charge of the dining room and he told me that there was nothing he could do, it was open seating, I expressed to him that our family wanted to sit together. There was another 2 groups of 6 also who also wanted to sit together but also was not allowed to sit together, they got up and left and went up stairs and ate. We did as well .

 

 

If I was posed a question on how I would rate this cruise I could honestly say that I will not ever sail aboard the ECSTASY due to my experiences aboard this ship. There were several areas that need major improvement. I am going to give Carnival Cruise Lines one more chance to show me that this is not the Carnival way, and it just happen to be a bad experience with this cruise. If my future cruise is like what I have experienced here, I will take my business to another cruise lines.

 

Sincerly,

 

James Donovan

[karenh1127]

Sorry you had a bad experience. We sailed on 3/7 and had a great time! No complaints about the staff at all. Maybe your next cruise will be better!

[wicruiselover]

Sorry you had a bad experience on your cruise. That's really too bad. We were in Cozumel on the Sensation on 4/2 and shared a cab downtown with a couple on your ship as the Ecstasy was in port at the same time we were and they said they were having a great time (besides a bit of rain they ran into at sea). Hopefully you'll have better luck next time.

[SBBScruz]

We just got off the Ecstasy last Saturday and had a wonderful time. I didn't have anything to compare her too, but felt like I was pampered and enjoyed every day. Sorry you had a rough experience....hope your next one is fantastic!

[corina27]

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=163235

:) :D

[Splatitudes]

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=163235

:) :D

genius....

 

.... i felt the same way upon reading this. If CCL received this letter (which i'm assuming it is) with the total lack of proofreading or spellcheck, i'd venture to guess it's not given much time.